Watch Face for Android Wear

Watch Face for Android Wear

Low-bit Ambient Mode and Burn-in Protection

Two types of screens that are commonly used in Android Wear devices are LCD and OLED. Each type of screen has its inherent benefits and detriments, so neither type is superior to the other.

LCD screens are cheaper, produce more accurate colors, and last longer than OLED screens. LCD screens also require a backlight and, thus, are brighter than OLED screens but consume more power to display black pixels. For a pixel to turn black in an LCD screen, it has to block the illumination from its backlight. In contrast, a pixel that is completely turned off in an OLED screen is black. As a result, an OLED screen displays deeper blacks since an LCD pixel can never perfectly block the backlight. Moreover, pixels that are pure black do not consume any power in an OLED screens, so a screen that contains mostly black pixels consumes significantly less battery than in an LCD screen.