Database Develop

[Q] Light Sensor Not Working?

Someone correct me if I am wrong but shouldn't enabling the option of "Automatic brightness adjustment" under the brightness menu in sounds and display enable the light sensor to adjust the brightness of the LCD based on ambient lighting? I notice no difference with my brightness and it is always one static level. I've tried putting it up to different lights, taking it outside, etc and it doesn't automatically adjust. I couldn't find anything in a search for this... does anyone else have this problem?

I have this problem as well. What firmware are you running and do you have any mods or sre or anything?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

I'm just running stock firmware rooted, I'm going to flash to some kind of rom eventually but just haven't had the time
Are there any roms that this option is confirmed working?

Mine is stock and seems to work just fine. It changes brightness as I move through the office between dark reading rooms and bright conference rooms.
I'm not a big fan of that feature in any of my phones. I prefer to have a constant bright screen, but I haven't bothered turning it off yet for some reason.

Weird how mine doesn't work.. I just waste battery life while I am in the office with the phone and wish it would auto adjust. I'm trying the beautiful brightness widget but I find it tedious to have to micro manage my brightness before going outside

Have you installed any type of screen protector that requires the use of water to apply? I'm wondering if that's what happened to mine.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

Auto brightness doesn't seem to be working too well in JH7 for me. Keeps the brightness all the way down in my lit up room. Worked best on the original JF6.

I have seen my screen change brightness a few times with the automatic setting, but I generally keep it on the lowest brightness to save battery. I'm running the stock firmware.
My biggest problem with the auto brightness is that the dynamic range isn't wide enough. Even in direct sunlight, it doesn't bump up to maximum brightness. The high should be higher, and the low should be loooower.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

No screen protector, just a Body Guards case
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

I noticed the same...no change in brightness when "auto" is selected. From day 1. I keep my brightness pretty low to save battery life, so it wasn't a deal breaker. Would be nice if it worked though.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

automatic brightness behaviour

Hi!
The automatic brightness on my Xperia Z behaves weird (altough I think it is a bug)
This is what happens:
I have the phone set to "adapt to light conditions" (automatic brightness)
Now when I slide the brightness slider, the brightness changes. But, depending on the setting of the slider, it will not go to full brightness or darkest on its own. When I turn off "adapt to light conditions", it becomes brighter or darker, depending on slider position. But it will never go to 100% on it's own, not even directly under a lamp. It also becomes a little brighter when I turn off automatic brightness and have the slider set to 100%.
Expected behaviour:
I turn on automatic brightness, and put the slider in a, let's say, 60% position. The phone goes to 2% brightness in a pitch dark room (when I read in bed) and switches to 100% when I'm outside in the bright sun. When it does not sense extreme conditions (e.g. sensor reading <20% ambient brightness or >80% respectively; then gradiently going to darkest or brightest gradiently, of course), it aims for the +-60% brightness I specified with the slider.
Conclusion: The slider is an overall threshold for screen brightness and it does not adjust in a 2-100% brightness range, but around maybe +-30% or so around the position the slider is set at. This sucks!
This seems to clearly be a bug, and imho this contributed to the somewhat "not so impressed with the screen" reviews I read before I bought it. Because the screen is really very good if it is set to the correct brightness.
Thanks for the answers!
PS: When I enter the service menu with *#*#7378423#*#* and check the ambient light sensor, it gives me values between 0 and 1000 - so it does definitely work correctly. Build number is 10.1.A.1.350 - I know there is a newer one, but my phone is carrier branded (3 Austria, for that matter) and hasn't been updated yet, unfortunately. Can someone confirm that is is fixed in .434?
x-post from talk.sonymobile.com

I dont think this is a bug. It's been like that on the t, tx, v since they were launched.

LitoNi said:
I dont think this is a bug. It's been like that on the t, tx, v since they were launched.
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Really? This is almost a deal breaker for me :/ that is a really stupid behaviour, what do I need automatic brightness for if I have to change it myself anyway? I really don't want to care about this miniscule thing on a 600€ device - I expect it to adapt to all conditions.
I didn't want to root it or put a custom rom on it - Sony did a good job with the software as it is, except the automatic brightness.

