Database Users

Auto screen brightness doesn't work?

When I have my nexus one set to automatically adjust brightness, it doesn't seem to do anything.
I can move it between dark and bright environments and the screen brightness doesn't seem to change at all. Am I missing something or is this feature not working on my phone?

It works fine with mine. I just clicked auto in the brightness setting. Make sure you didn't accidentally change it to a different setting with the settings widget that is by default on the first home page to the right.

works fine on mine yet not a feature i use....i just set it statically.

I find the auto-brightness to be too dim for my liking. It would be great if you could adjust the overall brightness while still maintaining the automatic scaling.

Turns out it does work, it just need to be *really* bright to make it change.
It doesn't change really at all in my office between switching the lights on and off (even though that's a really big change in light levels to me). However, if i go outside, it does get brighter.
As you say though, it does seem to be set a bit low (hence it not brightening up when my office lights are turned on I guess).

If I enable auto-brightness on mine, it seems to constantly vary the brightness in my office. It's annoying as crap and I turned it off. Am I the only one?

It's probably taking a look at the available APIs to see if it's easy to write a quick app to do auto brightness with settings to be able to tweak it.

The auto-brightness feature changes constantly for me as well.

I 'm also having issues of the varying brightness when using auto-brightness -- even though the lighting in my environment has not changed and I avoid contact with the light sensor. It's VERY annoying.
I've since switched to using a static setting for the brightness.

auto brightness was one of the first things i turned off. it was way too dim for me

Not bright enough for me. Doesnt seem to change much.

I do see the variability occasionally. Most of the time it's stable, but it will take spells of shifting up and down repeatedly. Glad to know I'm not alone.

Auto bright annoyed me as well when I first got the phone. Then I realized where the sensor is (top left) and what it was responding to. Depending on where I'm sitting, what light sources are behind me, in front of me but reflecting off of me. It's usually just responding to a light source that's just withing view of its sensor. Also, my hand has shielded the sensor more than just a few times, confusing the sensor.
Now I leave auto bright on all the time, and it more often than not does a good job.

IMHO this is one of the few broken features on the phone. In continuous lighting it jumps from bright to dim to everything in between like a jack rabbit on speed. I still use it to save battery life but it pisses me off regularly.

am also having this problem. it constantly goes much brighter, and then, suddenly goes back to dim.. very annoying... however, the light sensor for calling works well... so, is it a software issue.. hope it gets google's attention and gets fixed in next update...

Bicster_ said:
If I enable auto-brightness on mine, it seems to constantly vary the brightness in my office. It's annoying as crap and I turned it off. Am I the only one?
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+1 so I also manually go between three on the widget

Note that the light sensor is under the glass on the front of the phone. Some cover-all cases cover this, and if you use one of these I assume your phone will remain on the dimmest setting.
In general, while indoors it will remain on the dimmest setting (for me anyway), but rise to the necessary full brightness when in sunlight.
w00yee said:
am also having this problem. it constantly goes much brighter, and then, suddenly goes back to dim.. very annoying... however, the light sensor for calling works well... so, is it a software issue.. hope it gets google's attention and gets fixed in next update...
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There are two sensors, one is a light sensor and the other is a proximity sensor to detect when you've taken the phone from your ear. I think you're referring to the second.

w00yee said:
am also having this problem. it constantly goes much brighter, and then, suddenly goes back to dim.. very annoying... however, the light sensor for calling works well... so, is it a software issue.. hope it gets google's attention and gets fixed in next update...
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+1 constant occiliation on dimmness levles under consistant light. It goes from way too dim, to just right then back dark again. I too hope that google will correct this with the next update. Hopefully the patch gets pushed soon, i'd like that extra memory

Auto Backlight level

I have noticed that the Automatic control for the backlight on the HD2 works very well. I have never feel like the phone is too dim and only in the darkest rooms do I find it to be a little too bright.
The Auto backlight does not seem to have the ability to get down the the lowest backlight level of the HD2 screen. If I turn off the auto function the screen can get to that "barely on" setting, but on auto the lowest is seems to go is to around 30%, which can be bright in the car at night or reading in bed.
Is there a way to make it so that the automatic backlight control can go all the way to the lowest setting when appropriate?

Have you looked into using 'lumos'? You can find it in the HD2 apps forum section.
I used it before and it should work for you to get the lowest backlight. I stopped using it since I figure 30% is good enough for me in most situations. During my commute, the light sensor gets hit too much and the backlights changes too often so I just turned it off. (I think it may also save me some power as well.)
If I'm reading in the dark I manually set it to 10% and in the morning I set it back to 30%. It's not too often that I will read in the dark so it's not a major issue for me.

I guess along the same lines, is there some app or widget that can be called from the home-screen icons that can control brightness on the fly?
Sense's brightness control is hidden behind far too many presses to make it comfortable to switch quickly. It's a bit annoying when I'm checking my e-mail at work walking under a set of lights, the screen will dim, then brighten, then dim, then... every two steps. Jumping to the menu to change the settings is too cumbersome, something along the lines of two clicks would be much better.

use Lumos
I had the same problem, Lumos works very well in the HD2.

