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Comment by asdff | Hacker News Reader

If that were true f.lux wouldn't be so significant in my experience. I can't watch TV or use my nintendo switch for very long without suffering from pretty bad eye strain that could evolve into a migraine headache and a night of rough sleep. On my laptop it was the same way too, until I installed f.lux. Same is true for every other device I've been able to install f.lux on.

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I have tried f.lux and the equivalent shift programs that are now native to iOS etc. My experience has been that they have no impact, at all, when compared to simply turning down screen brightness. My uneducated guess is that most of the impact of f.lux or equivalent is due to the fact that it unintentionally "dims" the monitor, rather than actual color temperatures of light mattering.

I never realized just how blue many computer screens were until I got my first calibrator along with a new panel. In general these days I target all my screens to around 6500 kelvin/D65, screens could be easily be 9300 kelvin out of the box.

You get used to these color casts, but bright screens with blue casts do seem to cause more eye strain... unless you just turn the screens brightness down? like, to around the sRGB spec screen luminance level?

Agreed. It’s possible the improvement is due solely to a reduction in total light output (which I assume is a side effect of reducing blues) but something about it really seems to help. I still wish my monitor could go dimmer.

It is an anecdote but I also much prefer redshifting all my displays. At this point, it is really uncomfortable to look at a blue screen on someone's phone. If the science isn't finding an effect, they are either not measuring the right thing or they are not measuring it with a large enough sample size.

I agree. https://github.com/jonls/redshift has been a gamechanger to me. Hint for those with desktops: redshift may fail to detect your location so you can use -l lat:long to set it.

Is that only because it’s bright and contrasts strongly with the darkness? A dim one without a color filter looks fine to me.

Well I always turn my monitors to the lowest brightness at night but when the program turns down the blue tones I assume it reduces the light output further. That may be the main effect that helps (brightness reduction) or it could be that reducing blue specifically helps. I’m not sure.

> If the science isn't finding an effect, they are either not measuring the right thing or they are not measuring it with a large enough sample size.

This is a very dangerous idea to have. Placebo is a very well known effect.

True, but poorly designed studies and non-replicated results are also very common. I think if a majority of people find some effect to be anecdotally true I’m their own lives (“using flux makes my eyes hurt less and I fall asleep more easily”) then you should need to meet a high standard of very rigorous science to prove them wrong.

Placebo is controlled for in these kinds of experiments by using a comparison group exposed to a carefully designed placebo.

To be very clear, you can test for the abscence of an effect. It is a little bit more challenging than finding a "true" effect, but it is feasible.

It is a dangerous, and common, misunderstanding to not distinguish between "no significant effect" and "statistically significant zero effect".

It sounds more like a background contrast issue, if you dimmed your device would you still have it even without warm filters?

If you are serious about the effects, don’t bother with the software just get yellow glasses so you don’t need software. I don’t have any issue with blue light as long as the screen is not a high contrast to the background.

Wear a pair of glasses or this convenient software on every device I use that adjusts it based on my location...

Personally I prefer good hardware, no installs, no updates, software has a lot of random issues and something like the iPhone doesn't have it, wearing glasses is one and done.

iPhone doesn't have it? What iOS version? 5?

The primary benefit of f.lux is that blue light (morning blue sky) triggers wakefulness, but red light (sunset) triggers sleepiness.

I can go to sleep an hour and a half earlier if I use f.lux or a similar "turn the blue channel off" app.

Could be it's because f.lux dims white ? I find screens with white very white (for a lack of better word) like Apple's, oled screen etc. hard to use, I can't focus when the background is white and generally try to reduce the output or dim screen. My desktop screen's brightness level is at 0, except when there's a lot of sun then I crank it to 30% max. I have an old dying saartphone and new ones are not as comfortable and I blame the screen.

I wish they made another e-ink phone.

> If that were true f.lux wouldn't be so significant in my experience.

Let me introduce you to something called the placebo effect..

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