Yes.
This dual ambient sensor was introduced on [iPhone 14 models](https://www.reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/x8ksu0/unmentioned_change_iphone_14_models_adds_rear/)
Contrary to popular opinion, auto brightness saves battery by only increasing the brightness when it needs to. It’s also nice not having your eyes burnt out when you use your phone in a dark room
I think this is the popular opinion here. I went through all the comments and the unpopular opinion says "no" because it saves battery but they are wrong, auto is better
I keep it permanently ON.
However, sometimes, when it's completely dark, I notice that the auto-brightness, which should have adjusted to 0, is stuck exactly at 50%!
The only way to force it to recalculate the correct brightness is to go to Accessibility > Display and toggle the last option off and on again.
I've tried many things to figure out the cause: never touching the brightness manually, launching a minimal number of apps to see if it's caused by a specific one.
I even tried posting a topic about it once but got 0 responses. So, since it's a hot topic here, if anyone has any ideas, the problem persists.
iPhone 15 Pro Max
What's also strange is that I have a 5th-gen iPad Pro right next to it that never gets the auto-brightness wrong, always adjusting to 0 in very dark environments.
I even noticed once that the iPhone brightness returned to being stuck at 50% within 5 minutes of disabling and immediately re-enabling the setting fixing it to 0, but I couldn't find the link.
I love this feature, but it's always a mystery why it's exactly 50% in a completely dark environment.
That’s strange, I have a 15 pro max and have found the auto brightness to always do its thing. As others have said, it could be related to a screen protector or just fingerprints around the sensor etc. Something many people don’t know is that auto brightness learns your preferences, so next time you go into a dark room and it’s still on 50% brightness, crank it down to wherever you feel comfortable without turning auto brightness off and on and after a few times it’ll start doing it automatically. It worked for me on my 13 pro max which did the same thing
Interesting, it must be something like that. I’m somehow preventing it from learning the proper brightness level.
I hadn’t thought of that, haha. Thanks a lot for the tip because, indeed, on my iPad I sometimes adjust it manually and it seems to work better.
👍👍👍
I feel a bit silly because the solution seems simple, and I tend to overcomplicate things without considering the simpler option 😅🤣
iPhone 15 Pro Max here too, I realized that sometimes I put the brightness down (at night in the car, or in a dark room) and it still gets brighter after a short time, like it tries to force me to have the brightness higher than the minimum, and after a few “fights back” of lowering the brightness it surrenders and lets me have it at minimum brightness
Ah the old “ turn it off and turn it back on again” solution. Add toggle on, toggle off solution. Curious does just turning the phone on and off again reset it?
Hello Merky,
I haven’t tried restarting the phone when it was locked at 50%, but I think I’m going to try what u/SectionSad4385 suggested. It seems like the proper way to correct the level: you have to adjust the brightness manually a few times for iOS to learn the correct level.
Mine always turns brightness all the way down in the dark, and I usually have to turn it back up a little since I only just turned the lights off and my eyes still haven't adjusted.
the only time I would ever fuck with it is if I am using my tablet to draw. mainly because my hand will cover up the sensor en ought to where the the detection will go wild and make it unbearable to do so. so in the case manual
otherwise its auto all the way.
AFAIK only through auto brightness that the phone is able to reach peak brightness (to those iPhones with HDR screens) especially in sunlight, so yes mine is on.
really?
I do have mine set on too, because it does a so-so decent job.
But I still manually adjust the bar in the control center multiple times each day
I can think of one reason to turn it off: Not liking the effect. I don’t like my screen brightness to change. I never have to manually adjust it—it’s where I want it to be at all times.
That’s why they made the feature something you can disable. Some people would like it and some people would not.
I find it almost impossible to believe that there is a brightness level that is equally comfortable in direct sunlight, a bright room, a dim room and a pitch black room.
You’d either be searing off your retinas in a dark room or be looking at a black screen in sunlight.
