I have a new feature article that shows that the Automatic Brightness controls and Light Sensors on all HDTVs and mobile displays are effectively useless due to bad design and engineering. They have a major impact on battery run time for Smartphones and US power consumption for HDTVs, in addition to affecting image and picture quality, screen readability, viewing comfort, and preventing eye strain. And because they don’t work properly consumers simply turn off Automatic Brightness altogether, leaving the screen brightness set to a constant value and making matters even worse for power use, screen readability and viewing comfort. I call this BrightnessGate - a scandal of many causes... Here is an introduction:
First: in a smartphone the light sensor is on the front bezel facing your head and is measuring the brightness of your face instead of the ambient light level that is behind and to either side of the phone, which is what actually sets your eye’s light sensitivity and what should be determining the brightness level of the screen. Similarly, in HDTVs the light sensor is facing the audience and measuring the light level behind the TV viewers instead of the light that is behind and on either side of the TV, which again determines the eye's light sensitivity level.
Second: the smartphone or HDTV then needs to properly set the screen brightness based on the ambient light level measured by the Light Sensor. I demonstrate with extensive measurments on the iPhone and Android smartphones that the implementations are so awful that they are functionally useless. Similar results apply to HDTVs.
The article recommends a new the user interface for screen brightness, so that consumers can use it to adjust the screen brightness based on their own visual preferences, in a natural fashion that automatically implements and tweaks the screen brightness they would like to see for different ambient lighting conditions. That will maximize viewing comfort, screen readability, energy efficiency and battery run time if it’s done correctly.
Article Link: http://www.displaymate.com/AutoBrightness_Controls_2.htm
First: in a smartphone the light sensor is on the front bezel facing your head and is measuring the brightness of your face instead of the ambient light level that is behind and to either side of the phone, which is what actually sets your eye’s light sensitivity and what should be determining the brightness level of the screen. Similarly, in HDTVs the light sensor is facing the audience and measuring the light level behind the TV viewers instead of the light that is behind and on either side of the TV, which again determines the eye's light sensitivity level.
Second: the smartphone or HDTV then needs to properly set the screen brightness based on the ambient light level measured by the Light Sensor. I demonstrate with extensive measurments on the iPhone and Android smartphones that the implementations are so awful that they are functionally useless. Similar results apply to HDTVs.
The article recommends a new the user interface for screen brightness, so that consumers can use it to adjust the screen brightness based on their own visual preferences, in a natural fashion that automatically implements and tweaks the screen brightness they would like to see for different ambient lighting conditions. That will maximize viewing comfort, screen readability, energy efficiency and battery run time if it’s done correctly.
Article Link: http://www.displaymate.com/AutoBrightness_Controls_2.htm
