I would like my keyboard light to turn on ONLY in dim light. Any way to do that?

alpenglo wrote:

There's no point in cranking up the backlight brightness in a bright room. I can see my keyboard just fine without the backlight...and I'd rather conserve my aging battery. Yes, I know I can press F5 to turn the backlight off. But then when I use my laptop in a dark room I'm left hunting in the dark for F6. Wouldn't it be better if the backlight just turned itself on?

There is a user preference,

>System Preferences>Keyboard

Adjust the brightness of your backlit keyboard - Apple Support

alpenglo wrote:

Thanks, but all that option does is adjust the brightness of the backlight, maximizing it in a bright room or sunlight (which is ridiculous, in my opinion) and dimming it in a dark room. With that option selected you have to manually turn the backlight off if you don't want it running at full power in a bright room, leaving you with no backlight the next time you're in darkness. That's the problem in a nutshell.

This is what I see in bright ambient room light, the automatic keyboard backlight shuts itself off. Possibly your room light is not as bright as you suspect— in this case you can test with a bright torch aimed at the FaceTime Camera/light sensor as a direct test.

Try resetting the  SMC http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3964

if no resolve:

Call Customer Support  (800) MY–APPLE (800–692–7753) 

or on line  https://getsupport.apple.com/

or call  AppleCare Support at 1-800-APLCARE (800-275-2273)