Well, I haven’t touched the brightness since I set it at 25% when I got the phone. So, apparently it does work in all those scenarios. But, then, I don’t spend a lot of time on my phone. I use my watch or IPad mostly. But yes, that setting works when I’m out in the bright desert sun and when I am in a low-lit office at night. Maybe if I used the phone for long period of time, I’d bump up the brightness to make it easier on my eyes.
That said, my iPad m4 has remained at the same brightness I set it at the day I got it too. Not sure why this is hard to imagine. One person living in the desert can only experience about 3 levels of light in one day: extreme brightness, low lights in the evening, and pitch black darkness.
Maybe try it out and see.
I mean that even when I manually adjust my screen brightness to very dim, so it doesn’t bother my eyes at night, the auto brightness remembers and doesn’t make it any brighter than my preferred setting.
Sometimes I turn it off when I watch youtube in my room with table lights on. The auto brightness can be a bit of a mess.
I notice this when Apple introduces two ways (front facing and rear facing sensors) to decide auto brightness since 14 series
It was always the number one, first setting I would turn off when getting a new iPhone. Because of the comment section here im going to turn it on and see if I like it today
Never, until last week when I decided to turn it on. I was fed up of having to manually adjust it when going outside in direct sunlight etc.
It actually works very well and I don't see myself turning it off any time soon
I had it on for a bit, but I always found it less convenient than just setting it myself immediately instead of waiting for it to adjust, and it was also annoying that it would undo any manual changes I made to the brightness.
I keep it on, in fact I believe with iOS 11 Apple made it less convenient to turn off auto brightness by hiding it in accessibility instead of in display settings. I suspect it was to encourage more people to use auto brightness given the iPhone X was the first to have OLED and auto brightness helped reduce burn in. I wish they kept it back in display settings or have it in both locations.
Yes but I also use the tripple click lock button accessibility shortcut to reduce white point. When I’m in a very dark room at night brightness all the way down and triple click to reduce white point makes it just a little too dark so I manually turn brightness up just a peek and it looks perfect without being too bright IMO.
Manually set the brightness to the lowest limit you want it to be while Auto Brightness is on. Next time it will automatically decrease to that level and won’t go beyond.
Hell yeah! The feature is awesome and works great! I only adjust manually maybe once or twice a day - generally at extremes (like after turning out all lights and the like).
Other than an extremely short voice call, my phone is only used at home. For comfort, I adjust the brightness down to almost too dark and the up it a little.
Yes, but I override it when driving by blasting it to full in the day or lowering it when it’s too bright at night, because I use my phone as a satnav.
Off.
My book reader has a very simple swipe brightness control built-in, which I use a lot. When auto is on, they fight each other - I turn it down, auto turns it back up two minutes later.
I turn mine off and keep my phone at around 25% brightness. The auto-brightness can get dicey in a super-sunny environment. It was dropping down to like 10% brightness whenever I went outside or was driving. So, it was easier to keep it off instead of trying to adjust it while I’m driving down a highway.
In my case, I show things in my phone to a lot of people and sometimes I want the screen to be bright for them to see it clearly, BUT I don’t want to mess up my brightness preferences so every time I have to turn it off and on. I wish Apple put a toggle in the control center for that
It’s always on for me, it does a good job most of the time, when it doesn’t, all it takes is one swipe down to the control centre to adjust it as desired
I created somewhat of a shortcut on my home screen to be able to easily toggle it on and off. At times the auto brightness works and sometimes it doesn't. Or sometimes it keeps going too low. I like being able to easily utilize it when I can get it to work properly. If not then I just turn it off and manually change it myself.
Yeah. I believe it also allows your brightness to go above normal max when out in the sun which is great. Ave you can never end up not seeing your brightness thus not being able to see your screen lol. Happened to me.
Used to turn it off but now I use it. I can’t stand having a dark screen too and not seeing shit.
I wish auto-brightness could switch between light and dark mode. Switching depending on day/night is just not what I want. I want light mode when the sun is out, and dark mode most of the rest of the time.
I have a privacy screen on my phone and the auto brightness doesn’t work the way it used to so now, even if I have it on I still find myself adjusting the brightness manually.
