diff --git a/docs/capabilities.md b/docs/capabilities.md
index 5baea944..13348341 100644
--- a/docs/capabilities.md
+++ b/docs/capabilities.md
@@ -110,7 +110,14 @@ your GTK icon theme.
 Solaar is not using the symbolic versions of these icons because of a bug
 external to Solaar that results in these icons not changing to the
 foreground colour in the system tray.  This can leave these icons nearly
-invisible in dark themes.
+invisible in dark themes.  It would be useful to be able to switch to
+symbolic icons via GTK styling (using something like
+`.solaar * { -gtk-icon-style: symbolic; }` in the user's gtk.css)
+but most or all current system tray implementations do not allow for this.
+
+As a temporary hack setting the SOLAAR_TRAY_BATTERY_ICON_SYBOLIC environment
+variable will cause Solaar to use symbolic icons for battery levels in the
+system tray.
 
 
 [solaar]: https://github.com/pwr-Solaar/Solaar
diff --git a/lib/solaar/ui/tray.py b/lib/solaar/ui/tray.py
index 02d791aa..d5159a86 100644
--- a/lib/solaar/ui/tray.py
+++ b/lib/solaar/ui/tray.py
@@ -203,6 +203,9 @@ try:
 			battery_charging = device_status.get(_K.BATTERY_CHARGING)
 			tray_icon_name = _icons.battery(battery_level, battery_charging)
 
+			# get around system tray icons not having styling and not having css class
+			tray_icon_name = tray_icon_name + ( "-symbolic" if "SOLAAR_TRAY_BATTERY_ICON_SYBOLIC" in os.environ else "" )
+
 			description =  '%s: %s' % (name, device_status.to_string())
 		else:
 			# there may be a receiver, but no peripherals
@@ -260,6 +263,9 @@ except ImportError:
 			battery_level = device_status.get(_K.BATTERY_LEVEL)
 			battery_charging = device_status.get(_K.BATTERY_CHARGING)
 			tray_icon_name = _icons.battery(battery_level, battery_charging)
+
+			# get around system tray icons not having styling and not having css class
+			tray_icon_name = tray_icon_name + ( "-symbolic" if "SOLAAR_TRAY_BATTERY_ICON_SYBOLIC" in os.environ else "" )
 		else:
 			# there may be a receiver, but no peripherals
 			tray_icon_name = _icons.TRAY_OKAY if _devices_info else _icons.TRAY_ATTENTION