Overview

Always on display (Ambient Display) keeps a portion of your screen turned on to showcase the time, date, notifications, or other small bits of information, and allow you to quickly glance at your phone at any point to catch up on what's new. This feature's name sometimes different in various android and other phones.

Eg; Google Pixels - Ambient display

Samsung - Always On Display

For this feature, all present Android phones have different behaviours. Some phones switch on the Ambient display briefly when notifications arrive, and then turn off the screen. The screen is off in some models to save battery, switches on when notifications arrive and remain on as long as they are not dismissed or read. It may not be supported by all applications depending on whether the manufacturer supports it.

History

This platform was first launched by Nokia on the N86 in 2009, and more widely embraced in 2010 on their next-generation AMOLED Symbian phones (N8, C7, C6-01 and E7). The app has since become more commonly available on Android handsets like Huawei (Mate 10 Pro, P20 Pro), Motorola (Moto X, Z, G), LG (G5, G6, G7, V30, V35, V40), Oneplus (OnePlus 8) Samsung (Galaxy A3(2017), A7(2017, 2018), A30, A50, S7, S8, S9, S10, Note 7 / FE/8/9/10), and Google Pixel 2, Pixel 3, Pixel 3a and Pixel 4.

The impact of battery

The Always On Display feature absorbs power, but the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge phones are equipped with AMOLED displays that turn off black pixels, and later phones that have made the feature popular again. It is true that only a few pixels that need to be switched on on on today's AMOLED phone screens, but they need to be shifted to avoid pixel burning in. Colors, sensors and processors all absorb energy when AOD is in operation, resulting in an additional battery usage of about 3 per cent[2][3].

The backlight must also be switched on on on LCD displays even if a part of the screen displays information so this feature consumes a considerable amount of power compared to a notification LED.