Ambient light sensor control of keyboard and screen brightness in Linux
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I have always wanted cool features in Linux because I use it day to day as my OS. I have always wanted to implement this feature and do it properly: one that automatically adjusts keyboard and LCD backlights using data from the Ambient Light Sensor.I enjoy low-level programming a lot. I delved into writing this program in C. It came out well and worked seamlessly on my device. Currently, it only works for keyboard lights. I designed it in a way that the support for LCD will come in seamlessly in the future.But, in the real world, people have different kinds of devices. And I made sure to follow the iio implementation on the kernel through sysfs. I would like feedback. :)
HN · launched Nov 2, 2025 · 26 upvotes (top 27%) · 0 views
Niche: desktop and display utilities · 171 launches, 6 in the last 7 days ▼ -75% · Explore this niche →
Category and tags
- Horizontal
- Hardware & robotics
- Prosumer
- Not AI
- Hobby / open-source project
Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗
More like this: all 171 launches in desktop and display utilities →
Could you build this?
No This requires low-level Linux systems programming, interacting directly with kernel driver interfaces (sysfs/iio), hardware ACPI ambient light sensors, and hardware backlight controllers without crashing the display daemon.
What it would actually take: The solution requires writing a low-level C or Rust daemon that interfaces with the Linux Industrial I/O (IIO) subsystem or ACPI methods to read ambient light sensor (ALS) raw lux data. It must implement hysteresis and smoothing algorithms to prevent brightness flicker and communicate with /sys/class/backlight devices across varying vendor drivers (Intel, AMD, Nvidia, vendor-specific keyboard lights). This demands kernel interfaces knowledge, device driver familiarity, and hardware-level testing across diverse PC architectures.
Discussion
2 comments analyzed.
Competitors mentioned: iio-sensor-proxy, GNOME auto-brightness feature
Concerns raised: GNOME implementation leaves much to be desired and hasn't improved despite rework attempts, Different logic needed for display vs keyboard backlighting
Feature requests: Inverse brightness control for keyboard lights (on in dark, off in lit environments), Better ambient light sensor integration
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one : 108 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #30 of 109 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Looks like the first mover among its competitors.
- Screen Bright · ph · 2026-09-18 · 2 upvotes · similarity 0.45
- Backlit Keyboard API for Python · hn · 2026-04-19 · 27 upvotes · similarity 0.44
- MSI Mystic Light for Linux · ph · 2026-11-07 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.44
- Brightness Control · ph · 2026-09-14 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.44
- ChillScreen · ph · 2026-10-06 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.43
- LiteBright · ph · 2026-10-05 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.40
- Night Light & Sleep Sounds · ph · 2026-09-26 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.40
- Edgy · hn · 2026-09-02 · 6 upvotes · similarity 0.39
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