Save your eyes, start using f.lux | Hacker News Reader

Save your eyes, start using f.lux

stereopsis.com

423 pointsjarospisak255 comments

This thing gets a lot of love by a bunch of folks here, so I gave it a good half year of trying. But it's just too annoying.

Around 5pm, your display turns pinkish orange and it becomes a lot harder to see anything. Code gets harder to read, colors display wrong, video just fades to black. None of the advertised happiness ensues.

The second half-year it remained installed, my only interaction with it was to notice it screw up my display, then right-click the tray icon and disable it.

Needless to say, I didn't install it on the new box I bought this year. I don't understand why people like it.

Did you play around with the lighting setting? I have it set for halogen and set the transition to slow (1 hour) and I don't even notice it.

I've only just installed it, and found that I need to disable it if I'm doing any serious work. However if I have some free time at night to go over pinned tabs or read some articles I leave it on and find I do get sleepier much faster, to the detriment of my open-tab count.

Is serious work == Photoshop or does it bother you when programming too? I only tolerate f.lux when programming, but it happens to be what I do every night :)

I can program for 30 minutes with it, but I get tired :) so if I am troubleshooting a problem that is going to take a while or a client indicates it is urgent, f.lux goes off.

I have my lighting at night set to "fluorescent" and use the slow transition. I don't generally notice it turning on, and I use the "disable for an hour" setting if I'm doing anything where I need more color accuracy.

Whenever Flux gets mentioned, there's two groups of people:

1: Doesn't understand it, hates the "wrong" colors. Can't get used to it.

2: Appreciates the candle-like colors, says it helps them sleep in the evening or relaxes their eyes.

I wonder if there's some sort of genetic difference? Maybe some people just aren't sensitive to bright light in the evening?

I would take this a step further and say it happens when any project or software gets mentioned on HN. There are always two groups of people: Those who like it, and those who don't. Those who don't are usually composed of a lot of people who don't actually care, but just thrive on contradicting people.

I'd say it's more of a personality phenomenon, but acknowledge the possibility you present as well.

Theoretically, we might only recognize about half of those contradictors at any one time.

If these theoretical contradictors are evenly distributed, spherical, and massless, then it seems natural that around 50% will be busy contradicting other contradictors, and writing well thought out and earnest posts about how great the software is.

One can only hope that they all get sent out into a vacuum.

And the majority of people aren't motivated enough either way to comment, so we listen to the vocal minority with extreme views. Like everywhere in life.

And those who do are often composed of people who just like to be excited by new things that seem cool. Or we could describe both populations in a more positive light.

Part of the problem is the people who like it insist that everybody must like it and anybody who doesn't like it just doesn't get it. I don't get upset when people talk about things that made their lives better, I get upset when they make unqualified statements about my life.

Bordering on group 2 I can't say if it helps or not because I've never had any problems with my eyes. But I have not experienced any hate-issues towards it so I have left it installed on all my computers just in case.

I'm not sure it's a genetic difference. I used to be in camp 1, despite trying Flux many times, but now I'm firmly in camp 2. The change for me was due to a change in working environment, and I imagine that's the difference for a lot of people: if you're in a brightly lit room anyway, then the colours becoming weird is just going to be irritating. If you're in a room with a lot of natural lighting, or trying to work on a plane or a bus, it might be different. Of course, either way, it's not suitable if you're doing colour-sensitive work or if you just want to watch a movie, but for reading or text-editing there's no real downside other than taste.

I think I speak for a lot of Flux users when I say that the point you really notice is when you're working late at night, and you turn off Flux after your eyes have acclimatised and all of a sudden you feel like you're in a tanning booth.

I have f.lux on my [jailbroken] iPhone 4S and my desktop.

On the desktop I like it simply because it helps automatically "dim" my display in the evening. I don't use much artificial light in my room [it's basically a mancave after 5:00] so a bright display with the standard color temperature is just an exercise in eye-strain.

I can't be bothered to adjust my brightness, contrast, and temperature manually every evening to avoid eyestrain. Since my monitor doesn't have programmable presets, f.lux definitely provides a great [automatic] solution.

On my iPhone it's actually more of an issue, I find myself disabling it frequently. I think this is mostly because I use my phone in a wide range of "lighting contexts." I might walk from the man-cave to a fluorescent-lit kitchen, and then I'll go out into an incandescent living room.

In my car, I find the low color temperature kind of difficult to read, so I'll usually disable it for road journeys. (It probably doesn't help that I have a dark OS theme and my navigation application has a dark blue "night time" mode that is also time activated.)

f.lux does look wrong in a blue-rich lighting environment (like an office building after dark.) It looks ok in most people's homes.

Might there be a way to sample white balance throughout the day to calibrate it using a webcam and a white sheet of paper? I'd probably start using it again if I could avoid fine tuning color temperatures manually.

Yes we have three implementations of this, and they mostly work but only some of the time :)

Problems: in a lot of dim rooms, the monitor is the main light source, and some webcams have terrible auto white balance. If you're on a Logitech camera it's totally easy, and if you're on a cheap netbook, it's awful. Still, you can solve all that, and we probably will ship a version of this soon.

That's great to know. I could probably turn the screen backlight off for a second while taking the shot. I'll play around with some shots from my camera to see how they vary. I'm looking forward to hearing more about these sorts of features!

That doesn't surprise me. If you're in such an environment, I'd bet that the ambient light would overwhelm the benefits of a tinted display, anyway.

I can attest to this. It's exactly why I don't use it on my work laptop but can't live without f.lux at home.

Granted, I use and like warm lighting at home. I wonder what would be the effect in a house/room that uses daylight lighting.

