Develop Bugs

Auto Brightness working for you?

Hi Guys,
So I finally got the desire after being with an iPhone for the past 18 months. Lovely phone so far, even if it feels a little 'work in progress' in some depts.
Anyways!
Have any of you with the phone enabled auto brightness? Does it work? When I jump into the settings to enable it it seems to kick in (once i tick the auto brightness checkbox) but once I actually hit OK to save the changes the screen brightness shoots up again and then doesnt seem to react to ambient light.
weird.
I am running the t-mobile android (uk)

Yep, I have the same thing, glad it's not just me then!
I don't think I've seen it adjust by itself at all...

It works for me and I have seen it adjust.

im not sure really if it works because it always seems the same? i have changed it to 30% now which is just acceptable and we ll see if it gives any battery boost

cez10 said:
im not sure really if it works because it always seems the same? i have changed it to 30% now which is just acceptable and we ll see if it gives any battery boost
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That's the idea, auto brightness adjusts so that the screen looks the same brightness to your eye at any light level. When it's dark the brightness decreases and when it's light the brightness increases thus you see it as thee same due to the way your eye is already adjusted.

cez10 said:
im not sure really if it works because it always seems the same? i have changed it to 30% now which is just acceptable and we ll see if it gives any battery boost
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EroThraX said:
That's the idea, auto brightness adjusts so that the screen looks the same brightness to your eye at any light level. When it's dark the brightness decreases and when it's light the brightness increases thus you see it as thee same due to the way your eye is already adjusted.
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yeah Lol exactly, thats the whole point of auto screen adjustment. if you are indoors all (or most of) the time like me than keep it manual to 30-50%. otherwise leave it auto

Mine works a treat the only thing i do is when i go out the house i turn the brightness to manual and put it on full, as this is the only bad side to this phone the led does suffer in direct sun so full brightness is required.

I haven't seen any change in my screen brightness, whether in full sunlight or middle of the night in a dark room!
Is a bit annoying, would like to know if it can be fixed or we're waiting for the next firmware...

Where's the sensor ? With the Hero, placing a finger over the top part of the phone tricked the sensor but it doesn't seem to on the Desire. Interestingly though, there must be something there, the way the screen flashes up when you remove the phone from your ear

warpkid said:
Hi Guys,
I am running the t-mobile android (uk)
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Works fine here

It seems that on my Desire the only time the automatic brightness actually tests the light is when I unlock my screen.
I can actually see the brightness change then, but if I switch lights on/off while it's already unlocked it doesn't automaticly adapt to the light.

I only checked it through the Android SDK using Dalvik Debug Monitor and the phone certainly did continuously check and correct screen brightness according to it. Visually, it was too difficult to discern what was happening and when due to my own visual limitations when the amount of light changed.
Sent from my HTC Desire using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk

Auto brightness is a major problem with this phone

Been playing with my new phone and love it but man is the auto brightness a piece of crap. It sets the backlight so low you get weird banding on solid colors and off whites. Just turn brightness to 30% or so and boom its a whole different screen, colors pop and I don't notice any banding. Whites are great too.
They need to fix this fast since it comes with auto brightness on and its going to give people a bad impression.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

That's the first thing I did.
auto-brightness is always a little too aggressive for my liking..

It was a problem with the Nexus S as well. Drove me nuts.
Seems AOSP roms are very aggressive with dimming.

mobilehavoc said:
Been playing with my new phone and love it but man is the auto brightness a piece of crap. It sets the backlight so low you get weird banding on solid colors and off whites. Just turn brightness to 30% or so and boom its a whole different screen, colors pop and I don't notice any banding. Whites are great too.
They need to fix this fast since it comes with auto brightness on and its going to give people a bad impression.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
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known issue. Manufacturers tend to be really aggressive with this so you can get better battery life (yea I know.. pointless right?)
Just wait for custom ROMs. Or go download paulobrien's tweak for the automatic brightness settings. (of course, as others have said, you can just turn it off)

auto brightness has always sucked on Android, iOS has a customizable auto brightness that adjust to the level you put it on initially, where as on Android there's no option to adjust the default brightness when auto brightness is enabled.

rashad1 said:
auto brightness has always sucked on Android, iOS has a customizable auto brightness that adjust to the level you put it on initially, where as on Android there's no option to adjust the default brightness when auto brightness is enabled.
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Not just iOS, even my 3 year old Nokia allows you to adjust the level of auto brightness. Wish this is native to Android. I found my Nexus One too dim on auto brightness too.

