Do Smart TVs Adjust Light Automatically? (Solved)

Did you know that your smart TV has ways of coping with changing environments?

Aside from having on-board heat sinks to combat excessive temperatures, smart TVs also have Ambient Light Detection, or the ability to adapt to different lighting situations.

Do Smart TVs Adjust Light Automatically?

Smart TVs will adjust their light automatically using “Ambient Light Detection” or the ability to adapt to different lighting. This means that your TV can sense when it is too bright or too dim and adjust their light to fit the environment.

Here are some things you need to know about Ambient Light Detection.

Do Smart TVs Adjust to Light Automatically?

Many smart TV manufacturers, such as Sony, Samsung, LG, and Vizio, integrate Ambient Light Detection, or the ability to adapt to different lighting, in their products.

This feature is convenient for consumers, as it eliminates the need to frequently adjust the settings of your TV, especially when using natural lighting in your room.

In the long run, it helps you save on electricity, as your TV will lower the brightness for you, in case you forget about adjusting it at night.

How Do you Turn Off Ambient Light Detection?

For Sony smart TVs, press the action button on your remote control and go to Picture Adjustments.

• Under Picture Adjustments, look for the Light Sensor option, and select “off”.

If you are using an LG smart TV, open your Settings, click on Advanced, then select Picture.

• Under this menu, look for Energy Saving then select “off”.

If you use a Samsung smart TV, you can turn off the automatic light adjustment by going to Settings, and select General.

• Look for Ambient Light Detection, then select “off”.

If you are using a Samsung smart TV released before 2017, go to the System menu, and look for the Eco Solution.

• Under this option, you can turn off the automatic light adjustment by turning off the “Eco Sensor”.

For Vizio smart TVs, you can turn off the automatic light adjustment by opening the menu and select Picture.

• Look for Backlight Control under More Picture then select “off”.

Should I Turn off Ambient Light Detection Brightness Control on my Smart TV?

Turning off Ambient Light Detection would mean adjusting your display settings all the time, or eyestrains if you forget to change your settings to match the current environment.

If you decide to turn off Ambient Light Detection, and you leave your brightness at a high setting, this translates into higher electricity consumption.

That is why you need to be mindful of how you set your TV to avoid excessive power consumption.

How Do you Adjust the Light on a Smart TV?

You can adjust the backlight levels of your smart TV by looking for the backlight option under the Picture menu of your smart TV.

What is Local Dimming?

Local Dimming is a feature often touted in LED TVs in the market. It dims particular areas of a screen while keeping other parts bright.

This feature also contributes to the picture quality for High Dynamic Range contents.

Local Dimming also helps increase the contrast ratio for better images.

As compared to its OLED counterparts, TVs using LED do not have the same contrast ratios.

As a result, images lacked depth and the crispness found in its predecessor, the Plasma TV.

Due to this limitation, Local Dimming was developed.

Do Smart TVs Adjust to Glare?

Glare can be annoying, especially when there’s a lot of natural light in your room.

Fortunately, TVs with Local Dimming help you adjust to glare when it adapts to the pictures on your screen. However, this adjustment has its limitations, and you will have to do more when glare is excessive.

If you are dealing with a lot of natural light, you need to cover these sources, such as closing the blinds or covering up your windows with curtains.

Or, you can also have your smart TV mounted to a wall mount that swivels to adjust for glare.

If the lights in your room cause glare, and you cannot turn it off, you can adjust your smart TV’s backlight brightness.

Is Adjusting the Backlight and Brightness of a Smart TV the Same?

When you adjust the brightness, you shift the colors (e.g., black becomes grey when turned up) of the pixels on your screen.

The backlight setting changes how strong the light is behind your screen.

This is set at low for a more realistic image.

You turn this up to compensate for external lighting conditions affecting your TV.

Should I be Adjusting the Brightness or Backlight of my Smart TV?

You should adjust the brightness when you want to calibrate your smart TV. Brightness adjusts the levels of black on your smart TV.

So if you are trying to fine-tune the colors of your TV, you adjust the brightness, and other settings like color balance, and contrast, among others.

You adjust the backlight when you calibrate your smart TV to fit the lighting environment of your room.

Since smart TVs now have Ambient Light Detection, there is no need to set this manually.

But, you can also adjust the backlight level by yourself to match it to your viewing comforts.

Do Regular TVs Have Ambient Light Detection?

Not all regular TVs have Ambient Light Detection.

But, a lot of LED TVs have backlight controls to help you compensate for the light setting of your room.

Is Using the Wrong Backlight Brightness Harmful?

There is nothing wrong if you view your TV in low light settings.

What can be harmful is setting your TV having high contrast and bright screen in a dark room.

While it will not cause any serious eye damage, this can cause eyestrains that may bring you headaches.

Keep a little bit of ambient lighting, or manually adjust your TV’s brightness and contrast levels to fit the room’s current lighting.

Sources:

LED local dimming explained

Turn Up Your TV’s Backlight—Not the Brightness—to Make It Brighter

Top 5 Myths About Eye Health