Dark Mode Might Be Burning More Juice Than You Think (theregister.com) 77
Using apps and websites in dark mode can actually use more energy than standard mode, according to researchers, as it causes people to crank up the brightness. From a report: This counterintuitive finding is claimed by BBC Research & Development (R&D), which says that despite the popular energy saving recommendation to cut electricity consumption by switching to dark mode, doing so might actually make things worse. "Dark mode is a popular dark-theme colour content scheme and research has found that, for some devices, switching to dark mode can reduce device power consumption. Energy conscious internet users are therefore encouraged to browse in dark mode," say the authors of a BBC R&D blog post.
"The catch is that the advertised energy savings haven't been tested in the wild, where user behavior can cause unexpected consequences." So the BBC's R&D engineers put participants in front of the BBC Sounds home page and asked them to adjust the device brightness until they were comfortable with it, repeating this for both light and dark mode versions of the page.
"The catch is that the advertised energy savings haven't been tested in the wild, where user behavior can cause unexpected consequences." So the BBC's R&D engineers put participants in front of the BBC Sounds home page and asked them to adjust the device brightness until they were comfortable with it, repeating this for both light and dark mode versions of the page.
Dark Mode (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't use dark mode to save electricity, you use it because it's easier to look at for log periods of time. If you want to save energy get a monitor that uses less energy.
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New generation E-Ink screens would do both, so long as you're not watching 60FPS videos,
(cost more, naturally, being a niche product.)
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Both of the above. I have multiple monitors... I use dark mode on the standard LED monitors because it's easier on my eyes. And I keep my email client on an e-ink monitor because it's easier on my eyes. Power consumption wasn't a consideration for me.
Regarding the e-ink monitor, it's a Dasung Paperlite 253 [dasung.com]. I have mixed feelings about it; it works quite well, but the display gets messy pretty quickly and requires me to press the "clear and redraw" button fairly often. Sadly, I don't think e-ink techn
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I don't know... I'm not running any special software. The monitor just takes HDMI in. And the firmware on the monitor itself is closed-source, so there's not much I can do.
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I don't know... I'm not running any special software. The monitor just takes HDMI in. And the firmware on the monitor itself is closed-source, so there's not much I can do.
I suspect that when AC mentioned "software", he was actually thinking of either the firmware in the monitor, or the driver software on the computer.
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OK. I don't run any Dasung-specific driver on my computer so it must be the monitor firmware.
Re: Dark Mode (Score:3)
Or, that you aren't running the drivers Datsung offers, perhaps?
Could it be the drivers your OS provides?
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It does save electricity for OLED displays (Score:1)
You don't use dark mode to save electricity,
On mobile devices with OLED screens, Dark Mode actually does save electricity because black pixels require much less power to display. [indiatoday.in]
Interestingly, that story (from 2021) sort of says something similar to what the article here says, in that it doesn't help much. However it also states if people are turning up brightness higher anyway dark mode savings can be pretty significant, so I don't know if the main story linked here has factored in how much dark mode save
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I can't stand looking at dark mode.
Re: Dark Mode (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly. Why does everything have to about ecology and energy savings these days? Some people out there have a seriously skewed perception of the world and what's important for an average Joe, and those are low costs and usability. Most of us wouldn't give a flying monkey about ecology if it wasn't being forced onto us.
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that's is purely feel good things that people like to do for virtual signaling of because it is pathetically easy to do, if they REALLY cared about the environment they would not travel, have motor vehicles, children and would not buy anything produced more than a few hundreds of km away, and even that would be a drop in a ocean compared to the average multi-millionaire private plane / yacht owner footprint.
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that's is purely feel good things that people like to do for virtual signaling of because it is pathetically easy to do, if they REALLY cared about the environment they would not travel, have motor vehicles, children and would not buy anything produced more than a few hundreds of km away, and even that would be a drop in a ocean compared to the average multi-millionaire private plane / yacht owner footprint.
Sure, people use dark mode to virtue signal, that's it. Are you another fucking bot?!
What are you even talking about, if you're leaving in five minutes, why throw another log in the fireplace, it's fucking stupid and wasteful. It's not virtue signaling, it's something personal you do in your own home because it makes sense. Conservation doesn't mean stop breathing to save air, although you're free to do that, it's about reducing waste. Dark mode, everybody knows LCDs use more power to darken the screen, nob
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no, I'm a real boy.
