Owners of Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO smartphones often experience displays that go out at the most inopportune moment, such as reading long articles, browsing recipes in the kitchen, or showing off to colleagues. Standard energy saving settings put into the MIUI or HyperOS shell by developers aggressively limit backlighting time to save battery life.
Fortunately, Android provides flexible tools to manage this setting. You can manually increase the interval to the maximum value or even prevent the device from going to sleep. In this article, we will discuss all the available methods, from basic settings to using special utilities for the permanent glow of the display.
Understanding how to keep the screen from turning off will allow you to tailor the gadget to your specific needs without having to flash it or get root rights. We'll look at the regular features that are often hidden in deep menus, as well as secure third-party solutions.
Standard timeout settings in MIUI and HyperOS
The first and most obvious way to change the display behavior is to go to the basic settings of the system. Xiaomi shells have a single menu structure, although the names of items may vary slightly from one version to another. First, you need to open the main menu and find the settings icon, which usually looks like a gear.
In the list of parameters that opens, you should find the partition that deals with appearance and locking. Depending on the version of the operating system, this item may be called "lock screen" or simply "screen", and this is where the main levers of control of the sleep timer are concentrated.
Find the "Sleep Mode" or "Screen Time Out" option. When you click on it, you'll see a list of available intervals. The standard set is usually limited to 5 or 10 minutes. Choose the maximum value possible to increase the active time of the non-touch display.
- 📱 Open “Settings” through a gear in the curtain or app menu.
- ⚙️ Go to the section "Block screen" or "Screen and brightness».
- ⏳ Select Sleep Mode and set the maximum time (usually 10 minutes).
- 💡 Make sure that the function “Auto-brightness” does not interfere with comfortable reading with long work.
It's worth noting that even a maximum of 10 minutes doesn't solve the problem completely if you want the screen to burn for hours. There are more advanced methods for these cases, which we'll talk about later, but for most household tasks, increasing the standard timer is enough.
⚠️ Attention: setting maximum screen time significantly speeds up battery consumption.If you leave your phone unattended with an active display, there is a risk that the device will completely run out by the time you return.
Use of the “Do not turn off” mode in the menu for developers
If the standard 10 minutes isn’t enough, Android offers a hidden feature that allows the screen to burn continuously while the phone is connected to the charger.This option is in a special engineering menu known as “Developers For.”
To activate this mode, you first need to unlock access to hidden settings. Go to the About Phone section at the bottom of the settings list. Find the MIUI version or OS version and quickly click on it 7-10 times in a row.
Then, in the main settings menu, under "Advanced" or "Advanced Settings", a new "Developers" item will appear. Once you enter it, scroll down to the debugging block. Find the "Do not turn off the screen" (or "Stay awake") switch and activate it.
Path to function: Settings → Additional settings → For developers → Do not turn off the screenNow that you plug your smartphone into a USB or wireless charging station, the display will burn indefinitely, ideal for using your phone as a desktop clock, smart home panel, or navigator in a car.
☑️ Activation of the developer mode
Screen retention assistant applications
In situations where charging is impossible and there are not enough regular 10 minutes, specialized applications from the Google Play store come to the rescue, creating a software “wedge” that prevents the system from going to sleep on a timer.
One of the most popular and easy solutions is the Caffeine app or its analogues, such as Keep Screen On. The principle of their operation is simple: they emulate a light touch of the screen or send a system signal of activity, resetting a sleep timer to zero.
Most of these gates do not require complex settings. Once installed, you just need to add a widget to the desktop or use a switch in the notification curtain, which allows you to turn on the “perpetual burning” mode only when it is really necessary.
- 🚀 Download the “Keep Screen On” app or the equivalent from the Play Market.
- 🔌 Provide permissions to display over other windows.
- 🖱️ Add a quick access widget to the main screen.
- 🔋 Use the function only when necessary to save battery life.
It's important to understand that these applications work in the background, and while they consume minimal CPU resources, they do prevent the phone from going into deep sleep, which can lead to the body heating up over long periods of use.
Why can applications not work?
The function of “Continuing attention” when watching videos
Special attention should be paid to the scenario of using a smartphone to view video content. Often users are looking for ways to make the screen not turn off on shaomi, namely for YouTube or online cinemas, so that the video is not interrupted for pause.
In modern versions of Android and Xiaomi shells, there is a smart feature that uses a front-facing camera or proximity sensors, which detects whether a user is looking at the screen, and prolongs the backlight time even if the timeout has already expired.
You can find this option along the way: Settings → Screen → Attention Hold (or “The screen doesn’t go out if you’re looking at it”). Activating this switch allows the video to play continuously while the camera captures your face in the frame.
This solution is much more energy efficient than forced sleep shutdown, because the screen will go out as soon as you look at it or put your phone on the table, but it is worth considering that the constant operation of the front camera also consumes charge.
| Method | Charging is required | Impact on the battery | Difficulty setting up |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard timer | No. | Average. | Low. |
| Developer mode | Yes. | High (constant current) | Medium |
| Annexes (Caffeine) | No. | High. | Low. |
| Maintaining attention | No. | Average (camera operation) | Low. |
Specific settings for different models of Redmi and POCO
Xiaomi's smartphone lineup is extensive, and the interface can vary.While flagship Xiaomi and Redmi Note series models often have a full feature set, the budget models of the Redmi A or POCO M series may have a stripped-down menu.
On some devices with a lightweight version of the shell MIUI Go or Android Go, the "Sleep Mode" item can be hidden or have only two values: 15 seconds and 1 minute.
Also worth mentioning are the Black Shark series (formerly part of the Xiaomi ecosystem) and the POCO F series. Their game modes (Game Turbo) often have their own screen settings, which are more important than the system. Check the settings of the game accelerator if the screen goes out during the game.
For Mi TV and Mi Box owners, the logic is different: there is often no classic timeout, but a screensaver. If your Xiaomi TV goes out, check the energy saving settings in the General section → Eco