I love using an external display with my Mac. I have one 32 inch screen on a long monitor hand connected to my MacBook Air. But my wife pumped it up a lot by attaching a 40 inch TCL Roku TV as her primary Mac mini display.
As long as you don’t have broadcast studio-grade visual needs, these extra monitors and TVs are great. They offer rich screen real estate and are much cheaper than Apple’s $1,599 Studio Monitor or $5,000 Pro Display XDR.
As someone who likes to show off extra long Ergotron tracking arm, I find that many of the additional monitors are reasonably lightweight and therefore quite practical. My 32-inch monitor weighs 10.65 pounds. Apple’s smaller 27-inch Studio Display model weighs in at 13.9 pounds. If you want to mount the Pro Display XDR, you’ll have to spend $1,000 more Apple tax on a VESA mount adapter, and it’ll still be 16.49 pounds – a bit much for a long monitor arm.
Also: Are your eyes strained from using too much screen time? Try upgrading the monitor
But there’s a problem: you can’t easily adjust the screen brightness. On my Westinghouse monitor, you had to find a button on the back of the display, press a few menu items, then toggle another set of buttons (also on the back of the display) to adjust the brightness.
For my wife’s Roku TV, the brightness can be adjusted by pressing the menu button on the Roku remote. But it is can’t control brightness based on input. So if she wants to dim the Mac mini’s screen, she’s also dimming Netflix and HBO Now. No one wants to see it too dim Dragon’s House.
Introduce MonitorControl Lite
Fortunately, there is a free app in the Mac App Store that can completely solve the problem. It is called MonitorControl Lite. Once you have it installed, you should also see the light (or not much, depending on your preference).
It works on your menu bar and allows you to control all the screens on your system.
Although the name of the application has “Lite” in its title, the program has a relatively powerful set of controls and settings. You can decide how you want the settings to be displayed and restored.
You can decide how you want the controls to be displayed.
You can define keyboard shortcuts.
You can even set options based on individual monitors or monitors.
As the light levels in your room or office change throughout the day, you can keep your eyes comfortable by varying the screen brightness. Most of us will just live with eye strain before fumbling behind screens two or three times a day looking for inconvenient buttons and switching menus. It’s nice to be able to prioritize comfort for your eyes and adjust the screen so conveniently that you actually do it whenever you need to.
The bottom line is simple. This app is worth significantly more than what you pay to get it. It does the job; it makes the dimming convenient and flexible. It’s an ideal example of some of the small utilities available for Macs that greatly improve the user experience.
Do you have any favorite Mac gadgets? Let us know in the comments below.
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