After 4+ years of searing retinas, Google finally agrees that dark modes help battery life (and saves your eyes)

[AkatsukiKun]

10 hours ago, Godlygamer23 said:

The topic title should state which display technology it's actually mostly useful for. Any user with a non-OLED based panel wouldn't see that much benefit from this.

Helps with falling asleep a bit easier, sure you shouldn't use your phone before bed because the light from the panel specifically blue light excites your brain more. But can't resist going on your phone anyways these past few years, dark mode does help in other ways.

[Godlygamer23]

24 minutes ago, AkatsukiKun said:

Helps with falling asleep a bit easier, sure you shouldn't use your phone before bed because the light from the panel specifically blue light excites your brain more. But can't resist going on your phone anyways these past few years, dark mode does help in other ways.

From a device perspective, no benefit. 

 

It might make it easier for people to fall asleep, but I find that using my device in general makes me fall asleep faster, even with the blue light supposedly making it more difficult(which is believable due to blue skies being a sign that you should be awake).

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, Brooksie359 said:

I would think it might be similar to motion sickness. I mean I know people who get car sickness as well.

My understanding is it is believed too be about photophobia and to a lesser degree eyestrain from flicker.  The stupid part I refer to is people who have claimed they need 100+ FPS or they get headaches when they are gaming on a sub 100Hz monitor.   Nothing screams placebo louder than that.

 

 

 

 

[desertcomputer]

If only facebook messenger will follow suit ... after they made it impossible to theme back in v146 for substratum. It doesn't take more than a fucking year to make a app black/dark theme while themeing app can already do it. 

[Dabombinable]

And this is why I read ebooks in dark mode.

[RejZoR]

Dark Mode doesn't save anything on LCD displays. It only works with OLEDs. Also, it's so hilarious everyone raving about "Dark Modes" these days. Wow, what an innovation. Inverted Color mode existed in MS Paint since the beginning of time...

[D13H4RD]

6 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

Dark Mode doesn't save anything on LCD displays. It only works with OLEDs. Also, it's so hilarious everyone raving about "Dark Modes" these days. Wow, what an innovation. Inverted Color mode existed in MS Paint since the beginning of time...

People rave about it because it makes sense on an OLED display. 

 

On an LCD, you won't get the power benefits, so it's more of an aesthetic preference. 

[Dabombinable]

35 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

Dark Mode doesn't save anything on LCD displays.

It can if the display uses zones of LED as its backlighting.

[RejZoR]

39 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

It can if the display uses zones of LED as its backlighting.

Phones don't use direct backlight because it adds to the thickness (although is superior for contrast as well as power saving).

[mr moose]

10 hours ago, M.Yurizaki said:

The retinal damage study was done on rats. Any study done on rats doesn't necessarily mean it has the same effects on humans, at least at the scales tested. Not to mention that this is a relatively new field of study, so there's no real conclusive evidence on the long term effects of what we expose ourselves to. We only have a link that blue light may cause damage.

 

Besides that, we're exposed to blue light all the time. What do you think that big ball of fire in the sky is producing?

I keep pointing people to warfarin when they raise studies on rats.  Yep, it kills rats but it keeps many humans alive.  Somethings crossover and something don't.  It's a foundation to work from, not a concrete fact about humans.

[XenosTech]

11 hours ago, RorzNZ said:

If you're having 8 trips to the doctor that generally translates that you do have an eyesight impairment. Just put the light on in your room, your eyes are slow and need to adjust. Regardless if you're having problems with your eyes and the computer, it's time to switch off for an hour or two. 

8 trips in 8 years is having a sight impairment? What?! I'm gonna add more light to make myself squint and then eventually have tired eyes and a headache from eye strain, makes a lot of sense. It doesn't even have anything to do with a computer, or did you not read this 

Quote

 For example I can't be in brightly light places at night, my head would hurt and my vision gets blurry

 

[Amazonsucks]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

I keep pointing people to warfarin when they raise studies on rats.  Yep, it kills rats but it keeps many humans alive.  Somethings crossover and something don't.  It's a foundation to work from, not a concrete fact about humans.

The reason it kills rats is the exact same reason it would be fatal to take too much for a human. Give a human the same dose proportional to what a rat ingests as poison and it will kill the human just as easily.

 

So its a terrible example or indication of a profound misunderstanding of biology and pharmacology. Botulinum toxin is also used medically, as are atropines from nightshade...

 

Opioids are also potentially deadly. Give a rat an oxycodone sized for a human and it'll go into respiratory arrest. Or a human size dose of morphine. 

