The LG G2 has one the most
crowded notification areas so I wouldn’t install an app that adds one
more thing to it unless it was absolutely awesome, would I? That app
is Lux and it
forced me to make an exception for it because it solved all my screen
brightness problems.
There are two
important scenarios where I have previously struggled with screen
brightness. For one, the automatic setting almost always seems a bit too low
for me, especially outdoors. The second is the fact that no matter how low I
set the brightness, the screen is always too bright for me when I’m
chatting or reading in my bed at night. That issue, has been proven time and
again in medical studies to be disturbing for the sleeping cycle.
Lux fixes both issues
effortlessly and is chockfull of settings that would solve many more
of your other brightness woes. The first time you launch it, you have to click
the app’s power button to enable it and from there on, you can use it either in
a fast and simple way, either delve into its many settings.
The simple way of using Lux
Lux sits by default in the
notification area and consists of one line with the current brightness
percentage and another with 6 different buttons:
- –
and + let you manually change the brightness percentage by 10%
increments from -100% to +100%, or the automatic brightness by 5%
increments up to a 20% variation. Say for example the
auto-brightness has decided to set a level of 45%, you can force it
to be anywhere between 20% lower or 20% higher, and that readjustment will
carry on no matter what the auto level is.
- Auto/man
lets you select the current brightness mode.
- Refresh
checks your conditions again and readjusts the automatic brightness.
- The
three stars triggers a red overlay on top of the screen.
- The
power button de/activates Lux.
Here are the Lux parameters in the notification area
Both of my brightness issues
are fixed with a few clicks on these 6 buttons. During the day, I usually
have Lux set on auto-brightness with a +20% adjustment. This ensures that my
screen is always brighter than it thinks it should be, which is perfect for my
outdoors problem and also keeps the screen quite vivid indoors.
When I’m reading, chatting or watching
something at night, I switch to the manual mode, and lower the brightness to
about -40%. Lux doesn’t actually reduce the screen’s level beyond zero, but
it achieves this negative value by layering a transparent filter
on top of the screen that darkens everything. It’s effective, makes my eyes
hurt a lot less when using the G2 around bedtime, and doesn’t seem to
affect my ability to fall asleep after looking at the phone for a while.
Lux adds a layer to reduce brightness below 0%
The more thorough side of Lux
If you open Lux from yous app
drawer, or click on the brightness line in the notification, you will be
greeted by another screen of the app. There you can slide the brightness as you
want, set up profiles, tell it when to adjust the auto-brightness
(periodically, dynamically, on wake, and so on), teach it the preferred level
depending on your surroundings, and access the app’s exhaustive settings
screen.
Nonetheless, you can tell that
I have stuck with the free Lux
offering. It does its job perfectly for me — and even has more
options that I don’t need — which is why it has earned its spot on the
notification drop-down on both my LG G2 and Nexus 7.
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