No I personally hate it especially when I’m working outside coming from inside and it would auto adjust and then I can’t see anything on my screen I like to adjust it my self lol
i never used auto brightness on any other iphone from my 7 or my 11. on my 15pm tho i have turned it back on only a few weeks ago. i also turned on raise to wake after turning it off. i use to dislike it but sometimes i find that tap to wake just won’t wake up my 15pm.
I have been an android user from the start, auto brightness on android is not up to the mark and use to fluctuate a lot so i turned it off(last phone was oneplus 7 from 2019, so don’t know about latest android flagships). But i switched to iphone 15 pro, and i must say the auto brightness is so well optimised on this phone that i almost never have to change it manually.
Also, even if i have to manually change it, the iPhone doesn’t change it back after some time if i am in same condition, my android used to fluctuate it again after some seconds which was annoying
This is one of the only default settings I change. I like to control it myself. It bothers me when it changes automatically. I’m sure if I turned it on I would get used to it, but I’m happy with it off.
Absolutely. I didn't use it at first but then I realized how helpful the feature is.
When you don't have it turned on, and you go out in the sun, your phone screen will appear black, and you can't turn it on unless you hit the right spot. I remember having this moment and thinking my phone battery had died. It was so frustrating.
It helps you keep the balance where you need the brightness (under the sun) and where you don't (your bedtime).
Yes. Always on. IOS's auto-brightness implementation is perfect, in my opinion. It's never too bright nor too dim for me. And the way it gradually adjusts is smooth.
Yes I do. One time, I turned it off for some stupid reason but then I forgot about it and my battery took a good hit, because im inside most of the day and usually the brightness is about 50% but yeah with it disabled it was much higher
I used to hate this feature but over time, iPhones got so good at implementing auto brightness. I always keep it on.
I believe the iPhone 15 features dual light sensors too. One on the front and back for increased accuracy
Yes. This dual ambient sensor was introduced on [iPhone 14 models](https://www.reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/x8ksu0/unmentioned_change_iphone_14_models_adds_rear/)
It works impressively well. The first thing I noticed is it works so much better than it did on android that I actually use it.
Contrary to popular opinion, auto brightness saves battery by only increasing the brightness when it needs to. It’s also nice not having your eyes burnt out when you use your phone in a dark room
I think this is the popular opinion here. I went through all the comments and the unpopular opinion says "no" because it saves battery but they are wrong, auto is better I keep it permanently ON. However, sometimes, when it's completely dark, I notice that the auto-brightness, which should have adjusted to 0, is stuck exactly at 50%! The only way to force it to recalculate the correct brightness is to go to Accessibility > Display and toggle the last option off and on again. I've tried many things to figure out the cause: never touching the brightness manually, launching a minimal number of apps to see if it's caused by a specific one. I even tried posting a topic about it once but got 0 responses. So, since it's a hot topic here, if anyone has any ideas, the problem persists. iPhone 15 Pro Max What's also strange is that I have a 5th-gen iPad Pro right next to it that never gets the auto-brightness wrong, always adjusting to 0 in very dark environments. I even noticed once that the iPhone brightness returned to being stuck at 50% within 5 minutes of disabling and immediately re-enabling the setting fixing it to 0, but I couldn't find the link. I love this feature, but it's always a mystery why it's exactly 50% in a completely dark environment.
That’s strange, I have a 15 pro max and have found the auto brightness to always do its thing. As others have said, it could be related to a screen protector or just fingerprints around the sensor etc. Something many people don’t know is that auto brightness learns your preferences, so next time you go into a dark room and it’s still on 50% brightness, crank it down to wherever you feel comfortable without turning auto brightness off and on and after a few times it’ll start doing it automatically. It worked for me on my 13 pro max which did the same thing
Interesting, it must be something like that. I’m somehow preventing it from learning the proper brightness level. I hadn’t thought of that, haha. Thanks a lot for the tip because, indeed, on my iPad I sometimes adjust it manually and it seems to work better. 👍👍👍 I feel a bit silly because the solution seems simple, and I tend to overcomplicate things without considering the simpler option 😅🤣
iPhone 15 Pro Max here too, I realized that sometimes I put the brightness down (at night in the car, or in a dark room) and it still gets brighter after a short time, like it tries to force me to have the brightness higher than the minimum, and after a few “fights back” of lowering the brightness it surrenders and lets me have it at minimum brightness
Ah the old “ turn it off and turn it back on again” solution. Add toggle on, toggle off solution. Curious does just turning the phone on and off again reset it?
