BrightnessTray

If you don't want to reach for your monitor when you need to change the brightness, you could install a piece of software for that purpose. One example is BrightnessTray. It provides you with a handy slider for controlling the screen's brightness. Reaching the slider and changing the brightness can be done on the fly, thanks to the application's simple design. The application doesn't do much, but it should be fairly obvious that it can be quite useful on a laptop.

BrightnessTray is absolutely free and it works on Windows 8 or any later edition. The application is lightweight and it doesn't need to be installed. You only need to extract an executable from a ZIP archive and run it. There are no special requirements you have to meet and you won't see any effects on your computer's performance.

When launched, BrightnessTray will place a new icon in the system tray. Clicking this icon will reveal the brightness control slider, which you can use right away to increase or decrease your screen's brightness. Additionally, you can turn off your display immediately, if you need to, by clicking an option, directly below the slider.

The brightness setting can be changed from 0 to 100. What's more, the system tray icon will display the currently set value, so you will always know how what's your current brightness level. Additionally, you can right click the system tray icon, to reveal the same display power off option, as well as one for switching to sleep mode. You can also find a "Caffiene" which prevents your display from turning off.

If your monitor is too far or its buttons are broke, BrightnessTray will help you adjust its brightness in a comfortable manner.