iPhone auto brightness

Slime · 6 Jan 2023 at 20:03

I’m a recent convert from android and have had my iPhone for a few weeks now. What is the deal with auto brightness? It straight up does not work. If I go into settings and switch it off and back on then it auto adjusts to the environment once but then doesn’t at any time after that.

What am I missing here?

Feek · 6 Jan 2023 at 20:31

Slime said:
It straight up does not work

You must have something set wrong because I’ve found it works and works really quickly. I don’t even know where the settings are because I’ve never even been into them.

Hopefully someone can point you at the right place to check.

ChrisD. · 6 Jan 2023 at 20:39

Never had an issue with it myself.

Reuben klang · 6 Jan 2023 at 21:09

Nor I, must be a setting someplace.

Adjust the brightness and colour temperature on your iPhone or iPad – Apple Support (UK)

Adjust brightness from Control Centre or Settings.

support.apple.com

Make sure True Tone is on. I take it, it’s that that you’re flicking on and off?

ChrisD. · 6 Jan 2023 at 21:18

Maybe something is covering the sensor at the front like a silly screen protector or case.

Slime · 6 Jan 2023 at 21:59

Reuben klang said:
Nor I, must be a setting someplace.

Adjust the brightness and colour temperature on your iPhone or iPad – Apple Support (UK)

Adjust brightness from Control Centre or Settings.

support.apple.com

Make sure True Tone is on. I take it, it’s that that you’re flicking on and off?

ChrisD. said:
Maybe something is covering the sensor at the front like a silly screen protector or case.

True Tone is on but that’s not what I was flicking on and off. There’s an auto brightness setting in accessibility>display and text size. I’m not sure what the difference is to be honest.

No screen protector and official Apple case so I don’t think it’s that.

Reassuring to know it’s probably a setting but still unsure what it could be. Maybe I’ll nip to the Apple Store tomorrow to see if I can get it sorted. It’s almost certainly something embarrassingly straight forward.

Feek · 6 Jan 2023 at 22:14

Slime said:
It’s almost certainly something embarrassingly straight forward.

I’ll be interested to know what it is once you find it. I seem to remember something back from the very early days about calibrating it in a dark room but I don’t recall the details and I’ve never done it.

The auto brightness should respond really quickly. I use my phone in the car with PocketGPSWorld so it’s always on and at nighttime, if I flick the interior light on, the phone brightens up very quickly and then goes down again when I turn the light off. It’s very noticeable.

Slime · 7 Feb 2023 at 20:21

Finally got around to taking it into the Apple Store. They couldn’t definitively say what was causing this but a hard reset of the phone seems to have fixed it.

Only thing I’m still confused by is that auto-brightness disengages once I manually change the brightness which makes sense but I would expect it turn back on once I lock the screen which it doesn’t. Only way of turning it back on is to switch it off and on again.