Dark Mode battery savings

Dark Mode is a recurrent point of contention on TwiG, so I think this article is very relevant here. Someone show this to Jeff Jarvis:

I know this is for iOS, but it’s still an OLED screen and the dark modes are fairly similar. I remember a few weeks ago Jeff Jarvis brought that poorly sourced article claiming that you need “pure black” for there to be any battery saving. That’s not true at all. Google’s own research showed that Youtube in dark mode uses up to 60% less battery, and that actually each of the 3 colors have different battery usage characteristics, with blue using a lot more than red or green.

This article shows roughly 30% less battery consumption when using dark mode, which is a significant amount. I would love to see similar tests be done on the Pixel with Android 10 Dark Mode, but so far, every test I’ve seen points to anywhere between 20% to 50% battery savings.

What do you all think? Even if you dislike Dark Mode aesthetically, would there be a certain saving % that would convince you to move over just for the extra battery life?

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I am not a fan of the way the colors shift entering that mode. But, that is interesting to hear about the battery savings.

The default “secondary color” is definitely a little ugly. You can change it a bit in Developer options under “Theming”, but Pixel 4 had a dedicated “Theming” menu too. I use “Gray” I believe and it looks a bit better.

You all remember Blackle? :slight_smile: http://blackle.com/ It was going to save the world’s energy by eliminating white screens on monitors. It even shows a watt hour savings in a running total. I’m sure black saves energy on certain display types, but it is probably hard to measure.

Except no one had OLED monitors (and people still don’t), so it didn’t matter back then. Nowadays, most premium smartphones use OLED displays, which is why we’re finally seeing a dark mode push from Apple, Google and Microsoft. Not only because some people prefer it stylistically, but because it makes a significant different on battery life, which is a very valuable resource in phones.

Oh blackle was well before flat panels. It was designed to keep pixels dark on CRTs. I use dark mode on my Pixel and my MacBook Pro because I like the aesthetic. Any battery gain (if it exists) is a bonus.

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