What if our electronic devices’ screens did not have the “Auto Brightness” feature? You have probably experienced such a situation before; remember when you went out in the daylight and could not see anything on your device screen, as if it were black. That’s because you did not have the Auto Brightness setting activated! Surely, you now realize the importance of the Auto Brightness feature, despite its simplicity, which makes our current smartphones and laptops very intelligent.
Generally, Auto Brightness is a common feature on smartphones regardless of their operating system, which you may be familiar with. Thanks to this feature, you no longer need to worry about adjusting the brightness regularly every time you move from a dark place to a very bright one. Instead, you will notice the change in ambient lighting, no matter how simple, and thus the screen brightness automatically adjusts based on the surrounding conditions, which is what made it very smart.
How Auto Brightness Works
So, how do our smart devices know the light levels around us? There are extremely small tools hidden within our devices called sensors, which make our lives much simpler! In fact, your phone and laptop have dozens of these sensors inside. For example, they have motion sensors, proximity sensors, accelerometers, ambient light sensors, and more. However, the latter is the hidden hero behind Auto Brightness!
As we know, smartphones and laptops mostly have LCD or OLED screens. Although they work differently, the end result is illuminating your eyes through the screen. Therefore, because the light may be harsh in some dark ambient conditions, or nonexistent to the point of visibility loss on the screen in very bright lighting conditions, these tools make adjustments to the brightness. They use the so-called ambient light sensor.
Usually located on the top part of the speaker, this is what you notice when your phone screen goes off as soon as you place it on your ear during a call. The concept used is quite similar to the concept of LDR (Light Dependent Resistor). The current flowing through the resistor depends on the intensity of the light falling on it, which reflects the screen’s brightness level.
On the other hand, the ambient light sensor is a little more complex sensor that is connected using suitable software. Simply put, the light sensor measures the external brightness to gauge the amount of ambient light present. Based on different environments, the light sensors detect changes in external lighting to send the information to the screen, which automatically adjusts its brightness.
Important: How to Identify and Test the Sensors in Your Phone
The Purpose of Auto Brightness Feature
When you are in a dark environment and want the screen to be dim to avoid straining your eyes, or when the sunlight is bright, and you want your screen brightness to come to life, you want to adjust the brightness to suit the surrounding lighting. When you do this several times a day, it becomes very tedious and exhausting.
This is where the main purpose of this feature begins to show! Simply put, the sensor can detect when you are outside in direct sunlight and when you are lying in bed with the lights off around you. Therefore, it adjusts the screen brightness accordingly. This feature, in addition to smart brightness, provides better visual effects in different environments to protect your eyes while also saving energy!
It is worth mentioning that each setting has its own brightness range depending on the external lighting. This technology makes your device smarter and easier to use. For example, the brightness under direct sunlight is approximately 100%, while under cloudy skies, it is around 70%, in an office or room it is about 50%, and in dark bedroom conditions, it is less than 25%, and so on.
You Might Be Interested: Reducing Phone Screen Brightness Below the Minimum without Apps
Overall, with the rapid advancement of technology these days, Auto Brightness has not stopped there; it has evolved alongside the progress of electronics in all forms. Artificial intelligence is now being used even in small tools, and the concept of “Adaptive Brightness” has emerged, which relies on artificial intelligence alongside the light sensor, which understands how brightness changes and adjusts it on your behalf; this feature has appeared significantly on Android devices.
As for Apple devices, the evolution has been through providing the “True Tone” feature on some of its devices, which uses a greater number of sensors including color temperature sensors to adjust brightness in addition to color temperature to reflect your surrounding environment.
In conclusion, it is not a secret or something new that phones and smart devices are very intelligent. But we need to delve deeper into the intelligence of these devices that constantly improve our experience and understand the workings of their technologies, so that we are aware of all the details and not let them be smarter than us as consumers. Isn’t that right!
