Android 15 was released globally in August, and since then, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) such as OnePlus, Oppo, and Realme have introduced their iterations of the new operating system (OS) for their smartphones and other devices. The update is said to bring support for true adaptive refresh rate (ARR), which uses individual steps of VSync to adapt to the frame rate of the content on the screen without changing the current display mode.

Adaptive refresh rate on Android 15

ARR support has been around since Android 11, but it used a method known as refresh rate switching, which actually switched the display between different modes depending on the content and its requirements. Devices can switch between 60Hz, 90Hz, 120Hz or 144Hz depending on the display type. However, Android 15 provides a true ARR experience by allowing the system to adjust the refresh rate in one mode instead of using a fixed rate.

According to Android (via Android Authority ), displays that support ARR can separate VSync and refresh rates based on how often content is refreshed. ARR on Android 15 has two benefits: reduced power consumption and less interference.

With this capability, devices typically operate at a lower refresh rate and only switch to a higher refresh rate when necessary. It is said that this will lead to lower energy consumption. In addition, ARR also eliminates the need to switch between modes, reducing stutter, an effect that usually occurs when content is out of sync with the device’s refresh rate.

Android says OEMs can implement ARR based on their desired power tradeoffs. The OS is said to support ARR with new HAL Hardware Composer (HWC) APIs and platform changes. To enable it, device manufacturers must support kernel and system changes on Android 15 and later devices, and implement the third version of the android.hardware.graphics.composer3 API. However, screens that do not support this technology will still use the fixed frequency of the active display mode to set the refresh rate.