In this guide, we will show you the steps to lower the minimum refresh rate to 1Hz via ADB Commands. While the term refresh rate (aka the number of times the display refreshes itself per second) isn’t new, yet it has only recently made its presence felt in the smartphone domain. Many devices are now offering 120hz refresh with some gaming hardcore ones even pushing the limits to 144Hz. As a result, you are guaranteed a much more fluid, smoother, and lag-free user experience. But all this comes at a cost.
And the cost is of excessive battery drainage. In this regard, most OEMs packs in an Adaptive Refresh Rate functionality that will automatically adjust the refresh rate based on the task you are performing, For example, if you are playing a graphics-rich game, then it will adopt to a higher rate, more often to the maximum possible limit. On the other hand. if you are performing a less resource-intensive task, such as replying to a WhatsApp message, then this refresh rate will automatically lower down.
However, this lowering down is also capped by many OEMs at 60hz. So while you could have easily had a chat with your friends at 20-30Hz, your device is stuck at double the rate, with no benefits sight but rather the caveat of battery being drained out. So to prevent this from happening, you could lower the minimum refresh rate to 1Hz via ADB Commands. As a result, when a task with low resource usage is being carried out, your device would have the option to opt for 10-20Hz, as opposed to earlier only being stuck at 60hz. Without any further ado, let’s check out how this could be carried out.
Table of Contents
How to Lower the Minimum Refresh Rate to 1Hz
STEP 1: The Prerequisite
- First off, download and extract the Android SDK Platform Tools on your PC.
- Next up, enable USB Debugging on your device so as to execute ADB Commands.
- After that, connect your device to the PC via a USB cable. Make sure USB Debugging is enabled.
- Then head over to the platform-tools folder, type in CMD in the address bar, and hit Enter. This will launch the Command Prompt.
- Now in the following command in the CMD window to verify the ADB connection:
adb devices
- if you get the device ID, then the connection stands successful and you are good to go ahead.
STEP 2: Lower the Minimum Refresh Rate to 1Hz via ADB
Now just execute the below ADB command in the CMD window to lower the minimum refresh rate to 1Hz. The refresh rate will still stay adaptive, it’s just that your device now has the liberty to opt for a lower value, something in the range of 10-20 as well. In other words, your device’s display will oscillate between 1Hz and the maximum possible refresh rate supported by your device. So on that note, here’s the command that you need to execute:
adb shell settings put system min_refresh_rate 1.0
That’s it. These were the steps to lower the minimum refresh rate to 1HZ via ADB Commands. The commands have been successfully tested on Galaxy S20 and it should work across all Android devices (obviously the device should be having a 120hz refresh rate in the first place).
