‘Extra dim’: Why your Google Pixel phone’s outdoor brightness probably sucks and how to fix it

I don’t go outside often, but when I do, I make sure to enjoy some sun. Unfortunately, my Pixel 6 Pro can’t exactly do the same, and often looks pretty dark in direct sunlight. It’s really not that great at outdoor viewing to begin with, but I realized something today that I keep doing and figured I would share a quick tip or reminder with you so you don’t suffer from the same mistake as I have been for the past few weeks.

What is ‘Extra Dim’?

The issue – or rather, the feature – stems from something called ‘Extra Dim’, and it’s baked right into your Pixel phone’s Quick Settings menu. At first blush, enabling it may not seem like it does, well, anything at all. This is especially true if you toggle it during the daytime indoors. However, there is a two-fold effect here. First, enabling it at night after you’ve already cranked your phone screen’s brightness down significantly helps with that small, extra bit of eye relief.

Second, disabling it in direct sunlight makes the difference between being able to see your screen even just a bit and not at all. Trust me, the difference matters. It truly is a strange, but wonderful tool, and I know most of you probably don’t use it.

How to enable the feature

For those of you asking why you’ve never seen or used Extra Dim, I have a few suspicions. First and foremost, it’s likely on the second or third page of your Pixel’s Quick Settings. Swipe down your notification shade then swipe down again to get to the Quick Settings, and then swipe over horizontally to see your additional pages of tiles where it may be hiding.

Another reason you may not see it is that it may simply not be there. You can fix this by tapping the pencil edit icon at the bottom of the quick settings tiles as shown in the screenshot below. Then, you’ll see a list of additional tiles you can enable via drag and drop. Find ‘Extra Dim’, drag and drop it into the main portion of the enabled tiles up top, and finish editing. Then, you can simply tap the feature tile to enable or disable it. As with all tiles, an enabled one will be the accent color you’ve set for your phone, where as a disabled tile will be grey!

Best practices and advice

I recommend utilizing ‘Extra Dim’ at night or indoors with your screen brightness entirely down, and perhaps even with Dark mode enabled. Additionally, you can toggle your Night Light, which helps a lot with eye strain in the late hours.

Once again, I want to stress that you should not use Extra Dim during the day time, as it significantly impacts visibility, even though it’s a seemingly insignificant amount of brightness tucked away when enabled.

I’d personally like to hear your thoughts on this in the comments. Do you use the feature, or have you even heard of it? At first, I thought I was crazy when I couldn’t see my display outdoors whatsoever, and toggling this, along with disabling my dark theme made a world of difference. I truly think Pixel phones need better outdoor viewing though, but then again, I live in sunny Florida, so it’s extra bright.

I just want the steps!

1. Swipe down from the top of your phone to access your notifications
2. Swipe down again to access your Quick Settings
3. Tap the pencil icon
4. Drag and drop ‘Extra Dim’ up to the top
5. Finish editing
6. Swipe horizontally on your quick tiles to find and toggle ‘Extra Dim’