Screen turns on when taking phone off wireless charger

[Digby]

Hi,

I'd like the screen to stay off when I remove it from the charger. Is there a setting for this?

I've turned off the settings for "lift to wake" and "double tap to wake" but the screen still comes on when I pick the phone up from the charger. How do I stop this?

[GaryB82]

At the moment I don’t think you can disable the screen from turning on when you pick it up from charging 

[Digby]

Okay, so that makes this phone hard to handle, literally.

I've got both flat and upright wireless chargers, and the best way to safely and easily pick up my phone from them (without dropping it) is to grip it with my thumb on the screen and my fingers on the back, as I've been doing with my phones for years now.

The problem is, half the time I end up either unlocking the phone with my thumb, or it unlocks when it sees my face, and then I've mistakenly launched apps, removed notifications, deleted icons, or any other random touch thing.

And the screen coming on is also an issue when I don't want to light up the whole room at night.

Is there a Bixby routine I could make that would keep my screen off and/or locked? Or a Good Lock feature that could help with this?

[realaud]

I believe the phones are designed to turn on the screen when the device is picked up regardless if it is just lying on a table or on the charger.

[Digby]

You can stop it from turning on when picked up from a table, by turning off the "lift to wake" setting. I just wish there were a related setting for the removed-from-charger status.

[realaud]

If your screen is locked, you shouldn't be able to activate any program. If your biometrics are inadvertently unlocking the phone, you can try picking it up by the opposite end of the phone from the fingerprint reader (I don't think I can accidentally hit the fingerprint reader if I tried). If it's your face biometrics unlocking it, perhaps avoid pointing the phone at your face, or turn face recognition off, or flip the phone over before picking it up.  If the brightness of the screen is the issue, you can make a routine that will dim the screen while charging and for several minutes after you remove it from the charger. The routine will run automatically and turn off automatically, or you can turn it off manually.  Something like this (play with the parameters til you find what works for you): 

[Digby]

Thanks for the ideas, I like the routine you suggested for dimming the screen.

There really is no natural way of picking the phone up by the opposite end of the phone, in part due to how the phone needs to sit on the wireless charger, and more importantly you need to pick your phone up with the orientation as you normally hold it when using it, which means my thumb gets automatically positioned right at the fingerprint sensor. And yes, I've tried turning my phone away from my face, but I shouldn't have to constantly remember to hold my phone awkwardly or  avoid looking at my phone when I'm picking it up, never mind that you need to look at it to make sure you've grabbed it right. And amazingly, my face is recognized even when my phone is down at my side, at waist level when I'm walking.

This was never an issue with my previous Samsung phones, I suppose because they didn't have either of the newer biometrics, like under-screen fingerprint or face unlock. And so, even though the older phone's screen would turn on when lifted from the charger, it could not unlock itself. I should not have to disable a biometric feature just to allow me to safely pick up my phone.

This auto-wake convenience feature works fine for usb charging, since you generally need both hands to unplug the cable. But this feature is not good for a one-handed-pickup from a wireless charger, which is all I ever use.

[realaud]

I hear you, but Ive never had any phone of any brand that didn't turn the screen on when taken off the charger.

[Digby]

I did have one phone that had a setting to disable all charging-related screen wakes, but not sure which one, maybe an LG ?

One thing I'm very happy with the S23 is that it wakes much less often than my S7 did, which would wake when placed on the charger, when it finished charging, and again to remind you to remove it from charging, and also when lifted from charger. So having three less wakes is wonderful. I just need to prevent that last one...

[michael262]

My previous phone (an older Pixel) did not turn on the screen when I took it off the charger.  I don't recall what I had to do to get it to this state.  I do know that I don't appreciate it when software developers think they know better than me how I want to use my phone and don't give me the choice to configure the software the way I need it to work.  I often wind up wasting a lot of time trying to figure out how to do something (especially when I have done it before) before discovering that it can't be done.

I shouldn't have to justify why it's wrong for me to have the screen come on when I take it off the charger, but here are a few reasons anyway.  First, if I want to unlock my phone my muscle memory is trained to press the power button to turn on the screen.  As a result, every time I take the phone off the charger with the intention of using it, I wind up turning off the screen and then having to turn it back on again. If the screen came on instantly this might help, but there is a small but barely perceptible delay which adds to the impetus to press the power button.  Second, there is the issue with not wanting light in a dark room.  This issue seems to be very pervasive and hard to overcome and there are potential security issues with a phone screen lighting up when not commanded.  In any case, my workaround for this is to make a lock screen that is as dark as possible.  There is also the issue that, having grown up in an age of incandescent light bulbs when adults were always telling me to turn off the light when I leave the room to save energy, I am a bit miffed that the tiniest bit of battery life is being stolen from me by needlessly powering up the screen for a few seconds.

These may sound like trivial things, not being able to optimize away these trivial annoyances can add up: first into a minor inconvenience, and then a hassle, and eventually even a potentially dangerous situation.