Backlight LED settings?

[lhranch]

I have several 6 and 8-button keypads. I had a requirement to make the backlighting indicator for "on" for a couple buttons on each one significantly dimmer than "on" for the other buttons. I thought this would be a straightforward task. It isn't.

Each switch appears in the Admin Console as an indented list, with button 1 (the load button) as the aggregator, and the rest indented.

Each button has a Backlight setting in the main portion of its screen. It also has an LED Brightness button in the bottom menu. The load button has several other settings in the main portion of its screen.

When I first opened the Admin Console today and looked at my first device (a 2334-2 v.43), every one of these values were set to 0/0. This is odd, because all my keypads have a slight glow when off, and I remember setting this long ago, yet it doesn't seem to be reflected anywhere.

On any button's main screen I can set Backlight to some arbitrary value.  If I bring up the LED Brightness popup, those values aren't reflected there, even if I write changes. (Writing changes produces no "green activity" in the left column.) But the Backlight value propagates to every other button in the group except the load button. Regardless, this value doesn't seem to do anything.

If I pull up LED Brightness for any button and set these values there, they immediately propagate to every other button on the pad, and "green activity" happens immediately in the left column without me "writing changes." The "Backlight" values aren't affected by this activity.

Heres the kicker: no matter what I set anything to, no actual effect is evident to the physical LED backlighting on this device! Buttons are full on (I assume) when on, and dim when off.

Am I playing with completely the wrong controls?  I'm running v.5.3.2.

 

 

[MrBill]

All backlight buttons are set as one.  There is no method to have different levels per button.  That’s an Insteon hardware limitation, not an ISY issue (you can’t set it differently manually either).

To set the backlight make a selection in the drop down, then click the word Backlight, to the left of the drop down—this is not intuitive but it is how it works. This will send the value currently set in the drop down to the device.  The setting will be retained by the device until it’s changed again.   There is how ever a bug surrounding the drop down.  As you move to another device you’ll find the drop down is set to whatever you set on the last device.  Further when the admin console is restarted, it will be back to zeros.  The device however has correctly retained its setting.  This bug has existed in every v5.x branch, it worked correctly in v4.x.

[lhranch]

So then you're telling me that the "LED Brightness" button at the bottom (the only one that actually seemed to send something to the switch) really has no effect at all?

[MrBill]

5 hours ago, lhranch said:

So then you're telling me that the "LED Brightness" button at the bottom (the only one that actually seemed to send something to the switch) really has no effect at all?

I didn't tell you anything about the LED Brightness button.  I told you how to use the backlight drown, and that it's usage isn't intuitive, and that it has a bug around its retention of settings.

Actually I just tested the LED brightness button for the first time in probably years... it seems to work better and less buggy than the dropdown that is named differently but seems to adjust the same parameter in the switch.

No ideas why we have two functions with different naming that seem to adjust the parameter.

[lhranch]

Well, you're totally right. The LED Brightness button does indeed do something now (I think my error last time was having to walk into the next room to see what the effect had been, and misjudging that there had been none, but the change is quite obvious if you're sitting in front of the switch at the time). Also the Backlight setting works also, provided you go back and click the Backlight button, which I wasn't doing (I was just doing Write Changes). 

I'm disappointed to hear that I can't adjust the ON level of individual buttons, but I'll live with it. I may just grab some neutral gray film and insert a square of it under the cap to try to approximate the same effect.

Thanks for the help.

[MrBill]

4 hours ago, lhranch said:

I may just grab some neutral gray film and insert a square of it under the cap to try to approximate the same effect.

The most interesting button modification I've done, there is a 8-button KPL on both sides of our bed, there's 3 buttons that have the possibility of being on overnight.  I took the clear plastic square under the button out and painted it fully black with black fingernail polish.  Now those 3 buttons have a nice soft outline rather than glowing.   Most of my six button switches have an OFF button modification, a dab of gorilla tape over the 2 LED under the off button.

[DAlter01]

You can also spray the clear plastic "sub button" with spray tint.  I've used VHT Nite-Shades from Amazon.  Runs $10.  Works great.  For my purposes I use three light coats on the sub button and it greatly reduces the light output but still leaves the button with a glow in a dark room.   I'm sure you could just use this on the buttons you want to be dimmer than the others.