Librem 5 proximity and ambient light sensor VNCL4040

Hardware Librem 5
21

Has anybody else experienced the following:

(like this if you have)

  1. on super bright day with sun shining go outside,
  2. unlock phone and use screen (screen brightness close to full, Evergreen L5, portrait mode, autobrightness off),
  3. interact with any application,
  4. now rotate screen directly into the sun,

Observe the screen blanks.

My guess the proximity sensor doesnt have any method when it should NOT kick on, in this case its flooded with light and appears to think my face is close.

22

What Linux version do you have? there is a bug between VNCL4040 and LOCKDOWN mode.

1 Like
23

Don’t blame the Librem 5, this is currently just the same upstream code that GNOME has for laptops :wink: It needs some additional care in order to work well on more mobile form factors, which is why we currently force it to be disabled by default.

We only blank the screen because of proximity sensor reading during a call. It doesn’t kick in otherwise (it used to in old phosh versions though).

3 Likes
24
Distributor ID: PureOS
Description: PureOS
Release: 10.0
Codename: byzantium

Linux Kernel:

5.16.0-1-librem5

1 Like
25

With this data i can not know Linux version and Phosh. As @dos said that the proximity-sensor only it enable when an incoming outcoming calls and it is a tactical feature to squeeze battery save to Librem 5.
On light-sensor there is a bug that light-sensor not come back after perform a lockdown mode.
Purism team is making HUGE improvements overall to Librem 5 you will get all this fruits when you updating the gnu system on L5 eventually.

26

added Kernel info. I think as i stated its not that it cant turn on again after lock, its that the proximity sensor is running (without any calls in or out, active or historical for that day and since restart) and the proximity sensor is turning the L5 phone screen off (it is not dimmed it is off) when exposed to bright sunlight (pretty sure at least).

27

Strange your proximity-sensor that it running all time.
Well i have OFF the automatic brightness because there are bugs in there, so turn off the automatic brightness on phosh-settings then reboot and check again.

28

i wish i knew how to probe the sensor to see if its on or off. mod probe… maybe? not sure the command