How to make phone display brighter?

[Timothy Murphy]

I have an old (but very good) Siemen's landline phone, on which the display has become very dim.

I have the same problem with an old Lidl "weather station".

Is there anything one can do about this?

[A.Clews]

Thus spake Timothy Murphy ( [e-mail]) unto the assembled multitudes:

Buy bright new ones? ;-)

[Corporal Jones]

Or do as I do, put on stronger reading glasses

[Andy Burns]

Is the display LCD with electroluminescent backlighting? If so the EL has a brightness half-life of a few thousand hours. I have a bedside radio where the dimmest level is still too bright several years on, just a glimmer would do me.

I suppose you could buy some of the EL sheet, if you thought you could cut it and fit it.

suppliers try places that sell the 20x2 char LCD displays, or boy-racer PC cases.

[Dr Hfuhruhurr]

I bought my father a bedside alarm clock featuring large LEDs as he's short sighted. He has a handkerchief across the top as it's so bright even on the dimmest setting i'm sure he'd wake up with a tan.....

[Andy Burns]

I have considered attaching some neutral density film, but usually it just gets a nearby towel thrown at it ...

[Dr Hfuhruhurr]

That blackout/tint stuff they sell for car windows?

[Andy Burns]

Could do, might be easy to come by some offcuts too, I was thinking more of lighting gel sheet, with a sellotape hinge to allow it to be flipped out of the way.

[Malcolm]

IIRC Lee filters do ND (Neutral Density) filters which reduce the output. You have to buy a large sheet but the cost is not great

Malcolm

[Tabby]

You forgot to tell us what the display technology is. If its LED or EL backlit LCD, you might be able to put an ultrabright LED or 2 behind it to boost light level.

NT

[Timothy Murphy]

...

I didn't forget, I don't know. I assume it is a backlighted display; I can see it quite well if I look at the phone under a fairly bright light.

[Tabby]

how about a photograph

NT

[Andy Burns]

Is it an even glow, or brighter at edges and dimmer away from edge? Any bright spots (especially if you view it from unusual angles)?

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Timothy Murphy saying something like:

The one I have isn't a weather station, but I find the LCD segments get quite faded a while before the battery gives up the ghost. A new battery restores things.