Override manual/auto screen brightness with root? - General Questions and Answers

Hi guys,
I have a cheap Chinese Cube T8Plus that I use exclusively to read comics and books at night.
It works really well for that use, but has 2 very annoying problems with backlight brightness that makes it less than ideal for low light use:
- with manual brightness, the minimum brightness is very high, and even with root and a software like brightness tweak, it stays the same (I can actually increase the minimum brightness, but not decrease it).
- with auto brightness, surprisingly on low light the screen gets a lot dimmer than with manual brightness, it makes a huge difference. But here too there is a big problem; the brightness does increase whenever I the tablet is exposed to higher light, but doesn't decrease back on low light, no matter what I do.
The only way to reset it back is to fully reboot the tablet.
I tried different roms to try fixing the issue, they all have the same behavior sadly.
Of course I know there are screen filter solutions like the twilight app, which I actually use, but it's not always enough, and kills the contrast a little bit too much sometimes.
So is there any other way to force the manual brightness to go lower, that might work for me?
If not can I override the auto brightness in some way?
Thanks

Related

Auto adjusted backlight is too bright in dark conditions

Hi! I'm a first time poster here, have had my TP for a week now (previously used SE UIQ phones). Anyways, first I just wanted to THANK all of YOU who make these amazing apps and tweaks for this very cool phone!
Now to the point. I like the idea that the light sensor adjusts the backlight level automatically, but I find it much too bright especially in very dark conditions. Even if it's completely dark, the backlight doesn't go all the way down, i.e. I can make it much dimmer by manually setting the brightness to a low level.
Is there any way to "calibrate" the brightness for the auto adjusted backlight (so that if it's dark it would lower the brightness even more than it does now, and if it's bright it would set the backlight to 100%)?
Thanks!

Brightness lower limit?

