Free Android Screen Brightness App/Widget – Backlight!
Backlight! is a free brightness app for Android that changes your devices’ screen backlight with a single click. It also allows complete customization of brightness levels. You can even assign it to a gesture or a main dock for easier access.
- Backlight! Mobile Link
- Backlight! Market Link
Android recognizes values from 1-255 with 1 being darkest and 255 being brightest. It also has support for automatic brightness using letter ‘a’. Default levels are 1, 50, 150, and 255 respectively.
Backlight! controls the screen brightness level only. It does not adjust keyboard brightness or other light features of the phone.
News
(01-02-2012) Backlight 1.4.3 is released. Fixed problem with Sony Ericsson phones. Optimized text.
Download Backlight! from Android Market – (1.4.3)
You can also search for “backlight” in the Android Market or use a QR bar code scanner and scan one of the images on the right.
Download Source for previous version (1.1.0)
If you’re interested in how this application worked pre-cupcake, I have posted pre-cupcake source code here.
Features
- Change brightness with one click.
- Cycle through multiple brightness intensities instead of just one.
- Switch the device into automatic brightness mode if it supports it.
- Allow user to set custom brightness levels.
- Show the current brightness value in a popup or widget.
- Change the intensity popup timeout.
- Display to the user brightness values as percentages or actual.
- Enable/Disable Analytics
- Default Settings:
- Brightness levels:1,50,150,255
- No intensity popup
- Short popup timeout
- No percentages
- Analytics enabled
Planned Features
- None ATM
Upgrading?
Upgrading from an earlier version of Backlight? Don’t forget to re-add the widgets to the home screen!
Instructions
Click on the icon or the widget to change the brightness level of the system. The brightness will be increased from your current setting to the next highest custom setting. Click multiple times to cycle through all the custom brightness levels.
A setup page is provided upon first run. It allows users to set the default preferences (1,50,150,255 and no popup) and start using the app. It allows users to customize their own brightness levels, turn on the popup if desired, show percentages instead of values in popup and widget, set the popups timeout, and enable/disable analytics.
Backlight! Setup can be accessed again by installing the setup widget on the home screen or by uninstalling then reinstalling the app.
Tips
- You can create a Keyboard shortcut to Backlight! to increase brightness while your in an application.
- You can assign the Backlight! Launcher to a gesture if using ADW Launcher or Launcher Pro.
Bugs
- Occasionally when clicking the app to change brightness a android warning icon appears on the entire screen for a fraction of a second. Removing and adding the widget – or – rebooting the phone seems to make this go away. Looking into.
- The custom brightness values section doesn’t seem to work with non English input keyboards. Looking into.
Troubleshooting
- Backlight! must be installed on the internal memory of the device. Widgets dont work when app is moved to SD. Some Cyanogen Roms and others allow you to move apps regardless and this just wont work. If you have, just move it back to internal memory.
- Error message when user types in an invalid number displays a long string of numbers and not the actual error message. This means you typed a sequence of brightness intensities that were invalid like 1,50,155,255,300 or 1,,,,,50,150,255.
Tested Devices
Videos
Using Backlight!
Using Backlight! with gestures
Kudos
Thank you to the following people for assisting or providing guidance in the creation of this app.
- Élan Bradford (helloelan)
- Michael Miranda (Haiku)
Donations
Backlight! is free! If you want to help the development of this app or just want to say thanks, click on the donate buttons below.
Great app … to bad they forbid the libary’s usage!
@Stefan
I have found a way to make the same functionality work with cupcake, check it out!
Unfortunately, it is not working with the CyanogenMod rom 4.2.9+ Bummer because I LOVE this app! Gotta go with the built-in power widget for now :(
Your right. It must be an API change with Eclair. I’ll take a look.
It looks like Cyanogen has fixed a bug with the brightness in his latest version 4.2.13. Backlight is now working!
Works perfectly with my new nexus one!
Nice app! It even goes ‘darker’ than another brightness widget I have. (that one went to a minus-number on brightness, which can’t achieve any other way.)
Is it possible to make it even darker? That is handy (nicer to my eyes) when reading or in the dark. I can see my Samsung Galaxy still getting temporary darker when switching to another application.
By the way, the soft keypad does not pop up on the settings dialog, and if I force it to appear, it pops under and I can’t type. I had to do a copy-paste action as workaround.
Wbr
Does not seem to work on SE x10.
HELP!!!
I just got this app and I pressed the icon a couple times to check out the brightness settings, and after a couple taps, my whole backlight turned off and wouldn’t turn back on.
I tried to fix this by rebooting my phone by taking the battery out. When I turned the phone back on all of the graphics and audios that play when you turn on your phone played and looked fine, but as soon as it was fully booted up the screen went blank again.
I have the Samsung Fascinate just fyi.
Looks like this is a screen brightness app, rather than a “backlight” app. On the Samsung Captivate, the “backlight” refers to the light that is illuminated for the 4 “keys” at the very bottom below the screen (menu, home, back, search). An app to keep the “backlight” on as long as the screen is on would be very useful, even better if the brightness of the backlight could be controlled.
Thanks
Works great, I keep my phone on lowest possible brightness to conserve battery, and occasionally put it on auto when I’m outside and can’t see the screen. Every other widget has at least 3 or 4 preset brightness levels and you get no choice, all I wanted was a widget that just went back and forth between as dark as possible, and auto. The complete control over what this widget does easily allowed that!
Thanks for the for the great widget, simple and versatile c:
Would you consider making a widget that has only the bulb? Or have a setup option to have a transparent background? I like to have my widgets with no background so that I can see the nice screen backgrounds :) Thanks!
Hi, This is a popular request and I’m working on this feature as we speak. Hope to have something in a few weeks.
Oh, I forgot to say, it works great for me! Just what I was looking for.
@Frank
Thanks, Just released 1.4.0 with customization of the widget background. You can now select a widget that is just the lighbulb with out the background.
Works for me on DX2. My only suggestion would be to show the actual percentage or level on the widget itself instead of the popup. That way, at a glance, we can tell exactly where it’s set without having to toggle through to check it. Drives me nuts not having that info displayed, but it’s the only completely customizable beightness widget I could find, which is my main criteria.
Hi, It should do this. I believe version 1.4.1 shows the current level, whether in either real or percentages mode, on the widget itself. A couple things that could be causing that scenario is that you might have an older version of the app, or you have the launcher icon on the home screen instead of the widget, or try removing and readding the widget to the home screen.
Works fine on my “HTC Wildfire S”, so you can add that to the list.
I would like another feature added: A with a scale factor MaxLum, meaning that Automatic Brightness is working, but will be scaled by MaxLum. This would accomodate all those (including myself) complaining that Automatic Brightness is consistently too bright.
Input format: A:80 – scales all values by a factor 0.8
‘A’ setting does not work consistently on my HTC Wildfire S.
buggy at widget mode, whem set 255, popup shows right number, widget shows wrong number