It seems like OnePlus’ smartphones will be getting the “DC Dimming” feature in the near future. The company’s co-founder and CEO, Pete Lau, announced the news via his official Weibo (Chinese social network) page.
Mr. Lau said the feature will be rolling out in the future, but that it is not yet ready, even though the company has tested the feature on a demo device. He also mentioned that the feature will be available early to those who are willing to test it before it gets released to everyone. Mr. Lau said that the feature will become available via Developer Options or via the OnePlus Laboratory menu on OnePlus devices.
There are tons of various options that you can play around with in Developer Options at the moment, though if you don’t know what you’re doing, it’s best to stay away from that. Developer Options need to be activated manually on Android phones, and there’s a reason for that. As far as OnePlus Laboratory is concerned, only the “Smart Boost” option is currently available there, on global variants of OnePlus’ handsets.
Many of you are probably wondering what exactly is the DC Dimming feature. Well, DC Dimming is basically there for controlling the light output of an LED fixture, on smartphones with OLED displays. Not many phones have this feature, though, the Black Shark 2 ships with it, while the Xiaomi Mi 9 received it via a beta channel recently. That feature will be coming to OPPO’s and Vivo’s phones soon, while many other OEMs will probably follow suit.
DC Dimming uses DC voltage between 0 and 10 to control the light output of the LED fixture. As voltage goes up / down, the corresponding 0-10V dimmable driver matches the light output of the fixture in order to increase / decrease to a certain percentage. So, all in all, it is a dynamic lighting control, it is not exactly new as it is being used all over the world (in homes, offices, and so on), but it is kind of new to smartphones. DC Dimming is supposed to make using smartphones displays easier on the eyes.
This feature will probably arrive to the OnePlus 6 and 6T first, though it is possible that OnePlus may make it available to four of its newest smartphones via Developer Options / OnePlus Laboratory at the same time, the OnePlus 5, 5T, 6, and 6T. This feature will probably be available via one of those two menus on stable versions of OxygenOS, as well as beta ones, but the company still did not elaborate on that.
DC Dimming is not exactly an earth-shattering feature, or anything of the sort, but will be a nice addition if executed properly. It is possible that OnePlus will make this feature available on the OnePlus 7 from the get-go, as the phone is expected to arrive next month. The OnePlus 7 is the company’s upcoming flagship, and even though its release date still hasn’t been confirmed, the OnePlus 6 launched in May last year, so the timing makes sense.
The OnePlus 7 is expected to ship with the Snapdragon 855, a huge display, pop-up camera, almost non-existent bezels, plenty of RAM, and so on. In addition to the OnePlus 7, the company is also expected to announce its very first 5G-enabled phone in the coming months.