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SurfaceFlinger to dim the HID-AMOLED

I recently did a DIY dock station in my car. By the time I finished setting everything up it was quite dark outside. I really wanted to go for a test drive to test my GPS and new "Car Home" screen but came to a very fast conclusion. Our screens are too bright to be on during night driving!
Even at the lowest settings, the brightness is incredibly distracting. I use a black background and try to keep a minimalist style home screen but it is still too much. I remembered seeing the single color screens from Jeff Sharkey's blog and racked it down. I have seen some older posts referencing this subject and did some google searches with no major Galaxy S project results.
The concept seems simple enough and would provide benefit to so many people but I am no dev and do not fully understand the complications involved. Astronomers, Pilots, Soldiers, Drivers are just some that I would see benfitting from the ability to drop displays into Red or Blue "night modes."
I guess my concerns are:
Is this already a project?
Is it expected to be after the Froyo crisis?
Do enough people think as I do on this to make it even worth while?
NOTE: I in no way intend to reference the SAMOLED as anything less than exceptional. I rather have bright than dim any day!

I'd love to have this...I wouldn't need sunglasses to surf the web before sleeping.

I agree with you that there's a huge benefit to having "night mode" option for many apps. Due to the S-AMOLED screen, our phones are pulling over 1 watt of power for a white screen at max brightness, according to DisplayMate [1]. A black screen draws virtually 0 watts. So it makes every bit of sense for us to use dark screens whenever possible.
I haven't tried Cyanogen with RenderFX yet. Any comments on using color calibration to achieve this?

From what I understand, the usage of a primarily red display is nearly as efficient or more so than a darkened screen. Red provides awesome viewing in low light situations and does not effect your eyes after they have adjusted to low light.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

[Q] Black Google Mobile Saves Battery Power?

I thought everybody might want to hear about and give feedback on more unique ways to save squeeze more life out of their battery. I have been using Black Google Mobile at bGoog.com for a while now on my Android and it works awesome alongside my all black theme. It loads faster for me and it helps keep my phone bill down by reducing "bandwidth".
Check it out and let me know your thoughts?
What other unique battery life extending tips do you know?

Interesting...I never knew that this existed. The reason why they claim that it's "Battery-saving" is because of the white-on-black--aka Night Mode. I like how there's no javascript and stuff. I'm totally gonna use this as my homepage now!!

GoCkillaz said:
Interesting...I never knew that this existed. The reason why they claim that it's "Battery-saving" is because of the white-on-black--aka Night Mode. I like how there's no javascript and stuff. I'm totally gonna use this as my homepage now!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cool, thanks a lot!

Ima try this
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App

You people do realize that the blackness in displayed image has no effect on power consumption (except on AMOLED screens) right?
Even if the content is black, the back light is still on and drawing power. Except may be in LCD TVs employing local dimming which I am pretty sure is not employed on mobile phone screens.

chvvkumar said:
You people do realize that the blackness in displayed image has no effect on power consumption (except on AMOLED screens) right?
Even if the content is black, the back light is still on and drawing power. Except may be in LCD TVs employing local dimming which I am pretty sure is not employed on mobile phone screens.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This information is 100% correct. You will achieve power savings ONLY IF you use an OLED screen, since each pixel is its own light source. LCD screens use backlights, polarizers, color filters, etc... the backlights are always on, and a "black" pixel is achieved by polarizing such that no light gets through for that pixel. For OLED, each pixel can turn itself on or off completely. That's also why OLED's contrast ratios blow LCD out of the water--they achieve true blacks.

Cool Black has always improved battery life on the Nexus!

Awesome on the Vibrant!!!!!

I just noticed something troubling, I mean really troubling.

Do you realize the menus are now all in white?
Are they mad?
AMOLED's have terrible white, and their whites are never accurate.
Do they want our screens to die faster or something?
There's a reason previous Touchwiz-es all have black menus.
An advantage to black menus is that AMOLED's use absolutely no power for black
and almost twice the power for whites compared to LCD's
So what the hell are they thinking?