Edit (deleted): redundant post about paulobriens fix

The auto-brightness doesn't just seem too low to me but also buggy. Most of the time it's really dim, but occasionally it will suddenly shoot up to a decent level
Has anyone tried this app? https://market.android.com/details?id=com.nnevod.loggraph&feature=search_result

I find it too bright.. the display is perfectly usable on minimum brightness in a normally lit room bit it keeps winding the brightness up, draining the battery. It seems stuck on about 50%.
My Nexus S did the same thing.. Drove me nuts. I had to switch it off and force it to minimum half the time.

Hopefully the ability to tweak the levels in detail will be ported over from CM7 later. For now, you can use PaulOBrien's kernel where he adjusted it.

TonyHoyle said:
I find it too bright.. the display is perfectly usable on minimum brightness in a normally lit room bit it keeps winding the brightness up, draining the battery. It seems stuck on about 50%.
My Nexus S did the same thing.. Drove me nuts. I had to switch it off and force it to minimum half the time.
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Same here, with my Nexus S, too bright.

This is one of the first things I do when flashing a rom on my incredible. They usually have to ramp down the brightness very quickly, probably for battery life. Cm has the tool hopefully it will be loaded soon.
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App

It would be nice if google added an option to set the max and min brightness used during auto. You could just raise floor a little.
Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk

Problem I've realized is on SAMOLED devices the screen is an absolute battery killer so there's no wonder they are aggressively keeping it dim. I bet if you ran this phone at 100% brightness just sitting idle it'd last like 10 mins

Auto Brightness broken with 4.1.1?

Has anyone noticed that their auto brightness is kind of broken after upgrading to JB? For example, if I'm in a really bright area and go into dark, the screen does not dim itself, however this can be fixed by going into settings and un-checking and checking the auto brightness box.
Obviously this is pretty annoying... Is there a fix for this?

CoronaDelux said:
Has anyone noticed that their auto brightness is kind of broken after upgrading to JB? For example, if I'm in a really bright area and go into dark, the screen does not dim itself, however this can be fixed by going into settings and un-checking and checking the auto brightness box.
Obviously this is pretty annoying... Is there a fix for this?
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I've noticed the same. It stays bright a lot of the time in dark places. I haven't noticed it staying dim in sunlight though.

To me, the way it was before seemed broken. It would constantly change its brightness level. This was effected by the light reflected off clothing, etc
I love it now

wirelessFREAK said:
To me, the way it was before seemed broken. It would constantly change its brightness level. This was effected by the light reflected off clothing, etc
I love it now
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You seem to have very good taste in clothing....

MatAuc12 said:
You seem to have very good taste in clothing....
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He he good one
But I Dont find any issue with it either. In fact, if you dig in, you'll find the process consumes 30% lesser battery than before ie. Screen + sensor timing and refresh for both...
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda app-developers app

CoronaDelux said:
Has anyone noticed that their auto brightness is kind of broken after upgrading to JB? For example, if I'm in a really bright area and go into dark, the screen does not dim itself, however this can be fixed by going into settings and un-checking and checking the auto brightness box.
Obviously this is pretty annoying... Is there a fix for this?
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I'm actually pretty sure this is the default behaviour for ICS as well its only 3rd party roms that added in the ability to auto dim as well as auto bright the stock way is it only goes dimmer if the screen turns off and back on other wise it stays at the maximum brightness

Sometimes if I'm using the widget to move from full to auto brightness and tap very fast, it'll sit at full brightness. If I toggle slower its fine. Definitely some bug there.

I think auto brightness is much better in 4.1.1. Before it was far too dim, now it seems just right in all conditions.

I'm using the app "Lux Auto Brightness" and it couldn't be doing a better job.
Definitely check it out if you're unhappy like I was with the stock auto-brightness
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

that has been the default behaviour from ages for stock goole rom:
the autobrightness only can increase...it doesn't decrease, unless u lock and ulock the phone or check and uncheck autobrightness
that the intended behaviour google want..the brightness get increased, but not decrease..

