At a recent Android Dev Summit session in San Francisco (via SlashGear), Google revealed that using dark mode extends the battery life of Android smartphones. According to Google, the colours used within apps have a direct impact on the phone’s battery life, and use of bright colours drain the phone’s battery like anything.
Citing an example of a Pixel smartphone, Google revealed that how the handset which uses an AMOLED display, is able to reduce battery consumption by 63 per cent when using Google Maps’ night mode compared to a normal mode. We all know that the brighter you set the screen to, the faster your battery depletes. Interestingly, the use of bright colours too takes a toll on the battery life. Google said that the colour white uses the maximum power, followed by blue, green, red, and back. This shows that the dark mode or night mode uses less power, which essentially means it can save the phone’s battery.
Google then admitted that it made a mistake by encouraging developers to use of white as their primary colour of layouts. In fact, Google’s own research shows that this makes Android apps more power hungry. The good news is that Google wants developers to add dark themes to save battery life on Android smartphones
Recently, Android Messages, YouTube, Google News have received a new Material Theme design with Dark Mode. Users are encouraged to enable a dark mode in applications in order to save the phone’s battery life. Not only does a dark mode makes the interface easier to look at, but it is also easy on your eyes.