Livebyte said:
Do you realize the menus are now all in white?
Are they mad?
AMOLED's have terrible white, and their whites are never accurate.
Do they want our screens to die faster or something?
There's a reason previous Touchwiz-es all have black menus.
An advantage to black menus is that AMOLED's use absolutely no power for black
and almost twice the power for whites compared to LCD's
So what the hell are they thinking?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They are thinking more letters from the OCD types.
How long does anyone here keep a device? 6 months? a year? Does anyone really use this as a professional device for Photography or video work? Or just snapshots and video logs where all that can be fixed with SW. As long as they have replaceable batteries, and people can charge every night I don;t think battery life is a concern. The Note 2 battery life is insane for such a large phone. I have never used my spare. I was using it at about 4PM on my S2 previous to the Note.

Troll more.

I'm not 100% sure but I think that it might be changeable. I've seen some of the same pictures show in both black and white.
Edit: or its a mixture of Black and white menus....
But either way.... easily changed.

Thats why you gain root and wait for a rom.

shoman94 said:
I'm not 100% sure but I think that it might be changeable. I've seen some of the same pictures show in both black and white.
Edit: or its a mixture of Black and white menus....
But either way.... easily changed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Glad it's easily changed. But why did Samsung went to White?

I noticed the white menus too, and I really don't like it.
I hope it's switchable. And I hope when updates finally come to the S3 that they don't change over to white menus.
I usually just use custom ROMs, but I had considered going back to stock if there was an update.
Sent from my Wicked-powered SGH-T999 via Tapatalk 2

Livebyte said:
Do you realize the menus are now all in white?
Are they mad?
AMOLED's have terrible white, and their whites are never accurate.
Do they want our screens to die faster or something?
There's a reason previous Touchwiz-es all have black menus.
An advantage to black menus is that AMOLED's use absolutely no power for black
and almost twice the power for whites compared to LCD's
So what the hell are they thinking?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But why does it matter to you since you're not getting the phone anyway?

barondebxl said:
But why does it matter to you since you're not getting the phone anyway?
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Click to collapse
Hey! Be nice.
This forum is open to all, if there getting the phone or not.
He's just posting what's troubling on the device.

Reviewers said:
Hey! Be nice.
This forum is open to all, if there getting the phone or not.
He's just posting what's troubling on the device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What is your problem? I wasn't being mean that was a simple question.

Livebyte said:
Do you realize the menus are now all in white?
Are they mad?
AMOLED's have terrible white, and their whites are never accurate.
Do they want our screens to die faster or something?
There's a reason previous Touchwiz-es all have black menus.
An advantage to black menus is that AMOLED's use absolutely no power for black
and almost twice the power for whites compared to LCD's
So what the hell are they thinking?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Things have changed a lot since the AMOLED display on the original Galaxy S. The OLED's last much longer, power efficiency is drastically improved and their screen tunings have also improved. And about accurate whites, that is simply not true. The Galaxy S3 had a more accurate white point than the HTC One according to DisplayMate's own tests, even with the S3's green push.

GGXtreme said:
Things have changed a lot since the AMOLED display on the original Galaxy S. The OLED's last much longer, power efficiency is drastically improved and their screen tunings have also improved. And about accurate whites, that is simply not true. The Galaxy S3 had a more accurate white point than the HTC One according to DisplayMate's own tests, even with the S3's green push.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I hope so. In that case, I think Samsung believes its own display is efficient enough to have whites in their menus.

Livebyte said:
Are they mad?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The answer's hiding in plain sight.
That and S-600 should be 20% more efficient than the SGS3 and Octa potentially more so. If you want to worry about something the additional sensors, especially the one that allows the display to recognize something hovering over it, probably use more power than the white menus do. There's an option under power saving to turn off the sensing of the S Pen when it's not removed on the N2. The great thing about the white menus is that, in direct sunlight, it's a ton easier to read dark text on a white background.

BarryH_GEG said:
The answer's hiding in plain sight.
That and S-600 should be 20% more efficient than the SGS3 and Octa potentially more so. If you want to worry about something the additional sensors, especially the one that allows the display to recognize something hovering over it, probably use more power than the white menus do. There's an option under power saving to turn off the sensing of the S Pen when it's not removed on the N2. The great thing about the white menus is that, in direct sunlight, it's a ton easier to read dark text on a white background.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks. That cleared up a lot of my misunderstandings.
I will still have to see how it affects the burn-in issue of AMOLED's.