A lot of people, the majority probably, use because they find it more comfortable but there is people that push it with the argument of lower power draw helping the environment, which is what the article is about, and for those it is virtual signaling because it has absolutely no measurable impact, even turning of standby devices would have greater impact than using dark mode.
I do stuff to lower my energy consumption and to reduce waste such as having high efficiency equipment and not rep
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that's is purely feel good things that people like to do for virtual signaling of because it is pathetically easy to do
If every banded together to address the easy things we'd objectively be on a great path towards reducing waste. There's no need for the stupid suggestion that everyone is doing nothing but making feel good actions simply because we don't revert to the stone age.
But hey if it makes you feel better by being able to blame a rich person for your own waste more power to you.
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If every banded together to address the easy things we'd objectively be on a great path towards reducing waste.
If only that were true...
Alas, if everyone does a little bit, then the end result is that a little bit gets done. Think of it as: if everyone manages to reduce their usage by 1%, overall usage goes down by 1%. If everyone manages to recycle the easy 5%, then 5% of stuff overall gets recycled. The littles bits that everyone does individually do not add up in the way we might perhaps expect.
Don't get me wrong, there are things we can only do working together, as well as things that are far easier to d
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the problem is that little things do exactly that, very little, and can make people just feel good while doing much worse in other areas.
the worst offenders that can actually do things that make a difference are governments, big companies, and really really rich people, while those do not actually change and decrease their emissions, common folk reducing 5% of their energy consumption is basically nothing.
I doesn't makes me feel better to blame the rich or government policy, it is just a reality, someone ta
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Why does everything have to about ecology and energy savings these days? Some people out there have a seriously skewed perception of the world and what's important for an average Joe, and those are low costs and usability.
So... you pay for electricity. Low cost and efficiency are important to most normal people. Reiterating what the parent said, nobody uses dark mode to save power. That is a really fucking dumb straw man to fight and conflate with people trying to lower one of their monthly forever bills in ways that actually make a difference. Who even uses ecology that way, are you a bot?
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Why does everything have to about ecology and energy savings these days?
There's nothing these days, and there's nothing ecology about this discussion. I still remember dark mode on my original Samsung Galaxy S being pitched to extend battery life. No one gave a shit about ecofriendlyness 15 years ago, they cared about personal benefit, and dark mode objectively provided battery life improvements on OLED based displays (but explicitly not LCDs).
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Not ecology, battery life. On phones and tablets with OLED displays, dark mode definitely does extend battery life. It's only LCDs where it makes no difference because the backlight remains at the same level.
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to me is the opposite, much more eye straining looking at white text in dark background, probably because I need to crank up the brightness level.
I also find easier to find things in light mode because of the contrast, and easier to differentiate between colors as well.
I use dark mode in somethings, like my HTPC, because in a very dark room going from a low light scene to a bright background on a TV that has a very bright backlight is kind of annoying, but that's pretty much it.
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Exactly. Hell, I wouldn't care if it used even more. I have retinal tears in both my eyes from extreme stigmatism, and the floaters in my eyes drive me nuts on white backgrounds, but are almost invisible on dark backgrounds. I pretty much do all my word-processing and spreadsheet work on dark backgrounds.
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You don't use dark mode to save electricity, you use it because it's easier to look at for log periods of time. If you want to save energy get a monitor that uses less energy.
Shitty monitors are not worth owning. One can spend about the same $$$ for last years model of a professional display and never have to worry about this crap.
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You don't use dark mode to save electricity
Actually the popularity of dark mode on mobile devices came with the advent of OLED screens and was actively marketed as a feature to save electricity.
It may not be used for that now, but it certainly was pitched as such when it started becoming popular. Back in the day there were even articles pointing out how this explicitly did not apply to LCD phones since LCDs use more energy to block light than they do to pass it.
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Not necessarily true.
Folks over (roughly) 45 years old often start to require reading glasses since due to lens hardening they can't easily focus on reading distance screens and printed material. Having more light from the reading material reach the eye (i.e., moving to brighter lighting with your book, or using light mode and cranking up brightness) causes the pupil in the eye to contract. The smaller aperture causes a greater d
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You don't use dark mode to save electricity, you use it
so you don't need welding glasses to look at the screen.
