Disable the ambient light sensor

The N900 contains a Taos TSL2563[1] Ambient Light Sensor (ALS). This light sensor is used to auto-adjust the screen brightness relative to your preferred brightness setting. Some users may find this auto-adjusting to be annoying, when the screen dims every time you hold your finger over the screen, or trying to use the phone outdoors.

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[edit] Prerequisites

You will need to install the rootsh package.

[edit] Disabling the ALS

TMO user dr_frost_dk discovered[2] a simple way to disable the ALS:

sudo gainroot
sed -ie 's/brightness-als/brightness-simple/' /etc/mce/mce.ini
killall mce

No reboot is required for the new setting to take effect.

Please note that the actual ALS device is not disabled; it still functions and can be used by other applications. This setting only disables its influence on the screen's backlight.

[edit] Re-enabling the ALS

If you want to change back to the original setting:

sudo gainroot
sed -ie 's/brightness-simple/brightness-als/' /etc/mce/mce.ini
killall mce

No reboot is required for the new setting to take effect.

The backlight will once again be influenced by the ALS.

[edit] References

  1. http://natisbad.org/N900/n900-commented-hardware-specs.html
  2. http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=947958&postcount=97