Cost of a pixel color

November 28, 2018 ∙ worth-watching

In their “Cost of a Pixel Color” presentation at Android Dev Summit 2018, Chris Banes & Alan Viverette explained why darker pixels save power and what developers can do to help users save battery life.

The following results were obtained for Pixel (AMOLED):

Pixel color values affects power usage. Blue takes 20% more power than green or red. Red consumes 600mW, green – 580mW, blue – 800mW.
By switching to the Dark theme in Youtube (at full brightness) you save up to 43% of battery display usage when playing a video and even more (up to 60%) when paused.
By using Night Mode in Google Maps (at max brightness) you save up to 31% of battery display usage.