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How to fix Pixel 6a adaptive brightness issues

Your Google Pixel 6a comes with a feature that will automatically increase or decrease the screen brightness level depending on the lighting condition of the surrounding environment.

If the adaptive brightness setting doesn’t not seem to be working properly, then you can check out this troubleshooting article from Seeking Tech to see how you fix this issue.

1. If your Pixel 6a is brand new or have been reset to its factory default setting, then we recommend that you give the adaptive brightness at least a week to build up its algorithm.

During this time, we recommend that you manually adjust the brightness level so that your phone will be able to learn your brightness level preferences. Make sure you change the screen brightness to your liking during various times, and under different lighting conditions, throughout the day.

In order to manually adjust the screen brightness, you can swipe down from the top of the screen two times to bring up the expanded Quick Settings menu. At the top of this menu, you should see a slider with a sun icon that you can use to adjust the brightness level.

You can also go to the Settings App and then select Display. In the Display menu, you need to select Brightness Level and the slider should appear at the top of the screen.

2. To detect the lighting condition of the surrounding environment, the Google Pixel 6a uses a sensor located in the same area as the back-facing camera lens.

To make the automatic brightness setting more accurate, try not to block out this sensor. Otherwise, the screen may appear brighter than what you are expecting.

3. If the adaptive brightness feature is still not working after trying the aforementioned steps, then you may want to try resetting the adaptive brightness profile so that your Google Pixel 6a will be able to completely relearn your preferences.

In order to do so, you need to take the following steps:

  • Start off heading into the Settings App of your Pixel phone.
  • After opening the Settings App, you then need to tap Apps.
  • From the Apps menu, you then need to tap the “See all apps” option.
  • Once you get to the All Apps menu, you need to select Device Health Services.
  • In the App Info menu of Device Health Services, select Storage & Cache.
  • Inside the Storage menu of Device Health Services, you then need to select the Manage Space option.
  • After getting to the Clear Storage menu of the Device Health Services app, select the Reset Adaptive Brightness option.

After resetting the adaptive brightness feature, manually adjust the brightness level to your liking during various time of the day over the course of the next week in order to help your phone learn your preferences.

4. We also recommend that you keep your Pixel 6a updated to the latest firmware as a new release may help improve upon the adaptive brightness functionality.

You can manually update your smartphone by opening the Settings App. In this application, you need to select System, System update and then Check for Update.