Screen brightness goes down automaticaly.

Hi,
Everytime my battery goes down 15%, my screen brightness goes to almost 0.
I cant see any setting to change this.
I dont have any app to do that.
Currently rba023 rooted.
Thank you
Sent from my X10i using XDA App

If there's a way to change it I would like to know as well. It's very hard to see for that last 15%.
Wish I could help.

The last 15% would last no time if it was at normal brightness. It's designed for, you know, if you need to use it in an emergency ;-)

To get your brightness back go to the sound and display setting and click brightness. It returns it to full brightness. When your battery drops to 10% and 5% it will do the same.
As far as I'm aware there isn't a proper solution to this.

My issue with the brightness is the "auto brightness" function seems backwards to me.
E.g. if I am in direct sunlight, auto brightness turns the brightness of the screen way down, which means I can hardly see it. If anything the brightness should be turned UP.
If I am in a dark room, auto brightness turns the brightness up, when really, turning it down would be better as it doesn't need to be as bright in a dark room. So it should be turned DOWN automatically.
It's arse-over-tit, as we say.

Yes,
But now with root, i'm sure anyone with the right knowledge can modify this 'stock setting' ! ...
Anyone to try it?
Cheers!
misterzak said:
To get your brightness back go to the sound and display setting and click brightness. It returns it to full brightness. When your battery drops to 10% and 5% it will do the same.
As far as I'm aware there isn't a proper solution to this.
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Hi mine seems fine.. Yours however does, as you say, seem arse over tit.
Sent from my x10 using XDA and swype.

This doesn't really fix the query but for fast access to adjust the brightness I use an app called QuickSettings which I have on my front screen to give quick access to some basic settings. On the brightness adjuster you have to have the phone settings not on automatically adjust.

My screen is too bright, what will make it dim below "10"?

Even on the dimmest settings, the Vibrant is too bright for me in bed, where the light disturbs my wife.
It seems that, with root, you can lower the brightness further - at least on other phones. Is there any way to do this with the Vibrant?
Thanks!

The "Dimmer" app will toggle it from your current brightness down to 10 but if you find something that will go lower let me know.

It has an automatic brightness control based on input from the sensor. You may need to disable this in the settings too, but I would think it would be automatically dimming itself already in a dark room.

Dallasalien said:
It has an automatic brightness control based on input from the sensor. You may need to disable this in the settings too, but I would think it would be automatically dimming itself already in a dark room.
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Right, but that doesn't get dim enough in some situations and the minimum brightness you can select manually is 30. "Dimmer" will take it all the way to 10 but I would like to see something that would take it to 1 or 2.

I agree. It's too bright in low light situations.
If you find a solution please post it.

Try the Screen Filter App from the market. You can get UNBELIEVABLY low brightness. Which means much better battery.

+1 on screen filter. New version now dims taskbar too.

Crappy Automatic Brightness Sensor?

Is it just me or does everyone's Epic's have terrible brightness sensor hardware/software? My sensor seems to have about 2-3 settings of brightness, and goes from completely dim to super bright in random situations and nothing in between.
Cyanogen just posted on his twitter that in the past he changed the sensor's abilities through coding modifications. Could we do something of the sort for the Epic's sensor?

Agreed. The sensor is horrible. Also, the transition between brightness settings when set to automatic is near instant instead of slowly transitioning, which makes it more obvious that its changing brightness.

I would agree that it is terrible. Mine also send to sometimes turn auto brightness back on if I've turned it off.
It would be great if someone found a way to mod the code for it!
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

I thought the screen was just too bright at its lowest setting. Fortunately someone came up with a fix for it that can be found in the developer section. As far as the automatic sensor I would suggest turning off "Power Saving Mode" in the Settings>Sound & Display as well. I've read somewhere that this causes the brightness level to vary on its own.

cfiblc said:
I thought the screen was just too bright at its lowest setting. Fortunately someone came up with a fix for it that can be found in the developer section.
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Hehe, that was me. Stay tuned for more. I have coded up and will post, tonight, a new version that will let you modify the brightness curve (from the command line, for now)
As for automatic mode, I have figured out how to modify some aspects of it at the kernel level, such as the ambient light thresholds at which it switches to a different brightness level. By modifying the brightness curve, we can achieve at least some more control. But to make it really good may be significantly harder.
Personally, since manual brightness is always available by swiping horizontally on the status bar, I have little desire to use auto mode anyway.
- linuxuberant

The sensor is actually pretty sensitive. It's just that Samsung chose to have a really small range of brightness steps for automatic brightness.

Firon said:
The sensor is actually pretty sensitive. It's just that Samsung chose to have a really small range of brightness steps for automatic brightness.
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More like they installed an awesome dimmer switch and lights, but the fixture only does three modes; high, medium, and still pretty damn bright.