So you're saying that the auto feature in 4.0.4 was broken then?

CoronaDelux said:
So you're saying that the auto feature in 4.0.4 was broken then?
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i said that the intented behaviour..yes also on 4.0.4.. maybe google have a valid reason for doing that

CoronaDelux said:
So you're saying that the auto feature in 4.0.4 was broken then?
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Yes, it delayed the lock screen and when I set my phone down under a bright lamp and it woke up hours later in pure darkness, it might soft reset.

happens to me as well on stock 4.1.1. if I'm in a dark room and put the phone under a lamp or something, the brightness goes up instantly, but it never comes down until I lock/unlock the screen again.
in fact most of the time I think the thing is too bright (but that may be because I come from a nexus one always on the lowest setting since the autobrightness there didnt really work well).
it's a minor annoyance definitely

Same Problem with Note2!
Hi guys,
found this thread during my search for this brightness issue. My Galaxy Note 2 has the same strange behavior. But I figured out something: when I lay down the device to a table or bring it to 0 degrees in my hand, automatic brightness it's decreasing perfectly! Can you confirm this behaviour at your nexus? I guess it's a kind of strange Samsung " feature", maybe?
Thanks, Michael

Ahoy, I was also researching my auto brightness issues when I found this thread. I can confirm the behavior from the previous post on my SGS2 on Jelly Bean 4.1.2.
If the phone is in vertical position and I do the lamp test, it will stay on maximum brightness no matter what, but in horizontal position dimming works perfectly.
Regards,
zytrel.

Adaptive Brightness Issues

With adaptive brightness on my screen frequently (every 20 seconds or so) changes brightness slightly even when the ambient light isn't changing. It's very annoying when reading and most noticeable with light backgrounds.
Is this a common issue or does it sound like I have a defective sensor?

dmacarth said:
With adaptive brightness on my screen frequently (every 20 seconds or so) changes brightness slightly even when the ambient light isn't changing. It's very annoying when reading and most noticeable with light backgrounds.
Is this a common issue or does it sound like I have a defective sensor?
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Same here.
So annoying I had to turn adaptive off.
Seems to be when I move, probably changing sensor and it's too sensitive. My head mush change/reflect light on sensor
Anyway it's so distracting that I can't use adaptive brightness, except when pitch dark I can set to 0% adaptive to have lowest light output
Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

Yep, reminds me of a disco strobe light!

No issues here. I actually think the brightness swing is much better than the OG Pixel XL. I can just leave the setting at 50%. On the OG XL I'd have to turn the brightness down in the living room with lighting from 1 lamp and a tv because it'd be burning my retinas.

I installed Lux Dash and disabled "adaptive brightness" and let Lux handle it. You can go into the profile editor for Lux and setup different presets for different levels of light, you can also adjust the min and max allowed brightness and even setup how you want it to adjust brightness (fade, only set on unlock, dynamic, etc)
It has really made this screen amazing and even helps with battery because most the day my screen doesn't go above 15-20%

AndrasLOHF said:
No issues here. I actually think the brightness swing is much better than the OG Pixel XL. I can just leave the setting at 50%. On the OG XL I'd have to turn the brightness down in the living room with lighting from 1 lamp and a tv because it'd be burning my retinas.
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I've been fine here with the Adaptive Brightness too. Doesn't change too often at all for me.
Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

I installed Lux also and that did the trick. I assume the sensor is fine since Lux uses it with no problem. It's odd that some of us are having problems and others aren't but it doesn't seem to be a sensor issue.

Having this same issue any solution?

