With the introduction of the Android N Developer Preview, Google included a new feature called Night Mode which filters blue light from your screen to reduce eye strain. Many users swear by blue light filtering apps because of several studies that suggest blue light affects your circadian rhythm and makes it more difficult to go to sleep. Thus, developers have built third-party applications such as CF.lumen (by XDA Senior Recognized Developer Chainfire) which has placated many users, however, the annoyance of screen overlays with permission dialog boxes on Android 6.0+ has led many to petition Google for a more native, integrated solution. Hence, Night Mode was born.
This Night Mode feature was initially included in the developer previews for Android 7.0, so all supported Nexus devices were able to use it. Many were hoping to see it included in the final release of Android 7.0, but Alan from the Android Engineering Team said the feature needed a lot of work before it could go into a public release. So when the official Android 7.0 updates for the Nexus 5X and the Nexus 6P were released, this feature was removed from SystemUI Tuner just as Google had said.
Fortunately, however, the Night Mode feature itself was actually still present within the final release of 7.0 Nougat, though it was hidden. An application called Night Mode Enabler was released and that restored this functionality on these Nexus devices by issuing an intent to the SystemUI Tuner activity with the extra string show_night_mode:true. So while some people were upset that Google officially removed the feature, many were relieved with how easy it was to restore the functionality. Furthermore, with the introduction of Android 7.1 on the Pixel and Pixel XL, we saw this feature come back with a new name – Night Light. Unfortunately, Google Developer Advocate stated that Night Light would not be released on the Nexus devices due to missing driver support for the necessary hardware composer.
With the situation looking bleak, fans of Night Mode pinned their hopes that the feature would be reintroduced in the Android 7.1 Developer Preview, even if it does not utilize the more efficient hardware composition methods employed by Night Light in the Google Pixel phones. Sadly, this didn’t happen and the update also entirely removed all references to Night Mode in SystemUI – preventing even the Night Mode Enabler app from restoring the feature. Although a mod for the Nexus 6P was released that restored Night Mode on Android 7.1.1 DP1, non-root users have been wanting the feature brought back in the official release. Thankfully, we are now aware that yesterday a Google employee marked this request status to be included in a “Future Release” on the AOSP Issue Tracker. We don’t know exactly which update will restore Night Mode, but this news should be music to the ears of anyone disappointed by the initial removal of said feature.
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