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Google is preparing to integrate Extra Dim into Android's brightness slider
- Google is working on removing the Extra Dim feature that makes the screen dimmer than what even the lowest level of the brightness slider allows.
- Instead, the feature will now be built into the brightness slider, so you can just slide the bar left to dim the screen further than before.
- The new feature will be controlled by a toggle called “even dimmer.”
If you like using your phone in bed at night, then you’re probably accustomed to turning on Android’s “extra dim” feature to dim the screen beyond what the regular brightness bar allows for. However, if you forget to turn off extra dim in the morning, then you’ll find yourself looking at a phone screen that’s much dimmer than it should be. Fortunately, Google has a solution to this problem, and it could arrive in the first quarterly platform release of Android 15.
Back in April, we spotted work on a feature called “even dimmer” that allows the device to “go dimmer than usual,” similar to “extra dim.” Unlike “extra dim,” which you have to toggle on or off as you use it, “even dimmer” is a feature that can stay on, and only has an effect at low brightness settings. When the setting is active, the lowest values of the brightness slider cause the screen to become even dimmer than usual, as Android applies a transformation that reduces the intensity of bright colors.
In our original report, we speculated that “even dimmer” would serve as a replacement to “extra dim.” With the release of Android 15 QPR1 Beta 2 earlier today, we can now confirm this is the case. While digging through the latest release, we discovered strings that state the “extra dim” feature is being deprecated. It appears that Google is preparing to show a notification to users who added the “extra dim” shortcut to their Quick Settings panel that asks them to remove the shortcut. The notification says that, instead of using the “extra dim” shortcut, “you can now make the screen extra dim by lowering the brightness level even further from the top of your screen.” This is because “extra dim is now part of the brightness bar,” and hence, doesn’t need to be manually turned on anymore.
<string name="accessibility_deprecate_extra_dim_dialog_button">Remove extra dim shortcut</string>
<string name="accessibility_deprecate_extra_dim_dialog_description">"You can now make the screen extra dim by lowering the brightness level even further from the top of your screen.
This works best when you're in a dark environment."</string>
<string name="accessibility_deprecate_extra_dim_dialog_title">Extra dim is now part of the brightness bar</string>
<string name="accessibility_deprecate_extra_dim_dialog_toast">Extra dim shortcut removed. To lower your brightness, use the regular brightness bar.</string>Although the notification doesn’t explicitly mention it, we know that this new capability can be disabled by going to Settings > Display or Settings > Accessibility and toggling “even dimmer.”
The “even dimmer” feature hasn’t rolled out yet, not even in the latest Android 15 QPR1 Beta 2 release, but it’s possible that Google could enable it in the next Android 15 QPR1 beta. If not, then we might see it in a future QPR of Android 15, or possibly even in the next major release, Android 16. We already know that Google has plans to update the brightness slider as part of an overhaul to the notifications and Quick Settings panels in Android 16, so it would make perfect sense for Google to drop this change along with those UI updates.