Patent Application
20070097065
The present application relates generally to electronic devices and more particularly to a method for automatically adjusting screen and keypad brightness on a mobile electronic device.
Liquid crystal display (LCD) screen and keypad brightness on a handheld electronic device may be adjusted for different operating environments in order to provide an optimal user experience. For example, in outdoor or sunlight conditions the LCD backlight must be very bright in order to be readable, and the keypad backlight should be off to conserver battery power. In normal indoor or office conditions, the LCD backlight should operate at medium brightness while the keypad backlight is usually turned off. In dim or dark conditions, the LCD backlight must be at low intensity so as to avoid eye strain and the keypad backlight must be on.
Ambient lighting conditions can change rapidly as the user moves between different working environments. For example, walking from indoors to outdoors may render the LCD screen immediately unreadable unless the LCD backlight brightness is increased. Conversely, when the user moves from a bright environment into a dimly lit room, the keypad may be unreadable unless the keypad backlight is turned on.
Prior art arrangements have been implemented in GPS displays and laptop computers for providing basic automatic screen and keypad backlighting adjustment. However, none of such prior art backlighting algorithms are known to address independent control of LCD and keypad backlighting adjustment as a user moves between different ambient lighting conditions. Moreover, none of the known prior art addresses the problem of providing rapid backlight adjustment in response to a user removing his or her handheld electronic device from a wearable holster accessory, or the problem of detecting ambient light when the light sensor and message notification indicator for the device share a common light pipe, such as described in co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/187,867, filed Jul. 25, 2005, and entitled SHARED LIGHT PIPE FOR A MESSAGE INDICATOR AND LIGHT SENSOR.
The method for automatically adjusting screen and keypad brightness on a mobile handheld electronic device will be better understood with reference to the following description and to the Figures, in which:
Referring to
Referring now to
Reference is now made to
Each ambient lighting mode has a corresponding brightness/state value as set forth in Table A, where “% PWM” represents the duty cycle of a pulse width modulated signal of variable base frequency dependent on the specified duty cycle, and “Lux range” represents the range of ambient lighting intensity (measured in Lux units, where Lux represents the amount of visible light per square meter incident on a surface) in which each mode operates:
As indicated in Table A, the screen 24 backlight is adjustable in 5 or 10 discreet steps between 3% and 6.5% PWM, an additional 5 or 10 discreet steps between 10% and 40% PWM and may also be set to 100% PWM Backlight brightness control also permits a smoothly and quick fade (˜200 ms) and a slow fade (1-1.5 s) between any of these steps (in addition to the off state). The keypad 34 backlight is adjustable in at least 5 discreet steps between 0% and 100% PWM, allowing for a smooth quick fade (200 ms) and a very slow fade (4-5 seconds, ideally) between each of these discreet levels and the off state.
Upon starting the algorithm (step 50) when the device 20 is turned on, the backlight mode is normally initialized to an appropriate mode using the ambient lighting sensed by the light sensor at that time. Next, light sensor samples are taken at set intervals and maintained in a buffer containing the five most recent samples at any given time (step 52). This buffer is referred to as the sample window because it is a moving window such that when each new sample is received, the oldest sample in the window is discarded from the buffer. The amount of time between each light sensor sample determines the sampling rate. A typical sampling rate is one sample per 1.2 seconds although in some situations the sampling rate may be increased to 400 ms temporarily for 5 samples to facilitate quick adjustment of the screen and keypad backlights. At step 54, the median sample value is calculated by sorting all samples in the sample window and choosing the middle value (i.e. the third sample in the window).
When each sample is received, a new median in the sample window is calculated and compared to various thresholds (step 56) to determine if a backlight adjustment is necessary, according to the thresholds listed in state Table B, where ADC represents Analog to Digital Converter output values:
The relationship between ADC threshold values expressed in Table B and light intensity values is as follows: ADC 7=16 Lux, ADC 14=70 Lux, 16 ADC=60 Lux, 50 ADC=250 Lux, ADC 450=3000 Lux, and ADC 650=4400 Lux. Operation of the state Table B is depicted in the flowcharts of
Thus, as shown in
As shown in
As shown in
From
As indicated above, keypad 34 lighting is controlled independently of screen 24 backlighting to allow the keypad to respond more quickly to dim environments, and to allow the LCD screen to respond more quickly to office and bright or sunlight environments. Hence, it is possible for the screen backlight to be in OFFICE or BRIGHT mode while the keypad backlight is still in KEYPAD-ON mode (temporarily). As set forth in
While the keypad backlight is ON, consecutive sample values are compared (step 94) to a threshold value of 50 and once 30 seconds of contiguous samples greater than 50 have been received the keypad 34 is turned OFF (step 88). This avoids the possibility of “thrashing” the keypad backlight on and off in highly variable lighting environments, which would be quite distracting and annoying to the user.
