Standby mode turns off after a minute or so

[DouginMN]

Same issue here. iPhone 14 Pro with Belkin MagSafe charge. No matter what settings I choose, it randomly goes dark - sometimes after a few minutes, sometimes after a few hours.

The only thing I can think of is that after the Standby display has turn off randomly, I wake the phone and I have received a new email or text message. I haven’t enabled Show Notifications, but will turn this on to see if it’s related to the issue.

Also, while I understand (I think) what Apple is trying to say, this is worst description I’ve seen in a long time:

When Always On is enabled, the display will intelligently turn off when not in use.

 

[fstevens]

How should standby mode work on a 14 Pro, with AOD turned off? I upgraded to iOS 17 yesterday, and tried standby mode overnight, displaying one of the clocks. I had the Standby “Always On” setting turned on. The display did turn off after a short period of time, but (usually) turned back on when it detected motion (I have the Night Mode “Motion to Wake” setting turned on).

I tried a quick test this morning with AOD turned on, and Standby Always on turned off, and the display turned off after a short period of time. I assumed this combination should make the display stay on 100% of the time, but apparently not? I was hoping to have the clock stay on at night, but as long as it turns on when it detects motion, that is probably good enough for me to get rid of my old clock radio.

 

[Yptcn]

This happened to me as well. I was able to fix it by re-enabling “Always on display” in Settings - Display & Brightness. I am not a fan of Always On Display which is why I turned it off. I guess I will turn it off during the day and back on at night. Bummer.

I don't use AOD for lock screen either .
There is a toggle for AOD in Standby settings , what will that do ?

 

[Yptcn]

Same issue here. iPhone 14 Pro with Belkin MagSafe charge. No matter what settings I choose, it randomly goes dark - sometimes after a few minutes, sometimes after a few hours.

The only thing I can think of is that after the Standby display has turn off randomly, I wake the phone and I have received a new email or text message. I haven’t enabled Show Notifications, but will turn this on to see if it’s related to the issue.

Also, while I understand (I think) what Apple is trying to say, this is worst description I’ve seen in a long time:

When Always On is enabled, the display will intelligently turn off when not in use.

Agreed 100% !

 

[WaitingForGuacamole]

My guess this was implemented this way to avoid OLED burn in

And I thought that as well, but during the day, my lock screen is always on, so same "risk" exists. It's only on the charging stand in StandBy mode that this happens.

 

[WaitingForGuacamole]

It does not stay on permanently no matter which phone you have. It should automatically come back on when it detects movement. Then will turn itself off again. Sounds to me as though it is working as designed. And certainly on my 14 Pro Max that is exactly how it works.

Edit: [mention]teeshot44 [/mention] got there just before me

Then IMO it's poor communication/documentation/marketing on Apple's part - during the day, off the charging stand, AlwaysOn is AlwaysOn, the screen never turns off. In StandBy mode, when I'd like my phone to be an alarm clock, AlwaysOn is MostlyOff until I wave my hand to get the phone to wake again.

 

[WaitingForGuacamole]

Also, shouldn't an AlwaysOn setting on the display _and_ an AlwaysOn setting in StandBy produce different behaviors? If AlwaysOn is enabled on the display settings, turning it on or off in StandBy mode has zero effect for me.

 

[StumpyBloke]

Then IMO it's poor communication/documentation/marketing on Apple's part - during the day, off the charging stand, AlwaysOn is AlwaysOn, the screen never turns off. In StandBy mode, when I'd like my phone to be an alarm clock, AlwaysOn is MostlyOff until I wave my hand to get the phone to wake again.

Couldn’t agree more. They couldn’t have made a worse job of letting end users know how it is supposed to or not supposed to work. Welcome to new Apple.

 

[DotCom2]

Couldn’t agree more. They couldn’t have made a worse job of letting end users know how it is supposed to or not supposed to work. Welcome to new Apple.

