FEATURE REQUEST

Display to turn off when PC is put into sleep mode or shut down

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Hi,

Want to first say how great the ModBro app is; very easy to setup and run thanks to great instructions and execution with the software, thanks!

I should mention that the current setup I have is a 7" screen displaying the “dubbadher” theme within a PC case with the Raspberry Pi 4 directly behind it connected via HDMI cable & USB for power and the ModBro app on the PC running Windows 10.

I would like to know, would it be difficult to somehow sync the behaviour of the ModBro App with what is happening with the PC? For example this is what currently happens with my setup for the following two scenarios:

Turning my PC off - When turning my PC off the display connected to the Raspberry Pi will now show the default white screen “ Unable to locate the ModBro PC application” as it attempts to reconnect with the ModBro app, which it cant of cause as the PC is now off. Is it possible for the ModBro app running on the raspberry Pi to simply show a black plain screen when the PC itself is off rather than trying to connect?
PC in sleep mode - Somehow as soon as I put my PC into sleep mode it wakes up again rather than staying asleep as it would have done before. Is it possible for the PC to stay asleep and have the display at least show a blank screen when going into sleep mode?

Sorry for the long post, but the basic idea is that as you go about your day to day putting your PC into sleep/wake or turn it on/off, the ModBro app is in some way in sync with this (i.e. if my PC monitor is not displaying anything then neither should the raspberry Pi display).

Kind Regards,

Anthony

Replies 1 - 9 (9)

Hi @Anthony M

Thanks for the kind words and taking the time to write up this detailed post.

Regarding your questions:

Yes, currently the Pi just endlessly keeps trying to reconnect once it looses connection.
This is because we currently can't really tell whether the connection was lost because the PC was shut down or just because of a network issue or something similar.
A request for a screensaver feature or something similar has already been made by multiple people and it's already on the list and planned.
I'll implement and add it to one of the next upcoming versions, once I find some time to do so.
For the meantime: Is your Pi or it's power source easily accessible, so you could just shut it down when you turn off the PC?
Running the MoBro application should not affect the sleep mode of your PC at all.
Does your PC just always wake up again automatically without any input from you?
Also does stopping the MoBro application before going into sleep mode fix the issue?

Hi,

Appreciate getting back to me, I noticed there weren't any posts from others regarding wake from sleep issues with their PC so I setup everything with another PC and there was no issue what so ever; it worked perfectly fine so it must be that specific computer only that has the issue (or a very small number of PCs). Since I'm working on a new PC build its more likely than not that it will be fine too like most have experienced. To answer your question though, yes its only when the Raspberry Pi was on that PC that it would always wake from sleep mode, regardless of whether the ModBros app was running or not. I even tried putting the PC in sleep mode and only then turning the Raspberry Pi on and it would wake the PC. I will wait until I have the new PC.

A screensaver sounds like a really good idea when there is time to implement it. Maybe, just a suggestion, a stop gap measure could be to have a primarily black colour version of the current white background status screens so the display doesn't act as a night light when the PC is off at night. Again thanks for getting back to me!

Hi @Anthony M

Now it's taken some time, but today we released a new version of our Raspberry Pi image (V11).
It now includes configurable screensavers just as we discussed. Of course there's also a plain black one ;)

Check out the Blog post for more details

Hi, i was following this thread and i want to ask if is possibile to put one GPIO pin to 0 status when the display is into screensaver mode, and put it to 1 status when the screensaver is off. This way, connecting it to the display, we can use it as an enable/disable pin as shut the display off completely

Hi Everyone,

Sorry to jump on this thread please let me know if I should rather start a fresh one.

I noticed @Anthony M mentioned that he is using a 7inch display - would that perhaps be the 7inch HDMI LCD display from Waveshare?

Reason I am asking - with all other images (latest Raspbian and Ubuntu) my display works fine. With the Raspbian image from Modbros site I get terrible flickering and ghosting. I have added the required details from the vendors site (https://www.waveshare.com/wiki/7inch_HDMI_LCD_(C)) to the config file as stated below:

max_usb_current=1

hdmi_group=2

hdmi_mode=87

hdmi_cvt 1024 600 60 6 0 0 0

hdmi_drive=1

I have also done the below -

swapped out hdmi cables

set config_hdmi_boost=6

set max_usb_current=1

Would it be possible to share your config file settings for the display should you know @Anthony M?

Thanks all!

Hi,

Thanks for the update with the screensavers, this is much appreciated :)

Someone asked about the display I was using - its a Waveshare 7 Inch (1024x600), thanks.

Davide

Great idea! I vote for this too. I'm currently using the blank screensaver, and it works great when I shut off my PC, but the LCD still emits a bit light with the blank screensaver. It would be nice to have the GPIO LCD shut off fully.

Yeah that sounds like a great idea.

I'll have to look into it, but I put it on the backlog for the next version :)

Thank you! I just got my first ever Raspberry Pi yesterday and instantly installed ModBros :)
Just joined Patreon to support your work. Great to see devs active on forums and listening to suggestions :)

Display to turn off when PC is put into sleep mode or shut down

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