Livebyte said:
I will still have to see how it affects the burn-in issue of AMOLED's.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are 100MM Galaxy devices of various forms that have been in people's hands for years. The percentage complaining about burn-in is I'd guess less than single digit percentages. So it can definitely happen but I'd guess that it's not happening in large volume based on average screen-on time or it's so subtle people don't even notice.
P.S. - With your GIANT "One" signature you'll be viewed as a Palestinian in Jerusalem on the SGS4 forum.

BarryH_GEG said:
P.S. - With your GIANT "One" signature you'll be viewed as a Palestinian in Jerusalem on the SGS4 forum.
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Click to collapse
ROFL HAHAHAHHA. that's messed up hahahha.

BarryH_GEG said:
There are 100MM Galaxy devices of various forms that have been in people's hands for years. The percentage complaining about burn-in is I'd guess less than single digit percentages. So it can definitely happen but I'd guess that it's not happening in large volume based on average screen-on time or it's so subtle people don't even notice.
P.S. - With your GIANT "One" signature you'll be viewed as a Palestinian in Jerusalem on the SGS4 forum.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I like your perception of my sig. HAHAHAAAAA
Maybe I'll have both devices on my sig so people won't judge me because of my sig.

Livebyte said:
I like your perception of my sig. HAHAHAAAAA
Maybe I'll have both devices on my sig so people won't judge me because of my sig.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We won't judge you, i won't. I just thought that Barry comment was hilarious, i didn't expect it

Do we have AMOLED screens?

I'm just wondering... I know the summary says LED3, but I'm wondering if they're mutually exclusive. The summary also says the One M8 comes in 16GB and I've never seen that, so I don't fully trust the summary to start with.
What I'm really asking is, am I doing my M8 any favors by using app settings that blacken as much as possible to save battery on AMOLED screens? In theory it sounds like it would work. But it seldom looks as good as other themes. And frankly, with a decent ROM/Kernel combination, this battery can pull two days, so, why not, you know? Still, I'm wondering if there's a benefit at all.

No it does not have a amoled

dragontology said:
I'm just wondering... I know the summary says LED3, but I'm wondering if they're mutually exclusive. The summary also says the One M8 comes in 16GB and I've never seen that, so I don't fully trust the summary to start with.
What I'm really asking is, am I doing my M8 any favors by using app settings that blacken as much as possible to save battery on AMOLED screens? In theory it sounds like it would work. But it seldom looks as good as other themes. And frankly, with a decent ROM/Kernel combination, this battery can pull two days, so, why not, you know? Still, I'm wondering if there's a benefit at all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's a super lcd screen.
32 gb phone is the only one available through Verizon. The 16 gb model is the base model for the international version. It definitely exists.
You can't get the screen as dark as an amoled screen and running dark themed apps won't save a significant amount of power compared to light themed apps. All you can do to save power display wise is to lower the brightness.

If you're S-OFF you can enable normal power saver which you can run all day and it not limit you to a few things like extreme power saver does.

If you've ever used a phone with an AMOLED display, it should be immediately apparent that the M8 doesn't have one. This is probably the nicest LCD I've used, but the saturation and contrast still can't compare to AMOLED. An LCD will use the same amount of power regardless of what it's displaying.

I never saw an Android device with a burned in screen until I had to borrow an SGS3 right before I got my M8. I'm an LCD fan these days. I'll take more honest colors over contrast. It's easier on my eyes. The only HTC I know of that came with an AMOLED was the original Incredible, and even then only for the first year or so. After that they began using Sony SuperLCD screens, of which the M8 has the 3rd generation of that screen.

[Q] Are Samsung insane with white UI on an AMOLED screen?