Sony phone has the best auto brightness
You can find on any phone.
You can say Samsung's auto brightness sucks but not Sony
In auto mode you have the choice to set the minimum brightness level you want and the level will go up depends on the lighting situation and sensor reading.
Yes it has some threshold limitations but it's very sufficient.
Sent from my C6602 using xda premium

gm007 said:
Sony phone has the best auto brightness
You can find on any phone.
You can say Samsung's auto brightness sucks but not Sony
In auto mode you have the choice to set the minimum brightness level you want and the level will go up depends on the lighting situation and sensor reading.
Yes it has some threshold limitations but it's very sufficient.
Sent from my C6602 using xda premium
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Sorry, but "best auto brightness" is not what would've come to my mind thinking about the xz and I would never buy a Samsung plastic brick
I had a Nokia N9 previously (that I miss dearly, but the internal 3G antenna was broken so I had to replace it... still by far the best phone I ever owned) and it had exactly the auto brightness behaviour I expected - when I read in the dark, it when down to the lowest possible setting. And when I was in bright sunlight, it went to full brightness wihtout a delay or hassle. I could read it perfectly under any condition and never thought about the settings. The slider only indicated a preferred standard brightness - always had it at 60% and it was perfect.
I really don't understand why other manufacturers wouldn't do it exactly the same way? As I said before, why even have an auto brightness setting if I have to go to settings to adjust it anyway?!?! If I put the slider on 60% and auto brightness on, it burns my eyes in the dark and I can't read it in bright sunlight - I even have to adjust it when the sun shines through my windows at work?!?! WTF Sony?

We are talking android here
I don't know if you had the chance to use gingerbread,froyo....
Maybe android has some limitations.
Sent from my C6602 using xda premium

gm007 said:
We are talking android here
I don't know if you had the chance to use gingerbread,froyo....
Maybe android has some limitations.
Sent from my C6602 using xda premium
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iirc it didn't annoy me (and boy am I picky about details like that! ) on the HTC Magic (up to the last CM that supported it) and the Nexus S I had before the N9... anyway, seems I have to get a decent brightness toggle widget :/ (maybe you can point one out?)
but thanks for your replies!

just for the record and anyone who may find this thread in the future:
I just installed "Auto Brightness" and it seems to work well and has tons of settings. Would have preferred a more native solution... I hope this doesn't drain the battery.
dr. g

Screen brightness bug?

I just got my XZ1 Today and straight away upgraded to 4.3.
I am having problems with the brightness, I have turned the 'adapt to lighting' setting off, but each time i go to my home screen my screen brightness goes down, it also does the same when I go to the last page of the app draw. This also occurs when starting games, the brightness will go down in the loading screen and then go normal when the game starts.
Is this a bug/issue, or is this meant to happen? If its the former, is there a fix
Sorry if this sounds newbie
Thanks,
Alex
Sent from my C6903 using xda app-developers app

I don´t think that this is normal !!! Maybe you should do a factory reset: settings ----> Backup&Reset ----> Factory data reset Before doing this you should save your data, e.g with pcc (PC Companion) Hupfully I could help you
PS: Next time questions please in the Q&A section please

I think it's normal, this option is called something like "Optimized Backlight". It could be turned off in one of the earlier firmwares, but that caused random reboots so Sony decided to make it an always-on option and removed the entry from the menu.
Optimized Backlight adapts the brightness according to the displayed content, the more crowded and vivid the picture is the brighter the backlight gets.

