How to Enable the Always On Display on the LG G6 and G6+

The LG G6 and G6+ Always On Display feature lets you display some information on the screen even if your smartphone is in a locked state.

Last year, we saw both LG as well as Samsung announce that their Galaxy S and G series flagships will have a feature called the Always On Display. This made a lot of sense for Samsung since their smartphones mostly use AMOLED panels and this doesn’t eat up as much battery life.

Since LG uses LCD panels on their smartphones these days, it actually makes less sense for them to use an Always On Display feature for the LG G6 and the LG G5.

Because of the way LCD panel technology is, showing just a single pixel on the screen means the entire backlight has to be lit. This results in a decent amount of battery life being used up by having this feature enabled. LG gets around some of this battery usage by having the screen brightness very low, but that makes it near impossible to see the screen in direct sunlight. There is a way to increase the brightness, but that will simply eat up even more of your battery life.

If you don’t mind this additional battery life usage though (and many people aren’t bothered by it), then you can follow these steps to turn on the LG G6 Always On Display feature.

LG G6 Always On Display

1. Launch the Settings application
2. Tap on the Display tab at the top right of the screen
3. Scroll down all the way to the Basic section
4. Look for and tap on the toggle for the Always On Display option
5. Tap on the Always On Display option to customize what is shown (optional)

Explanation

So, you could really like or really hate this feature depending on how much of the battery life is left at the end of the day. If you can get through your day with 50% of the battery life left normally, then turning on this feature shouldn’t drain you to 0%. However, if you end your days with 25% of the battery (or even less), then this feature will likely not be very useful for you. Average battery life depends on tons of variables like signal strength, screen on time, background app usage, etc.

You should definitely feel free to experiment with the LG G6 Always On Display feature though if you think it would be useful for you. During the first few days of testing it would be advised to make sure you can quickly plug in the device to charge it up in case it uses more battery life than you would like. So it may even be a good idea to simulate your regular days worth of using on a lazy weekend day just so it’s easy for you to plug it in and charge it back up.

So to start, we just need to launch the Settings application and then tap on the Display tap at the top. Scroll down to the bottom and then you can toggle on the Always On Display feature. If you tap on the Always On Display option, that will take you to a menu where you can customize this feature even further. By default, it will display icons for notifications and a digital clock. But you have the ability to display an analog clock, or even just your signature for your LG G6.

There’s always a toggle here that enables you to increase the brightness of the screen when the LG G6 Always On Display feature is active. However, you will get a warning about battery life usage here. There’s even a schedule that you can setup here so you can set a time which this feature will be disabled. This is great for those who only need the Always On Display feature on during work hours, or during social hours, or whatever the case may be.

As mentioned, feel free to experiment with this feature since you can always come back here and disable it in the future if it turns out you don’t like it.