Find out what to do if automatic brightness does not work on Android. Today with this guide we will see what to do if the automatic brightness does not work on Android. The automatic brightness or adaptive brightness, on Android smartphones and tablets is used to adjust the amount of brightness that emits the screen of the device based on the amount of ambient light that you have around. If, for example, you are outdoors on a sunny day, the phone screen will tend to be brighter in order to make it easier for the user to see what is shown on the screen, while in low light conditions, the brightness of the display will be lowered because the content that appears on the screen will be visible even if there is little light around. In order to make the adaptive brightness work, Android smartphones and tablets use a special sensor, capable of understanding how much light there is and consequently adjusting the amount of brightness that should emanate from the screen. Sometimes, however, this sensor that allows the automatic brightness of the screen does not work or is inaccurate or very slow, so it does not work as expected. So what to do if the automatic brightness does not work on Android? Here is a guide with several solutions that might be useful for you.
Normally Android allows the user to set the brightness automatically, so you don’t have to worry about manually making the screen brighter or dimmer each time depending on how we see the light around us. In addition to adaptive brightness, Android also allows you to manually adjust the brightness, something that some find quite useful if they want to keep the screen brightness constant regardless of the amount of ambient light, perhaps keeping a very low display brightness to avoid excessive battery consumption when outdoors on sunny days. Automatic brightness is preferred by users because the screen brightness of a smartphone is adjusted independently, without any user intervention. If, however, the adaptive brightness does not work on your Android device, here are the solutions to try if the automatic brightness does not work on Android (for simplicity from now on we will speak only of Android smartphones, but the guide will also be applicable to Android tablets, also the steps you will find in some solutions may vary depending on the version of Android in use and its GUI or may not be available).
Disable and re-enable adaptive brightness
The first thing I suggest you do if auto-brightness doesn’t work on your Android smartphone is to disable and re-enable the adaptive brightness switch. There are two ways to do this:
Method 1: From the Home, lower the status bar by swiping your finger from bottom to top and when you see all the shortcuts, press on the switch that turns off the automatic brightness, then turn it back on after about 10 seconds and see now if it works
Method 2: Go to Phone Settings, then go to Display and Brightness and then from the Brightness section, the switch that is next to Automatic should be turned off. Turn the switch back on after about 10 seconds and see if the adaptive brightness is now working properly.
Restart the device
When you have problems with an Android smartphone, including auto-brightness not working or working but poorly, one of the fastest and often most effective solutions to follow is to restart the device. Then press on the phone’s physical Power On/Off button, press your finger on the Restart button and when the Home is loaded again, see how the automatic brightness behaves. If the adaptive brightness still does not work, then move on to the next solution.
Reset adaptive brightness (not available for all Android devices)
There’s also the option of being able to reset adaptive brightness and this can be done very easily, although the feature remains a bit hidden if you’re not sure where to look. If the automatic brightness isn’t working or is working by adjusting the screen brightness incorrectly, here are the steps you need to follow to reset the automatic brightness to work:
- Go to Settings on your Android device
- Go to Apps and notifications, then tap on View all apps
- Search or scroll through the various apps in the list until you reach Device Integrity Services
- From the App Info page, select Storage and Cache
- Now tap on Clear Memory, and then tap on the Reset Adaptive Brightness button at the top of the screen.
Reset the app’s preferences
If you’ve recently changed app permissions or disabled a system app, you may be experiencing issues that have to do with how auto-brightness works. To fix them, you can try performing an app preference reset and see if that will get the adaptive screen brightness working properly again. Below, here are all the steps you need to follow to reset the app’s preferences:
- Go to Settings on your Android phone
- Now go to System
- Tap on Advanced and go to Restore options
- Now tap on Restore app preferences and select Restore app when prompted
- Now check if auto-brightness is working properly
if a new Android update is available, download and install it
Your Android smartphone’s adaptive brightness may have started to malfunction due to a bug in the operating system. So how to fix it in this case? Very simply you have to check if there is a new update for the Android operating system that will fix the bug, which you can do very easily by following the steps below:
- Go into the Settings of your phone
- Then go to System and updates
- Tap on Software update
- Then press the Check for updates button
- If there is a new Android operating system update, proceed with its download and installation
- After the update has been installed, check if the problem with auto-brightness has been solved.
Enter safe mode
Your Android smartphone might have problems with auto-brightness because of an app that prevents it from working properly, which is why accessing Safe Mode will make it easier for you to find out whether or not the malfunction is due to an app you’ve installed. You can easily access Android Safe Mode in the following way (the steps listed below may vary from one smartphone model to another, for more information read also the article about what is Android Safe Mode and how to access it):
- Press and hold the phone’s shutdown button
- Long press the Restart button from the shutdown menu
- You should now see a message asking you to confirm the access to Safe Mode. Press OK to continue
- The phone should now reboot into Safe Mode and you can confirm this by seeing the words Safe Mode in the bottom left corner.
Reset your phone
If the adaptive brightness has suddenly stopped working, and maybe you’ve even put your hands on some system files after rooting your device, I suggest you perform a phone reset. First, however, make a backup on a PC of all your most important data because all files saved on the phone will be lost and you will end up with a device that needs to be reset just like when you first turned it on. Use this solution only if you know what you’re doing because the smartphone, as mentioned above, will be reset.
Hardware problem
If the solutions seen above didn’t work and the adaptive brightness management is not known as a bug that has never been fixed, if suddenly the auto-brightness stopped working for no reason and you couldn’t solve it with the solutions seen above, the problem might be caused by a hardware issue involving the device’s brightness sensor. You can download apps like Sensor Test or Sensors Multitool to check if the brightness sensor is working or not and if you notice the malfunction I suggest you take the phone to a technician to better check if there is a hardware problem that he can repair.
Conclusions
We’ve seen what are the possible solutions to try if auto brightness doesn’t work on Android. Adaptive brightness allows an Android smartphone or tablet to adjust the brightness of the screen according to the ambient light, but if it doesn’t work the brightness of the phone’s display will always remain the same and can only be changed manually. The solutions seen above can help you, but if you don’t want to perform an OS reset or repair the sensor if it’s broken, you can always use the manual mode to adjust the screen brightness. You’ll definitely lose the convenience of having a screen that automatically increases or decreases its brightness using manual brightness adjustment, but you’ll save money by replacing the sensor or not having to deal with the inconvenience of resetting the contents of a smartphone. Until the next guide.