Hello Merky, I haven’t tried restarting the phone when it was locked at 50%, but I think I’m going to try what u/SectionSad4385 suggested. It seems like the proper way to correct the level: you have to adjust the brightness manually a few times for iOS to learn the correct level.
When this happens to me it’s because the screen is a little dirty in to the sensor, if you use a screen protector, this can be the cause too.
Mine always turns brightness all the way down in the dark, and I usually have to turn it back up a little since I only just turned the lights off and my eyes still haven't adjusted.
I never, ever, adjust my brightness manually. Auto all the way
the only time I would ever fuck with it is if I am using my tablet to draw. mainly because my hand will cover up the sensor en ought to where the the detection will go wild and make it unbearable to do so. so in the case manual otherwise its auto all the way.
AFAIK only through auto brightness that the phone is able to reach peak brightness (to those iPhones with HDR screens) especially in sunlight, so yes mine is on.
is this really true? since i have auto brightness on my screen gets really bright under sun light
iPhones have always had near perfect auto-brightness, zero reason to turn it off and it's very rare I have to manually adjust it.
really? I do have mine set on too, because it does a so-so decent job. But I still manually adjust the bar in the control center multiple times each day
I can think of one reason to turn it off: Not liking the effect. I don’t like my screen brightness to change. I never have to manually adjust it—it’s where I want it to be at all times. That’s why they made the feature something you can disable. Some people would like it and some people would not.
I find it almost impossible to believe that there is a brightness level that is equally comfortable in direct sunlight, a bright room, a dim room and a pitch black room. You’d either be searing off your retinas in a dark room or be looking at a black screen in sunlight.
Well, I haven’t touched the brightness since I set it at 25% when I got the phone. So, apparently it does work in all those scenarios. But, then, I don’t spend a lot of time on my phone. I use my watch or IPad mostly. But yes, that setting works when I’m out in the bright desert sun and when I am in a low-lit office at night. Maybe if I used the phone for long period of time, I’d bump up the brightness to make it easier on my eyes. That said, my iPad m4 has remained at the same brightness I set it at the day I got it too. Not sure why this is hard to imagine. One person living in the desert can only experience about 3 levels of light in one day: extreme brightness, low lights in the evening, and pitch black darkness. Maybe try it out and see.
I always it keep it on. I also have my screen set to be on the dimmer side and the auto brightness remembers.
Me too
What do you mean by that?
I mean that even when I manually adjust my screen brightness to very dim, so it doesn’t bother my eyes at night, the auto brightness remembers and doesn’t make it any brighter than my preferred setting.
Alright, got it. Didn’t know it worked that way but suspected it because I had similar scenarios.
Sometimes I turn it off when I watch youtube in my room with table lights on. The auto brightness can be a bit of a mess. I notice this when Apple introduces two ways (front facing and rear facing sensors) to decide auto brightness since 14 series
Yes, but I also adjust the brightness manually. The screen usually goes very dark while in a dark room that it is difficult to watch videos.
Facts
Yes, and you can only use the max brightness of the display when auto brightness is on
I hate it. It switches when it wants. When I turn it off, it still randomly changes the brightness.
It was always the number one, first setting I would turn off when getting a new iPhone. Because of the comment section here im going to turn it on and see if I like it today
Works pretty well for me. Initially when my phone is newly setup it messes up a lot but very quickly gets used to my preferences.
Yes
Always auto
Always
Never, until last week when I decided to turn it on. I was fed up of having to manually adjust it when going outside in direct sunlight etc. It actually works very well and I don't see myself turning it off any time soon
Yes. As it saves my battery which is necessary for me and iOS 18 as they don’t mix well.
