Ive been sitting on this one for nearly three weeks, trying to understand what it could be. A few days ago, a reader found the same commit and began asking about it in the comments section, so I thought it was time to go ahead and share what I’ve found up to this point.

Prepare yourself…it isn’t much. Yet.

What we do have is very interesting and curious, though. In this commit, you can see clear reference to a double-tap feature for ‘Eve’. If you have no idea what that is referencing, don’t feel bad. There was a feature on the 2015 Chromebook Pixel that allowed you to tap twice on the device and see a quick LED lightbar indication of how much battery was left without opening the lid.

It was a cool trick and was useful from time to time in my experience, but nothing earth-shattering.

‘Eve’ Doesn’t Have A Lightbar, So…

We have seen nothing up to this point to indicate a lightbar on ‘Eve’ like the Pixel, and we have full confirmation of that now. This commit clearly states there is no lightbar on ‘Eve’, but they want the double-tap event to trigger something. The words ‘more flexible’ are thrown in there as well.

So, what in the world would this be used for?

The only clue I’ve found so far is in this commit. Here’s the language used:

The previous LED implementation was modelled on Kevin and enhanced to give developer feedback. This CL implements the Eve specific LED operation.

In the comments below, we see more reference to the double-tap function as well, but again, nothing is clear at this point. From the comments, Duncan Laurie has this to say about this feature:

I tested and it works as advertised. We are going to get endless questions about what these led patterns mean. Not our problem I guess..

Indeed, it does seem the double-tap will cause some sort of unique LED patterns, but it looks like those may not be readily discernible. Again, at this point, we just aren’t sure. What we do know is there haven’t been many Chromebooks that have this feature built-in, so ‘Eve’ continues to get very top-shelf treatment at every turn.

Following along with this Chromebook has become the ‘Kevin’ of 2017 and we are full of anticipation about who makes it, when it will arrive, and what all it will bring to the table for the Chromebook market.

And, as always, as we find more, we will let you know.