I was about to post the same thing! Just terrible wording and no guidance on how exactly this is supposed to work.

 

[adrianlondon]

I have an iPhone 11 and was in a hotel a couple of days ago so used the new Standby mode.

I propped the phone up against a bottle of water and plugged in my 5W lightning cable.

Flicking the phone screen (being gentle enough not to cause it to slip off the bottle and land horizontally on the cabinet!) turned the display on.

I like it. I'd like it even more if it stayed on or detected very simple movement. I guess I'll need to wait until I upgrade my phone to something more modern before that happens.

 

[MacCheetah3]

The 13 Pro Max, the standby activates as soon as I place it horizontal on the MagSafe charger, only shows the display in a red "night mode" tint (Perhaps because I have Dark mode on all the time?)

Anyway, the display turns completely off after about 20 seconds.

Tapping it lightly turns it back on, also slightest vibration turns it on.
It's a feature that might be helpful, I'm glad it's on the older phones even though it's limited. But honestly I already forgot about until this post. 😆

Both behaviors are as intended:

When Night Mode is on for StandBy, the screen adapts to low ambient light at night and displays in a red tint so that it’s not intrusive while you’re sleeping.

Night Mode is an option within Standby, which Apple doesn’t make clear in the guide. Additionally, Apple needs to stay a bit more aligned between teams, including marketing, we now confusingly have Night Mode for Camera and Night Mode for Standby (plus probably others I’m not recalling).

With the Always On display (on iPhone 14 Pro, iPhone 14 Pro Max, iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max), StandBy stays on to show useful information. For all other iPhone models, it’s easy to bring up StandBy anytime by tapping the screen, gently nudging the table your iPhone is on, or using Siri.

Use StandBy to view information at a distance while iPhone is charging

Display your favorite photos, clock, Live Activities, and more while your iPhone is charging.

support.apple.com

As for the original problem… I think, @djpatrickb has the essential troubleshooting step, ensure general Always-On Display is enabled. If you had AoD already enabled, try toggling it off then back on before enabling Standby mode.

 

[Ralfi]

Bought the Belkin charge stand to specifically use StandBy with as a clock

I’ll probably end up just returning the charging stand and charging the phone flat if it’s not going to work right.

Was it expensive? Belkin tend to be a rip off. & when you don’t need fast charging for overnight use, they’re overkill.

If you can find a cheap angled Qi charger 7.5W, with coils positioned low enough, you could just use that. My Kmart stand has worked perfectly for years for eg, without overheating the phone.

Of course, wait until you can get Standby working properly first.

Couldn’t agree more. They couldn’t have made a worse job of letting end users know how it is supposed to or not supposed to work. Welcome to new Apple.

I was about to post the same thing! Just terrible wording and no guidance on how exactly this is supposed to work.

Did you send feedback to Apple? It’s the only way they’ll (maybe) acknowledge it.

 

[James Godfrey]

I think it’s meant to go off to avoid burn in tbh

 

[fstevens]

As for the original problem… I think, @djpatrickb has the essential troubleshooting step, ensure general Always-On Display is enabled. If you had AoD already enabled, try toggling it off then back on before enabling Standby mode.

I never had AoD turned on on my 14 Pro (I can look at my watch for anything I would see on my phone). But last night, I turned it on to see if the Standby clock display would stay on. It did not. It displays when it detects motion, but doesn’t stay on. I did have the “Display: Always On” Standby setting turned on, but turning that setting off didn’t cause the display to stay on either.

 

[Ralfi]

How is the detection quality? How far can you be & do you need to flail your arms for it to detect movement?

For those with a Google Hub 2, would it be similar to the Snooze gesture?

 

[fstevens]

How is the detection quality? How far can you be & do you need to flail your arms for it to detect movement?

For those with a Google Hub 2, would it be similar to the Snooze gesture?

