It's me again, sorry ;-)

I've noticed that the display and keybackligh of my beo5 is not always activated when I touch the remote or press the keys. Is this a normal behaviour or does it have any kind of malfunction?

 

TWG:

It's me again, sorry ;-)

 

I've noticed that the display and keybackligh of my beo5 is not always activated when I touch the remote or press the keys. Is this a normal behaviour or does it have any kind of malfunction?

 

I don't know if it's normal, but mine does the same.

/Weebyx

Regarding the FAQ by Beoworld ( http://beo5.beoworld.org/FAQ.htm ) it seems so be normal that the light does not switch on when using the buttons on the ball or the wheel. In firmware versions below 1.34a (but higher than 1.32a) this had obviously been different. Maybe it was a fault or B&O changed this setting to save battery lifetime.

• QUESTION -- What problems does firmware update 1.34a fix ?

• ANSWER -- It fixes two problems since formware version 1.32a namely
  (1) The backlight does not switch off when the volume wheel has been used as the last command.
  (2) The backlight switches on when the buttons on the ball or the wheel are used.

I cannot test it (still waiting for my Beo5 which I ordered last week...) but I wonder if it is intended not to activate the key backlight when pressing a key. It make sense to me not to activate the screen backlight until the screen was touched but in my opinion it is helpful to activate the key backlight anyway.

I think it is somekind of electrical "fault". But not a real fault because it happens only sometimes.

It seems as the beo5 doesn't always recognise the electrical difference on the alucasing when your skin touches the ball. I hope you understand what I try to explain with my lousy english ;-)

Hope you get the software for the beo 5, too. It's just great when you can do what you want with your own icons etc. on that lovely device.

I'm MUCH more positive on the Beo 5 since I have one of my own.

I understand the answer in the FAQ-section (quoted above) like the following behaviour is the normal one (firmware 1.34 or higher):

"If you touch the ball or the keys, the backlight will not switch on"

Is that right or did I misunderstand the FAQ-Answer?

Nebelfelsen:

I understand the answer in the FAQ-section (quoted above) like the following behaviour is the normal one (firmware 1.34 or higher):

"If you touch the ball or the keys, the backlight will not switch on"

Is that right or did I misunderstand the FAQ-Answer?

That's right. Seems to be a software issue but it doesn't always happen and as soon as you touch the screen all lights are activated!

 

The intension is that when you grab the remote from e.g. a table, then the Beo5 should light up. Keeping the remote in your hand should allow the remote to first dim and later on turn off the backlight. Then if you operate the lower part (fixed keys and wheel) the it operates without turning the backlight on, while operation or the touch keys obviously depends on the backlight and will turn the backlight on. That way you can sit and rest with the remote in your hand, change volume and channel (up and down) without the backlight turning on.

The detection of the touch on the ball is depending on a few things. Since it is based on the capacity it feels from the hand of the user, it will not work if the Beo5 was standing on top of a table with the same capacity (I have seen problems if the Beo5 was standing on a CD). Also it is depending how it is grabbed because the capacity is measured between the alu ball and the internal ground level of the Beo5. I recommend that you try out different techniques to find the one that works everytime for you. I normally just touches the glass to make sure it turns on the backlight.

Do you have firmware 1.34a, Burnix?

I cannot reproduce the described behaviour (tried on several different surfaces). If Beo5 ist placed on the docking station, a touch of the metal ball is enough to turn the backlight on. But if I place it on any other surface, it doesn't work (and I think this is as it should be according to the changes-list for firmware 1.34a).

Of course touching the glass reliably switches the backlight on, but I would appreciate if just the backlight of the hardware keys is switching on every time you touch the metal ball (but only if is to dark in the room to see anything without key backlight)...

No - I don't have firmware 1.34a and of course that functionality might have changed. The best way of testing it is to make sure that your fingers covers as much as possible of the back part of the black plastic when grabbing the remote. That way you make a good coupling between the ground level of the remote and your hand. The reason that it works by a light touch when the remote is placed in the docking station is the connection to ground through the charger.

It might be true, that this change is a deliberate decision made for 1.34a, but it still seems strange to me - kind of like a work-around for having problems getting it to work properly (which also might be the case). I see no point (from a user perspective) in the backlight turning on while placed in the charger and not when placed on a table. And, on the B&O website it still says that it get's illuminated when you touch it (no restrictions).

My guess/hope is that this is a temporarily change and that it will change back in a later software.