How to turn off screen fading on Xiaomi Redmi: the full guide

Owning a Xiaomi or Redmi smartphone is often accompanied by a desire to personalize the device to your needs. One of the common problems that users face is too fast to cancel the display, which interferes with comfortable reading, navigating maps or viewing recipes while cooking. Standard energy saving settings aggressively try to save charge by turning off the backlight after a short time of inactivity.

But there are effective ways to turn off screen timeouts or significantly increase screen duration. The MIUI shell and the new HyperOS include hidden and explicit menus to control display behavior. In this article, we will look at not only standard methods, but also specific sensor settings that can cause premature blackout.

It is important to understand that the complete disabling of the screen will lead to increased energy consumption and possible burnout of the matrix on the screen. AMOLED-So we have to be careful, we're going to set the device up so that it only goes out when it's really necessary, ignoring the false alarms of the sensors.

Set up a standard inactivity timer in MIUI and HyperOS

The first and most obvious step is to change the latency settings. By default, the system sets a value of 30 or 60 seconds, which may not be enough for some use cases. To change this, you need to go to the Settings menu → Screen and Brightness → Sleeping Mode. Here is a slider or a list of time options.

Choosing the maximum value (usually 10 minutes) can significantly extend the life of the screen in an active state. However, if your goal is to read books or use your smartphone as a dashboard, even 10 minutes can be uncomfortable. In some versions of the firmware, the option "Do not turn off" is available, but it is often hidden or absent from stock builds for global markets.

It is worth noting that in the models with AMOLED-If you plan to use your phone as a watch or a dashboard, make sure that the screen is in Color Inversion mode or dark themes are used to minimize the risk of residual images.

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Use the dark interface theme when working with the screen on for a long time to reduce the load on the matrix and eyes.

Changing the timer is a basic action, but it doesn't solve the problem if the screen goes out on its own because of the sensors, so you have to dig deeper into the settings of the special features.

Disabling the proximity sensor: solving the main problem

Users often confuse the inactivity timer with the proximity sensor, which is located at the top of the smartphone and responds to objects near the screen. If you hold the phone in a certain way, read it lying down, or use a wide black-framed protective glass, the sensor can falsely fire and extinguish the screen instantly.

To diagnose and disable this feature, go to Settings → Screen → Protection from Accidental Pressing. In some versions of MIUI, this option is called "Mode in your pocket." Disabling this option will prevent the system from reacting to nearby objects when the phone is not in mode.

There is also an engineering menu to calibrate the sensor if a simple shutdown doesn't help. Enter the Phone app code ##6484## (or #4636## for some models). Select "Proximity Sensor" and follow the instructions to reset the calibration. This is especially true if the screen goes out during a conversation when you remove the phone from your ear.

Remember that turning off the proximity sensor can cause occasional cheek presses during calls, so after setting up, be sure to test the incoming call script.

Using Developer Mode to Control the Screen

For advanced users who don’t have the standard settings, Android offers hidden features through the developer menu. To activate this section, go to Settings → About Phone and quickly click on the MIUI or HyperOS version 7 times. Once the notification “You became a developer” appears, a new item will appear in the settings menu.

Inside the developer menu (Settings → Settings → Developers) we are interested in the Screen section. Here you can find the option "Do not turn off the screen when charging." This is ideal for those who use a smartphone as a desktop watch or a smart home panel connected to the network.

Also in this section, you should pay attention to the "Wait Time" option, if it's available in your firmware version, you can set it to "Never," which completely ignores the standard timer. OLED-screen at maximum brightness without changing the picture is guaranteed to cause pixels to burn out in a short time.

Third-party applications for timeout management

If Xiaomi’s system limitations don’t allow it to achieve the desired result, Google Play apps come to the rescue. There are many utilities, such as “Keep Screen On”, “Caffeine” or “Screen On Pro”, that create an invisible layer on top of the system to prevent the transition to sleep mode.

The way these apps work is simple: they mimic user activity or use system APIs to block sleep, and most of them allow you to create profiles: for example, the screen does not go out only in the Read or Maps app, while the rest run a standard timer, a compromise solution that balances convenience and energy efficiency.

When installing such programs, be sure to give them permission to "Map on top of other windows." Without this critical permission, the application will not be able to intercept the control of the screen. It is also worth adding the selected application to the battery exception list so that the system does not "kill" its process in the background.

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Third-party applications are the best way to create flexible screen-canceling rules for specific use cases without changing system settings globally.

The effect of energy saving mode on the display

It is important to consider that even a properly configured timer can be ignored by the system if an aggressive power saving mode is activated. MIUI has a "Battery" feature that can force the screen to turn off or limit background activity if the charge falls below a certain level (usually 20% or 10%).

Check the settings in Settings → Battery → Energy Saving. Make sure you don’t check the Ultra-Energy Saving box or similar hard mode if you want the screen to behave predictably. In normal mode, you can also set up Auto-Optimization by turning it off for trusted applications.

⚠️ Warning: If you turn off all battery restrictions and timers, but the phone will still go out through 15-20 Check if the device is overheating — at critical temperature, the processor can force the display to shut down to protect the components.

Also worth mentioning is the Face Recognition feature, which on some Redmi models, the screen can go out if the camera can't see the user's face, even if the timer hasn't expired yet. This is a security setting that can be found in the lock menu.

Automation of processes through Tasker or MacroDroid

For users who want to gain full control of the device, the ideal solution is to install automated applications such as MacroDroid or Tasker, which allow you to create complex scripts (macros) that will control the screen depending on the context.

For example, you can create a macro: "If you have a YouTube app running and you have Wi-Fi on, you can set a screen timeout for 30 minutes." Or, "If it's 23:00 to 7:00, you can turn off auto-quenching." Logic can be of any complexity, limited only by your imagination and the app's capabilities.

In MacroDroid, it takes a couple of minutes to create this rule: select the trigger "Start App", the action "Screen On" and the restriction "Only in the selected application." This is much more flexible than standard Android settings, and does not require superuser (Root) rights for basic screen management functions.

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