Almost all of us do it: You reach for your iPhone once you're settled in bed for a quick catch-up on social media or evening reading. But it can be tricky to put it down. While blue light exposure can affect your quality of sleep, your screen's brightness, even turned all the way down, can be a bit too bright, and if you share a bed with someone, it could prevent them from getting rest, not to mention being an annoyance.
CNET Tips_Tech
While most iPhone 16 models can reach a minimum brightness of 1 nit, even that could feel somewhat bright when you're in an otherwise lightless room. Luckily, there are a few tweaks that you can find in your phone's settings to make the display even dimmer.
If you want to get your iPhone to be even dimmer than its minimum brightness, you've come to the right place. Below, we'll go through some common and not-so-common tweaks to help you do just that.
For more, don't miss what's new in the latest iOS 18.4 RC.
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1. First, enable Night Shift
The iPhone Night Shift setting automatically adjusts your display -- using your phone's internal clock and geolocation -- to warmer colors that are easier on your eyes as the day progresses to night. Every morning, the display returns to its regular settings. You can turn it on in your Settings or via the Control Center.
While it may not be as effective we once believed it was as far as melatonin suppression, but Night Shift still provides benefits by lowering the blue light on the display and that's definitely a good thing.
Method 1: Settings
Go to Settings > Display & Brightness > Night Shift. From here, you can either schedule the feature at a certain time or enable it for the entire day and have it disable in the morning. You can also adjust the color temperature by using the slider at the bottom of the page -- you can choose between less warm and more warm.
Method 2: Control Center
Swipe down from the top-right to access the Control Center. Then press and hold the Brightness icon and tap the Night Shift button to turn it on and off.
Night Shift feature on the iPhone
You can access Night Shift from your settings or the Control Center. Screenshots by Nelson Aguilar/CNET
2. Use this accessibility feature to reduce the display's white point
You can also reduce the white point on your iPhone to adjust how intensely colors show up on your screen. Bright colors are especially illuminated at night time, so try this setting to dull them a bit.
In Settings, go to Accessibility > Display & Text Size and toggle on Reduce White Point. A marker will appear under the setting, which you can use to adjust the intensity of bright colors to your liking.
Reduce white point setting on the iPhone
This adjusts the intensity of bright colors on your display. Screenshots by Nelson Aguilar/CNET
3. Add a low light filter with the Zoom accessibility feature
If you're only interested in dropping the brightness and don't want warmer colors or less intense colors, you have a way to lower just the display brightness. Using the Zoom accessibility feature, you can add a low light filter over your display to make it darker than usual.
Launch the Settings application and go to Accessibility > Zoom and make sure that the Low Light option is chosen under Zoom Filter. If you'd like, you can toggle on the Zoom feature here, but the easier way is to triple-click the side button from anywhere on your phone to use Zoom.
When Zoom is enabled, your phone will automatically add the low light filter to your display, making it darker, even if your brightness is already at its lowest. A small floating circle will appear on your screen, indicating that Zoom is currently turned on. If you tap the controller, you can hide it. To disable Zoom, simply triple-click on the side button again.
Zoom accessibility feature on iOS
The easiest way to enable the low light filter is to quickly triple-click the side button. Screenshots by Nelson Aguilar/CNET
Need more tech tips? Don't miss the 7 changes you need to on your iPhone as soon as you install iOS 18.