You can make the light on the keys go out easily..get a roll of black electrical tape. tape it up. voila! enjoy

 

I think the night mode is the lowest setting. Maybe if enough people register the need for a lower setting, they can work it into an update.

 

I don't think there really is a way other than tapping the light bulb which just kinda turns it blue and not much darker.

There should be an alternate dock coming in 2.1 that can be dimmed very dark though. Some rumors put 2.1 for the Droid at Jan 22nd, so there's light (or darkness in this case) ahead.

 

I was just joking. I dont think it gets any darker than the "night mode" setting which turns the screen a blueish color. I didn't think that amount of light could really bother anyone at night. Maybe you can just angle the phone differently for now.

 

I bought both the multimedia dock and the car dock, and quickly learned to dislike both of the stock interfaces for each dock (hence this thread). Once my phone was rooted, I simply removed (renamed) those stock apps, and now I'm a much happier man.

Here's my work-around for the multimedia dock. (I take advantage of a bug that the DROID has, hopefully yours has it too.)

Try this:

1. In Settings, make sure Automatic Brightness is OFF, and turn the slider all the way DOWN.
2. Reboot the DROID. (Upon restarting, the backlighting for those soft buttons won't work until you adjust the screen brightness.)
3. I use a free app called "Sleep Timer" (please donate to the dev) to turn Pandora on, then back off in 60 mins. Love that app!
4. I then use an app called "Night Clock". I changed the clock color to be a very dark blue ... nice!
5. Now I can fall asleep with the time dimly displayed on the DROID while it is charging, and playing music. Nirvana! (Not the band ... the feeling. )

You can use the stock alarm, or the alarm that comes with Night Clock. I've settled on the stock alarm.

In the morning, I just use the power control widget to turn on the screen brightness and that reactivates the back-lighting for those pesky soft buttons.

Hope this helps.

 

Here is a big tip to anyone who doesn't know already, if you can, use your USB to PC cable to plug into the media dock instead of the wall outlet. The screen will turn off after a little bit, and it still charges, yay.

 

Download Bedside 3.0 app. It has a setting where you can have it automatically launch instead of the default app when it is placed in the multimedia dock or charged. It features many more options for dimming the screen, but does not allow you to turn down the brightness of the buttons.

I am still searching for an app that would replace the "Car Home" app when Droid is placed in the car dock. I want an app that has more customization. The Car Home app is useless as it is currently designed, since you are stuck with those five icons.

 

Bummer. Glad I got 'Night Clock' when it was still available. Works on the Droid flawlessly.

 

I agree that the night mode is too bright. I thknk the problem is with the color they use. There is a lot of white in with the blue and the white is too bright. Then they decided to use white numbers. What is that? I even find it hard to see the numbers because they blend with the background too much. I think if we had control over the background color and font color then this would not be an issue. Seems like it would be easy to give us some control over the app instead of forcing to use just a bright and soft setting.

 

You can always press the house icon and get to your home screen (in landscape) which works very well for me.

Besides, if the phone is in the car dock you are most likely driving and shouldn't be playing with your phone

 

Another idea for the buttons' brightness would be to dim them with a marker. I know peop?e do that with notification LEDs to knock back the brightness a bit. However, given the setup of the Droid's face, that might be an ugly solution.

Mike

 

download and install the 2.1 dock app. it's layout is cleaner, it's night mode is noticeably dimmer, and you can still distinguish the time.

 

Unfortunately, those stoopeed 4 LEDs on the right still shine all night.
(My little trick above in post #7 was fixed in 2.1. Argh...)

 

Where do I get the 2.1 dock app? Search turns up nothing!

 

I am also looking for the 2.1 Clock app, anyone?

 

I'll post a link in a few hours, when I get home.

 

Found it....

Go to Alldroid and search for deskclock. No registration necessary

 

What has worked for me is

 

I guess my name says it alll. What has worked for me is hitting the lock button. That shuts off the screen and when I want to check the time I hit the camera button. Repeat as needed. Hopt it works fdor some of you.

 

I like using the night clock app myself, but a little worried that using it every night will significantly shorten the life of my backlight. Is there any real danger of this?