Use Dark Mode to Save Phone Battery Power
I’m a big fan of night or dark mode and have written a lot about different apps and extensions that can be used to dim the screen. Any dark mode enthusiast will tell you how using your device with a dark background instead of white will save your eyes as well as your device’s battery. Google went a step further this week and talked about how much battery power you save through darkness.
During the Android Developers Summit this week, Google released several charts showing the difference between white and black screen display.
In terms of power, maximum white uses about six times more power than maximum black on your device using a 2016 Pixel. Six times. Let it sink.
You can check out all the finer details (which I definitely recommend) on SlashGear along with some diagrams of how choosing Night Mode affects your device’s power consumption.
During the developer conference, Google discussed how native apps can be battery-draining due to their design, and mentioned plans to fix this issue in future releases.
For now, you can enable Night Mode on your Android device via the Settings menu.
To get there, go to Settings and then Display. In the next menu, you’re looking for something called Night Mode or Reading Mode, when you find it, turn it on. This feature is not available on all devices, so if you run into problems, you can also enable dark mode using the Twilight app from the Google Play store.
In Android Pie, you can turn on dark mode by going to Settings, then Display, then selecting Advanced, then Device Theme and then Dark.
IPhone users can enable something like dark mode with the Smart Invert feature. Unlike true dark mode, this feature works great with Apple apps, but it can have some issues with third parties, meaning your mileage may vary depending on the apps you frequently use on your phone.
To give it a try, go to your device’s settings menu, then select General and then Accessibility. From there, select Display Accommodations and Invert Colors, and then Smart Invert.