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Dark mode is now in Otus, the construction photo app
Image Credit:
Otus.build
Otus, our construction photo documentation app, now has dark mode. Open the avatar menu, pick Dark, and every screen switches, from the Photos grid to the plan viewer. It is one of 30 new features in our October release.
Why dark mode saves battery
On an OLED screen every pixel makes its own light, and a black pixel draws almost no power. A light interface lights up nearly every pixel at once. A dark one leaves most of them off.
Purdue researchers measured this on four Android phones (Pixel 2, Moto Z3, Pixel 4 and Pixel 5) across six apps. The saving depends heavily on how bright the screen is set.
Screen brightness | Average battery saving in dark mode |
|---|---|
30 to 50% | 3 to 9% |
100% | 39 to 47% |
The saving applies to OLED screens. LCD panels keep a backlight on behind every pixel, so black pixels save little there. Check your phone's spec sheet if you are unsure which screen you have.
Why it feels easier on the eyes
A bright white screen in a dim room is a lot of light aimed at your face. Dark mode cuts that down. In a controlled test on one phone at fixed brightness (Hazadi and Kamaruzaman, as summarised by Gadget Hacks), people rated comfort out of 7 under two lighting levels.
Lighting | Light mode comfort | Dark mode comfort |
|---|---|---|
50 lux (dim room) | 4.29 | 5.82 |
500 lux (bright room) | 5.64 | 4.29 |
Dark mode wins in dim conditions, such as a site office late in the day, a basement level or an evening spent reviewing inspection photos. Light mode scored better in the bright room. Reading speed and comprehension did not differ between the two modes, so the difference shows up in comfort alone. The study covered 215 mostly young users on one phone model, so treat the numbers as a direction.
Bright sites and a warm phone
Outdoors, most people push brightness to the maximum to fight glare. That is the setting where the Purdue numbers are largest: 39 to 47% average battery saving at 100% brightness, against 3 to 9% at 30 to 50%. A field photo app running a plan and the camera in the sun is where dark mode earns the most.
Less power at the display means less heat from the display, so dark mode trims the warmth the screen adds to the phone. It can't cool a phone left in direct sun, so shade still matters.
Some people read light mode better in strong daylight, and the comfort figures above point the same way for bright rooms. That is why the switch stays one tap away and Light is still there.
How to switch it on
Tap your avatar at the top left.
Find Appearance in the menu.
Pick the sun for Light, the moon for Dark, or the monitor for System.
The choice applies to the whole app straight away, and you can change it as often as you like.
Setting | Good for |
|---|---|
Dark | OLED phones, dim rooms, long days spent at high brightness |
Light | Strong daylight if you find it easier to read, and bright offices |
System | Following your phone's own appearance setting, so Otus matches everything else on it |
Why we built it
The phone in your hand carries a full day on site: photos, plans, voice notes and issues. Mobile site documentation only works if the phone lasts the walk: if the battery dies at 3 pm, the afternoon's records never get captured. We care about the people using Otus, and that includes the device they use it on, beyond the software we ship.
Dark mode sits next to offline capture, which keeps working without signal and syncs when you reconnect. Both exist so the phone keeps going until the walk is done.
Dark mode is one of 30 new features in the October release. Plans gain a sortable table list, issue tracking shows overdue dates in colour, desktop gets a left navigation rail, and reports can be updated and exported again for daily site reporting. Open the app, tap your avatar and try Dark first.