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Comment by wzyboy | Hacker News Reader

On Pixel phone, there is a Digital Wellbeing setting that can turn your screen into Greyscale mode during bedtime. It is said to discourage the use of social networks and helps you sleep better.

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I'd recommend giving grayscale mode a try not only during bedtime, but all the time! My Pixel has been set this way for a couple months and it has decreased my mindless phone usage by simply making the phone more boring overall, without any new device or major sacrifices.

I became concerned that I'd turn it off when I temporarily needed color and forget to turn it back on, so instead I used Tasker to listen for L-R shake action and make that temporarily disable grayscale mode for 20 secs (in case I specifically decide I want to look at color in a photo or disambiguate something from grayscale). Works decently well, I can explain the Tasker steps if anyone else is interested.

I'd love to do the same thing, so if you have time to explain the Tasker steps I'd definitely make use of them :-)

I put the steps in a sibling comment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40465686

Cheers

> used Tasker to listen for L-R shake action and make that temporarily disable grayscale mode for 20 secs

Wonderful

I am using gray scale on personal phone permanently, but avoided that on work phone as I might need to discern color in some work documents or screenshares.

What you describe seems like a perfect solution but does it work on all Android phones?

If you could throw some more light on the steps ... appreciate that!

I do think it will work on non-Pixel phones, but you do need to enable Secure Settings for Tasker, which probably can be locked down by Mobile Device Management or other admin control methods that a work device could have.

Listed my config in a sibling comment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40465686

On my Pixel using GrapheneOS, I can go into Accessibility settings and enable gesture support for toggling Grayscale support, without the need for Tasker. I'm unsure how other Android ROMs stack up but I imagine stock Pixel has this setting.

It's a great feature, just swipe up from the bottom with two fingers whenever I need color.

> I'm unsure how other Android ROMs stack up

I'm _almost_ certain that comes with any Android ROM from 9.0 up as a standard accessibility setting. All my Samsung devices have had it for a few years.

Huh, didn't realize that was there! Works on stock Pixel, you're right, definitely useful feature to have

Thanks for the recommendation! I don't have a big mindless phone usage problem but I'll give it a shot anyway and see what happens.

This would eliminate the failure mode of my grayscale attempts. I would appreciate knowing the configuration steps.

No root needed, but you first need to grant Tasker the WRITE_SECURE_SETTINGS permission, see: https://tasker.joaoapps.com/userguide/en/help/ah_secure_sett...

I granted it via ADB using the command line listed, but the other method with app might work too. If you don't have ADB, It's very easy to install by just downloading the right sdk for your OS, and you run the included ADB binary via command line while your phone is plugged in via USB, and USB debugging is enabled (which is an android developer setting).

Set your Android accessibility color correction type to grayscale if you don't have that already. The below Tasker action simply toggles it off and on.

Tasker config is-

Configure a Shake Left-Right event trigger (I recommend sensitivity 'Very Low' and Duration 'Long' to avoid accidental triggers)

Configure a 3-step action following the trigger:

1. Custom Setting

    Type: Secure
    Name: accessibility_display_daltonizer_enabled
    Value: 0

2. Wait action (I set to 20 sec)

3. Custom Setting

    Type: Secure
    Name: accessibility_display_daltonizer_enabled
    Value: 1

Set the Collision Handling on the task gear/settings to "Abort Existing Task", so that you can extend the color lifetime by shaking the phone again.

Of course, once you have this action in Tasker, you can use any trigger to turn it on or off, like opening a particular app, turning it on when you are only at home or away, etc.

Works pretty well for me, there is one slight issue where some type of android display layout refresh occurs when the color toggle happens, which sometimes refreshes the interface you are on in a slightly annoying way. I tolerate it, it's ok, maybe setting a longer wait period would make this occur less often.

If these steps don't work / too confusing, try using the really great accessibility gesture support setting mentioned in a reply, instead or in addition: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40462366

FYI John Dalton was a scientist who pioneered color blindness research among many other fields, so his name is everywhere in color correction settings apparently.

Amazing, thank you!

I've been doing the same for a few months, as I wanted to get an eink phone but wasn't sure how annoying it'd be. Although there's some limitations, like charts or video calls, I got used to it quite quickly in the end. Really recommended, you can just enable it in display settings (at least on my Samsung).

That's Android thing not just Pixel thing

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