It’s a tough balancing act between trying to read a too-dark phone screen in broad daylight, and squinting to protect your eyes from what feels like the rays of 40 suns beaming out at you from your screen at night.
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Luckily, there’s a quick fix for every kind of screen brightness issue you encounter. Here are some simple solutions to three of the most common problems.
Problem No. 1: My Screen Brightness Keeps Shifting
The likely culprit is your auto brightness setting–it doesn’t always match your preferences, meaning it can surprise you with a blinding or frustratingly dull screen at inopportune moments. Auto brightness does have useful purposes, but a screen blasting bright, white light all day long will kill your phone battery faster than you can say, “Can I borrow your charger?”
Apple says its iOS devices use an ambient light sensor to automatically adjust brightness levels based on the light conditions in your surroundings. You can see this in action if you keep your eyes on the brightness slider, which will move according to those light conditions. So if it’s bright outside, the slider should move up to create a bright screen, and if you’re in a dark bedroom, the slider should move down to dim it.
Even though auto brightness is on by default, it’s pretty easy to switch it off or reset it—and your eyes will thank you.
📲 On iOS: Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Turn off auto-brightness. Then, adjust the brightness bar until you’ve reached your desired level of brightness. You can switch it back on to reset the auto-brightness settings, if desired.
Most Android phones have a similar auto brightness feature. Here’s how Samsung says you can turn it off.
📲 On Android: Settings > Display > Tap the slider next to Adaptive brightness and switch it to the off position. Then, adjust the brightness bar until you’ve reached your desired level of brightness.
Problem No. 2: My Screen Is Constantly Too Dark
Assuming your display isn’t damaged, the most common culprit for a consistently darkened screen is power-saving mode. When your battery is close to being drained, your smartphone can turn off a number of background operations and tweak the display to use less power.
But if you need to increase the brightness, it’s simple to switch that setting off.
📲 On iOS:Settings > Battery > Toggle the slider for Low Power Mode to the off position. Or, go to Settings > Control Center > Customize Controls. Add Low Power Mode to your Control Center for easy on/off access.
📲 On Android:Settings > Battery and device care > Battery > Toggle the switch off next to Power saving mode.
Problem No. 3: My Phone Screen Looks Really Orange
Have you been playing around in your phone settings, haphazardly changing things to see what happens? If so, you’ve probably switched on Night Shift, which isn’t a default setting.
Night Shift is akin to wrapping your iPhone screen in a pair of blue light-blocking glasses. By making the screen slightly yellow-orange, you can supposedly save your eyes from undue strain caused by blue light. Because orange is opposite of blue on the color wheel, orange light can counteract blue light.
The jury is still out on the scientific merits of blue-light blockers, so take this with a grain of salt. And in the meantime, if you’re watching Netflix after dark and can’t stand that everyone looks like an Oompa Loompa, take these steps.
📲 On iOS:Open Control Center (swipe down from the top right-hand side of the display) > Long hold the Brightness slider > Tap the Night Shift icon to turn it on or off.
📲 On Android: Settings > Display > Night Light. Toggle to the off position.
Rachel Z. Arndt also contributed to this guide.
Courtney Linder
Deputy Editor
Before joining Pop Mech, Courtney was the technology reporter at her hometown newspaper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. She is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, where she studied English and economics. Her favorite topics include, but are not limited to: the giant squid, punk rock, and robotics. She lives in the Philly suburbs with her partner, her black cat, and towers upon towers of books.
