9

When I press power button, it not just turns off the screen, but also locks the screen. I use WidgetLocker Lockscreen which is somewhat heavy. So, many apps stop working. For example, an in-app download is stopped after screen lock. The heavy foreground apps are unloaded from memory after screen lock.

When I need to run such apps for long, I make screen timeout period infinite. But, it consumes a lot of battery juice. So, I want to turn off screen and only screen. How to do this?

Please, don't suggest me to ditch WidgetLocker Lockscreen.

My device is Galaxy S which is rooted (ICS).

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5
  • I'm not sure about this but on my phone (Xperia), there's an option to turn out the backlight. This, of course, doesn't turn off the screen but merely makes it dim. I figured one of the battery consuming things in the phone is the backlight of the touch screen. Just throwing this out there in case it helps.
    – Propeller
    Commented Jun 18, 2012 at 11:17
  • Screen timeout is one thing -- but at least on my Droid2 with Cyanogen I can define a delay for when screen lock and, separately, device lock (pattern/passcode) should be enabled. I've read some phones also have that on stock ROMs -- but not all. So you might check under Security settings, or Device settings or... wherever in the settings they might have put it (on CM7.x it's in CyanogenMod->Lockscreen; others have reported before-mentioned places). Not sure if WidgetLocker honors this, though...
    – Izzy
    Commented Aug 13, 2012 at 10:42
  • @Izzy I don't have pattern/ passcode enabled. Why are you suggesting this?
    – iOS Enthusiast
    Commented Aug 13, 2012 at 12:41
  • @Sachin you overlooked "screen lock". I mentioned the other because they are sometimes located in different sub-menus, so you should not think when seeing "device lock" and not "screen lock" next to it there might not be an option for the latter. And you want to keep the lock screen from being activated, according to your question -- or did I miss something here?
    – Izzy
    Commented Aug 13, 2012 at 13:10
  • @Izzy Alright. There's no such option for separate settings.
    – iOS Enthusiast
    Commented Aug 13, 2012 at 13:16

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
4

Depending on your kernel it might be possible to turn the brightness off your screen to 0 via t he appropriate sysfs file.

On a Sony Xperia Acro S currently running a custom AOSP-Based 4.2.2 ROM (SlimBean 6.2) i found the following:

130|shell@android:/ # find /sys/ -name brightness
...
/sys/devices/i2c-3/3-0040/leds/lcd-backlight/brightness
...

the following command turns my screen off but keeps the apps running:

echo 0 > /sys/devices/i2c-3/3-0040/leds/lcd-backlight/brightness

if you combine this with an app which keeps the wakelock for your device, you should be fine.

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3
  • for some reason it doesn't work, it only gets darker with "echo 1", but "echo 0" does not results in turning off the screen. Not sure why
    – ransh
    Commented Nov 26, 2016 at 10:28
  • Any idea how can this be done in Samsung Tab SM-T285?
    – Babu James
    Commented Oct 29, 2018 at 4:46
  • find /sys/ -name brightness 2> /dev/null to avoid a bunch of "Permission denied" messages
    – Andrei Korshikov
    Commented Mar 19, 2023 at 16:35
1

If you set your screen lock to "none" (instead of slide or pin, etc) it should prevent WidgetLocker from starting when you turn the screen off. You can reenable WidgetLocker by turning the screen lock back to the previous setting.

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3
  • Just, tested it... Its not disabling WidgetLocker.
    – iOS Enthusiast
    Commented Jun 18, 2012 at 17:02
  • D'oh. I was assuming it would since it does disable the system lockscreen. I just tested a couple other things with WidgetLocker and Tasker, also on ICS, and I can't get anything else to work.
    – TREE
    Commented Jun 19, 2012 at 13:47
  • It is two steps, but this should work: Disable (but not uninstall) WidgetLocker, then set the screen lock to "none". Then just reenable WidgetLocker when done.
    – TREE
    Commented Jun 19, 2012 at 13:48
0

That's not normal behavior of Android. At least in my HTC Desire running stock Gingerbread and ICS.

You must be running some battery saving program or using different CPU governor. Some CPU governor like 'battery save' may exhibits your mentioned behavior.

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2
  • No battery saving method can save battery upto that extent. My device has Super AMOLED display which consumes most of battery.
    – iOS Enthusiast
    Commented May 18, 2012 at 5:13
  • I use WidgetLocker Lockscreen which is somewhat heavy. So, if heavy foreground apps are killed, its not a surprise. I just want to turn the screen off without initiating lockscreen. Do you have the solution?
    – iOS Enthusiast
    Commented Jun 18, 2012 at 8:13
0

Assuming you want that only in certain conditions (otherwise you would not have installed WidgetLocker), you can use some automation tool like e.g. Tasker for this purpose. I will give you an example using Tasker, assuming the condition you're connected to your home WiFi:

  • Condition: WiFi connected (SSID of your home WiFi as parameter)
  • Task: Keyguard → Disable

That's it. As soon as you're connected to your home WiFi, the lock screen (aka Keyguard) would be disabled. As soon as that condition is no longer met (e.g. you leave the WiFi area, or turn WiFi off), keyguard gets re-enabled.

You can use plenty of other conditions for that, e.g. based on your location, on date/time, and more. See the Tasker UserGuide for details.

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1
  • 1
    To the downvoter: could you please explain? I'm far from being perfect, so I'd like to learn where I did go wrong here.
    – Izzy
    Commented Jun 23, 2013 at 17:25

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