Pixel 3 XL Daydream Screen Way Too Dim

[cversek]

This issue is related to a previous issue that I opened back in the days of Android O with some help from @jdduke . We have a system that uses a Daydream display in order to present visual stimuli for human visual system diagnostics and we are trying to update to the Pixel 3 XL for performance reasons. We need to use (reduce flicker) display mode and have control over the brightness, but the max brightness in VR mode is unusually low, around 20 lux for full white screen. Back in Android O on the Pixel 2 XL, we were able to get near full brightness, ~500 lux. Bare minimum we need around 100 lux for most of our tests, but really getting to full brightness for a short time (60s) would be ideal.

Note that we are never going to distribute our apps on the Android store, so we don't mind hacks that solve our problem. Hidden APIs are fine, maybe even something requiring root access. Please help, we are scientists and part time coders. There are a few research grants that depend on this working and we'd love to say that Google supported our efforts (and Oculus/Samsung stonewalled us, which is true)!

[hendrikwagenaar]

Unfortunately we don't have the ability to adjust the brightness. You could try compiling it as a cardboard app, I believe it would use full brightness since it doesn't drop to low-persistence.

[cversek]

All VR mode apps are this dark, including Cardboard. The low brightness seems to effect either VR display mode ("reduce blur", "reduce flicker"). Anyway, I don't think the problem can be addressed in the SDK, it seems to be more of a platform configuration error that is built into the AOSP derived ROMs. I've filed an issue with the Android Q beta team, but this problem also effects android P builds.