Does dark mode reduce battery consumption?

 

Newer smartphones have a Dark Mode setting that changes the look of what you see on the screen with a dark color theme, especially black. But while many people enable the setting because they think it will extend the battery life of their phone (or other mobile device), research has now revealed that dark mode saves less power than you might expect!

 

In fact, when Android and Apple OS updates started giving users the option to put their smartphones in dark mode, the feature showed the potential to save battery life for newer phones with screens that allow dark pixels to use less power than light pixels. But dark mode is unlikely to make much of a difference to battery life the way most people use their phones on a daily basis! But that doesn't mean dark mode can't be useful. Let's check more in this article.

 

Effect of Dark Mode on battery life

 

The smartphone ecosystem is fast adopting dark mode as a great battery life saver. Be it Android or IOS, we see more and more apps offering this setting to users in recent times. Although a new study questions the use of dark mode as an effective measure to reduce battery drain. A team of scientists has developed new tools to measure the effects of dark mode on a smartphone's battery. These tools now help effectively monitor battery drain due to light colors on screen vs. dark mode.

 

  Surprisingly, however, the findings of the study reveal that dark mode is unlikely to affect smartphone battery life as dramatically as we would have expected. Although it uses less battery than the regular light theme, the difference is unlikely to be noticeable to the way most people use their phones on a daily basis.

 

Thus, the dark mode on an OLED smartphone is likely to save only 3 to 9% of energy compared to the normal mode. However, these results apply when the phone is used at 30 to 50% brightness, usually in the range followed by the auto brightness setting. Also, this battery gain can be much higher at 100% screen brightness. That is, a smartphone can save about 39 to 47% of battery power at peak brightness by operating in dark mode. This is close to half the additional battery life provided on a single charge cycle.

 

Thus, it was found that dark mode can significantly save battery life at peak brightness only, and it is usually used by smartphone users in outdoor conditions under sunlight. Note that these gains are found on OLED screens, thanks to the lack of backlighting. OLEDs consume less power when displaying pixels with darker colors.

 

Other benefits of dark mode

 

Besides simple power savings, there are also more significant subjective benefits of using dark-mode apps. Turning on your phone in the dark can be scary to you, and even annoying to people nearby, especially when looking at white web pages or all-white apps. So if you're going to stare at a phone in a dark room, you might feel less tired looking at a mostly dark screen. The other advantage of the dark mode is the aesthetics, as some people prefer the look of white text on a dark background. But keep in mind that making your phone less attractive can be a strategic way to use it less.

 

As we've noticed, dark mode is becoming more and more popular. There is now a dark mode for almost every app and device. Remember, dark pixels on an OLED screen save battery power, but a screen that's turned off for longer saves a lot more!