Mzzyhmd said:
Having this same issue any solution?
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I'm curious but how exactly is it reacting for you? Are you just sitting in bed with the lights on and it's still adjusting up and down the brightness? Cause that's what I'm doing right now and it hasn't fluctuated at all. If I put it on the bedside table it'll brighten up and when I pick it up it dims but that's it.
Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

Yeah that's too much fluctuations don't you think I mean on my iPhone x or any other iPhone that I have have used so far I never could tell that the adaptive brightness was on but this device does it in an obvious way and way too frequently that im not sure anymore if this is what it's supposed to do I chatted with a Google agent and they forced quit ambient service thing from system apps and I think that still didn't resolve the issue. I will pop up in a vz store tomorrow and check out if their display devices are doing the same

Mzzyhmd said:
Yeah that's too much fluctuations don't you think I mean on my iPhone x or any other iPhone that I have have used so far I never could tell that the adaptive brightness was on but this device does it in an obvious way and way too frequently that im not sure anymore if this is what it's supposed to do I chatted with a Google agent and they forced quit ambient service thing from system apps and I think that still didn't resolve the issue. I will pop up in a vz store tomorrow and check out if their display devices are doing the same
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I'm curious to hear what the tell you. Lux has helped me a lot bit I still notice it. To be fair I think I only notice in a dim or dark room with the TV on but this is the first phone I've used where it's noticeable to me. I'm also wondering if this is how it's supposed to work or if there's something wrong with my phone.

Mzzyhmd said:
Yeah that's too much fluctuations don't you think I mean on my iPhone x or any other iPhone that I have have used so far I never could tell that the adaptive brightness was on but this device does it in an obvious way and way too frequently that im not sure anymore if this is what it's supposed to do I chatted with a Google agent and they forced quit ambient service thing from system apps and I think that still didn't resolve the issue. I will pop up in a vz store tomorrow and check out if their display devices are doing the same
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What I described was too much? Sounds appropriate to me. If there's extra light on the phone, I want it to get brighter. If that light goes away, I want it to get dimmer. Now if it was happening with no light changing then I would be annoyed. I keep it at 29% with Adaptive Brightness on and it's not too dark in outside light and not too bright in pitch dark.
Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

I'm having the same issue. I'm on my second Pixel 2 XL so I don't think it's a sensor problem. I only notice it in lower lighting but it's really annoying when it happens. Haven't seen this issue on any other phone. Im trying out Lux now and set it to only adjust when waking up. There were similar issues when Lux was set to Dynamic.

Ever since Google thought they knew better than everyone else and got rid of auto brightness for adaptive brightness, it's been trash for me. I CONSTANTLY have to raise it in dark rooms and lower it in bright rooms. AKA, I might as well turn it off because I'm manually adjusting it every time anyway.
All in all, it's terrible.

Hobox10 said:
Ever since Google thought they knew better than everyone else and got rid of auto brightness for adaptive brightness, it's been trash for me. I CONSTANTLY have to raise it in dark rooms and lower it in bright rooms. AKA, I might as well turn it off because I'm manually adjusting it every time anyway.
All in all, it's terrible.
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You know Adaptive Brightness is a mix of manual and auto brightness right? I remember auto brightness actually having the issues you're describing because there was no way to adjust it if it was set. If you have Adaptive Brightness on high enough, it should be bright enough in dark and bright situations. I believe people's issues are that it adjusts too often or the opposite, it's too dark in light rooms and too bright in dark rooms.

EeZeEpEe said:
You know Adaptive Brightness is a mix of manual and auto brightness right? I remember auto brightness actually having the issues you're describing because there was no way to adjust it if it was set. If you have Adaptive Brightness on high enough, it should be bright enough in dark and bright situations. I believe people's issues are that it adjusts too often or the opposite, it's too dark in light rooms and too bright in dark rooms.
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Yeah I know it's supposed to be a mix somewhat. It's supposed to match the setting you set to whatever the surrounding brightness is relative to your brightness setting.
That's exactly WHY it's trash in my opinion though. It's a flawed methodology. I don't want it matching my setting relative to anything. I want it low in the dark and bright in bright rooms or the sun to be legible and not more. It tries to do some meet-you-in-the-middle garbage and it just doesn't work well.

Hobox10 said:
Yeah I know it's supposed to be a mix somewhat. It's supposed to match the setting you set to whatever the surrounding brightness is relative to your brightness setting.
That's exactly WHY it's trash in my opinion though. It's a flawed methodology. I don't want it matching my setting relative to anything. I want it low in the dark and bright in bright rooms or the sun. It tries to do some meet-you-in-the-middle garbage and it just doesn't work well.
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I found the threshold for the lowest brightness in pitch dark with Adaptive Brightness on to be 29%. That should be dark enough in dark rooms and outdoors it's readable to me. What percentages have you been trying?

