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

The current update changed the automatic display brightness range. Now at night the display ist hard to read. I must manually raise the brightness to about 20%. 30% as before ist too bright, but now ist too dark.

5 Likes

Lots of people actually wanted this, including me :smiley: If you donā€™t like it, please, be patient and manually increase the brightness. If Iā€™m not mistaken, the auto brightness is learning, so it should learn your habits after a few days (weeks?).

Also make sure you donā€™t have the Extra dim option set (it is a quick settings tile).

4 Likes

ā€¦ you could have manually decreased the brightness too. Behavior adaption should have already worked before if it exists. Think of elder people looking for their glasses like me. You with your eagle sharp eyes are not alone in the world.

2 Likes

Is it possible to set the minimum brightness? This is just too dark for me :slightly_frowning_face:

Steven

1 Like

The reason as indicated already above is this

I was really expecting now this discussion, we have this too dark not dark enough discussion (a bit different) for the FP3.

Seems the perfect solution is difficult or impossible to achieve. Everytime some adjustment is done, some group is complainingā€¦

Either way those who dont like the current state dont forget to report to support contactsupport
Should enough reports brought up, they might try to adjuat again.

1 Like

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

ā€¦ 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.

1 Like

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 donā€™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, itā€™s also not hard to implement. Itā€™s basically a university afternoon project for training a basic AI.

3 Likes

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

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

thatā€™s not AI :grinning:

4 Likes

^ That, yes! I wonder why this hasnā€™t been done. Too simple?.. :stuck_out_tongue:

Iā€™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 Iā€™m in the garden at night and fire up a sky map to check which star this is), but the phone doesnā€™t remember it, and next time I switch on the screen itā€™s back to 0%. Smart phone my eyeā€¦ :face_with_diagonal_mouth:

1 Like

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

11 Likes

Another brightness-related regression (but probably at least partly due to that new(-ish) ā€œAndroid System Intelligenceā€ (:roll_eyes:) feature introduced with A12):

When Iā€™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 screenā€¦ Very annoying, and it didnā€™t do this on A11, so there must be some way to prevent this.

2 Likes

What about Settings -> Accessibility -> Extra dim? Is it disabled for the ones of you thinking the screen isnā€™t bright enough at minimum?

1 Like

Yes, itā€™s disabled for me.
I immediately checked that after I read somewhere there was a new setting for that. Itā€™s disabled.

(Although Iā€™m wondering what this setting does. Even darker? That can only mean switching off the screen altogetherā€¦ :smiling_imp:)

1 Like

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 screenā€™s maximum brightness is reduced as well.

1 Like

Sure, but itā€™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)ā€¦ :slightly_smiling_face:

1 Like

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 itā€™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 ā€œscreen offā€ (and not just some arbitrary dark value), and 100% means backlight at full power whatever the cost.)

Youā€™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 canā€™t see much anymore, the minimum brightness is already quite good. I hope the FP5 will have an OLED. In dark mode itā€™s so more pleasant to look at it at night.

2 Likes

For me, too. Its to dark. Ok, you can set the brightness manuel upā€¦ but this not very niceā€¦ :frowning: