https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=522463
Bug ID: 522463
Summary: 'Meeting' mode to switch off screen to save battery
without screen locking
Classification: Plasma
Product: plasmashell
Version First master
Reported In:
Platform: Other
OS: Linux
Status: REPORTED
Severity: wishlist
Priority: NOR
Component: Power management & brightness
Assignee: [email protected]
Reporter: [email protected]
Target Milestone: 1.0
(as discussed here:
https://discuss.kde.org/t/switching-off-screen-to-save-battery-without-lock-screen/48304
)
While attending a day-long series of presentations I realised I wanted my
laptop switched on running on battery but with the screen switched off, say,
95% of the time. That would extend my ageing battery life greatly from 3-4
hours to over 8 hours. But I wouldn’t want to have to enter a password every
few minutes when I wanted to add something quickly to my notes, so conventional
screen locking and sleep wouldn’t help.
To achieve this manually I would have to set things up as below every time I
attended a meeting:
1. Switch off screen locking in settings
2. Switch off sleep in power management
3. Change ‘Dim automatically’ from 2 minutes to 1 minute
4. Change ‘Turn off screen’ from 5 minutes to 2 minutes
5. Make sure ‘Switch to Power profile’ is set to Power Save
6. and after the session I will have to remember to undo all of these,
especially (1) to get password protection back.
What I am suggesting is a separate 'Meeting' mode that we would switch to with
one click (or a key combination, or by moving the mouse pointer to a corner of
the screen). Once activated, it would do 1-5 and then (6) automatically after x
minutes.
All these values are indicative. Different users may go for different ones of
course.
A single key-press would wake up the laptop screen instantaneously and no
password would be required.
It’s up to the user to decide for themselves where they stand on vulnerability
vs convenience/battery life. In certain settings (eg negotiations)
vulnerability wins. In academic contexts it is not an issue at all. But this
concern is why I suggested a timer. After x minutes password protection would
switch on again. Not a big problem if you have to enter the password once every
60 minutes.
The advantage of that mode for battery life is enormous. In big meetings there
aren’t enough power sockets nearby for everyone. My old laptop would normally
last 3-4 hours. With a ‘Meeting’ mode it would easily last more than 8 hours. I
tested that last week actually.
A side-advantage is that most of the time your bored neighbours will see a dark
screen rather than your incoming emails and embarrassing notifications.
The single-click optionality is similar to how a ‘Presentation mode’ is
implemented on several systems or ‘Manually block’ is done in KDE Plasma. We
could achieve these by changing several individual settings manually, but the
shortcut is more practical and more consistent with KDE Plasma’s reputation for
flexibility.
In addition to the screen, it may be possible to switch off other hardware and
possibly even put the laptop to sleep as long as waking up is very fast.
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