 

Need i make a long list of toxic(or even nontoxic as most opioids are) chemicals used medically that will kill rats? I mean, there are lots of them and their existence doesn't disprove anything.

 

Unless of course one has absolutely no idea how these biological processes work, its really not something people can throw their hands up and say "well maybe it happens in humans maybe it doesnt!"

 

The fact that visible blue light in the absence of longer wavelengths causes increased reactive oxygen species production and rhodopsin mediated photoreversal in the human retinal pigment eipthelium isn't what's controversial or disputed even though you make it sound like it is with the warfarin conflation.

 

Its also not disputed that these biological processes are the result of wavelength dependent exposure, not intensity dependent(which is the case with UV). 

 

How much damage and over what time period is what people dispute. Those two things depend on baseline retinal health as well as diet, combined with the actual damaging factor(the blue light).

 

If youre like me and you eat tons of real saffron, red and orange peppers, and other foods rich in macular pigment carotenoids, youre going to take less damage. 

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, Amazonsucks said:

The reason it kills rats is the exact same reason it would be fatal to take too much for a human. Give a human the same dose proportional to what a rat ingests as poison and it will kill the human just as easily.

 

So its a terrible example or indication of a profound misunderstanding of biology and pharmacology. Botulinum toxin is also used medically, as are atropines from nightshade...

That comment was that warfarin was developed first and foremost as a literal rat poison (1948). The research itself stemmed from a disease outbreak in the 1920s that was killing cows. It was only later that it was developed for use in the medical field, after someone tried to kill themselves with it and lived.

[Doobeedoo]

Wow it's like they're actually using their devicea. 

[Sniperfox47]

18 hours ago, BuckGup said:

I bet we will see it considering the dark theme on MacOS and things like the Watch App and others having a default dark theme. Plus most iPhones are OLED now so it would help improve battery for free

Just want to point out that it's not free, in the same way that Android's Invert Colours and Whitewash modes aren't free. They need to have an extra shading pass to invert/greyscale the image, as well as logic to keep certain parts of the image clear. In many cases it's much cheaper than the power cost of the display itself, but it's certainly not free.

 

That's precisely why having a dark mode in the OS is something people have been looking for. On Android 7 and 8 people were even doing this with Substratum/RRO/OMS, because you're using code injection to make the app render itself in a dark palette and introduces no extra work (except the indexing that OMS does). Google closed the security vulnerability that Substratum was using so on Android 9 you can't abuse RRO/OMS this way.

 

I really hope google gets their act together and builds a dark theme RRO overlay directly into Android like they were testing a couple years back, or even creates a public interface for users to use RRO/OMS, although that's not super likely to happen.

[TetraSky]

I switched to it to moment I saw that option on my phone.
I had been using a black theme for youtube on my PC for years, then they released their own Dark theme so I started using that and now they've finally released it for mobile, excellent. 

[BuckGup]

1 hour ago, Sniperfox47 said:

Just want to point out that it's not free, in the same way that Android's Invert Colours and Whitewash modes aren't free. They need to have an extra shading pass to invert/greyscale the image, as well as logic to keep certain parts of the image clear. In many cases it's much cheaper than the power cost of the display itself, but it's certainly not free.

 

That's precisely why having a dark mode in the OS is something people have been looking for. On Android 7 and 8 people were even doing this with Substratum/RRO/OMS, because you're using code injection to make the app render itself in a dark palette and introduces no extra work (except the indexing that OMS does). Google closed the security vulnerability that Substratum was using so on Android 9 you can't abuse RRO/OMS this way.

 

I really hope google gets their act together and builds a dark theme RRO overlay directly into Android like they were testing a couple years back, or even creates a public interface for users to use RRO/OMS, although that's not super likely to happen.

If you designed a dark theme than on OLEDs the battery life will improve for "free" as you don't need to change anything physically which R&D costs money to extend the battery life

[JoeCoke]

10 hours ago, RejZoR said:

Dark Mode doesn't save anything on LCD displays. It only works with OLEDs. Also, it's so hilarious everyone raving about "Dark Modes" these days. Wow, what an innovation. Inverted Color mode existed in MS Paint since the beginning of time...

Who's calling it an innovation? And of course it only saves on OLEDs, the OP even makes mention of this. Dark modes also just look a lot nicer to a lot of people, it's not just about battery.

 

People have also been using dark themes since the 90's, it's not a "THESE KIDS THESE DAYS" thing. It's just becoming more widely adopted now because it does have real benefits, along with looking nicer to a lot of people (me included, I can't stand white themes).

