During its annual Android Dev Summit, Google’s developers spent a portion of their time to speak about two subjects in particular: screen brightness and the power consumption behind it.
During their presentation, it’s quite obvious that the developers were pushing for more Android developers to adopt dark and night modes for their phones. As the reduced brightness of the mode would help smartphones and tablets immensely in their conservation of battery power.
Google points out that, statistically, the energy draw from colours such as blue requires 25% more power than green or red in the standard RGB spectrum. In a way, that statistic kind of explains why scientists have warned against prolonged exposure to blue light.
Further study shows that, in YouTube video playbacks, playing videos in dark mode resulted in a 60% battery consumption on displays, compared to the same video being played on the usual white layout. On Gboard, the power reduction gained from using a dark mode keyboard was 21% over the normal white keyboard.
The plea for apps that work in dark modes also stems from a mistake in Google’s all-white Material Design. As SlashGear says, there’s nothing inherently wrong with the design and layout of the Material Design. However, because of the overall brightness, it clearly isn’t the most ideal if the aim is to conserve battery life.
(Source: SlashGear via 9to5Google)
