Anyone notice that the apple watch has auto brightness?

Question

Level 1

5 points

Anyone notice that the apple watch has auto brightness?

I thought there was something wrong with my Apple Watch, because it never seems very bright... But a few time when i received a Text Message, the Watch display seemed brighter... and then as I looked at it, it dimmed down.

I spoke to Apple Support via chat about it, and they just had me reset my watch, and I did this in a dark environment as instructed. Same result the watch Display was Dim...

But now i think that the watch doesn't stay at full brightness even if it's set to that level, I believe it uses auto-brightness.

I think because I am always looking at the watch while inside my place it's always at Medium... But when i hold it up to a light source it seems to go to full brightness.

Anyone also notice this.. or do i actually have a defective watch?

Posted on May 14, 2015 9:05 PM

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Answer 1

mshep02

Level 1

15 points

Feb 7, 2017 1:00 PM in response to Jem777v

My Apple Watch 2 gets to its brightest in the sun, medium indoors, and it looks like it dims down in the dark. The weird thing is that it stays at full brightness after being outside and coming inside. I have to manually turn the brightness down and back to have it readjust itself. I have it set to only turn on when I tap the screen rather than on wrist turn (I move my arms regularly and don't want to advertise an expensive timepiece by drawing people's attention to a screen turning on and off), so that might be a reason for why it gets stuck on full brightness. It should still readjust to inside lighting by itself after I tap the screen inside, though.

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Answer 2

jwcnyc

Level 1

4 points

Jun 2, 2015 5:09 PM in response to Jem777v

Yes!! I totally have the same problem. I received the watch about 4 hours ago and one of the first things I did was to make it as bright as possible. I noticed that even at the brightest level, the screen appeared fairly dark. Then I noticed as I was messing with different settings, the screen noticibly brightened. However, that was short lived. The watch would erratically brighten up and darken itself. It just won't stay at the level set by me. I got on the phone with Apple but he had no answer. He told me to reset which did not fix the problem. It's really annoying and frustrating. I made an appointment at an Apple Store. But what are they going to do if it's a hardware problem?

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Answer 3

Jem777v Author

Level 1

5 points

Jun 2, 2015 7:10 PM in response to jwcnyc

There is nothing wrong with it. I took it to the Apple Store and they verified that it does have an ambient light sensor in it.

In a darker room, take your iPhone, turn on the flash light, and shine it at the watch face while it's on and you'll see the brightness go up to Full.

Basically when you're indoors it's at Medium (unless you wave it infront of a light source), when you are outdoors, it goes into Full.

They said it helps preserve the battery that way. And i got used to it, so hopefully you will to.

Hope that helps.

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Answer 4

Jul 2, 2015 3:02 PM in response to Jem777v

I believe it's the opposite it hurts battery life as I've seen it go full bright indoors . Why put a brightness setting at all if it is going to do whatever it wants anyway?

This must be a bug, part of it at least.

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Answer 5

Foltiv01

Level 1

8 points

Dec 28, 2016 1:39 AM in response to Jem777v

Hi, I tried what you said and you are right when I use my iPhone light on Watch they got brighter so you just suprise me that people on a Apple chat dont know about it.

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Answer 6

Feb 8, 2017 4:39 AM in response to Jem777v

Yes - and I'm glad it has. One of the reasons that I binned my Gear S2 was that, at night if the screen turned on, it was like a Super Nova going off in the bedroom.

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Answer 7

May 23, 2017 1:45 AM in response to mshep02

Hi mshep02,

The brightness does stay at full when you come inside after being outside. If you put your watch to sleep, then wake it up again, your watch will return to medium/indoor brightness.

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