Kay (Score:5, Informative)
Using apps and websites in dark mode can actually use more energy than standard mode...
That ain't why I use dark mode. It works better with my stigmatism.
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Curious. It has the opposite effect for me, with a bonus of short-term retina burn-in.
Juice (Score:2)
How can juice burn? Is it spiked with hot sauce and capsaicin or something?
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It only burns when you pee.
Re: Juice (Score:2)
Good juice burns twice. On the way in and out.
Eye strain (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Eye strain (Score:4, Insightful)
That is because it is. Article is stupid, not you.
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That is because it is. Article is stupid, not you.
Depends on what. Dark mode for early OLED smartphones was explicitly marketed due to it extending battery life. The fact that research has also shown it can *under certain conditions* reduce eye strain is sort of tangential. And I say certain environments since dark mode has only shown to have a strain reducing effect in dimly lit environments. Objectively to reduce eye strain you want to match your background to your ambient lighting conditions. Lightmode in the office building with walls made of glass, da
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I'd suggest that it STARTED as a way to save power as OLED screens started to become more common. But I think a combination of things happened soon after - 1) people realized it made screens easier to look at and read in some cases and 2) seeing that people liked it, developers and designers started making "dark mode" options that weren't actually black anymore, which kind of negated most of the potential battery savings of OLED and black pixels. So why bother anymore? Just make things dark shades of whatev
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Back in the day I used to use IBM DisplayWrite, with it's grey text on blue background. After a while I'd look away and there would be a big pink square floating in front of me.
AmigaOS 2 and onwards were probably the best for eye strain. Medium-dark grey background and black text by default. The reduced contrast was nice. These days I usually settle for dark mode and turning the brightness down.
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Maybe we just learned something about an IBM engineer.
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Interesting thought. I always assumed it was IBM blue.
The default grey text was normal font, but I often made everything bold (white on screen) just to make the dot matrix printer print over it twice. Then I set the double print option as well, so it did it four times. Really get every last drop out of that ink ribbon.
Of course... [smacks forehead] (Score:3)
Dark Mode Might Be Burning More Juice Than You Think
That explains why Dark Brandon [vox.com] was so tired. :-)
Who does that? (Score:3)
Using apps and websites in dark mode can actually use more energy than standard mode, according to researchers, as it causes people to crank up the brightness.
Who actually does that? If you have to crank up the brightness, than it's a very bad dark mode. Dark mode still has decent contrast if it's done right. Unless you've got some idiot designer pushing #444444 gray against #777777 gray as a "dark mode," why would you crank up the brightness?
And GTFO with that purposeful set-up they did to prove something that doesn't actually happen in the wild. Set your brightness once and forget it. Nobody is adjusting brightness when they swap between dark and normal modes.
Don't you care? (Score:2)
Oh, noes, Dark Mode will wreck the planet.
Re: Who does that? (Score:3)
A lot of the dark themes for IDEs do just that: light gray text over a dark gray background, reducing the actual contrast.
I get the light gray for the text but the background should not be a shade of gray but pure black. Yes I can tune this but it is still annoying.
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A lot of the dark themes for IDEs do just that: light gray text over a dark gray background, reducing the actual contrast.
I get the light gray for the text but the background should not be a shade of gray but pure black. Yes I can tune this but it is still annoying.
This is what happens when programmers design UI. Gray on black works. I'm a fan of light blue on black myself. I do have a nice theme for Emacs that's dark brown with light blue which works surprisingly well for a non eye-searing long-term view on a large television a few feet away, but on a good monitor I'll still stick to black backgrounds with lighter text of either blue or gray.
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My emacs has a background of black and a foreground of #D2C0AB (which I think was originally derived from some named X11 color?) and it works very well for my eyes.
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Who actually does that?
People who use dark mode incorrectly. E.g. during the day in the sun. The contrast between dark and light modes are essentially the same, but that doesn't mean we can consistently see it as clearly in all environments. The background lighting we apply has a big impact on eye strain and our ability to read something. It's one of the reasons dark mode is so much more pleasant to look at when you're in a dimly lit area - and quite the opposite if you're in a brightly lit area.
