Apparatus for controlling a brightness of a display of a vehicle includes: an infrared illuminator, configured to emit infrared light in the vehicle; a near infrared (NIR) light sensing unit, configured to capture reflected infrared light; an image data processing unit, configured to analyze the reflected infrared light to generate a feedback; an imaging control unit, configured to adjust, in response to the feedback, one or more of a plurality of properties of the NIR light sensing unit, so that readouts of the NIR light sensing unit are within a first range, wherein the image data processing unit generates a calculated NIR intensity readout under the adjusted properties; a reconstruction unit, configured to reconstruct a human perceived brightness based on the calculated NIR intensity readout; and the display, configured to adjust the brightness. The NIR light sensing unit is a unit of a driver monitoring system (DMS).