It has been a known fact that dark themed apps help increase battery time. Dark mode or night mode apps are therefore quite handy when a user is running out of battery. The reason is that pixels on a screen have to do less work on darker backgrounds.
If the background is true black, then the smartphone takes practically zero energy. This was confirmed by Google’s Android Dev Summit this week. These facts were backed up by a graph that compared battery consumption with different colors.
These tests were conducted on the original Pixel smartphone. White color consumed the most battery to nobody’s surprise. Google admitted that it uses a lot of white in its apps. The company was disappointed, to say the least.
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This isn’t even going to change after the User Interface revamp. At least the company realizes they need to incorporate darker colors in their user interface and apps. Google is already testing darker themes in its Google smartphone app and Google Feed on mobile phones.
Youtube and Android messages also have this feature. Dark themes work well with OLED screens. So iPhones and Samsung Galaxy phones would benefit the most out of this. iPhone X seems to save nearly 60 percent battery over 3 hours thanks to its Dark Mode.
In OLED screen true black means that pixels are almost dead. This means that they consume practically zero percent energy. Apple’s invert colors can be quite a lifesaver. It essentially turns the background black and the text white. Hence the “invert color” name.
The dark theme can be utilized within the App Drawer and pulldown menu. But Google has not developed a system-wide dark theme or night mode. Samsung plans to adopt a similar strategy with its new One UI.
This will help users whose smartphone do not have a big battery. The difference is night and day (pun intended) when the brightness is set at a hundred percent. Dark mode’s power savings are quite clear when we compare the graphs.
It’s good to remember that dark theme won’t suit everyone. Having white text on a black background isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. The main reason for this might be that dark theme hurts their eyes. Still, giving users an option to choose from never hurt anybody.
The need for a dark theme mode is quite a logical step from Google. Our phones are getting slimmer and slimmer while their screens keep getting bigger and bigger. The screens are also getting much vibrant and brighter.
All of these factors consume battery. A slimmer phone profile means less room for a big battery. While a vibrant and bright display means the screen will consume more energy. Every one of us is short on time these days, they cannot charge their phones fully, when in a rush.
This always leaves users in a panic when they’re running low on battery. Hopefully, when Dark Mode becomes a reality, other mobile developers will follow in Google’s footsteps.
Amnah Fawad
Muhammad Nouman Sarwar
