Is there a quick/automatic way to change monitor brightness at night on Windows 7 or Linux?

Question

I'm a fairly nocturnal creature by nature, but life requires me to spend more time during the bright hours of day. I also have a visual impairment which makes it that my eyes take a very long time to adjust to darker situations. In short: I need to be able to easily dim my screen so that using my computer doesn't keep me awake as much and doesn't prevent me from doing other stuff.

Similar questions have been asked before, but I'm still looking for a suitable solution. I will accept both a hotkey based solution–like on most laptops–as a timed one.

Please note:

My main monitor lacks simple brightness/contrast controls.
f.lux doesn't suit my needs, since it only changes the screen's color temperature.
I'd like the solution to work regardless of the make and model of the video card involved.
Wearing sunglasses is impractical, since they make it hard to interact with objects around my computer.

oKtosiTe · Accepted Answer · 2012-09-08T15:57:59.657

I think I just found the answer to my own question. Better solutions are welcome of course.

With the application Display Tuner I can set the brightness, contrast, color levels and speaker volume for my external monitor. Not the video card, my actual monitor.
It allows me to set hotkeys for separate profiles, lives in the tray (notification area) and is free for non-commercial use.
The main draw is that it only supports monitors that can be controlled through DDC.

Display Tuner screenshot

frusDev · Answer 2 · 2010-12-14T21:21:35.827

I just did up a quick console app that will work with Vista+

http://rapidshare.com/files/435772490/Brightener.7z

Source here - you'll be able to build it from Visual Studio Express

Usage:

brightener 100 //highest
brightener 0 //lowest

You could set it up as a scheduled task if you want to automate it.

I think Linux has a built in command to do this. edit: after googling I found this. Substitute 100 for the brightness you want.

sudo echo –n 100 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness

edit: to set up a scheduled task in Windows 7...

Go to Control Panel
Go to Administrative Tools
Open Task Scheduler
Go to Action > Basic Task
Follow wizard
When asked for schedule, enter night time you want to dim light
When asked for the path, enter the path to the unzipped exe above followed by your preferred dim level
Repeat for daytime, changing scheduled time and brightness level

Mengdi Gao · Answer 3 · 2012-04-24T02:33:25.937

Sometimes monitor/laptop's adjust buttons ain't enough.

For Linux:

xcalib -invert -alter # will invert the color under Xorg, xcalib.sf.net says it also supports Windows, I haven't tried.

xrandr's --brightness and --gamma options will also help.

Also

The official ATI driver's Control Panel under Windows enables me to adjust Gamma/Brightness/Contrast, even my laptop doesn't support these via hardware buttons. I believe Nvidia's driver also has these options.

score 5 · Answer 4 · edited Mar 20 '17 at 10:17

As mentioned in the answer of oKtosiTe (the OP), this could be done via Display Data Channel. Found these software linked on the wikipedia page:

Linux

ddccontrol: Linux software which uses DDC/CI to control monitors supporting this protocol. (Seems to be not supported and not maintained at this time).

Windows

softMCCS: Windows software which uses DDC/CI to control monitors supporting this protocol.
Nicomsoft WinI2C/DDC: Windows Software Development Kit (SDK) which uses I2C and DDC/CI protocols to control monitors.
ScreenBright: Small Windows software which uses DDC/CI to control monitors supporting this protocol.

score 5 · Answer 5 · edited May 03 '17 at 01:52

5

f.lux v3.10 has additional functionality to control actual brightness using hot-keys Alt+PageDown and Alt+PageUp.

edited May 03 '17 at 01:52

Stevoisiak

16,075

answered Jun 25 '14 at 17:25

Karan

55

score 4 · Answer 6 · edited Jun 12 '20 at 13:48

I found ClickMonitorDDC from a recommendation on Superuser:

softMCCS from ddc-ci.com allows lots of control but it's too low level technical for regular use.

Just to control brightness and contrast I'm using http://clickmonitorddc.bplaced.net (Windows).

answered Mar 15 '15 at 23:09 aland

Desktop LCD monitor which allows backlight to be controlled in software

ClickMonitorDDC is a portable freeware tool to adjust brightness or contrast of a DDC compatible monitor

http://clickmonitorddc.bplaced.net/

It's the most user-friendly application that I've tried.

You can quickly jump to any brightness and contrast number that is a multiple of 5, and then finely adjust.

There are also hotkeys, and command line commands.

e.g.

b20 c30

Brightness 20 contrast 30.

ClickMonitorDDC also allows you to jump to a volume.

With the default Windows 10 volume control, it's hard to see the exact volume number that you will jump to.

ClickMonitorDDC has 20 volume buttons that are each a multiple of 5, and they go from 0 to 100.