OfficerTux said:
I think it's normal, this option is called something like "Optimized Backlight". It could be turned off in one of the earlier firmwares, but that caused random reboots so Sony decided to make it an always-on option and removed the entry from the menu.
Optimized Backlight adapts the brightness according to the displayed content, the more crowded and vivid the picture is the brighter the backlight gets.
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I forgot about this Option, but in my case I can not notice any brightness differences in many situations

I did not like the stock brightness controller so I have installed Lux Auto Brightness from google play and its working perfectly

MeMo Pad ME572c fluctuating brightness

Just picked up an ME572c and I'm very impressed for the price. However I have noticed the screen brightness levels keep fluctuating as if the light sensor is constantly detecting different light levels.
Has anyone else experienced this?

madgibbon said:
Just picked up an ME572c and I'm very impressed for the price. However I have noticed the screen brightness levels keep fluctuating as if the light sensor is constantly detecting different light levels.
Has anyone else experienced this?
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Hi,
i notice this too, but that can be related to the power saving mode. Plz turn it off and check the settings in detail. Maybe that helps.
Further inside the developer options there is another option to configure the auto brightness.
You can change the behaviour from dynamic to immediately or slow mode and active an onscreen lux, gain and brightness value display.
Btw i am not satisfied with the auto control, as for my taste the brightness is still too low in a less lighted room. Sensor is reporting 0 lux already with a brightness of 14 which would be ok for a really dark room & night but not at daytime.
What is your experience?

I tried playing with power saving mode and the auto brightness controls in developer options. While I could reduce the fluctuations, I could eliminate them completely. Unfortunately I found it too distracting and returned the device earlier today. It's a shame as everything else was quite impressive for the money.

I also found the fluctuations annoying, my solution was to turn the auto-brightness off. Honestly I dislike auto-brightness on any device, it was also one of the first things I turned off on my laptop.

I am using Lux app now and raised minimum brightness at 0 lux. Thats ok for me now.

tycoo said:
Hi,
i notice this too, but that can be related to the power saving mode. Plz turn it off and check the settings in detail. Maybe that helps.
Further inside the developer options there is another option to configure the auto brightness.
You can change the behaviour from dynamic to immediately or slow mode and active an onscreen lux, gain and brightness value display.
Btw i am not satisfied with the auto control, as for my taste the brightness is still too low in a less lighted room. Sensor is reporting 0 lux already with a brightness of 14 which would be ok for a really dark room & night but not at daytime.
What is your experience?
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Just bumping this to confirm this works and so that others can see. I used Developer options as well (before I found this post) and noticed the instant setting works best.

One more setting to also double check... Make sure that in developer options under auto brightness that you disable allow change gain...
Even with everything disabled it appears as if something still is changing the display. I particularly see it with something like a reddit browser when I'm viewing pictures. You click the pic, it loads and displays and then 1-2 seconds later the display adjusts based upon what is being displayed. Depending upon the picture it can be pretty annoying. I may have to root and start poking around to find out what is causing this.

with the lollipop update this issue is fixed for me.

Is lollipop really solve the problem?
muiriddin said:
with the lollipop update this issue is fixed for me.
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Hello!
Im on lollipop, but the problem you had, still occur at me.
Did you noticed this problem, since you on lollipop?
I have the same problem. When i read, or browsing, the brightness changes in 2-3 steps.

Brightness, no more Auto

I haven't used Lollipop at all yet, just picked up the N6 yesterday. Autobrightness is gone, now they want you to slide around the bar to however you want it with adaptive brightness? now how does this work? lets say I set it to full brightness and enable adaptive, itll use anywhere from 0-100%? is the bar just to cap it somewhere so it doesn't exceed? if so what do you have yours set to? Whats a good way to do this all and avoid image burn, ha. which I Heard is kinda a big deal

imablackhat said:
I haven't used Lollipop at all yet, just picked up the N6 yesterday. Autobrightness is gone, now they want you to slide around the bar to however you want it with adaptive brightness? now how does this work? lets say I set it to full brightness and enable adaptive, itll use anywhere from 0-100%? is the bar just to cap it somewhere so it doesn't exceed? if so what do you have yours set to? Whats a good way to do this all and avoid image burn, ha. which I Heard is kinda a big deal
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That's exactly how adaptive brightness works. I have my slider set around 25-30%. I change it if I need more outdoors.

