Ambient Light Events

The ambient light events are a handy way to make a web page or an application aware of any change in the light intensity. It allows them to react to such a change, for example by changing the color contrast of the User Interface (UI) or by changing the exposure necessary to take a picture.

Light Events

When the light sensor of a device detects a change in the light level, it notifies the browser of that change. When the browser gets such a notification, it fires a DeviceLightEvent event that provides information about the exact light intensity (in lux units).

This event can be captured at the window object level by using the addEventListener method (using the devicelight event name) or by attaching an event handler to the window.ondevicelight property.

Once captured, the event object gives access to the light intensity expressed in lux through the DeviceLightEvent.value property.

Example

if ('ondevicelight' in window) {
  window.addEventListener('devicelight', function(event) {
    var body = document.querySelector('body');
    if (event.value < 50) {
      body.classList.add('darklight');
      body.classList.remove('brightlight');
    } else {
      body.classList.add('brightlight');
      body.classList.remove('darklight');
    }
  });
} else {
  console.log('devicelight event not supported');
}

Specifications

Browser compatibilityUpdate compatibility data on GitHub

See also

• DeviceLightEvent
• devicelight