I also tried this recommendation in combination with ClickMonitorDDC:

Flux v3.10 has additional functionality to control actual brightness using hot-keys Alt+PageDown and Alt+PageUp.

answered Jun 25 '14 at 17:25 Karan

Flux is a filter, and it can get you darker than ClickMonitorDDC and your monitor will by themselves.

score 3 · Answer 7 · answered Dec 08 '10 at 21:37

Useful Answer: Well, for something clickable on screen, there's the Display Brightness Gadget. Also on the page is a command line utility for getting/setting the screen brightness. You can use that with the Task Scheduler or your favorite hotkey tool of choice for timed or hotkeyed modification of your brightness.

Snarky Answer: It's not your monitor's brightness keeping you up, it's the upright position, focusing on a screen, and brain engagement (maybe :-P ) from interacting with your PC keeping up awake.

Snarky Answer #2: Your monitor has a power button -- use it.

score 3 · Answer 8 · answered Dec 09 '10 at 11:20

3

f.lux will adjust brightness through out the day to ease eye strain. http://www.stereopsis.com/flux/

answered Dec 09 '10 at 11:20

ScottZ

194

score 3 · Answer 9 · edited Feb 10 '12 at 01:00

3

So far RedShift is the only one i can live with. A bit buggy, but it does the trick.

edited Feb 10 '12 at 01:00

Simon Sheehan

9,204

answered Feb 09 '12 at 23:38

Telmo

31

jacob_pro · Answer 10 · 2021-10-13T22:38:40.807

2

I have written a solution to this problem.

https://github.com/jacob-pro/solar-screen-brightness

You can save your lattitude and longitude to the config file, and then it will vary screen brightness according to sunrise / sunset times at your location.

(Unlike f.lux is actually changes brightness instead of colour tone)

edited Oct 13 '21 at 22:38

answered Oct 10 '20 at 18:01

jacob_pro

191

score 2 · Answer 11 · answered Dec 20 '11 at 01:31

MysticMon has brightness, contrast and color correction and works on multiple monitor systems. It also has hotkey support, monitor reset to factory defaults and can be used to put monitors to sleep via hotkey or command line. Requires Vista or Windows 7 and works on both monitors and laptop LCD displays.

score 1 · Answer 12 · edited Mar 16 '12 at 12:26

1

Try PangoBright:

PangoBright is a free "screen dimmer" Windows utility for setting the brightness of your main screen as well as external monitors. You can choose which screens will be set to the selected brightness level.

edited Mar 16 '12 at 12:26

Diogo

30,792

answered May 01 '11 at 19:11

Tip

29

score 1 · Answer 13 · edited Sep 14 '12 at 05:31

Mac Brightness Control might help and it's free.

Mac Brightness Control allows you to adjust the brightness level of your Mac (MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, iMac, Mac Pro, Mac Mini) on Microsoft Windows. For instance, a Mac with Windows 7 loaded is too bright for most users, and you can make its screen dimmer with the help of the Mac Brightness Control software.

If the brightness keys on your Mac keyboard are not working properly after you install and restart Microsoft Windows, you can drag the brightness slider in the Mac Brightness Control software to change your screen brightness.

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score 1 · Answer 14 · answered Mar 30 '13 at 06:10

I found another alternative. Desktop Lighter. Some features are:

Windows only.
It lives in the system tray
Clicking on the tray icon brings up a simple (but very ugly, IMO) slider which you can slide to change your brightness.
If you think clicking on icons is for losers, it has hotkey support:
- Ctrl + < = reduce brightness.
- Ctrl + > = increase brightness.
- I do not see a way to change these hotkeys.
It has an option to auto-start with Windows (yes I know you can schedule with the Task Scheduler but this just makes that easier).

score 0 · Answer 15 · answered Jul 04 '20 at 14:43

A small Windows program which can be used via command line or GUI is ControlMyMonitor from Nirsoft. It sends DDC commands to the monitor and can (depending on the monitor) change brightness, turn off/on, change the input source etc. To trigger commands, I use it in combination with EventGhost which can react to various event sources (including built-in schedulers, but I have no experience with that).

(I use this combination on multiple computers with a KVM switch to make the monitor change the input source when a computer detects the connection of an input device.)

score 0 · Answer 16 · answered Jun 30 '23 at 14:06

The only solution that really works for me is ClickMonitorDDC.

It's possible to specify contrast, brightness, and saturation separately, by hour:

b50 means a brightness of 50%, c50 means a contrast of 50%

The download from the initial link is not working, but if you google for it, you'll be able to find it easily.

score 0 · Answer 17 · answered May 02 '11 at 13:12

0

Press Win+X, then adjust the brightnest at the level that you want from the first slidebar. Win+X will launch the Windows Mobility Center, you don't need any external application.

answered May 02 '11 at 13:12

mjsr

6,778

Is there a quick/automatic way to change monitor brightness at night on Windows 7 or Linux?

17 Answers17

Linux

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