Google recently confirmed that “Dark Mode” on Android phones uses less power and thus, helps to boost battery life.
Most websites and OS screens do all they can to make it easier to see them on the diminutive screens of our smartphones. That means bright white backgrounds and bright colors are used to highlight what designers and webmasters want you to see.
Unfortunately, the brightness of those colors and the brightness of the screen itself both impact the power consumption of the display, and by extension, the life of your battery.
Dark Mode essentially reverses color themes, replacing white backgrounds with black. How much power does this simple change save? Well, according to Business Insider, Dark Mode uses 43 percent less power than normal mode in the YouTube App, which is white-heavy.
If it is an established fact though, that dark backgrounds are less power intensive than white ones, why does everyone insist on white backgrounds?
Actually, Google bears at least some responsibility for that, as the company has been quietly encouraging app developers to use the color white as backgrounds for their interfaces for years, via the company’s “Material Design Specification.”
The company is in the process of shifting gears and plans to roll out a Dark Mode for all Google apps in the future, though no firm data has been established for this.
In any case, the bottom line is that Dark Mode is good for your battery. If you want to enable it on your Android device, just do the following:
- Go to “Settings”
- Tap “Display” then “Advanced” then “Device Theme”
- Then tap “Dark”
That’s it. You’re in Dark Mode.
If you want to enable Dark Mode for YouTube, here’s how:
- Launch YouTube on your Android Device
- Tap the profile icon (top right corner)
- Go to “Settings” and then “General”
- Tap the toggle switch for “Dark Theme” to enable it, then tap the back button. Your theme changes will automatically be saved.
