FP5 Adaptive brightness unusable after update

The auto brightness changing rapidly in dark rooms without any sense. Didn’t experience any of that before the update (FP5.TT3L.A.106.20230918).
Deactivating Auto brightness is a workaround.

3 Likes

What kind of behavior are you experiencing? That sometimes the brightness goes up for a brief moment? I noticed that with the older update as well. But in my case it was always in a low light environment and I’m not sure yet if it’s triggered because the light sensor was aimed briefly at the light source in the room or the screen’s light reflecting back into the sensor due to having the phone too close to an object. It doesn’t happen in a total dark room.

Maybe you can share some more details? Especially on how to reproduce it.

Have you extra dim enabled? Turning off removes this bouncing for me in dark rooms.

Still I see in low light (not dark) rooms that the brightness repeatedly adjusts almost to zero (like in real dark room) and it does not learn that I manually change this over and over again as its too low in my eyes.
Difficult to reproduce, as its difficult to reproduce the exact same light conditions.

I do have extra dim enabled, I’ll leave that disabled next time.

For me in dark rooms , brigthness at zero and than turning on extra dim, brightness starts pulsing between 0-8% back and forth non stop for at least 30 after that I turned it off, it stopped staying at zero, enablng extra dim again, its starts pulsing

So if you have extra dim on regularly I guess you would have noticed already?

I enable extra dim only in the evening/night, then I don’t notice this issue. At least, not yet. I notice and brightness increase only in low light environments, so far. But it’s very brief.

No I didn’t used extra dim. Someone on r/fairphone expiring the same after the update:
https://reddit.com/r/fairphone/s/PvF5h0cvC6

It has been occurring since the update and only in darker rooms with a brightness between 0% and 20%

I dont follow reddit. I think best is to contact support… Overall difficult as we already have quite different descriptions here…

Does this mean just dropping down and staying or chaning up and down

I’m experiencing the same issue. Usually in dim conditions, but sometimes in not so dim, auto brightness changes brightness up and down quickly without any obvious reason. Sometimes darkness can rise from the lowest point up to ~30% or even higher, making it too bright for the conditions - and then fall back, just to rise again, and so on.

It happens both with extra dim enabled and disabled.

I had that too with a FP5 I had in test. I noticed it especially in Telegram topics, didn’t find any reproductible method.

I experience this too in a low light environment. The brightness jumps up and down every second between 0 and 8 %.

Adaptive brightness issues have been addressed with today’s update. Let’s see…

EDIT: Okay, just tried it. Adaptive brightness now finally seems to memorize my preferred minimal brightness after adjusting it manually twice. No more fighting for more brightness when reading in the dark. Great improvement! (I tried this with DC dimming off.)

1 Like

Moved your post, as your comment does not fit to the other topic and this one here is rather a collection of issues and fits your description better

1 Like

To me, it looks like the update improved next to nothing. And again in dark surroundings. It sometimes jumps very visibly erratically between very, very dark and very dark.

3 Likes

Problem with screen brightness still persists. Instead of working on an update to Android 14 get the basic features bug free. I didn’t buy a 700€ medium class phone to get stuck with a faulty brightness sensor or a poorly programmed software.

My phone still stays dark in bright environments and bright in dark environments. Move the brightness slider manually raises the screen brightness in bright environments instantly to the desired level. But this doesn’t work in dark environments. The phone doesn’t turn to very low brightness in dark environments is way to bright for the night.
This is f*****g annoying as the screen is THE main element of a smart phone.

FP5.TT4H.A.162.20240609

This issue has been adressed here and Fairphone is aware of it but didn’t solve it. I never had such a bad experience with a smartphone. Reminds me on the corroding FP4 models. As the EU forces manufacturers to re-implement replacable batteries and manufacturers like Samsung also extended their software-support-period I will turn back to Samsung as soon as their mainstream phones have replacable batteries. Until then I am stuck with a poor user experience.

If you are unable to provide a phone with mature and properly working base features you should say so. “Hey dear customer you are and will always be our beta-tester as our qualitydepartment is unable to perform proper softwaretesting and/or in case of faulty hardware we are unable to provide workarounds”

My adaptive brightness works well, 100% in sun and 0% in dark, so maybe a hardware issue with your phone.

Well I dont build phones and you dont address FP here in the user forum.

1 Like

I assume this is due to a constructive feedback loop.
Your screen lights up a little, illuminating your face. this gets picked up by the brightness sensors on the front of your phone, letting your phone think it’s bright outside.
this causes the screen to get even brighter, making your face brighter as well, etc…

Maybe in said update they tweaked the sensitivity of the system or something :person_shrugging:

How strongly you are affected is probably a function of how reflective your surroundings and your face are.