Android Feature Request: Night Light Should Flip the Notification Shade to Dark
  • Posted byby Kellen

Android Feature Request: Night Light Should Flip the Notification Shade to Dark

With the launch of the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL, Google updated the Pixel Launcher with a cool new trick that took you from light to dark theme depending on the lightness or darkness of the wallpaper you set. They didn’t announce it, but it’s there and it’s pretty well done. I have a suggestion, though, that’ll take this trick one step further. The dark wallpaper shade and dark app drawer should switch when you enable Night Light.

Think about it. I may not always want a dark wallpaper. In fact, during the day, the last thing I want is to experience the darkness that is a dark wallpaper with dark notification shade, and dark app drawer. I like my Android experience light during daylight, but as that sun goes down and the lights in my house go off, I’d love for that shade to get darker, without me changing wallpapers.

Night Light -> dark theme

And that’s where Night Light (the mode that adds an amber tone to your screen to ease the strain on your eyes) comes in. You see, I’m addicted to Night Light on all phones. I use it so frequently, that I not only have a shortcut to it in my notification shade top 6, I also have it scheduled to automatically come on at 8PM every night and turn off again at 6AM.

It’s also called “Night Light,” which works perfectly with the idea of a darker, easier-to-read setup on your phone when it’s dark. Night Light could easily also utilize the dark theme that Google created, yet seems to only want to attach to wallpapers. Allowing Night Light to toggle between dark and light themes makes absolute perfect sense.

Now, you could argue that adding a light or dark theme toggle is probably an equally-as-good solution and I wouldn’t disagree. Google should allow for that to happen without a damn wallpaper switch. It’s just that part of the idea behind Night Light is for usage at night in low-light situations, to reduce eye strain. A dark vs. light setup at night certainly should factor into the thinking behind Night Light. I’m telling you, even with Night Light enabled, a light notification shade will still blind you and light up a room.

Google Wallpaper schedules

Better yet, maybe there should just be more advanced controls over wallpaper in addition to Night Light, where if it controls dark vs. light themes (Google does seem adamant about not giving us a toggle and instead made it randomly happen via wallpaper), that Google allows for daily schedules to enable dark vs. light wallpapers that’ll flip that UI switch. Sure, there are likely 3rd party wallpaper apps that can do this, but I’d much rather it be built in natively.

You can do it, Google.

Written by

Kellen

It’s not often that you get to merge personal passions into a professional life, but that’s what Kellen did when he launched Droid Life in 2009. After working years of unsatisfying jobs in the medical and property management fields, he took a risk to try and create an online community while playing with the coolest gadgets on the planet each day, a risk that has turned out to be incredibly rewarding. Outside of Droid Life, Kellen is your typical Portlander who drinks way too much good beer, complains often about the Trail Blazers, and can be found out on the streets for a run, rain or shine.

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23 Comments

  • All I want is the ability to swipe away stories on news feed – the change is awful. Now I can’t look at the feed without getting angry at my phone

    • I turned the swipe left for feed off finally. Sick of seeing those stupid stories and always telling it that I’m not interested. I just want it to have the useful info again. SAD

  • I just like having my phone with as much light on dark theming as possible. I would never have it switch automatically. But, please, bring on more dark theming for Google apps. Pretty much every non-Google app that I use already has a dark theme.

  • All this theme-wallpaper thing and night light are half baked solution from Google and just a mess. LiveDisplay from CyanogenMod (now LineageOS) predates this and is actually superior. You don’t set the time, it turns on automatically with the sunset and sunrise (based on location) , also gradually not an instant switch to orange, which looks more natural. On the other hand Resurrection Remix ROM (based on Lineage) in marshmallow has added automatic theme switching to dark with the same sunset-sunrise schedule. It’s hassle-free and work wonders. Why can’t Google just copy it?

    • Goo-g-le is paying $97 p-e-r hour,wi-t-h weekly payo-u-ts.You can also a-v-ail this.On tuesday I got a brand new Land Rover Range R-o-ver from having earned $11752 this last four weeks..with-out any doubt it’s the most-comf-o-rtable job I have ever done .. It so-u-nds unbel-i-evable but you wont forgive yourself if you don’t check it!ae342l:➵➵➵ http://GoogleTeamStockWorkFromHome/find/jobs… ♥♥♥t♥♥♥l♥p♥i♥♥♥e♥♥y♥♥k♥j♥u♥♥♥h♥o♥♥♥r♥♥♥l♥♥♥m♥♥♥e♥♥♥w♥♥z♥♥♥u♥♥♥d♥♥♥b♥♥♥k♥♥♥l♥♥e♥♥♥g♥♥♥w:::::!ae15q:lweiy

  • You just gave me a brilliant idea. As in, this is totally possible if you’re willing to do a little dirty work.

    • It probably is heh. I’d imagine one could cook something up like this through third party apps or even IFTTT maybe? Let me know what you do.

      • I’ve already done the “dirty work” with Tasker. I had the idea long before Android 8.1, however.

        At sunset, I set my wallpaper to a darker one, Night Light turns on and apps change to their dark theme (if they have one). At sunrise, it’s the reverse.

        • Automatically changing the wallpaper is a nice idea! My way is more universal for dark Substratum themes (ie. it can enable/disable whatever other dark theme you have, and doesn’t require changing the wallpaper). I set up a ContentObserver to monitor for Settings.Secure.night_display_activated. If it equals 1, then I use “cmd overlay enable” shell command to enable all of my dark Substratum themes, and vice versa if the value equals 0. Of course, only downside is that using “cmd overlay” requires root in Tasker.

          • You can also use AutoTools to enable / disable Night Light. That way, you can use Tasker to set your schedule. I use the Weather Underground AutoWeb plugin to pull sunset/sunrise times at set them to variables.

    • Go-o-gle is paying $97 per hou-r-,with weekly pa-y-outs.You can also ava-i-l this.O-n tuesday I got a brand new Land Rover Range Rover f-r-om having earned $11752 this last four weeks..w-i-th-out any do-u-bt it’s the most-comfortable job I have ever done .. It sounds unbelievable but you wont forgive you-r-self if you don’t check it!ue531o:➬➬➬ http://GoogleOnlineEasyNewOpportunities/earn/hourly… ♥♥♥t♥♥♥i♥♥♥x♥o♥♥d♥♥♥k♥♥q♥♥h♥♥♥s♥♥y♥♥m♥♥♥x♥♥♥c♥i♥c♥♥j♥♥t♥♥♥o♥u♥♥♥q♥♥♥w♥♥♥r♥♥♥r♥♥♥g♥♥♥e:::::!ee32j:lwei

    • Seems like it could easily be a setting without the Night Light settings. Or Google could just give us the damn dark/light toggle we’ve always dreamed of.

      • This shouldn’t be difficult because it has already been done with another toggle. You can already customize times and settings with the “Do Not Disturb” toggle to the point that I leave it on virtually all the time knowing which hours it will be active and the important few who will be able to reach me during those hours.

        I use a dark theme to conserve battery with my oled screen. But it is VERY annoying to pull down those notifications at night. I also loved the dark Gmail and YouTube theming available with Substratum, but it caused a boot loop when I updated (I was unable to remove all of the Substratum theming before the update.) At least make notification darkening part of the Android interface.

        And please allow Always On to rotate to landscape without 3rd party app!

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