Go Gray, Not Cray: Why You Should Grayscale Your Phone • Hacker News Board

Re: Go Gray, Not Cray: Why You Should Grayscale Your Phone

#21

Post by ivansavz » Sun, Dec 28, 2025, 4:56 AM UTC

I've been in Grayscale for some time now (almost a month), and it's great. I always wanted to have a phone with an eInk display, and this is pretty close feeling (aesthetically).

Scrolling is no longer interesting, and food looks un-appetizing. Making the digital reality look boring is a good deal to make the real world look more exciting.

Thanks to comments from @jtbaker and @SkyPuncher I just added a shortcut to the "pull out" menu so I can now turn off when I need to work with pictures where colors are important.

Re: Go Gray, Not Cray: Why You Should Grayscale Your Phone

#22

Post by D-Machine » Sun, Dec 28, 2025, 4:57 AM UTC

nine_k wrote: post #16

«Color pixels drain more energy than grayscale ones. Personally found my phone lasting twice as long as before.» Is this a joke? Is there a real physical effect at play?

They said they noticed themselves looking at their phone far less. Most likely this is what saved the power, just a typical spurious correlation and a bad theory for the reason.

Re: Go Gray, Not Cray: Why You Should Grayscale Your Phone

#23

Post by drekipus » Sun, Dec 28, 2025, 4:57 AM UTC

I actually just recently bought a big me hibreak pro phone. Eink, supports Google Play natively, (I can still install Instagram, Google maps, Facebook, and WhatsApp, etc). Which were my two biggest needs.

It has been pretty great to use. The whole paradigm changes, because it also has the slow refresh, and the screen is physically different, single level brightness.

Funnily enough, I now catch myself with increased short term anxiety and FOMO. I've just acknowledged it as withdrawal syndrome from the dopamine of short form videos. That and I misplace the phone a bit more now because it's no longer a crack pipe.

It's taking effort to stick with it, but I increasingly love it. And I still get to partake in "society" and social media, just on my own terms.

You also realise just how many ads there are, because they don't draw you in so you can see them more critically. What I thought was one in 20, is actually something more like one in 4

Re: Go Gray, Not Cray: Why You Should Grayscale Your Phone

#24

Post by sickcodebruh » Sun, Dec 28, 2025, 5:00 AM UTC

treetalker wrote: post #3

Works great with iOS's double/triple tap on the back feature.

TIL! I had no idea this was a thing. https://support.apple.com/en-us/111772

It really is a great fit for this feature.

Re: Go Gray, Not Cray: Why You Should Grayscale Your Phone

#25

Post by mistercow » Sun, Dec 28, 2025, 5:02 AM UTC

D-Machine wrote: post #20

mistercow wrote: post #4

> Color pixels drain more energy than grayscale ones. Personally found my phone lasting twice as long as before. Over time, a considerable extension of your phone’s lifespan. What? Why? Why would you even entertain that as a hypothesis?

They said they found themselves using their phone far less due to the grayscale, which would be the real thing extending battery life here. Or at least, this was what I assumed on reading.

Yeah, that’s the only explanation that makes sense. It’s just so strange to think that color pixels would use more energy.

Re: Go Gray, Not Cray: Why You Should Grayscale Your Phone

#26

Post by Bridged7756 » Sun, Dec 28, 2025, 5:16 AM UTC

Didn't work for me. App blocker from 9:30 PM - 5 PM. 30 mins Max a day of short form content apps.

Re: Go Gray, Not Cray: Why You Should Grayscale Your Phone

#27

Post by catlikesshrimp » Sun, Dec 28, 2025, 5:29 AM UTC

Decades ago I had one or two tẽte à tẽte about grayscale not being the same as black and white. You could emulate grayscale with b&w if you had a much larger canvas. In short: Black and white is 2 bits, grayscale is 8, 16 , more? bits

Am I wrong?

Re: Go Gray, Not Cray: Why You Should Grayscale Your Phone

#28

Post by triMichael » Sun, Dec 28, 2025, 5:36 AM UTC

catlikesshrimp wrote: post #27

Decades ago I had one or two tẽte à tẽte about grayscale not being the same as black and white. You could emulate grayscale with b&w if you had a much larger canvas. In short: Black and white is 2 bits, grayscale is 8, 16 , more? bits Am I wrong?

You are correct, grayscale is where every pixel's R = G = B, which for a 24 bit image would include 256 colors.

Re: Go Gray, Not Cray: Why You Should Grayscale Your Phone

#29

Post by sdenton4 » Sun, Dec 28, 2025, 5:38 AM UTC

catlikesshrimp wrote: post #27

Decades ago I had one or two tẽte à tẽte about grayscale not being the same as black and white. You could emulate grayscale with b&w if you had a much larger canvas. In short: Black and white is 2 bits, grayscale is 8, 16 , more? bits Am I wrong?

You're not wrong, Walter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6BYzLIqKB8

Re: Go Gray, Not Cray: Why You Should Grayscale Your Phone

#30

Post by musebox35 » Sun, Dec 28, 2025, 5:39 AM UTC

D-Machine wrote: post #20

mistercow wrote: post #4

> Color pixels drain more energy than grayscale ones. Personally found my phone lasting twice as long as before. Over time, a considerable extension of your phone’s lifespan. What? Why? Why would you even entertain that as a hypothesis?

They said they found themselves using their phone far less due to the grayscale, which would be the real thing extending battery life here. Or at least, this was what I assumed on reading.

That is likely. Another factor that came into my mind is the gpu using less power due to simpler computations. You can store less data for grayscale, so you need to go over less pixel data to do effects etc. Whether accessibility controls achieve this or not would be implementation dependent I guess.