Display brightness low in dark environment [Update: SP21.B.048.20230215]

And that’s why: Auto brightness doesn't go to 0% in dark environments (minimum is 30%) - #31 by UPPERCASE

… and please be aware: I suggested a compromiss with something like 20% minimum brightness. Fairness also means fairness towards handicaped people. FP4 becomes unusable for people with decreased visual capabilities.

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What I suggest in the reply I linked to is that the phone will learn your personal preferences. The problem is that FP uses static values. In 2023 we don’t need to find the middle ground for these kind of things. A smartphone is smart enough to learn what you prefer, at least if we want to classify a FP as a smartphone :slight_smile: I think we should keep that as the central conversation. Otherwise we will keep ping-ponging these emails to support to lower or increase the minimum brightness. Modern problems require modern solutions :nerd_face:

Out of precaution, before some other people get involved, no this is not science fiction. This stuff exists already for a good part of the past 10 years. And no, it’s also not hard to implement. It’s basically a university afternoon project for training a basic AI.

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Even less, an interested kid could code something like this:

  • simple approach: store manual settings as max / min Values
  • extended approach: calculate the proportionality

that’s not AI :grinning:

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^ That, yes! I wonder why this hasn’t been done. Too simple?.. :stuck_out_tongue:

I’m among those for whom the brightness gets too dark at night (bad eyes, glasses, you see?). Now I can and do raise the brightness (around 20% seems perfect for me when I’m in the garden at night and fire up a sky map to check which star this is), but the phone doesn’t remember it, and next time I switch on the screen it’s back to 0%. Smart phone my eye… :face_with_diagonal_mouth:

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Thank you all for sharing your feedback and suggestions for how to improve the current implementation. I’ll pass this on to the relevant teams.

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Another brightness-related regression (but probably at least partly due to that new(-ish) “Android System Intelligence” (:roll_eyes:) feature introduced with A12):

When I’m reading/playing on my phone in a dark room, with a single, weak light, and I accidentally hide that light from the camera which measures brightness (with my hands for instance), my screen goes instantly black (brightness 0%)!
I have to hold it to the light a few seconds for the screen to come back again.

Apparently it only consider one camera for ambient brightness measurements and if this one is shadowed, -poof- off goes the screen… Very annoying, and it didn’t do this on A11, so there must be some way to prevent this.

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What about Settings -> Accessibility -> Extra dim? Is it disabled for the ones of you thinking the screen isn’t bright enough at minimum?

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Yes, it’s disabled for me.
I immediately checked that after I read somewhere there was a new setting for that. It’s disabled.

(Although I’m wondering what this setting does. Even darker? That can only mean switching off the screen altogether… :smiling_imp:)

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On a working Android 12 release it would set the minimum brightness lower. But on a Fairphone it sets the overall brightness lower. So the screen’s maximum brightness is reduced as well.

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Sure, but it’s already quite dark. How much darker can it get while being still usable? :owl:
Anyway, it was actually a joke (as the imp face was supposed to convey)… :slightly_smiling_face:

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From my experience, it is the same on a Samsung and a Pixel, thought the effect is noticeably stronger on the Samsung. Are you sure it’s supposed to affect only the minimum brightness?

Whatever it is, I think it would be improved by replacing it by a setting where you can simply specify the minimum and maximum brightness values automatic brightness can use. It would cover all the individual needs, of everyone.
(Assuming those values correspond to reality, i.e. 0% is “screen off” (and not just some arbitrary dark value), and 100% means backlight at full power whatever the cost.)

You’re right! I never noticed it on my Pixel 3. Not sure why though. The Pixel 3 can only go slightly brighter than a FP4. Maybe OLED is what makes the difference? When I enable it on my Pixel 3 I can’t see much anymore, the minimum brightness is already quite good. I hope the FP5 will have an OLED. In dark mode it’s so more pleasant to look at it at night.

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For me, too. Its to dark. Ok, you can set the brightness manuel up… but this not very nice… :frowning:

I see that the expectations for display brightness are different. - For me now the automatic brightness is giving automatically my preferred brightness for the first time after this update. - Before it was far too bright all the time.

I have set my display to extradark for nearly all conditions (have to switch that off for use in direct sunlight) and I am glad, this change was implemented.

Hello together,
the "Extra Dark " option seems to work like an overall “darker” function.
Why not putting a slider here? Instead of this button
Left → F… dark (Slider left + extra dark active)
Right → 50% (As an anti “Fear of the dark”)
So the Main Slider or automatic adoption in the pull down can only choose between these two values (proportionally) and is then (hopefully) suitable for each mankind (womenkind also of course) :slight_smile:

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Hi @anon64862762, whatever you do please do not increase the minimum brightness, I find it is already sometimes too bright when viewing a page with white background in a dark room.
Cheers :slight_smile:

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Hi @anon64862762, whatever you do please allow each user to set his/her own minimum/maximum values.
It’s definitely too dark for me, even with glasses on.

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For me too…
I just got out of the car in the dark and you just can’t see anything. In one hand a bag in the other the FP4. It feels like I’ve set the slider 20 times higher, but the software doesn’t remember it exactly. The dark setting is so useless because even in total darkness it’s just way too dark. I don’t mind you building something like that. PLEASE build a switch to turn this feature on or off. Or a minimum brightness or something. Find it really bad that a feature that wasn’t there on Android 11 is built into Android 12 in a flash by a few people who complain.

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