How To Make Your Screen Stay On Longer On Android And IPhone

It can be quite frustrating when you are set to watch your favorite show on the mobile phone, but the screen turns off automatically. So, you turn it on to watch again, but the screen keeps shutting down.

This issue is taking place probably because of your screen timeout settings. You can easily solve this issue by tweaking some settings on your mobile device. However, if that doesn’t work, you can follow other workaround methods mentioned in this article.

So, let’s jump right into the article to learn about the reasons behind your problem and various techniques to lengthen the screen time on your device.

Why Your Screen Is Shutting Down So Fast

Your issue is recurring likely because you have the screen timeout settings set to a shorter time on your device. However, there are several other possible reasons behind your issue.

The brightness is set too low, so the screen appears dim
Turned on gestures that close the screen
Accidentally pressing the power button

How to Make Your Screen Stay Longer on Android

By default, the screen timeout on most Android and iPhone devices is 30 seconds. You could wonder why it’s so low and why the system doesn’t set the screen timeout for a longer period or for that matter never turn off the screen. Well, there is a very important reason behind it.

The system intentionally sets a lower screen timeout to save your battery. Even a slightly longer screen time can affect your phone’s battery performance adversely. Likewise, your battery drains at a much faster rate.

Nonetheless, you can easily increase your screen timeout. From manually configuring the screen timeout settings to using features like Stay awake and Smart stay, we have listed various solutions to fix your issue. Let’s learn more about them in detail.

From the Screen Timeout Settings

Open the Settings app.
Tap on Display.
Tap on Sleep/Screen timeout.
Select a longer screen timeout depending upon your preference.

Note: The screen timeout options can vary according to your device and the android version. The maximum screen timeout can be 10 minutes or even 30 minutes on some devices.

Disable the Smart Stay Feature

Most Samsung Phones have a smart stay feature that prevents the screen from turning off no matter what you have set in the screen timeout settings. You may think that it helps make your screen turn on for a longer time, but there is a caveat to it.

The screen only remains turned on as long as you are staring right at the screen. The moment you look somewhere else, the screen is turned off automatically. Furthermore, it doesn’t work if you are in a dark environment or the camera fails to sense your eyes.

Hence, you can disable the smart stay feature to get rid of the phone screen from shutting down too quickly when you are not looking at it.

Here’s how you can disable this feature.

Open the Settings app.
Navigate to Advanced features > Motion and gestures.
Then, tap on Smart stay to turn it off.

Using the Stay Awake Feature

Stay awake is a feature that allows the phone screen to never turn off while charging. So, you can put the phone in charging mode and turn on the screen for a longer time with this feature.

Here’s how you can enable this feature in your settings.

Open the Settings app.
Tap on Developer options and turn it on.
If you have already unlocked the Developer options, skip directly to Step 5 otherwise continue the steps in sequential order.
If you do not have the Developer options enabled, go to About device and tap on the Build number for multiple times.
Finally, tap on the Stay awake to enable it.

How to Make Your Screen Stay Longer on iPhone

Just like the android devices iPhone also has the feature to make your screen stay longer. You can make use of the auto-lock feature on iPhone.

Using the Auto-lock Feature On iPhone

Here’re the steps you need to follow:

Open the Settings app.
Tap on Display & Brightness and then on the Auto-lock option.
Now, if that option is grayed out and you cannot access it continue the steps in the sequential order. Otherwise, you can skip directly to Step 6.
Navigate back to Settings and tap on the Battery option.
Tap on Low Power Mode to turn it off.
Then, select a longer screen timeout according to your preference.

Note: You can set the screen timeout options to Never to prevent the screen from ever shutting down.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Sleep Mode Same as Screen Timeout?

Screen timeout is the time you set for the phone screen to shut down automatically when you don’t interact with it. However, the phone is not necessarily in sleep mode even if its screen is turned off due to inactivity.

On the other hand, sleep mode means the CPU is idle and not performing any tasks at the moment.