rpi-backlight

A Python module for controlling power and brightness of the official Raspberry Pi 7" touch display.

Features:

Change the display brightness smoothly or abrupt
Set the display power on or off
Get the current brightness
Get the maximum brightness
Get the display power state (on/off)
Command line interface
Graphical user interface

Usage

API

Example in a Python shell:

>>> import rpi_backlight as bl
>>> bl.set_brightness(20)
>>> bl.set_brightness(255)
>>> bl.set_brightness(20, smooth=False)
>>> bl.get_max_brightness()
255
>>> bl.get_current_brightness()
20
>>> bl.get_power()
True
>>> bl.set_power(False)

NOTE: Code using set_ functions of this library has to be run as root, e.g. sudo python file.py !

CLI

Open a terminal and run rpi-backlight as root.

GUI

Open a terminal and run rpi-backlight-gui as root.

NOTE: This is currently experimental, but should work quite well.

Requirements

A Raspberry Pi including a correctly assembled 7" touch display v1.1 or higher
Python 2 or 3
Optional: pygobject for the GUI, is already installed on a modern Raspian

Installation

Install from PyPI using pip install rpi_backlight, or
clone this repository and python setup.py install.

Todo

Allow to set the brightness fading duration in set_brightness(value)
(Create a really simple GUI in pygobject to change the display brightness, maybe just a scale/slider)
- Most of it done, but not tested across several Python versions and distros
- Ensure it runs on the Pi under both Python 2 and 3

I would be happy if you can help shortening this todo-list!

License

The source code and all other files in this repository are licensed under the MIT license, so you can easily use it in your own projects.

jeffbass / rpi-backlight