We've been saying this for years. My Windows Mobile phone ran for days with it's flat black UI on an OLED screen. And Google had a great UI design that was mostly black/dark pixels in Holo, which still looks better today than Material.
In the world where Google claims energy efficiency is a key goal of theirs, their white UIs should be thrown out as even an option, as the waste of energy powering big fields of white light on billions of devices being charged in billions of homes is just wasting electricity on a massive scale.
Sure it does, but that's neither the default scheme that Google has pushed, nor one it even offers on most of it's apps. (Similarly, Holo had a light theme. The difference is that dark was the default look of it.)
The Pixel 3 XL has a battery capacity of ~3400 mAh. At 4V, that's ~50 kJ of stored energy. A 100W light bulb consumes that in 500s -- 8 minutes.
Does an extra-bright screen unnecessarily consume power? Most likely. However, one can probably find much-greater efficiency gains by being careful to turn out the lights before leaving home, moving the thermostat closer to outdoor temperatures, or by being careful with hot-water usage.
1. The vast majority of devices are LCD, which does not use less power when displaying dark images. In fact, it might increase power consumption slightly. Not only are all discount devices LCD due to lower price, but OLED (as a stop-gap technology akin to plasma) has many shortcomings that lead to even premium devices not including it.
2. Average power consumption of an OLED is significantly higher than that of an LCD, due to poor efficiency of the OLED technology itself compared to standard LED backlighting of LCD's, so OLED devices do not have a power advantage.
Thus, claiming that dark mode would make a difference on global power consumption is false, as it only applies to a relatively niche technology, and suggesting that the technology should be adopted to allow for this saving mechanism would be counter-productive as the technology is less efficient for average workloads.
Your windows phone ran for days due to low screen/wake time (lacking apps, perhaps), not because of dark mode.
Related and life changing, the Dark Reader extension that enables dark mode for every web site, including PDF's, with adjustable contrast. Almost every site looks better with this on. https://darkreader.org/
Make sure to check out the More tab and change the filter type on sites that it doesn't work in Dynamic mode for.
I like dark mode, mainly as an eye-saver when reading at night. Of course, most websites are blinding white, including this one.
However, in the daytime I would definitely prefer to use light mode, with a brighter screen. So over the course of a day I might have 80% of my usage in light mode and 20% in dark mode.
According to the stats in this article, you save more battery just setting your brightness to 50% than using a dark theme. More than a 60% reduction in power usage for the screen.
I've always wanted to love dark background + white text themes; for the longest time I thought it was worth it because it was cool. About a year ago I switched back to light themes, and later found out that there's a reason why I had a more difficult time reading with dark themes: I have an astigmatism.
"People with astigmatism (approximately 50% of the population) find it harder to read white text on black than black text on white. Part of this has to do with light levels: with a bright display (white background) the iris closes a bit more, decreasing the effect of the "deformed" lens; with a dark display (black background) the iris opens to receive more light and the deformation of the lens creates a much fuzzier focus at the eye." - Jason Harrison – Post Doctoral Fellow, Imager Lab Manager – Sensory Perception and Interaction Research Group, University of British Columbia
I also have mild astigmatism, but I find I prefer dark themes nonetheless - I think it is legitimately a little harder to read, because I just tabbed over to Discord to check and realized I was using a larger font size than I'd usually use in other applications, and that the text definitely was a little harder to focus on compared to white-on-black text of the same font size.
It's just that I like having my backlight blasted in my face even less, so it adds up to a sufficiently more pleasant reading experience that I switch everything to dark theme when I can.
I really wish Android had a global dark mode theme or API where developers could tie it in. I hate having to go into individual apps to enable and only be disappointed that not all devs add this feature. It'd be great if it was just one switch!
Glad they're finally shining light on the situation ;)
Those guys who were selling the fake smartphones on Shark Tank should make a 2018 luxury model of their product out of a dark, rounded slab of gorilla glass. (Which, for no reason has a "notch" decal on the top.)
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[ 0.30 ms ] story [ 56.0 ms ] threadIn the world where Google claims energy efficiency is a key goal of theirs, their white UIs should be thrown out as even an option, as the waste of energy powering big fields of white light on billions of devices being charged in billions of homes is just wasting electricity on a massive scale.
https://material-ui.com/demos/cards/
And Google's apps have been going more white, instead of less white: https://www.androidpolice.com/2018/09/25/google-testing-colo...
Does an extra-bright screen unnecessarily consume power? Most likely. However, one can probably find much-greater efficiency gains by being careful to turn out the lights before leaving home, moving the thermostat closer to outdoor temperatures, or by being careful with hot-water usage.
1. The vast majority of devices are LCD, which does not use less power when displaying dark images. In fact, it might increase power consumption slightly. Not only are all discount devices LCD due to lower price, but OLED (as a stop-gap technology akin to plasma) has many shortcomings that lead to even premium devices not including it.
2. Average power consumption of an OLED is significantly higher than that of an LCD, due to poor efficiency of the OLED technology itself compared to standard LED backlighting of LCD's, so OLED devices do not have a power advantage.
Thus, claiming that dark mode would make a difference on global power consumption is false, as it only applies to a relatively niche technology, and suggesting that the technology should be adopted to allow for this saving mechanism would be counter-productive as the technology is less efficient for average workloads.
Your windows phone ran for days due to low screen/wake time (lacking apps, perhaps), not because of dark mode.
It's also funny how Google has only made Android "whiter" since then.
Make sure to check out the More tab and change the filter type on sites that it doesn't work in Dynamic mode for.
However, in the daytime I would definitely prefer to use light mode, with a brighter screen. So over the course of a day I might have 80% of my usage in light mode and 20% in dark mode.
I never set my screen above 40% brightness on my Nexus 5X, and often turn it lower at night.
I ask since the numbers seem to indicate that dark themes have a much smaller impact at 50% brightness.
...should I not be doing that?
"People with astigmatism (approximately 50% of the population) find it harder to read white text on black than black text on white. Part of this has to do with light levels: with a bright display (white background) the iris closes a bit more, decreasing the effect of the "deformed" lens; with a dark display (black background) the iris opens to receive more light and the deformation of the lens creates a much fuzzier focus at the eye." - Jason Harrison – Post Doctoral Fellow, Imager Lab Manager – Sensory Perception and Interaction Research Group, University of British Columbia
It's just that I like having my backlight blasted in my face even less, so it adds up to a sufficiently more pleasant reading experience that I switch everything to dark theme when I can.
Glad they're finally shining light on the situation ;)