By using the median sample in the sample window for mode-change decisions, brief lighting fluctuations (e.g. bright flashes lasting less than about 800 ms) are effectively filtered out while still providing an acceptably quick response to entering an area with bright sunlight or pulling the device out of the holster in bright sunlight. Transitioning through a dim environment for less than about 5 seconds is also ignored because all five samples in the sample window are required to be less than the threshold value for the currently active mode to affect a mode change. Since it takes several seconds for a user's eyes to adjust to a dimmer environment, the LCD screen 24 brightness is permitted by the algorithm to adjust gradually.
As shown in
Thereafter, the normal sampling rate is one sample every 1.2 seconds (step 108). Preferably, each light sensor sample is actually an average of multiple quick samples taken over a period of about 9 ms. More particularly, at least 8 ADC readings are taken over a 9 ms period so that they can be averaged out so as to increase the reliability of each sample and filter out small variances in AC indoor lighting.
When the device 20 is pulled out of its holster, removed from a pocket or bag, etc., it is highly likely that the light sensor will be temporarily partially covered by the user's hand or shirt. This means that the first couple samples could be below the threshold for transitioning to DIM mode, even if the device 20 is operating in the OFFICE mode. Likewise, the first couple of samples could be indicative of OFFICE mode even though the device is in a bright environment. However, it is nearly impossible for a brighter sample to be received when the device is in a dim environment. Hence, as discussed above, the entire sample window is initialized to the greatest sample when the device 20 out of the holster.
If the screen 24 turns off due to a system timeout or the power button being pressed, but the device 20 has not been yet been turned off or returned to its holster (step 110), then light sensor sampling reverts to sleep mode (step 100) provided the screen 24 does not turn back on within the time it takes to receive the next five samples. This five sample delay is provided because the screen 24 may time out while the user is reading the screen. It is common for a user to handle this situation by hitting a key to immediately wake up the screen again (which turns on the backlight). In this case, the sample window is not reset to sleep mode. If the LCD screen 4 stays off for more than a few seconds then the sample window is reset to sleep mode due to the likelihood that the device environment has changed.
Based on the foregoing, LCD screen 24 brightness responds to a change from a dimmer to a brighter environment within 800 ms to 2 seconds. This is the amount of time that it takes to receive three brighter samples (which sets the median of the 5-sample window). The first sample in a brighter environment triggers the fast 400 ms sampling rate (step 104). However, it can take up to 1.2 seconds before the first sample is received. LCD screen 24 brightness responds to a change from a brighter environment to a dimmer mode in about 6 seconds. It takes 5 consecutive samples in a dimmer mode to cause a transition to the new mode. When the screen 24 backlight brightness is adjusted downwardly, the backlight is slowly faded to the new brightness level. This fading takes from about 1 s to 1.5 s.
As discussed above in connection with
Preferably, coarse timers are used in the described method (e.g. ±12.5% variance). The use of coarse timers minimizes the number of times the processor 36 must wake up due to timer events. Consequently, all times referred to in this specification are characterized by a possible error of ±12.5%.
If the power button of device 20 is pressed, the screen 24 brightness is increased significantly. This overrides the brightness adjustment algorithm temporarily until the screen is turned off, and normal screen brightness adjustment resumes when the screen 24 turns back on again.
The light sensor functionality set forth herein may be altered or disabled by the user via an “Automatic Backlight” option accessible through a Screen/Keyboard options screen displayed by device 20. This enables backlight functionality which allows the user to press the power button to cycle between 1) user-selected brightness; 2) super-bright; and 3) backlight/LCD off. When the LCD screen 24 is on, the keypad 34 backlight is always on. When the LCD screen 24 is off, the keypad 34 backlight is always off.
While the embodiments described herein are directed to particular implementations of the method for automatically adjusting screen and keypad brightness on a mobile handheld electronic device, it will be understood that modifications and variations to these embodiments are within the scope and sphere of the present application. For example, as indicated above the backlighting brightness adjustment methodology set forth herein is not limit in its application to handheld electronic devices but may advantageously applied to other electronic devices such as desktop computers, cellular telephones, GPS receivers, smart telephones, and laptop computers. Also, it is contemplated that the keypad backlighting, although independent of LCD screen backlighting adjustment, may advantageously transition between various lighting modes (such as DIM, OFFICE and BRIGHT) rather than simply switching between ON and OFF. Many other modifications and variations may occur to those skilled in the art. All such modifications and variations are believed to be within the sphere and scope of the present application.