My god, even the leaked Lollipop beta is insanely fast (for TouchWiz, anyway xD).
But that UI color scheme is making me consider poking my eyes out.
Bright f***ing green/cyan and goddamn white in the dialer and the settings! What the s**t, Samsung?!? Let's not mention how much AMOLEDs can suffer when showing white for a prolonged time...
Learning to code or theme will take me months I don't have (unless I'm just dumb and it is actually a lot easier than that and will get flamed for being yet another damn n00b), but is there any easy way to theme the leaked Lollipop build in darker colors that don't gouge out the eyes?

sirobelec said:
My god, even the leaked Lollipop beta is insanely fast (for TouchWiz, anyway xD).
But that UI color scheme is making me consider poking my eyes out.
Bright f***ing green/cyan and goddamn white in the dialer and the settings! What the s**t, Samsung?!? Let's not mention how much AMOLEDs can suffer when showing white for a prolonged time...
Learning to code or theme will take me months I don't have (unless I'm just dumb and it is actually a lot easier than that and will get flamed for being yet another damn n00b), but is there any easy way to theme the leaked Lollipop build in darker colors that don't gouge out the eyes?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
One possibility is to invert the screen with root and the matching app. Have a look at the Play Store for that.
But to stay at your basic question. I also thought that, after installing Lollipop. Everything very bright and things. I thought my battery life would be very ugly, especially in comparison to CM, which I had as a previous ROM on my device. As a matter of fact, reality proved me wrong. Battery life is insane. Nearly two days under medium to heavy usage. That's okay. And to have some words about the AMOLED lifetime thingy... Maybe - and only maybe - the lifetime of single AMOLEDs will decrease, but that's the same your battery lifetime would decrease. Sooner or later your battery will die and so will your display. But neither in the period you have your phone, nor in a maybe following period of second possession. So don't waste your time thinking about that.
BTW you also don't have settings, phone app,... open and the screen on the whole day. :laugh:

Silberpfeil3110 said:
One possibility is to invert the screen with root and the matching app. Have a look at the Play Store for that.
But to stay at your basic question. I also thought that, after installing Lollipop. Everything very bright and things. I thought my battery life would be very ugly, especially in comparison to CM, which I had as a previous ROM on my device. As a matter of fact, reality proved me wrong. Battery life is insane. Nearly two days under medium to heavy usage. That's okay. And to have some words about the AMOLED lifetime thingy... Maybe - and only maybe - the lifetime of single AMOLEDs will decrease, but that's the same your battery lifetime would decrease. Sooner or later your battery will die and so will your display. But neither in the period you have your phone, nor in a maybe following period of second possession. So don't waste your time thinking about that.
BTW you also don't have settings, phone app,... open and the screen on the whole day. :laugh:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's still annoying. xD The phone looks like a control panel from some spaceship, but you turn it on, and all that green s**t hits you right in the optic nerve.
I know, I gotta be patient if I can't code, but still... xD
So you say an app can enforce the inverted colors on per app basis?

sirobelec said:
It's still annoying. xD The phone looks like a control panel from some spaceship, but you turn it on, and all that green s**t hits you right in the optic nerve.
I know, I gotta be patient if I can't code, but still... xD
So you say an app can enforce the inverted colors on per app basis?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As far as I know there are no apps, that would do that on a per-app basis. Only those that do it overall the whole OS, like it was implemented for some time in Gingerbread.

am not really bothered about the white background considering how much little time I spend in it.

You dont need root for inverted colors.... just go to setting/device/accessibility/vision and tick negative colors.
Done!

sirobelec said:
My god, even the leaked Lollipop beta is insanely fast (for TouchWiz, anyway xD).
But that UI color scheme is making me consider poking my eyes out.
Bright f***ing green/cyan and goddamn white in the dialer and the settings! What the s**t, Samsung?!? Let's not mention how much AMOLEDs can suffer when showing white for a prolonged time...
Learning to code or theme will take me months I don't have (unless I'm just dumb and it is actually a lot easier than that and will get flamed for being yet another damn n00b), but is there any easy way to theme the leaked Lollipop build in darker colors that don't gouge out the eyes?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think you have to ask it to Google.
Lollipop has been made white, Samsung is forced by user (that will complain for the "too-much-white" and also for the "white-is-better-so-i'm-not-buying") to implement it as-google-told...