How to Stop LG TV from Auto Dimming/Brightening

By Benny Kounlavouth,

Stop LG TV from auto brightening or auto dimming

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Modern LG TVs come with modern features, like automatic dimming and brightening. But, it can be frustrating when you’re trying to watch your favorite show, and your TV keeps going from super bright to super dark.

Here are seven ways you can stop your LG TV from randomly auto brightening or dimming.

Remove Obstructions

If your TV is brightening or dimming like crazy, start with the obvious solution.

LG TVs include light sensors, which automatically detect the amount of ambient light in a room when Energy Saving Mode is on.

If someone is walking around in front of the TV or anything is obstructing the sensor, your TV might detect light changes even when there aren’t any.

You can usually find your light sensor near the center of the bottom of the TV.

Remove any soundbars, gaming consoles, or decorations from this area, and be sure to ask the kids not to run around in front of the TV on movie night!

Check Your HDMI Cables

If you mainly notice your LG TV dimming or brightening when you’re using a device connected to an HDMI port, it’s likely an issue with the cord or the input you’re using.

HDMI ports and securely fastened devices

Check to be sure the HDMI cable is properly and securely connected to your TV. If not, it could create discoloration on your screen.

If the cable seems secure, switch to a different HDMI port and see if the picture improves. If so, it’s safe to assume there’s something wrong with the input you were using before.

Update Your Firmware

Whenever I’m having a problem with my LG TV I can’t fix with simple troubleshooting, I check for a firmware update.

Outdated firmware can create all kinds of issues on a TV, including discoloration or light sensor glitches.

As long as your TV is connected to Wi-Fi, you can update your LG firmware from the Settings menu:

Press the Gear icon on the remote to open your TV’s settings.
Select “All Settings.”
Press “Support.” If you’re using an older operating system, select “General” instead.
Select “Support,” or “About This TV” if you’re using Web OS 4.5 or older.
Select “Software Update.”
Press “Check for Updates” and install any available updates.

Once the update is complete, reboot your LG TV so it can take effect.

Turn Off Energy Saving Mode

One of the most common reasons LG TVs automatically dim or brighten is because Energy Saving Mode is turned on.

As I mentioned, your TV will detect the amount of light in a room through a sensor when Energy Saving Mode is enabled. Then, it’ll dim or brighten to the best setting.

To keep your LG TV at a constant brightness level, you’ll need to turn Energy Saving Mode off:

Press the Gear icon on your LG TV’s remote to open the Settings screen.
Select “Picture.”
Find “Energy Saving” and turn it off.

Some people prefer to keep Energy Saving Mode on to reduce the amount of power their LG TV consumes, but unless you keep your TV on 24/7, it doesn’t make much of a difference.

Change Your Picture Mode

If Energy Saving Mode is already toggled off, the issue might be the Picture Mode you’ve set.

There are a lot of different Picture Modes available on LG TVs. For example, mine includes:

Vivid
Standard
Eco
Cinema
Football
Filmmaker
Expert

If your TV is especially dim or bright, I recommend switching the mode to Standard. This will adjust the picture to the default settings.

Adjust Your Picture Settings

Your Picture settings won’t make your TV screen automatically brighten or darken, but after switching your Picture Mode to standard, you might want to make some adjustments.

In the Picture settings menu > Picture Options, you’ll see the following options:

Expert Control: Toggle settings like Dynamic, Color Gamut, and Color Enhancer on or off.
White Balance: Control how cool or warm the screen appears.
Black Levels: Adjust the backlights to control the overall brightness of your screen.
Noise Reduction: Make the picture softer or sharper.
TruMotion: LG’s version of “motion smoothing,” or increasing the frame rate.
Real Cinema: Enhance the colors on your TV screen.

Experiment with these controls until you get the picture just the way you want it.

Turn Off AI Picture Settings

Some newer OLED LG TVs have an AI processor. These processors automatically adjust the sound and picture according to what you’re watching and the amount of light in the room.

If you don’t want your brightness to automatically adjust for either of these reasons, you can turn the AI services off:

Press the Gear icon on your LG TV remote.
From the Settings screen, select “General.”
Press “AI Service.”
Turn off “AI Picture Pro,” “AI Brightness Settings,” and “AI Genre Selection.”

If you want, you can also turn off “AI Sound Pro” from the menu to prevent unexpected volume or sound quality adjustments.

Image Retention Settings on LG OLED TVs

Have you ever turned off your TV to see a still of the last show you watched “burned” into the screen? Well, LG OLED TVs include some features intended to prevent this.

Your OLED TV’s Image Retention Prevention settings include:

Logo Luminance Adjustment: Slightly dims on-screen logos.
Screen Shift: Moves a static image’s pixels to reduce the potential for retention.
Global Sticky Reduction (GSR): Dims smaller parts of static images on your screen.
Temporal Peak Luminance Control (TPC): Adjusts the pixel luminance on images that have a high retention risk.

As you would probably expect, all these settings can cause parts of your screen to appear dimmer than others.

Because they help to protect your TV screen, the only way to turn these settings off is to access your LG TV’s “secret” service menu with a service remote.

But, even if you find these settings annoying, I don’t recommend accessing the service menu or turning them off.

Not only can turning protective settings damage your LG TV, but it will also void any warranty you have.