How to Change Your Phone Brightness Settings

Edited 3 weeks ago by ExtremeHow Editorial Team

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In today's world, smartphones have become an essential part of our daily lives. They help us stay connected, entertained, and access information. An important aspect of using a smartphone is ensuring that the screen brightness is set to a comfortable level. Adjusting your phone's screen brightness can help save battery life, reduce eye strain, and ensure readability in different lighting conditions. In this guide, we'll explain step-by-step how to adjust brightness settings on different types of smartphones.

Why adjusting brightness is important

Adjusting your phone's brightness is important for several reasons. Here are some of them:

• Battery life: Keeping your phone's brightness high can drain the battery faster. Lowering the brightness can help extend battery life, allowing you to use your phone longer without needing to recharge.
• Eye strain: Bright screens can cause eye strain, especially in low light. Adjusting the screen brightness to a comfortable level can reduce eye fatigue and make using the phone more comfortable.
• Readability: In different lighting conditions, the screen brightness needs to be adjusted for optimal readability. For example, you may need to increase the brightness when using your phone in bright sunlight, and decrease it when using it in a dark room.

Adjusting brightness on different operating systems

The process for adjusting brightness settings may vary depending on your smartphone's operating system. In this section, we'll explain how to change brightness settings on Android, iOS, and Windows phones.

Adjusting brightness on an Android phone

Android is one of the most widely used mobile operating systems. Here's how you can adjust brightness settings on an Android phone:

1. Open Settings: Swipe down from the top of the screen to open the Notification panel, and then tap the gear icon to access the Settings menu.
2. Display: In the Settings menu, look for the “Display” or “Display & Brightness” option and tap it.
3. Adjust brightness: You'll see a brightness slider. Move the slider to the left to decrease the brightness or to the right to increase it. Some Android phones also have an "auto-brightness" or "adaptive brightness" feature that automatically adjusts brightness based on lighting conditions. You can turn this feature on or off as needed.

Example code for Android developers

If you are an Android developer and want to programmatically adjust brightness settings in your app, you can use the following code example:

import android.provider.Settings;
import android.content.ContentResolver;
import android.content.Context;
import android.view.WindowManager;

public class BrightnessUtil {
    public static void setBrightness(Context context, int brightness) {
        ContentResolver cResolver = context.getContentResolver();
        WindowManager.LayoutParams layoutParams = ((Activity) context).getWindow().getAttributes();
        Settings.System.putInt(cResolver, Settings.System.SCREEN_BRIGHTNESS, brightness);
        layoutParams.screenBrightness = brightness / 255.0f;
        ((Activity) context).getWindow().setAttributes(layoutParams);
    }

    public static int getBrightness(Context context) {
        ContentResolver cResolver = context.getContentResolver();
        int brightness = Settings.System.getInt(cResolver, Settings.System.SCREEN_BRIGHTNESS, 0);
        return brightness;
    }
}

Adjust brightness on an iOS (iPhone) phone

If you have an iPhone, the steps for adjusting brightness settings are slightly different from Android phones. Here's how you can change brightness on an iPhone:

1. Open Control Center: Swipe down from the upper-right corner of the screen (iPhone X and later) or swipe up from the bottom of the screen (iPhone 8 and earlier) to open Control Center.
2. Adjust brightness: In Control Center, you'll see a brightness slider. Drag the slider up to increase the brightness or down to decrease it.
3. Settings app: Alternatively, you can open the "Settings" app, tap "Display and Brightness," and then adjust the brightness slider.
4. True Tone and Night Shift: iPhones also have "True Tone" and "Night Shift" features that can automatically adjust the color and brightness of the screen based on the environment. You can turn these features on or off in the "Display and Brightness" settings.

Example code for iOS developers

For iOS developers, here is a Swift code example to programmatically adjust the screen brightness:

import UIKit

class BrightnessUtil {
    static func setBrightness(brightness: CGFloat) {
        UIScreen.main.brightness = brightness
    }

    static func getBrightness() -> CGFloat {
        return UIScreen.main.brightness
    }
}

Adjusting brightness on Windows Phone

Although Windows phones are not as common as Android and iOS devices, you can adjust the brightness settings on a Windows phone as follows:

1. Open Settings: Swipe down from the top of the screen to open Action Center, and then tap the gear icon to access the Settings menu.
2. Display settings: In the Settings menu, look for "System" and then tap "Display."
3. Adjust brightness: You will see a brightness slider. Move the slider to the left to decrease the brightness or to the right to increase it. Windows Phone also offers an "Automatically adjust" option that can adjust the brightness based on lighting conditions. You can turn this option on or off as needed.

Tips for optimizing brightness settings

Here are some tips to help you optimize your phone's brightness settings for the best experience:

• Use Auto-Brightness: Enabling the Auto-Brightness feature can help your phone automatically adjust screen brightness based on the surrounding lighting conditions, saving battery life as well as providing a comfortable viewing experience.
• Adjust manually when needed: Even if you use auto-brightness, there may be situations where you need to adjust the brightness manually. For example, in extremely bright or dark environments, you may need to precisely adjust the brightness setting for optimal visibility.
• Reduce screen time: Reducing the time you spend looking at your phone screen can help reduce eye strain and save battery life. Take regular breaks and use features like "Screen Time" (iOS) or "Digital Wellbeing" (Android) to monitor and limit your usage.
• Use a blue light filter: Many smartphones offer blue light filtering features such as "Night Shift" (iOS) or "Night Mode" (Android). These features reduce the amount of blue light emitted by the screen, which can help reduce eye strain and improve sleep quality.

Common problems and troubleshooting

If you run into problems adjusting your phone's brightness settings, here are some common problems and their solutions:

• Brightness slider not responding: If the brightness slider is not responding, try restarting your phone. This can often resolve temporary software glitches. If the problem persists, check for software updates and install them if available.
• Auto-brightness not working: If the auto-brightness feature is not working as expected, try turning it off and on again. Make sure the ambient light sensor on your phone is not covered or obstructed. If the problem persists, it may be a hardware issue, and you should contact customer support.
• Screen too dim/bright: If your screen is consistently too dim or bright even after adjusting the settings, there may be a problem with the display hardware. In this case, you may need to contact the manufacturer or repair service for assistance.

Conclusion

Adjusting the brightness settings on your smartphone is a simple but important task that can improve your overall user experience. Whether you're using an Android, iOS or Windows phone, the steps to change brightness settings are straightforward. By optimizing your screen's brightness, you can save battery life, reduce eye strain and ensure readability in different lighting conditions. Remember to take advantage of features like auto-brightness and blue light filter to further improve your comfort and device performance.

We hope this guide has helped you understand how to change your phone's brightness settings. If you have further questions or need assistance, please refer to your phone's user manual or contact customer support for more information.

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