My Pfaff has a light that blinks when the bobbin is low IF you remember to shut the bobbin door! LOL Ask me how I know that one. My other machines do not and I don't recall seeing that feature even in the high end models. I love it. Also love my thread cutter on my Janome, but it does seem to be more temperamental on beginning stitches. I wish I could find a machine with all those features. Having it start dinner and put wet clothes in the dryer for me would be nice too.

I have been buying the prefilled Fil-tec bobbins. I think they have about 3 times the thread on them then you can put on a bobbin. They are plastic and can be reused. I buy the off white, black, tan and grey. If I need to use a color bobbin then I fill my own. I purchase them online from Shoppers Rule...

Good idea. I usually notice within a few stitches that the bobbin is empty, but occasionally it goes unnoticed for a few yards.

This has been an interesting discussion - I never thought to listen to my machine to see if it makes a different noise when getting to the end of the bobbin thread. I will have to do this in the future. I have always just tried to be very vigilant on watching the bobbin; fortunately I have a drop-in bobbin with a clear cover so this is pretty easy to do.

My machine tells me I'm almost out and I stop and check and I'm completely out. Perfect timing.

Ask yourself: Am I less than a foot away from finishing this quilt (or this color of thread)? If the answer is yes, your bobbin is guaranteed to run out any second, but definitely before you are quite done! :D

I have 3 sewing machines and none of them have the courtesy to let me know the bobbin is empty! :-)
I don't really mind though, as my mom always said "could be something worse".

For those that mentioned their machine warns them too early and it gets annoying, you can set it till it's out. It got annoying to me too when it would say something like "there might not be enough thread in your bobbin"

If I"m on a roll I forget to look ( no indicator on my machine). I do try to look at it and when I see it getting low, I tell myself to start listening to softer sound the machine makes when the bobbin is out.

Mine is supposed to tell me, but isn't at the moment, so to the shop it will go. Yesterday, I did a whole row of chain sewed squares - at least 20 of them, before I realized I had an empty bobbin. I hate when that happens!