Dark mode power savings vs. human behavior

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Dark mode power savings vs. human behavior

Adam Danz il 24 Feb 2025 alle 23:27 (Modificato il 25 Feb 2025 alle 1:38)
Ultime attività Replicato da dim-ask il 25 Feb 2025 alle 9:31

Do you boast about the energy savings you racking up by using dark mode while stashing your energy bill savings away for an exotic vacation🌴🥥? Well, hold onto your sun hats and flipflops!
A recent study presented at the 1st Internaltional Workshop on Low Carbon Computing suggests that you may be burning more ⚡energy⚡ with your slick dark displays 💻[1].
In a 2x2 factorial design, ten participants viewed a webpage in dark and light modes in both dim and lit settings using an LCD monitor with 16 brightness levels.
  • 80% of participants increased the monitor's brightness in dark mode [2]
  • This occurred in both lit and dim rooms
  • Dark mode did not reduce power draw but increasing monitor brightness did.
The color pixels in an LCD monitor still draw voltage when the screen is black, which is why the monitor looks gray when displaying a pure black background in a dark room. OLED monitors, on the other hand, are capable of turning off pixels that represent pure black and therefore have the potential to save energy with dark mode. A 2021 Purdue study estimates a 3%-9% energy savings with dark mode on OLED monitors using auto-brightness [3]. However, outside of gaming, OLED monitors have a very small market share and still account for less than 25% within the gaming world.
Any MATLAB users out there with OLED monitors? How are you going to spend your mad cash savings when you start using MATLAB's upcoming dark theme?
  1. BBC study: https://www.sicsa.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/LOCO2024_paper_12.pdf
  2. BBC blog article https://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/articles/2025-01-sustainability-web-energy-consumption
  3. 2021 Purdue https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3458864.3467682

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dim-ask
dim-ask il 25 Feb 2025 alle 9:30 (Modificato il 25 Feb 2025 alle 14:26)
> How are you going to spend your mad cash savings when you start using MATLAB's upcoming dark theme?
I am gonna buy another OLED monitor when the current one's pixels burn out!
Btw here are some useful suggestions for settings to extend oled monitor lives for macos users, though prob the most important is to make the menu bar disappear (either by hiding it or use common workspace) and then set the background to black, as well as an aggressive "turn off screen due to inactivity" setting.
https://www.reddit.com/r/OLED_Gaming/comments/rxn22o/tips_for_mac_desktop_usage_of_oled_tvmonitor/
Walter Roberson
Walter Roberson il 25 Feb 2025 alle 3:23
I talked briefly about OLED in https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/discussions/ideas/851306-mathworks-it-s-time-for-a-dark-theme/2590856#reply_2590856
"OLED is more expensive and does not last as long, so is the lower cost of running black pixels important over the lifetime of the product?"
At the time of writing, I did actually look into the costs and trade-offs... it appears that I failed to post about them however.
Image

Mathworks: it's time for a dark theme.

@Raul Villanueva OLED is more expensive and does not last as long, so is the lower cost of running black pixels important over the lifetime of the product? especially when a great deal (even if i...

www.mathworks.com

dim-ask
dim-ask il 25 Feb 2025 alle 9:31
True black is worth it in its own right, but if my screen burns out in a year I may start feeling differently.
Adam Danz

Adam Danz

Software engineer at MathWorks with a Ph.D. in neurophysiology from the University of Rochester (NY). Specialized in visual and vestibular systems, multisensory integration, sensory-motor and control systems, steering, and navigation. Former member o...
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