Smartphone brightness mystery

tuatara

tuatara

pro-water
Premium Member
Joined
Jan 22, 2012
Messages
1,267
Reaction score
0
I had a weird experience with my phone. It's a samsung galaxy II, which I use mostly for texting and figuring out where I am if I get lost on the road.

I was sitting at home, I forget doing exactly what, probably deleting old texts, something like that, and I don't know what happened. Maybe I hit a control somehow and didn't realize it, but the screen got way brighter. I thought oh crap, this is going to kill my battery. So I went into settings and put the brightness on my lowest setting, made sure power saving mode was on, made sure GPS (etc) were off when not in use, everything I could find. But still the screen looks brighter than it did before. And my battery seems to be draining way faster.

Any ideas on what I might have missed?
 
Does it have some kind of sensor (daylight/nighttime) that is misreading your ambient lighting?
 
Reba said:
Does it have some kind of sensor (daylight/nighttime) that is misreading your ambient lighting?
Click to expand...

Not that I know of. Is there a way to find out?

Actually though, when it happened, since I was just sitting here in my bedroom and there was no change in the room's lighting, but the phone just seemed to shift brightness mode somehow, that suggests to me that it wasn't a response to the lighting, but that a setting somewhere got changed in general.

Let me know if you see a problem with my thinking on that:0
 
amylynne said:
Not that I know of. Is there a way to find out?

Actually though, when it happened, since I was just sitting here in my bedroom and there was no change in the room's lighting, but the phone just seemed to shift brightness mode somehow, that suggests to me that it wasn't a response to the lighting, but that a setting somewhere got changed in general.

Let me know if you see a problem with my thinking on that:0
Click to expand...
Maybe your thumb covered up the sensor. :giggle:

Just kidding. I don't have that kind of phone, so I don't know the settings options. I'm sure someone with that model will join in eventually.

I know my MacBookPro has an ambient light sensor setting that I can override manually when I want more brightness.
 
I use an Android! 2 thoughts: Did you check the Display Power Saver on your brightness settings tab? Or did you activate your Smart Actions app (sleep mode, timing activation,, etc.)? Also glance at your notifications bar and tasking list for any apps controlling this setting.
 
femme Fatale said:
I use an Android! 2 thoughts: Did you check the Display Power Saver on your brightness settings tab? Or did you activate your Smart Actions app (sleep mode, timing activation,, etc.)? Also glance at your notifications bar and tasking list for any apps controlling this setting.
Click to expand...

Maybe our systems are set up differently. I don't have a tab for brightness settings with a display power saver option. I just have an app for settings, where I can choose "display" and adjust brightness (straight percentage, I have it set at the minimum choice of 10%).

I also have something called power saving mode, which I have on, and it has settings like "turn off wi-fi" etc.

I don't see anything on my phone called smart actions app. I'll watch my notifications as they come in, but I'm not sure if I can use them. They're generally associated with the original carrier (I bought the phone from T-mobile) but I had it unlocked and am curretnly buying my service from go smart. Big savings but I don't think I can access alot of that stuff since I no longer have an account with T-mobile. Not 100% sure, but that's how it seems when I've tried to click on any of that stuff.

Anyway, I did the unlock and switched carriers before starting to make use of the phone, and it was going ok for a good while before this happened, so I don't think the problem has to do with that.
 
slide the window from bottom to top or top to bottom and there will be a brightness setting there
 
Jiro said:
slide the window from bottom to top or top to bottom and there will be a brightness setting there
Click to expand...

I don't see one. I get settings for wi-fi, blue tooth, gps, silent mode, and auto-rotation.

Thanks for the tour of my phone though!
 
Do you want it to stay dim all the time? Then turn off AUTO.
 
Bottesini said:
Under "Settings" "Display"
Click to expand...

Under Settings/Display, the only thing that says Auto is Auto-rotate screen (switching orientation automatically when rotating phone).

Is this what you mean?
 
amylynne said:
Under Settings/Display, the only thing that says Auto is Auto-rotate screen (switching orientation automatically when rotating phone).

Is this what you mean?
Click to expand...
Settings > Display > Brightness > then you can de-select "Automatic Brightness".
 
VamPyroX said:
There should be a brightness setting from sliding down the top display bar. The bar with the time, battery, signal, & notifications.
Click to expand...

No, Jiro tried to help me with that, but on my phone when I slide down the top display bar, I only have Wi-Fi, Blue Tooth, GPS, silent mode, and auto-rotation.

When I go to settings/display, I do have a brightness setting, but that was the first thing I did: I put that on the lowest setting (10%) which helped, but it's still brighter than it was before that weird increase.

Once in a while I'll see a flicker of that dimmer screen, either right before it responds to my powering it off or right after powering it on (I'm not sure which, maybe both, it happens really fast) but generally it's brighter.
 
amylynne said:
No, Jiro tried to help me with that, but on my phone when I slide down the top display bar, I only have Wi-Fi, Blue Tooth, GPS, silent mode, and auto-rotation.

When I go to settings/display, I do have a brightness setting, but that was the first thing I did: I put that on the lowest setting (10%) which helped, but it's still brighter than it was before that weird increase.

Once in a while I'll see a flicker of that dimmer screen, either right before it responds to my powering it off or right after powering it on (I'm not sure which, maybe both, it happens really fast) but generally it's brighter.
Click to expand...
The setup varies on the phone.

Yes, they have more than one Samsung Galaxy S2... depending on where the phone provider is.

It also depends on the user.
 
Back
Top