Mines doing the same thing. Did anyone work out whether it was hardware?
I used a sensor app to see what light was reporting, and it was stable. I can only assume it's a bug.
For those who aren't sure - if the screen is on, and not moving, without any changes to ambient or direct light, every 20 or so seconds the screen will dim to a warmer colour, and then 20 seconds later will brighten to a whiter colour.

superbestfriends said:
Mines doing the same thing. Did anyone work out whether it was hardware?
I used a sensor app to see what light was reporting, and it was stable. I can only assume it's a bug.
For those who aren't sure - if the screen is on, and not moving, without any changes to ambient or direct light, every 20 or so seconds the screen will dim to a warmer colour, and then 20 seconds later will brighten to a whiter colour.
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Yeah I had a feeling that's what people might be experiencing.

To add on to this thread, this is also occuring on my gen 1 Pixel.
Ever since I upgraded to 8.1 the adaptive display will brighten/darken while the phone is sitting still in a constantly lit room.
I also appear to have lost much of the granularity in the brightness selecting bar. The first 25% or so is as dim as it goes, and only after that does it begin to alter the brightness. Previously it would begin around 10% on the bar.
Additionally, the logic behind adaptive brightness seems to have gotten worse. I previously left my brightness setting always in the same place, and no matter where I was it was either dim enough (at night) or bright enough (during the day).
Real unhappy with this update.

Question Auto brightness bugged

Is anyone having issues with auto brightness, jumping up and down every few seconds? Im currently sat in a dimly lit room with the TV on and my screen keeps changing brightness levels every few seconds, if I pull down the notification area I can see the slider jumping about. I'm guessing the phone is reacting to the TV changing brightness levels as the picture changes but it seems way too sensitive.

Yeah known issue afaik. I'm hoping it gets resolved on an update

rosso22 said:
Is anyone having issues with auto brightness, jumping up and down every few seconds? Im currently sat in a dimly lit room with the TV on and my screen keeps changing brightness levels every few seconds, if I pull down the notification area I can see the slider jumping about. I'm guessing the phone is reacting to the TV changing brightness levels as the picture changes but it seems way too sensitive.
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One of the fixes in the November update was "Improvements for auto-brightness response in certain lighting conditions.".

I think auto brightness has always been an issue with Pixels. Its a feature I always turn off at this point

rosso22 said:
Is anyone having issues with auto brightness, jumping up and down every few seconds? Im currently sat in a dimly lit room with the TV on and my screen keeps changing brightness levels every few seconds, if I pull down the notification area I can see the slider jumping about. I'm guessing the phone is reacting to the TV changing brightness levels as the picture changes but it seems way too sensitive.
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Yeah it is up and down like a brides nighty when the light it low on mine, it isn't smooth like it was on my Pixel 5. It feels a bit like the sample rate needs a longer delay because just an increase in brightness on my TV can send my Pro brightness shooting up, the adaptive display needs to wait a few seconds before acting.

MrBelter said:
Yeah it is up and down like a brides nighty when the light it low on mine, it isn't smooth like it was on my Pixel 5. It feels a bit like the sample rate needs a longer delay because just an increase in brightness on my TV can send my Pro brightness shooting up, the adaptive display needs to wait a few seconds before acting.
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Yeah my pixel 5 and 4a 5G never had this issue (same room and lighting conditions) its crap we have to pay to be beta testers nowadays, guess we will have to wait for another "fix" in next update.

crucialcolin said:
I think auto brightness has always been an issue with Pixels. Its a feature I always turn off at this point
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Should we really have to turn things off, considering the cost of this phone? Throw in a case and charger and your over £900 in for this phone, everything should work out of the box without having to turn off features.

It's horrible. When I sit at night in a dark room watching TV, it seems to react to the TV and jump all over the place. Never had this on a phone before. Why can't Google get auto brightness right? It's ridiculous.

Personally, I've always preferred Pixel's handling of auto-brightness to that of my recent Note 10+. I thought Samsung's auto-brightness didn't adapt very well (besides the dimmest not being as dim as the Pixel when using in the dark).