noled

Screen-off overlay for Nintendo Switch.

Turns off the screen backlight while a background task is running (downloads, file transfers, etc.). Prevents OLED burn-in and saves battery — works on all Switch models (V1, V2, Lite, OLED).

Features

Mode	Activation	Behavior
Screen Off	Quick tap	Turns off the backlight. Device may auto-sleep normally.
Screen Off + Stay Awake	Hold A for 1.5 s	Turns off the backlight and keeps the device awake by periodically pinging the system idle service.

Press any button to exit and restore the screen.

Installation

1. Make sure you have Ultrahand Overlay or Tesla Menu installed with nx-ovlloader.
2. Download noled.ovl from the Releases page.
3. Copy it to /switch/.overlays/ on your SD card.
4. Open the overlay menu (default: L + DPad Down + Right Stick) and select noled.

Building from source

Requires devkitPro with the switch-dev group installed.

git clone --recursive https://github.com/kemalsanli/noled.git
cd noled
make

The output file will be at noled.ovl.

How it works

• Backlight control — Uses the lbl service to turn the screen off and on.
• Stay-awake mode — Sends ReportUserIsActive (command 5) to the idle:sys service every 30 seconds, resetting the auto-sleep timer without changing any system settings.
• Sleep detection — Monitors frame timing to detect when the device has slept and woken up. On detection, the overlay exits cleanly without flashing the screen.

No system settings are modified. If the overlay crashes, the device returns to normal behavior automatically.

Compatibility

• All Nintendo Switch models (V1, V2, Lite, OLED)
• Works with any overlay menu that loads .ovl files from /switch/.overlays/ (Ultrahand, Tesla Menu, etc.)
• Built with libtesla
• Tested on Atmosphere CFW

License

GPL-2.0