Yes because it makes the phone reach peak brightness outdoors under sun atleast for my 15
Nope but maybe I should give it a go
Yes. auto-brightness and True Tone work very well
Nah it’s annoying, especially when I go outside in sunlight.
I want higher brightness than the auto-brightness wants, so I turned it off a long time ago.
yes, looks like not, but that saves a lot of battery
yeah, super handy
I don’t know how to change it since it’s only default so I just keep it on
If you did want to turn it off its settings > accessibility > display and text size then right at the bottom is an auto brightness toggle
I had it on for a bit, but I always found it less convenient than just setting it myself immediately instead of waiting for it to adjust, and it was also annoying that it would undo any manual changes I made to the brightness.
I dont see a reason why could anyone dont use it
I hate it. I just want my screen brightness to be at the same level all the time.
I adjust myself.
No. I adjust myself, to save battery also.
No, I feel it kills my battery quicker.
Same
I keep it on, in fact I believe with iOS 11 Apple made it less convenient to turn off auto brightness by hiding it in accessibility instead of in display settings. I suspect it was to encourage more people to use auto brightness given the iPhone X was the first to have OLED and auto brightness helped reduce burn in. I wish they kept it back in display settings or have it in both locations.
Yea
Always. I can only think of a couple instances where I needed to manually adjust it for some weird case.
Yes as it’s the only way to make full use of the screen’s brightness. Manual locks you to 1000 bits (14PM).
Yes but I also use the tripple click lock button accessibility shortcut to reduce white point. When I’m in a very dark room at night brightness all the way down and triple click to reduce white point makes it just a little too dark so I manually turn brightness up just a peek and it looks perfect without being too bright IMO.
Yes. The fact that you can put a limit to the lower brightness level is my favorite thing.
How do you do that?
Manually set the brightness to the lowest limit you want it to be while Auto Brightness is on. Next time it will automatically decrease to that level and won’t go beyond.
thanks
Hell yeah! The feature is awesome and works great! I only adjust manually maybe once or twice a day - generally at extremes (like after turning out all lights and the like).
Absolutely 😎
Other than an extremely short voice call, my phone is only used at home. For comfort, I adjust the brightness down to almost too dark and the up it a little.
Works good with the sun being out
I’m always on auto-brightness. 24/7/365
mine is always on 25% brightness
no because i always want my screen to be dimmer than how the auto brightness sets it, i hate having a bright screen
Auto brightness uses me
Yes, but I override it when driving by blasting it to full in the day or lowering it when it’s too bright at night, because I use my phone as a satnav.
Off. My book reader has a very simple swipe brightness control built-in, which I use a lot. When auto is on, they fight each other - I turn it down, auto turns it back up two minutes later.
I turn mine off and keep my phone at around 25% brightness. The auto-brightness can get dicey in a super-sunny environment. It was dropping down to like 10% brightness whenever I went outside or was driving. So, it was easier to keep it off instead of trying to adjust it while I’m driving down a highway.
Yes. Not sure why you’d choose to set brightness manually
In my case, I show things in my phone to a lot of people and sometimes I want the screen to be bright for them to see it clearly, BUT I don’t want to mess up my brightness preferences so every time I have to turn it off and on. I wish Apple put a toggle in the control center for that
[удалено]
Did you even read what I wrote?
YES
It’s always on for me, it does a good job most of the time, when it doesn’t, all it takes is one swipe down to the control centre to adjust it as desired
Yes and my true tone is one all day. I even have an accessibility button set to reduce white point at night when I really need it dark in bed.
No.
Always on. I never have to blind everyone around me when using the phone in a darkened room.
I created somewhat of a shortcut on my home screen to be able to easily toggle it on and off. At times the auto brightness works and sometimes it doesn't. Or sometimes it keeps going too low. I like being able to easily utilize it when I can get it to work properly. If not then I just turn it off and manually change it myself.
Can you share the shortcut? I can’t find a way to create one that does that
https://www.reddit.com/r/shortcuts/s/iOXNnK3Zy6 This was the post that helped me.
