How to turn off auto brightness on an iPhone or iPad

The iPhone and the iPad are known for their bright and vibrant displays. While they have a peak brightness that rivals the best displays on the market, using the phone at this max setting all the time can be a strain on the eyes.

While you can manually adjust the brightness based on your surroundings, the iPhone and iPad also have an auto-brightness setting. However, using this setting may affect your battery health, and sometimes you might want to disable it. This article will show you how to turn off auto brightness on an iPhone or iPad.

How to turn off auto brightness on iPhone or iPad

Auto-brightness can be a handy feature, as it adjusts the brightness of your iPhone or iPad according to the lighting of your surroundings. But this setting drains your battery, and you might want to disable it to conserve charge. Follow the steps below to do so:

1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Tap Accessibility > Display and text size.
3. Scroll until you find the Auto-Brightness toggle and turn it off.

This will disable the feature, and your iPhone or iPad will not change your brightness settings until you manually do so.

How to manually change the brightness on your iPhone or iPad

Speaking of manually changing the brightness settings, there are two ways you can do that. You can either adjust the brightness from the Control Center or use the Settings app. Follow the steps below to learn how to do it using the Control Center:

1. On iPhone 8, swipe up from the bottom of the screen to access the Control Center. If you have an iPhone X or later or an iPad with iOS 12 or iPadOS, swipe down from the top right of the screen to bring up the Control Center.
2. Use the Brightness bar (it should have a sun icon) to adjust the brightness to your liking.

To adjust brightness using the Settings app, use the following steps:

1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Tap Display & Brightness, then use the Brightness slider to adjust the brightness to your liking.

The Control Center method is easily accessible and is the one that is recommended for regular use, but the Settings app also has other features you might want to check out, such as True Tone and Night Shift.

Why does my iPhone keep dimming with auto-brightness off

There can be several reasons why your iPhone or iPad might be dimming automatically, even with auto-brightness turned off. The first one is the Attention Aware feature. This feature dims your iPhone or iPad’s screen when it detects you aren’t looking at it. This option could sometimes malfunction and cause your device’s screen to dim even when you are using it. You could disable this feature from the Accessibility > Face ID and Attention.

True Tone and Night Shift could also be the culprits behind this issue. True Tone adjusts the colors of your display based on ambient lighting, and Night Shift increases the temperature of the display to make it easier to view at night. Both these settings can sometimes cause your screen to look dim. Disable them to see if it resolves your issue.

Another more extreme cause of your dimming problem might be the fact that your iPhone or iPad is overheating. This can typically occur if you are using your device outside on a hot and sunny day. If you feel your screen is dimming and your device feels hot to the touch, move it to a cool place indoors and wait for it to get back to normal temperature.