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Comment by remram | Hacker News Reader

This should probably get tagged [2013] or something, there are now built-in options into most platforms (at least Android, iOS, Plasma).

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Most of them stole the idea from F.lux, though. It's the software equivalent of pulling up the ladder. Google/Apple/Amazon added f.lux-style blue-light filters to their own OS's, while at the same time locking down access features that would prevent userland apps from being allowed to do the same thing.

Apps being able to overlay stuff onto other apps is a double-edge sword. You get good uses of it like f.lux and things like 'friend is now online' notifications with steam, but then you also get arguably user-degrading experiences like adware and the old Facebook messenger chat heads[0]. Apple and others made the decision to not allow this at all, so the only apps that can survive are those that can leverage notifications that users can always turn off in an uniform way.

0: https://images.app.goo.gl/Kzf3S8vNL9zB28cV6

Adapting a display to the time of the day isn't really something F.lux invented. The displays in cars, planes and other devices have been doing that forever to not blind you at night.

As far as I know, car displays just change the brightness, not the color temperature. Can't speak to planes.

So true, it's a giant money grabbing operation isn't it

Even Windows has it built in now with Windows 10 since the Creators Update in 2017.

Yes, but at least for macOS f.lux has more features so for me it is still the clear preferred option.

It seems like a lot of monitors offer similar functionality these days too. One of the nice things about using your monitor for this stuff is that you don't have to worry about games, virtual machines, and other apps that bypass f.lux blinding you.

How does that work? Do you have to set a clock in your monitor or does it use some sort of ambient light sensor?

I believe most are just simple blue light filters that you manually turn on and adjust the way you adjust brightness or similar but there were a few with sensors:

https://www.benq.com/en-au/campaign/eye-care/for-video-enthu...

Night Shift on macOS does not go as low as I'd like (1900K), so I still use f.lux.

I was surprised to find out that macOS does not apply Night Shift to my external monitor. So I went back to f.lux.

Where did you find that out? I'm reading this through my perfectly dimmed external screen running macOS Catalina.

I found it out by plugging in an external monitor and Night Shift not working with it. I could believe it is specific to the monitor you have, but judging by Apple support I'm not alone:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251249337

The answer implies that it only works on about four different monitors. I doubt that's true but it seems like a shot in the dark to know which it does and does not work with.

EDIT: just tried it again with Catalina. Nope.

Interesting, never heard of that before! I use a 5 year old Dell P2715Q screen and I just enabled / disabled it and it's working fine so that list of screens seems to be outdated.

Works fine on a Dell and an Acer for me, never heard of that before as well.

I have a (probably) related issue on my dual display system where it works on one but not the other, making it just as useless in practice. I still use f.lux as a result.

I have a cheap set of dual monitors (~$110 / monitor) and it works perfectly for me.

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