How to make your phone screen black and white on Xiaomi: the full guide

In today’s digital world, smartphones are becoming a powerful source of distraction, forcing us to constantly check notifications and social networks. One effective way to reduce the craving for gadgets and reduce eye strain is to shift the display to gray. Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO have implemented several methods to turn a bright color screen into a strict monochrome interface.

This feature not only changes aesthetics, but also helps to focus on the really important tasks, removing the visual noise of color icons. Users often look for a way to activate this mode for reading e-books, working with text documents or just for digital detoxification. In this article, we will discuss in detail the regular tools of the system, hidden functions for developers and third-party solutions.

It's worth noting that the switching process can vary slightly depending on the version of the MIUI shell or the new HyperOS. We'll look at all the current options so you can choose the most suitable for your model. Regardless of whether you own a budget or a flagship, you can set up a monochrome mode in a couple of minutes.

Using the Digital Well-Being function

The easiest and most secure way to do this, which doesn't require any additional software, is built directly into your settings. Google has implemented Digital Wellbeing, which allows you to quickly change your color scheme. To activate, open Settings and search for Digital Wellbeing and Parental Control.

Inside this menu, you need to go to Sleep Mode or find Night Screen Style, although recent MIUI versions often highlight a separate Modes block. Here you need to select Shades of Grey. Once activated, the entire smartphone interface, including wallpaper, app icons and menus, will turn black and white.

The advantage of this method is that you can adjust your schedule flexibly, you can program automatic switching on at certain times of the day, such as late at night, so that you don't disrupt your circadian rhythms with blue light, and you can also turn on your bedtime schedule, which makes the process fully automated.

It’s important to understand that this mode may not work in some games or video players, as multimedia content often takes precedence over system color settings, but for everyday tasks such as reading news or texting in instant messengers, this method works perfectly stable.

Activation of color simulation mode through developer settings

For more advanced users who need full control of color reproduction, there is a hidden developer menu, which allows you to force the display to grayscale mode, ignoring the color profiles of individual applications, and you first need to activate the developer menu if you don't already have it on.

To do this, go to Settings → About Phone and find the MIUI Version (or OS Version) bar. You need to quickly click on this item 7-10 times in a row until you notice that you have become a developer. Then a new section Additional or Advanced Settings will appear in the main settings menu, where you need to select For Developers.

In the technical parameters that open, you should scroll down to the "Hardware Rendering Acceleration" section and find the "Anomaly Simulation" item. When you click on it, you will see a list of options to choose Monochrome. The screen will instantly turn black and white.

The main difference between this method and the previous one is that it works at the GPU level, which ensures that absolutely any pixel on the screen will be displayed in shades of gray, without exception. However, be careful: random change of other parameters in the developer menu can lead to unstable system operation.

⚠️ Warning: Do not change other settings in the developer menu unless you are sure of their purpose. You can reset the changes by returning the Simulation Anomaly value to the Unplugged position or simply restarting the device if the system freezes.

Use of special features and inversion

There is an alternative way through the special features section, which was originally designed for people with visual impairments, but can be adapted to our goals. In some versions of Xiaomi firmware, a color inversion feature is available, which, when combined with certain profiles, gives a close effect to black and white.

Go to Settings → Advanced Settings → Special. Features. Here you're interested in the Vision tab. Turn on Color Inversion. The screen turns negative, which isn't exactly what we need, but when combined with Books or Papers mode in the screen settings, it gives an interesting effect that looks like electronic ink.

You can also find the "Animation Removal" or "UI Simplification" setting in this section. Although this doesn't make the screen black and white directly, when combined with monochrome themes, it creates a visual noise-free environment. For some users, the combination of inversion and blue light filters is more comfortable than pure grayscale.

Keep in mind that constant color inversion can tire the eyes with prolonged use, as the white background will turn black and the black will turn white. This is useful for reading at night, but during the day can cause discomfort, so this method is better used situationally, not constantly.

Application of third-party applications and design themes

If the built-in tools aren't enough or they're not working properly, Google Play Store apps come to the rescue. There are many utilities that put a color filter over the entire interface. One of the most popular and proven solutions is GreyScale, or something like Super Eye Saver.

Once you install this app, you'll need to give it permission to display over other windows, which is standard for screen filters, and you can select the gray saturation in your app settings, and you can also set the hotkeys to quickly switch mode.

Another option is to use themes. In the Xiaomi Themes app, you can find black and white themes that change icons and wallpaper. While this does not change the color reproduction of system windows (for example, a browser), it significantly reduces the attractiveness of the interface to the brain by removing bright spots.

Using third-party software has one significant drawback: increased battery consumption. Since the application is constantly running in the background and processing the video stream, this can add 5-10% to daily power consumption, so system methods are better to use for constant energy savings.

The effect of black and white on the battery and OLED screens

The energy savings of monochrome mode is a common topic, but not everyone understands the physics of the process. On IPS screens, which are used in many low-end and mid-range Redmi models, black and white switching has little or no effect on power consumption, as the backlight is constantly running.

This is a huge change if you have a Xiaomi flagship or POCO s AMOLED super AMOLED In these displays, each pixel glows independently. OLED-The screens mean that the pixel is completely off and does not consume energy.

However, when we turn the entire interface into shades of gray, we rarely get pure black (RGB 0.0.0). Most often it is dark gray, which still requires pixel glow. However, the decrease in brightness and the lack of bright, saturated colors (especially white and blue) can give a small but noticeable increase in battery life.

💡

On AMOLED screens, black and white mode combined with a dark theme gives the maximum effect of energy saving, while on IPS screens the savings will be invisible.

Frequent problems and ways to solve them

When using monochrome screen modes, users may encounter a number of technical difficulties. Often, after a system update, the settings are reset or stop working correctly. For example, after the MIUI update to HyperOS, the path to settings may change.

If the screen is black and white on its own and you can't get back the colors, check if Simulation Anomaly is accidentally on the developer menu, and check if Color Inversion is activated in special features, and users often forget about these settings after experimenting.

In some cases, applications may not display content correctly, such as navigation maps may become unreadable as the color coding of roads and traffic jams disappears, and in such situations, it is recommended to create exceptions or temporarily turn off mode through the notification curtain, if this is possible.

⚠️ Warning: When using navigators or maps in black and white, be extremely careful. the absence of color markers (red is traffic jam, green is free) can disorient the driver.

If you use third-party filtering apps, make sure they have the necessary permissions.In newer versions of Android (12, 13, 14), the system strictly controls screen access, and the app can be blocked by antivirus or Xiaomi security.

Psychological aspect: why is it necessary?

Putting your smartphone in black and white is not just a technical experiment, it's a powerful psychological tool. The bright, rich colors of social media interfaces are designed specifically to stimulate the pleasure centers in the brain. Red notification icons and vivid photos in the feed make us return to the screen over and over.

When you remove the color, the dopamine loop breaks, Instagram or TikTok in shades of gray becomes boring and uninteresting, the brain stops receiving vivid visual stimuli, and the desire to flip the tape disappears, which helps fight digital addiction and regains control over your time.

And it also helps you focus, and by removing visual noise, you start to perceive information in a more structured way, and it's especially useful for people who are creative or learning, who need to be deeply immersed in a task without constant distraction.

💡

Try black and white for 3 days, and you'll be surprised how much time you spend on social media will decrease and how much more relaxed your perception of information will become.

Questions and Answers (FAQ)