I was trying to lower the brightness very low to test how it would affect battery drain and it seems that the phone won't let 3rd party apps lower the brightness lower than what you can set it to, in the phone's settings. I tried an app called timerrific that lets you schedule various settings changes, but the phone seems to be overriding it. When I set the brightness to go down to 15% via the app, it does go very dim, but then immediately bounces back up to lowest level the phone's settings let's you set it at. Also, I had auto brightness off and the power saving mode off.
Has anyone been able to get the phone to go to very low brightness?
Thats a good question and would like the answer too... to me, the lowest brightness which must still HOG the battery as sometimes it seems to drain very fast with usage (and I have it on the lowest setting)... seems overly bright. I would without a doubt use it at a lower brightness to conserve energy depending on what I was doing at the time.
hey maybe its just the screen that makes it look bright
labbu63 said:
hey maybe its just the screen that makes it look bright
Click to expand...
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Not sure what you mean? For example, if I set the brightness to go down to 5% through the app Timeriffic, the screen will dim down to where I can barely see anything, but then it immediately raises back up to the lowest setting you can set in the phone's normal settings, which seems to me to be about 25-30%.
Yep
labbu63 said:
hey maybe its just the screen that makes it look bright
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is actually correct, the screen is what makes the "Automatic" brightness setting on the SGS phones look brighter than their LCD brethren. As we all know, currently all AMOLED displays use some kind of Pentile Matrix. All HTC devices (The N1 included) currently use RG:BG Pentile Matrix.
Do a google search on: "RGBG Pentile" and Samsung's site details it.
The SAMOLED display Samsung has made uses a new Pentile Matrix called RGBW:
Do a google search on: "nouvoyance" and it's the first site (sorry for the odd instructions, won't let new users post links )
Using the new RGBW, a white subpixel is introduced on top of the standard RGB stripe. From my reading, this allows the screen to achieve the same resolution to the eye with 33% less subpixels and is a brighter display in the process.
Asori said:
This is actually correct, the screen is what makes the "Automatic" brightness setting on the SGS phones look brighter than their LCD brethren. As we all know, currently all AMOLED displays use some kind of Pentile Matrix. All HTC devices (The N1 included) currently use RG:BG Pentile Matrix.
Do a google search on: "RGBG Pentile" and Samsung's site details it.
The SAMOLED display Samsung has made uses a new Pentile Matrix called RGBW:
Do a google search on: "nouvoyance" and it's the first site (sorry for the odd instructions, won't let new users post links )
Using the new RGBW, a white subpixel is introduced on top of the standard RGB stripe. From my reading, this allows the screen to achieve the same resolution to the eye with 33% less subpixels and is a brighter display in the process.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good explanation, but are saying that no you can't dim it to low levels because it makes it look brighter than it is? If so, I don't buy it. I see it being dimmed to a low level. It just doesn't stay there.
Aldiko reader can get the screen even more dim
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
Also since there is less air gap in the new display, it is brighter.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
This is just me speculating, but I'm thinking maybe the brightness setting is universal to android devices, except that it's calibrated to normal lcd. So the same voltage(or however they regulate the display brightness) on an LCD will look brighter on the Super AMOLED. For me, the dim setting on the auto-brightness seems too bright.
One thing I've noticed is I can take the brightness down to its lowest setting and it still seems bright..however on almost every phone I've used its like this.
The weird thing is on the Captivate I can open the browser, men then scroll down to settings and it has a brightness toggle there that takes it lower.
nbohmer said:
One thing I've noticed is I can take the brightness down to its lowest setting and it still seems bright..however on almost every phone I've used its like this.
The weird thing is on the Captivate I can open the browser, men then scroll down to settings and it has a brightness toggle there that takes it lower.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah that does take it down lower than the home screen by a small amount. I put the browser brightness on the lowest setting and the global brightness on the lowest. Both auto brightness and power save are off. When I switch from the browser to the home screen, it brightens up a touch. So, it does go lower, but not all that much though, and it's only for the browser.
pjs2004 said:
Good explanation, but are saying that no you can't dim it to low levels because it makes it look brighter than it is? If so, I don't buy it. I see it being dimmed to a low level. It just doesn't stay there.
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You can totally dim it more. In doing so, it will use even less power than an LCD screen at the same brightness setting.
Asori said:
You can totally dim it more. In doing so, it will use even less power than an LCD screen at the same brightness setting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, that's what I thought was cool about this type of screen, but I still don't know how to to dim it below the the lowest setting in the phone's control panel (which isn't very low). 3rd party apps I've tried don't really work, or they work, but the phone immediately raises it back up. Are you saying you've dimmed it down to where you can barley see the screen, like 5-10 percent? That's what I'm looking for confirmation on. If so, what app did you use?
pjs2004 said:
Yeah, that's what I thought was cool about this type of screen, but I still don't know how to to dim it below the the lowest setting in the phone's control panel (which isn't very low). 3rd party apps I've tried don't really work, or they work, but the phone immediately raises it back up. Are you saying you've dimmed it down to where you can barley see the screen, like 5-10 percent? That's what I'm looking for confirmation on. If so, what app did you use?
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Click to collapse
I have used this app and seems to be pretty good, makes the brightness lower than system brightness.
http://www.androlib.com/android.application.com-curvefish-widgets-brightnesslevel-jDiB.aspx
i use brightness level too but the brightness goes back to the highest level when you plug the phone in and you cant use the presets on the widget anymore
sfernandez said:
I have used this app and seems to be pretty good, makes the brightness lower than system brightness.
http://www.androlib.com/android.application.com-curvefish-widgets-brightnesslevel-jDiB.aspx
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried this app, and while it's a good app, it still doesn't make the screen go super dim. It looks to me like the lowest level (0%) is the same as lowest setting from the control panel. Zero percent should really be totally black.
Screen Filter
Here is your 100% working solution.
It doesn't work with the bright level, it applies a shade/filter to the screen. No matter what app you're using.
Set the bright to the lowest with your default system settings, because if you use a third party that goes below normal, with some apps like explorer, it set it to minimum allowed be system or whatever you set and then you will notice a setp up, shaded but a change.
I'm using it weeks ago and I found it's the best choice to suft the web at night. Also you can turn off softkeys lights
http://www.appbrain.com/app/screen-filter/com.haxor
flash speedmods new kernel.

How can you dim the screen further?