I have a Belkin 2-in-1 charger on my nightstand. The headboard on our bed is a bookcase style, so I have to lift my head and kind of lean over to see my phone on the charger as it is partially blocked by the headboard (I might move it into the bookcase part of the headboard if I decide to keep using this). That is nearly always enough movement to wake it up. Or waving my hand at it will do it. When walking towards the phone, it wakes up when I’m probably 5 - 6 feet away, assuming the angle is right.

 

[PhillyGuy72]

How is the detection quality? How far can you be & do you need to flail your arms for it to detect movement?

For those with a Google Hub 2, would it be similar to the Snooze gesture?

Using iPhone 13 Pro Max, it did detect movement fairly well for me when I got up from my chair and walked out of the room. (Phone in Standby mode slightly elevated on a MagSafe charger stand)
With my overhead light is on, I'll get the full color display. Overhead light off, it displays in the red color.

Again, since AOD is not available for 13, it all turns off after 20 seconds. Mentioned above..if this to prevent burn in with the older iPhones, I'm perfectly find with this.

 

[adrianlondon]

Again, since AOD is not available for 13, it all turns off after 20 seconds. Mentioned above..if this to prevent burn in with the older iPhones, I'm perfectly find with this.

I don't think LCD screens (such as on my 11) suffer from burn in.

 

[PhillyGuy72]

I don't think LCD screens (such as on my 11) suffer from burn in.

Ah yeah, you're right. This is 13 Pro Max, OLED. Only burn in I started to have slightly was with my 2+ year old Xs Max. And with ONLY green icons like iMessage and Phone started showing a slight burn in when I had a all white background page up.

I tend to move those icons around now every month to hopefully prevent it on this phone. 2+ years in with this, no issues. Perhaps the OLED screen has improved also since the X, XSmax.

 

[Jett0516]

I don't have this problem at all.

The standby mode stays on while it is charging and even turning off AOD, standby still stays on.

I am guessing this is a software issue.

 

[Sailmac22]

Same problem here.
15 Pro with Belkin 2-in-1 and 80 % loadstop.

Arises when phone starts reloading.

 

[adrianlondon]

I've written a shortcut that enables "always on display" on my iPhone 11.

Edit: iOS 17.1 beta 2 has broken my shortcut, as toggling low power mode no longer wakes the screen.

It does some other stuff: it turns the ringer volume down (so that any alarm I set doesn't deafen me) and turns on my Do Not Disturb focus mode. Both those get reset when the shortcut ends. You could do something smarter by ensuring the previous focus mode (if any) and exact ringer volume are restored, but I've just hard-coded them at the moment.

The shortcut ends when the phone is removed from power (or after around 10 hours). This means that the shortcut will end immediately if the phone isn't connected to power.

The phone screen is immediately locked, so that the standby mode gets activated. Your phone has to be horizontal and (almost) upright.

Disclaimer: I've not done a lot of testing.

!! Warning: OLED screens might get burn-in !!

 

[MisterSavage]

So… it’s a “feature” 😭 sorry Tim Apple, I don’t love it.

Edit: is there any chance Apple fixes this if enough people complain? I can’t see people being happy with this. When I wake up a 3am to pee I want to groggily look and see what time it is before I move. I might as well have a standard bedside clock.

I actually really like this feature. It's way way way less bright than the bedside clock I was using when the screen is on in night mode. If I wasn't getting out of bed it's easy to wave my hand and make the screen come on.

 

[Yptcn]

Well no it worked for me , at
leats for what I wanted. Wheh put the phone on its stand it brightens up. When i put the lights out it turnes to red.
then stops completely Turns on only if I move or tap on it. I didn’t wanot that red face on all night

 

[TotalMacMove]

Last night I turned off my 80% charge limit and the standby screen stayed lit throughout the night.

I have AOD turned off but have "always on" enabled in the standby settings. Not sure what's going on here but I'll continue messing with it to see if it is caused by the 80% charge limit.