 

Also, what does inverting colors in mspaint have to do with proper dark modes? All a dark mode does is make white backgrounds black or a dark shade of gray and black text white, and it darkens other objects on screen, inverting would invert every color on screen which would suck and would be unusable in most cases.

 

The fact that this has to be explained... I thought it was common sense, but I guess not.

[DeScruff]

Yes Google.
We don't like Dark themes because they are 'edgy' and 'cool'. We like something that doesn't hurt our eyes.
- Seriously I remember back in 2007 setting a lot of programs/websites into a dark theme, and everyone saying I was doing it cause I wanted them to look edgy, when no... I just wanted something that was not as blinding at night,

[Amazonsucks]

8 hours ago, leadeater said:

That comment was that warfarin was developed first and foremost as a literal rat poison (1948). The research itself stemmed from a disease outbreak in the 1920s that was killing cows. It was only later that it was developed for use in the medical field, after someone tried to kill themselves with it and lived.

And botulinum toxin has a similar story. One of the most potent bacterial toxins known. Figured out it can be used in human medicine. Now we have Botox. 

 

That doesnt change a single thing about the undisputed fact that visible blue light in the absence of longer wavelengths causes increased ROS production in the retina or rhodopsin mediated photoreversal. 

 

As i said to @mr moose, should i compile a list of things used in medicine that will kill a rat but wont kill a human? Its just a pointless conflation. Not sure if it stems from arguing in bad faith or not knowing about biology but saying "hah but warfarin!" doesn't disprove increased ROS or rhodopsin mediated photoreversal... I mean, those things are well known to happen.

 

The issue becomes how much damage do specific individuals take? Perhaps one of the people claiming that blue visible light is harmless can sit in a room lot by only blue LEDs for a specified amount of time per day and we can see how long it takes for them to develol macular degeneration? You or @mr moose game for that?

[leadeater]

26 minutes ago, Amazonsucks said:

And botulinum toxin has a similar story. One of the most potent bacterial toxins known. Figured out it can be used in human medicine. Now we have Botox. 

 

That doesnt change a single thing about the undisputed fact that visible blue light in the absence of longer wavelengths causes increased ROS production in the retina or rhodopsin mediated photoreversal. 

 

As i said to @mr moose, should i compile a list of things used in medicine that will kill a rat but wont kill a human? Its just a pointless conflation. Not sure if it stems from arguing in bad faith or not knowing about biology but saying "hah but warfarin!" doesn't disprove increased ROS or rhodopsin mediated photoreversal... I mean, those things are well known to happen.

 

The issue becomes how much damage do specific individuals take? Perhaps one of the people claiming that blue visible light is harmless can sit in a room lot by only blue LEDs for a specified amount of time per day and we can see how long it takes for them to develol macular degeneration? You or @mr moose game for that?

I don't think you understood the point of the comment being made.

[Amazonsucks]

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

I don't think you understood the point of the comment being made.

I do though. Hes implying that visible blue light "might not" cause damage in humans because warfarin was a rat poison that is also used as anticoagulation medication in humans.

 

If not, please do explain how warfarin being used as medication relates to blue light causing rhodopsin mediated photoreversal or increased ROS production in the retina.

[mr moose]

57 minutes ago, Amazonsucks said:

I do though. Hes implying that visible blue light "might not" cause damage in humans because warfarin was a rat poison that is also used as anticoagulation medication in humans.

 

If not, please do explain how warfarin being used as medication relates to blue light causing rhodopsin mediated photoreversal or increased ROS production in the retina.

How the hell did you conclude that?

 

My point was simple,  the effects of anything on the Human body are complex and cannot merely be simplified to "well it works on rats".

 

My point was directly in context with people who claim all sorts of things because that's what they've heard.  At no point have I claimed any of that which you have said.

 

 

[Brooksie359]

19 hours ago, mr moose said:

My understanding is it is believed too be about photophobia and to a lesser degree eyestrain from flicker.  The stupid part I refer to is people who have claimed they need 100+ FPS or they get headaches when they are gaming on a sub 100Hz monitor.   Nothing screams placebo louder than that.

 

 

 

 

Yeah I think they probably don't understand how monitors work of they think that lol. I don't think input lag can cause headaches unless you are playing competitive overwatch you get tilted.

[Amazonsucks]

7 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

Yeah I think they probably don't understand how monitors work of they think that lol. I don't think input lag can cause headaches unless you are playing competitive overwatch you get tilted.

That misconception probably comes from the conflation of the refresh rate and the PWM frequency for backlight dimming. Monitors with PWM dimming on low brightness could induce headaches from the low frequency strobing. Same would be true of fluorescent lights with bad ballasts strobing or other low frequency strobing lights.