Hey Everyone,
As has been mentioned many times in other threads:
1) The LCD is often the biggest battery drainer
2) The 'minimum' setting of the brightness setting is still needlessly bright.
It certainly can be pushed further down for dim/night/dark settings.
3) Certain apps "dim" the screen but are just changing the color, not the backlight. So while useful they still aren't helping your battery.
Following some tips from a different android phone, I found this file:
/sys/devices/platform_/nov_cabc.0/leds/lcd-backlight/brightness
Which appears to contain the current 'brightness #' of the LCD backlight.
Using the normal Brightness slider, the value changes from 30 - 255, with 255 being the brightest. So this clearly could be reduced further.
Setting 'Screen Filter' to 50% brightness has no effect on the value.
Here's something interesting:
Assume the screen is already set at lowest brightness.
When I use 'Widgetsoid' to set brightness to '1', the screen dims slightly, then brightens back up. The 'brightness' file gets set to 20.
'widgetsoid 20' feels the same as 'min brightness 30'. - I wonder if Android is enforcing minimum backlight?
Anyway, thought that would be interesting to note. I'm going to download some other screen dimmer apps and see what they do.
- Frank
I found this online which is very interesting reading:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/35972886/An-Analysis-of-Power-Consumption-in-a-Smart-Phone
At '30' they said the display consumed 7.8 mW, while at 255 it consumed 414 (!!!)
Various apps coud push the value to 20 - tasker, adjbrightness.
Tasker tries to set it lower but as with widgetsoid, you can see the screen get forced back up to 20.
adjbrightness can "set" it lower than 20, but the entire screen blacks out, even at 19. Remember where the other buttons are so you can restore brightness!
- Frank
Whoa, thanks for the information. That pretty insane but its an apparently in the Market: Screen Filter, saves a helluva lot of battery.
Edit: Nevermind, Frank shut me up LOL.
Sent from my HTC Glacier using XDA App
I read a thread that said that the stock rom just doesn't allow setting it that low.
Ah well
- Frank
ChodTheWacko said:
I read a thread that said that the stock rom just doesn't allow setting it that low.
Ah well
- Frank
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you set it lower in other roms - like cm7?
netter123 said:
Can you set it lower in other roms - like cm7?
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Click to collapse
I've been playing with CM7 which has some nice features for customizing the auto-brightness settings as well as the "dim" value which seems to be the lowest value the screen will go to and what it gets set to when the screen dims before shutting off after a timeout.
For the Dim setting in CM7, the default is 20. The next highest setting in the picker is 18. I believe it goes down to 0 or 1. When set to 18 or lower the screen blanks out completely when dimmed. Depending on how you test this, you may have a problem getting the screen back, so be careful you know where your widget button is on the screen to bring it back... 20 seems to be the lowest value. However, while dim, in a very dark room it could certainly be even dimmer so I don't know why lower values don't work.
I've also found the light detector doesn't seem to detect a continuum of light levels. It seems to be quantized at particular values, so there's a pretty hard limit on how fine you can set the auto brightness levels since the lowest light reading it seems to take is not very sensitive. It can't seem to distinguish between a fully darkened room and a dimly lit room, so setting the lowest value automatically makes the screen too dark to be comfortable in many environments, but then too bright for a really dark room. I don't know if this is an issue with the ROM software or a hardware limitation of the sensor. I've set my lowest auto setting to 40 which seems to work well, then I manually switch it to the dim value (20) if I'm in the dark.

Fluctuating auto-brightness

I have searched near and far and don't see other results. Has anyone had problems with their automatic brightness? On mine, it fluctuates from dim to bright in static light conditions constantly. It makes the feature un-usable, have to set brightness manually.
Have tried turning peek display, attentive display etc on or off. No change.
Seems sensitive, yes. Mine always gets too dim, then, when I angle the phone so the screen is awash in light it brightens right up. Same room, same arm, same position, just tilted a bit. Thanks, I hate it. Defaults to dim instead of brighter - it should default to 65% and go from there.
Android auto brightness has always been a sloppy abortion.
Use manual control, it's far easier on the eyes and mind. You can easily limit brightness to 50% or less so you don't put unnecessary wear on the OLED display

Question Adaptive brightness - do you think it works good?

Hello ,
I observe that, my s22ultra in the same conditions (light intensity) make darker screen than my old note10+.
In my old phone (note 10+), the adaptive brightness works very well for my eyes (maybe excluding reaction speed - but never it wasn't too bright or too dark (in my opinion), never had to change any settings.
S22Ultra always make's screen too dark for me (in all lighting conditions) and i compare works of with my old note10+ and approved my suspicion that s22u makes screen darker than note10+ in the same conditions.
In general, the "jump / scale" of switching from light to dark and vice versa is good, but I would have to move the "threshold / level 0" action to a slightly brighter - if anyone understands what I mean - you can do something about it, someone has an idea ? Can I fix working of this function ?
What do you think about adaptive brightness in S22U?
Are you satisfied with its functioning?
See the differences compared to your old phone (what mobile it was)?
Thank you very much for any suggestions
I have two N10+'s and as far as I'm concerned adaptive brightness never worked right. Maybe better than my S4. I disable and use manual control, easier on the battery, display and retinas. It also varies in spite of not seeing huge changes in lighting conditions when sitting, I find this very distracting.
Best practice to limit display on in direct sunlight to seconds not minutes. Avoid using in direct sunlight whenever possible.
I try to limit brightness to less than 50%, 30-40% is typical. As a result after almost 3 years of heavy usage my original N10+'s display is still perfect with no signs of wear.
If I know I'll need to use the phone in bright conditions I will temporarily enable auto brightness sometimes. Otherwise I find it useless and generally too bright.

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