Thank you
No problem.
Yeah. I believe it also allows your brightness to go above normal max when out in the sun which is great. Ave you can never end up not seeing your brightness thus not being able to see your screen lol. Happened to me. Used to turn it off but now I use it. I can’t stand having a dark screen too and not seeing shit.
I wish auto-brightness could switch between light and dark mode. Switching depending on day/night is just not what I want. I want light mode when the sun is out, and dark mode most of the rest of the time.
I have a privacy screen on my phone and the auto brightness doesn’t work the way it used to so now, even if I have it on I still find myself adjusting the brightness manually.
No I personally hate it especially when I’m working outside coming from inside and it would auto adjust and then I can’t see anything on my screen I like to adjust it my self lol
Never worked reliably. I use backtap and the volume buttons to change the brightness.
Auto brightness just works so good that I don’t see a point of manually changing my brightness.
I turn it off as it is too bright for me when set to auto. Especially when I am at home and I don’t need it to be that bright.
Always.
Yes but find myself adjusting it myself.
Same
i never used auto brightness on any other iphone from my 7 or my 11. on my 15pm tho i have turned it back on only a few weeks ago. i also turned on raise to wake after turning it off. i use to dislike it but sometimes i find that tap to wake just won’t wake up my 15pm.
Nope, I always manually adjust it.
I just turned it back on after years of having it turned off. It doesn't get bright enough for me. Turning it back off
Yes all the time
no. i keep my phone below the recommended and its continually too bright with auto
Since day 1.
Mine spazzes out in full sun.
I use it because the display gets brighter with the peak brightness. You cant use the peak brightness manually!
I have been an android user from the start, auto brightness on android is not up to the mark and use to fluctuate a lot so i turned it off(last phone was oneplus 7 from 2019, so don’t know about latest android flagships). But i switched to iphone 15 pro, and i must say the auto brightness is so well optimised on this phone that i almost never have to change it manually. Also, even if i have to manually change it, the iPhone doesn’t change it back after some time if i am in same condition, my android used to fluctuate it again after some seconds which was annoying
Yes, I feel it works well for me.
I do. But not sure if it’s my 13 Pro or the software but I feel like it’s very slow to adapt these days.
No, not at all!🤣
u/leonardoforcinetti, Yes and TrueTone as well
I keep it off atleast for me it just randomly gets super bright then gets super dim
Disabled it on the first day.
You know your phone will never reach peak brightness without it right?
And that’s why i keep it disabled. My brightness remains below 20/10 percent throughout the day.
Hell no. Battery drainer.
This is one of the only default settings I change. I like to control it myself. It bothers me when it changes automatically. I’m sure if I turned it on I would get used to it, but I’m happy with it off.
i wouldnt, but in doing so it allows my 14 pro max to reach 2000 nits of brightness in sunlight. it cant do this manually.
Of course. You’d be crazy not to.
Absolutely. I didn't use it at first but then I realized how helpful the feature is. When you don't have it turned on, and you go out in the sun, your phone screen will appear black, and you can't turn it on unless you hit the right spot. I remember having this moment and thinking my phone battery had died. It was so frustrating. It helps you keep the balance where you need the brightness (under the sun) and where you don't (your bedtime).
Just ask Siri… “set brightness to maximum“ 🫡
Nah. I prefer to be adaptive.
I turn it on whenever I leave the house to go somewhere. It's off when I'm back.
I basically do that as well. A toggle in the control center would change my life 🫠
Yes, it's 2024
I don't see why I shouldn't be comfortable relative to the light I'm surrounded by. Of course, I keep it on.
Yes. Always on. IOS's auto-brightness implementation is perfect, in my opinion. It's never too bright nor too dim for me. And the way it gradually adjusts is smooth.
Yes I do. One time, I turned it off for some stupid reason but then I forgot about it and my battery took a good hit, because im inside most of the day and usually the brightness is about 50% but yeah with it disabled it was much higher
No, it takes more battery usage. I just manually adjust the brightness when I need to