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It is a shame I used all of my mod points already. +1 Insightful/Informative/Interesting.
Publish or perish. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll note they didn't mention asking users if they actually changed the brightness in normal use when moving between light and dark modes. I'll bet 99.9% of users don't touch it. The study prompted users to change it.
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And if the BBC really wanted me to save power, they should have left "The Unbelievable Truth" up on the Internet Archive. Now I have to go to power-hungry YouTube if I want to listen to David Mitchell!
Turn the room lighting down (Score:4, Insightful)
For me, "Dark mode" is only good in a dark or dimly lit room. Turn the room lighting off or down and dark mode is useful and saves energy mostly because the room lighting is using less energy, it's got little or nothing to do with the amount of energy used by the screen. I'll never understand why people think they need bright lights on to use a computer or need to have the display brightness turned all the way up.
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Screens are pre-set for glaring office lights. Most people don't adjust the brightness. So they configure their home for identical behaviour. The obvious example is, having bright lights when watching Tv, creating glare from the huge flat-screens people now own.
Phones have auto-brightness, which is fixed at 50% or 75%, it's not proportional to ambient brightness and not scaled to the user's comfort. It's like the goal is, in fact, using more energy. It prevents both comfort and saving battery: A fea
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Phones have auto-brightness, which is fixed at 50% or 75%, it's not proportional to ambient brightness and not scaled to the user's comfort.
I haven't had a phone, in recent memory(at least 5 years), that was unable to reasonably manage its brightness. My current phone runs a bit dim at lower ambient, but except for in a completely dark room it's fine.
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Totally. I typically work with no room lighting at all, and my monitor is positioned to minimize glare from the window during the day. When I watch TV, the room is as dark as I can make it, so the brightness is set quite low and it's really nice that way. Of course, my 50" TV uses a lot less power at a low brightness: like 30W instead of 160W. I bet many people have no idea. Here's another tidbit of stupid: there's an "energy saver" mode in my TV's settings, which one can turn on and have everything loo
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Office cubicles have bright lights. Sometimes, windows with dang sun too. Or working outside. :(
OLED (Score:2)
When I swapped from LCD to OLED, my power consumption reduced dramatically. And actively monitoring the power consumption, there can be a 200-300w consumption difference between and bright and a dark screen on the OLED panel. No, I didn't switch to OLED -because- of the power consumption, its just a happy additional feature. I got it because they're a hell of a lot nicer to look at.
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An OLED display consumes 200-300W at full power??
My primary monitor (a largish normal LED-lit LCD monitor) consumes about 20W at the brightness setting I find comfortable.
I'd have thought it obvious. (Score:5, Informative)
OLEDs work by directly emitting light: darker = less power needed.
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A Bit of History (Score:4, Informative)
Nobody cares about power savings for dark mode (Score:4, Insightful)
It just looks better and doesn't hurt our eyes.
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We did. When it came out it was marketed primarily as a feature to extend battery life on OLED smartphones. And boy did we bitch and moan about how our smartphones couldn't last 2 weeks on a charge like our old Nokias.
Re: Nobody cares about power savings for dark mode (Score:2)
Unless you have the sort of maculopathy I do, and then dark mode is completely unbearable. I have to turn the brightness higher than average. Low contrast color schemes are still hugely problematic.
more than dark mode (Score:2)
i don't just use dark mode. i have b/w mode enabled as well as red tint mode enabled. then again not all phones can do that... and i have my brightness dialed way down.
You know what really saves energy? (Score:2)
Clean coded websites. Block third parties.
No outside advertising, no Google/Meta/Xwitter/Amazon/[insert your favourite social spyware maker] scripts everywhere, no animations/videos unless requested.
Light pages of sizes in kilobytes, not megabytes.
OLED (Score:2)
Dark mode saves power for OLED. It does not save power for LCD. It also doesn't use much more power when using LCD, it only doesn't help much.
As a software developer: that's not why (Score:2)
As every software developer knows, we don't use dark mode to save electricity.
We use dark mode because light attracts bugs.
salshdot dark mode? (Score:2)
Why doesn't slashdot have a dark mode?
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Because the code case hasn’t been touched in 15 years. It’s probably running on a Pentium core 2 duo.
Oh, except the ADs. When I scroll on my IPad the ad layout causes severe page jitter.