With a Square Terminal in Paired mode, the “Ready to take a payment” screen never sleeps, despite the Display settings set to Turn Off Display after 1 Minute.
I can’t imagine this is by design as it means the display is on 24x7.
Any ideas?
We have this problem also - and if you do sleep the display manually (tapping the power button) it won’t respond to any checkouts being created.
Though now our terminal won’t respond to any checkouts being created regardless of status.
I believe this is a known thing. If the screen goes to sleep, then it could mean that the device wouldn’t be able to receive the push notifications to take a payment. As mentioned above, if you manually turn it off it will most likely stop responding to push notifications. I’ll update this to be a feature request (apologies for the delay!).
Thanks @Stephen.
If a feature request is being logged it would also be great to have a custom logo/background on the “Ready to take a payment” screen just like the POS screen can be branded with a logo/background. Especially if the screen is on 24x7!
Cheers…
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Reviving this old but still relevant thread…
This does not actually appear to be the case, at least on the current version of the Square Terminal software.
If I manually set the display to be off by pushing the power button briefly, and then sometime later create a terminal checkout, the following happens:
- The checkout is created with status “PENDING”.
- A very short time later (a second or so) the checkout changes status to “IN_PROGRESS”. The display of the device remains off, but it’s clear that it has started the checkout because:
- If I hold a contactless card or device to the display (which is still off), it is read. The checkout status remains “IN_PROGRESS”.
- I can now remove the card or device, and wait for a reasonable amount of time (but still remaining within the default 5 minute timeout).
- When the display is woken up (power button press or tap on screen) it immediately shows “Authorising” and then processes the transaction, without the card or device being presented again. The checkout status changes to “COMPLETED”.
I think there are two things that need fixing here by the team that maintain the firmware for the Square Terminal:
- Stop the “Powered by Square” idle screen preventing the screen from sleeping; it’s not necessary to prevent this, the device is already capable of receiving checkouts with the screen off
- When a checkout is received, turn the screen on if it is not already on
There are a couple more things I think would make the idle screen more useful:
- (Optionally) Show the device’s
DeviceCode.name - Don’t hide the status bar with the wifi signal strength and battery state of charge
And I second the request from @jamesrclay that we be able to add branding to the idle screen!
@sde1000 I was able to replicate and have shared your findings with the team. 
I see there’s been a change in the most recent firmware: if the display is off and a checkout is created, the display wakes up and the checkout proceeds immediately. This is very welcome!
I’m reasonably sure the display now goes to sleep on its own while in terminal mode, because I came in after leaving it for the firmware upgrade and found it blank, but I can’t work out how long it takes. I have my terminal set to “Turn Off Display After 1 Minute” in the Display settings, but it’s definitely taking longer than that.
I was wrong. It still doesn’t. The only way to get the display to turn off is to press the power button. After the nightly reboot, the display turns back on and stays on.
This is now my biggest gripe with it! The display being on continuously means the battery doesn’t last very long. If the terminal isn’t plugged in at the end of the day then it doesn’t have enough charge to make it through the night and is completely dead in the morning, which is very inconvenient.
I can understand the desire for the display to be always-on in situations where the terminal is plugged in, but please make this configurable for those of us who use it under battery power!
We’re constantly working to improve our features based on feedback like this, so I’ll be sure to share your request to the API product team.
I can’t believe after more than 3 years waiting for this to be resolved, the behaviour is still the same! In the display settings when the device is paired, even through I set the display to turn off after 1 minute, it stays on all day. We are a small business, and sometimes only take 2 sales a day. We don’t want the terminal display to be on all day. Having to remember to keep tapping the power button is unnecessary when all that is needed is a small update to the firmware to honour the display settings. It would be such a small, quick fix, and would be very beneficial to small businesses. Is there any way to find out if this bug is even in queue to be looked at, and if so when it is likely to be fixed?
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This behavior isn’t a bug. Its a fix for not missing a payment if the device enters sleep mode. I totally understand your use case and will share it with the team.
I remain skeptical that this is necessary — we already know the device can wake its screen up when a checkout is created, if the screen was turned off manually with a press of the power button.
I really think this behaviour is costing you money. Having the screen on all the time causes extra wear on the screen and the battery — it means the battery is going through a full discharge/charge cycle every day.
Out of eight Square Terminals we bought in October 2022, four have failed and been replaced by you under guarantee. Three failed with battery issues (ranging from “error message saying there’s a charging problem” to “completely dead”) and one had a screen failure. The failures started in September 2023, and the fourth happened just a couple of days ago.
We’re constantly working to improve our features based on feedback like this, so I’ll be sure to share your request to the API product team.
I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but I’ve just posted my sixth dead Square Terminal back for warranty exchange. Five of these had batteries that wouldn’t charge, the other had a failed display. (I also had one that died just outside the two year warranty period, so I had to buy a replacement.)
I can’t help thinking that they would not fail so often if the display was allowed to go to sleep while in Terminal API mode! We already know they work just fine if the display is turned off manually with the power button (the display turns on again as soon as a transaction arrives); we just want them to be able to enter this state automatically! If the display is on all day, they go through a complete 100%→0%→100% battery cycle every 24 hours, which can’t be good for them.
(This isn’t a major complaint — as long as they die before two years you seem happy to provide a replacement that then has its own two year warranty. I just think you’re spending money unnecessarily on something that could be fixed in software…)
We just got our first square terminal for our non-profit organization to process donations, and are experiencing this same issue. The terminal is going to be used by organizers at mobile events without power, and having the screen stay on when it’s not needed and draining the battery is going to be a real pain. I have tested and confirmed that when the screen is turned off manually, transactions sent from the POS app do correctly wake up the device to process the payment, so at this point it should be a simple bug fix to have the terminal correctly turn off the screen after the appropriate time, rather than leaving it on. Everything is in place for this to work as expected, could this bug be fixed soon please? Thanks.
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Please note that this isn’t a bug. This behavior of the screen not shutting off is designed behavior. While it does drain the battery faster it ensures that payments correctly push to the device during high traffic periods. During testing this was required to insure that payments correctly display on the device all the time. We’re constantly working to improve our features based on feedback like this, so I’ll be sure to share your request to the API product team.
Thanks Bryan. If that isn’t a bug, then the menu having an option to turn the screen off is after a certain amount of time, because the option is there and isn’t being respected. It should make it clear that the screen will remain on and that option can’t be used, by greying out those options.
Personally, I think it should be possible to customize, and be up to the user to decide what the trade off is there for their individual use case. Maybe add a warning that having the screen stay on is recommended. In our use case, the battery depleting and not being able to take payments at all is a much bigger problem than the speed at which payments process.
Given that the terminal can wake up just fine when a payment is pushed (I’ve tried it - it works) I don’t see any reason to not give people the choice. Thanks again for the reply.
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We’re constantly working to improve our features based on feedback like this, so I’ll be sure to share your request to the API product team.
I also have this concern and as much as using paired mode suits my situation, I’m unable to use it because having the screen constantly on 24/7 is going to burn in or lower the life of the display. If you’re saying this is done on purpose, then you must be doing it to increase the rate at which these displays will fail, forcing people to buy new Square terminals. Come on guys, the screen needs a screensaver or sleep function in paired mode.