imablackhat said:
I haven't used Lollipop at all yet, just picked up the N6 yesterday. Autobrightness is gone, now they want you to slide around the bar to however you want it with adaptive brightness? now how does this work? lets say I set it to full brightness and enable adaptive, itll use anywhere from 0-100%? is the bar just to cap it somewhere so it doesn't exceed? if so what do you have yours set to? Whats a good way to do this all and avoid image burn, ha. which I Heard is kinda a big deal
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This is how I understand it and how I believe it works.
With adaptive brightness OFF, you have your brightness slider in the pulldown that goes from ~5% to 100%. This slider set value will remain until you manually change it. Easy enough.
With adaptive brightness ON, you have that same slider in the pulldown that goes from 0% to 100%. Your brightness will change automagically dependent upon ambient light. Look at it as "minimum automated brightness level"
Some tips. Your screen can get darker with adaptive ON and slider all the way down than with adaptive OFF and slider all the way down. Unless in very bright ambient light, your screen can get brighter with adaptive OFF and slider all the way up. Hence, in full sunlight, the peak brightness of the screen is the same with adaptive either ON or OFF and slider all the way up.
I admit its confusing and it frustrated me at first, but I think its excellent and works much better than auto brightness on any other phone or older android OS I've ever used.
As far as burn in (or the more often occurring image retention), well its an amoled, it's susceptible. Just be smart about it and don't display the same static image/s for hours on end.

jbdan said:
Look at it as "minimum automated brightness level"
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I used to think that but after testing, it seems more complicated than that.. It also looks like to may apply a "range" using the slider, but its more complicated than that too.
The closest thing I can think of is it increases the sensitivity or effectiveness of the adaptive brightness.
Have a look at our tests here, maybe you can do some testing and develop our initial findings.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s3/general/thread-t1889453/post60222532

I'd love to set it to an exact percentage cuz I'm ocd that's why I hate the slider. How do I really know it's at 25%
Sent from my Nexus 6 using XDA Free mobile app

imablackhat said:
I'd love to set it to an exact percentage cuz I'm ocd that's why I hate the slider. How do I really know it's at 25%
Sent from my Nexus 6 using XDA Free mobile app
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Yeah but once you know 25% is 63.75 on the brightness scale and brightness can only register full numbers, you're day is blown anyway.

rootSU said:
I used to think that but after testing, it seems more complicated than that.. It also looks like to may apply a "range" using the slider, but its more complicated than that too.
The closest thing I can think of is it increases the sensitivity or effectiveness of the adaptive brightness.
Have a look at our tests here, maybe you can do some testing and develop our initial findings.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s3/general/thread-t1889453/post60222532
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I think you nailed it better than I did in my explanation with your statement "increases the sensitivity or effectiveness of the adaptive brightness".
My explanation was as simple as I could write it. I especially like the word "range". Thanks for the link I'll check it out :thumbup:

So is it true if its set half way if the sun hits it that it can use 100%. What do you guys have it set to? I liked the auto brightness ?
Sent from my Nexus 6 using XDA Free mobile app

imablackhat said:
So is it true if its set half way if the sun hits it that it can use 100%. What do you guys have it set to? I liked the auto brightness ?
Sent from my Nexus 6 using XDA Free mobile app
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Yes if the sun, or even very bright ambient light hits the sensor, the display will go to 100% full brightness with adaptive ON. At least it does with mine (to my aging eyes). I leave mine at about 50% adaptive ON. I like it too

imablackhat said:
So is it true if its set half way if the sun hits it that it can use 100%. What do you guys have it set to? I liked the auto brightness ?
Sent from my Nexus 6 using XDA Free mobile app
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I use manual.brightness.

For everyone testing display settings have a look at 'Pixel battery saver' in the play store.
The app switches patterns of pixels off and saves energy.
Note.
Because this kind of apps are switching pixels off, it is possible that ticking buttons will not work.
But there is an option to turn it off, and several levels of settings.