Vita Plugins – VitaBright (Dim screen further) and VitaBattery 1.1 update
It seems that plugin devs have woken up now. That is after the GekiHEN contest, in which there were only 2 plugins by the same developer. VitaBright, by ‘devnoname120’ who’s also the developer of Vita Homebrew Browser, lets you relax your eyes without a performance penalty or any issues (unlike vitaFlux). VitaBattery is by ‘Joel16’ / ‘sauske_firekid’ on Wololo /talk forums (and which we mentioned earlier here) . It lets you know how much battery ya have left instead of having to rely on Sony’s dodgy estimates.
What’s VitaBright?
It’s a very simple plugin that allows you to lower the brightness of the Vita’s screen below the official minimum. This is very useful for those, like me, that own a Vita 1000 and can’t stand the brightness when in the dark. The plugin makes the Vita easier on the eyes since the OLED Vita has a very bright display. Using it is pretty easy, just install it and lower the brightness via the quick menu to the minimum (take the brightness slider to the far left – You’ll see a big difference between the extreme far left and less extreme if the plugin’s working as it should). To install it, you have to add it in the taiHEN config.txt file under the ‘KERNEL’ section. Simply download from the link below! This is an experimental plugin so issues may arise! Only issue I’ve had till now is that I had to lower the brightness to the hacked minimum again after locking the screen. Be civil and report any issues that may arise to the developer.
PSVita Quick Menu
What’s VitaBattery 1.1?
It’s another simple but good to have plugin 😉 This one lets you see the proper battery life (not the official estimate that doesn’t really show much) while in game along with an Estimated Play Time. After installing it, you have to press ‘SELECT+Up’ for the battery percentage and ‘SELECT+Right’ to see how much time you have left. Pressing ‘SELECT+down/left’ close the information displays you pop up. You must set the plugin to activate per game! To get it, simply follow the instructions linked below. Version 1.1 brings battery life time so you should update to that to get all the features.
Conclusion
Both plugins are quite simple but quite useful so I’d suggest you try them out. Follow the links below to get them:
VitaBright: https://github.com/devnoname120/vitabright/releases/download/0.01/vitabright.skprx
Reddit VitaBright release post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/vitahacks/comments/64oa6c/experimental_brightness_lowering_plugin/
VitaBattery /talk post (download + instructions): https://wololo.net/talk/viewtopic.php?f=116&t=48023
Thank you for the article, Wololo. Looking forward to future updates.
actually probably the best homebrew so far
Finally! I’ve been looking for this!
Aurora, have you noticed increased battery life with the use of VitaBright?
Same! I don’t know but the lower the brightness, the better the battery life tho. If you have battery issues, getting a new battery is the best way to go 😉
I did recently get a new battery, even though my 1000’s battery still holds charge just fine. I’m just curious to know if this plugin will actually reduce power usage and lowering brightness organically, or if it’s just a dimming filter applied to make the screen darker. If it’s the former, great. If it’s the latter, at least it prevents peoples’ eyes from hurting at night I guess.
Technically, it should reduce power usage even if it’s a dim filter due to the way OLED works: screen on the same brightness B will use less power if there are darker areas here and there than when there are many light areas.
Now a dim filter would have a light impact by modifying the framebuffers. It shouldn’t be very significant, though.
I don’t think it’s using a filter. The dimming is done seamlessly from regular brightness setting. The plug-in supposedly works from the kernel, which communicates with drivers(including the screen), so… Maybe Sony just set a minimum brightness setting that is a bit too high for most people.
It is possibly to run plugins in every game? Not only on specific one
Try *All
I actually own 2 vitas: slim and fat and I was unpleasantly surprised at how the slim version’s screen is less colorful and bright. If anything i’d want a plugin to make the slim version’s screen more like the fat version’s
I don’t know if this is a bug but if I don’t touch the vita about 1-2 minutes, and then I touch it, the brightness increases.