You should set f.lux to match your ambient lighting. If the whites on your screen look more orange than the whites in your room, then you have it set too warm (no benefit from that anyway!).

You should check out Hacker Vision as see what you think: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-vision/fomm...

I've simply never been able to get used to the colours. When I bought my last MacBook I noticed that the brightness at even the lowest level is far too bright for usage just before bed. I ended up buying a 99c app on the MAS called Screen Shade that pretty much just overlays a transparent black over your entire screen. The first night I used it I thought 'well, this was pretty crap' but I've used it pretty much daily since. At night I slowly turn the brightness down and eventually switch screen shade on and adjust down as my eyes get used to it. It works amazingly well and skips the colour part. I realise that flux is probably better for my eyes, but I've never found myself in the habit of using it, whereas Screen Shade made it's way onto the new MacBook almost instantly.

Half the people in my office leave their laptop display at about 50% brightness all day. It drives me crazy -- I always want to go over and turn it all the way up. I like my monitors BRIGHT, but others say it bothers their eyes. You might be right...

That's kind of funny. I personally can have real issues with bright displays. Only in very light sun lit offices, I don't mind the brightness being up. When at home in the bat cave, I far prefer dimmer light. Some days my eyes are more sensitive, or perhaps getting used to dimmer displays make you more sensitive to bright ones.

I used to use the transparant filter with compiz, just to take the edge of some glare/brightness. I even tried a sepia/monochrome filter with some success. There was an error with compiz and my system, so had to give up on it.

Then I tried a light on dark theme. As I find the terminal comfortable, but I feel you need to match it across your desktop - otherwise it's jarring. That is going from light on dark to dark on light.

It seems support for darker themes is buggy at best on Linux. To the point that recently I had to undo my dark theming just because I need regular access to one spreadsheet.

Now I have a halfway house, browser is setup for light on dark, and the rest of my desktop is greyish. Still buggy though, something as simple as Google's search box is unuasable because I've a dark font on a dark background. And so it goes on.

I might give flux a go. I've installed redshift on XFCE - but it's not currently working. Edit: okay it took like 2mins to get it up and running. Not sure what to make of it. Will see.

I've got quite used to a light on dark them though to overcome brightness issues.

Run redshift in a terminal to see what it is doing.

I've also found that having both a light and dark color theme is useful for your editor. I am currently using Solarized in Sublime Text.

It seems to work well, and if you read the description, it seems like a lot of effort has gone into matching the two versions.

http://ethanschoonover.com/solarized

Speaking of genetic differences, you see this same sort of split whenever "what music do you listen to while coding?" gets discussed here. Half the folks suggest music that makes them more productive. The other half say that any music at all distracts them to the point that they can't get anything done.

For anybody looking to correlate the two, I wrote the above and fall squarely into the "no music" camp as well.

Maybe we're just overly sensitive to any intrusion on our concentration. (I also prefer nobody throw hamburgers at me while coding, so there's a 3rd datapoint.)

I'm not sure there is much correlation between the two, at least in my case.

I fall squarely into the "no music" camp, and have since I was a child where music during study would drive me crazy. Music while coding is just a distraction to me.

However, I really love F.lux/Redshift. One of the most relaxing and productive things for me is to work in a dim or dark room with the display shifted to a fairly low color temp. By contrast, during the day I prefer fairly high contrast, using the VividChalk theme in Vim. In the past I would switch to a lower contrast theme like OceanDeep, but never found one to work well with red hues yet, which I prefer in dim light (partially as a throwback to old amber monitors.)

As a side note, I will agree with everyone saying the automated time based shifts are annoying. I usually find myself pausing or disabling it. Having it triggered off ambient light levels is the logical way, imho.

I also prefer nobody throw hambmurgers at me while coding, but if they want to toss them onto the corner of my desk for later consumption, I won't complain...

For people who light affects their sleep fall generally fall into two camps: those that are oversensitive to light, and those that are undersensitive to light. For the former, (as an extreme example) a flashlight might prevent them from feeling tired (since their body feels like it's day time); whereas for the later, you can shine a tungsten movie light on them and they won't wake up (I think I'm the later---I can easily sleep during the day).

I wonder if there are also geographic differences at play? I love it during summer in Germany (= bright until ~10PM) but it annoys me when it turns dark at 4PM, while I am still at work.

I find the same thing from Canada. Perhaps I'll try telling it I'm at a more equatorial location.

Seems like a simple fix to make it latitude-aware, if it's not already.

I live in London and I have my location set to Recife, Brazil. That way I get 'sunset' around 9pm in the winter - late enough to let me continue working on a bright screen, but early enough to not blast blue light before going to bed.

The point for me is not so much matching the environment but not staring at a blue screen right before bed.

I think the people in group 1 didn't set F.lux up correctly. Twenty seconds is too short of a transition time.

If the same people are complaining about paper and other objects having the "wrong" colours at night, you might be onto something. I think that's highly unlikely though and I see little reason to seek a genetic explanation.

I'm definitely in the latter camp, though my working day starts at 6:00 AM and the softer, warmer light in the early (still dark) morning is much nicer than the harsh blue of a normal display. Interestingly, by the time the screen colour adjusts back to normal (variable based on time of year), I'm happy to see it adjust as well. Best of both worlds, as it were.

>I wonder if there's some sort of genetic difference? Maybe some people just aren't sensitive to bright light in the evening?

No, it's probably people not noticing that they have a problem and insisting that they don't. Happens all the time.

Maybe some things just aren't for everyone?

Things that depend on common human physiology rarely have exceptions...

It turns reddish gradually, so I don't really notice it. If I disable it at night, the sudden blueness hurts for a second, which implies there's some benefit to being redder.

In some WWII submarines, the sleeping room lined with bunks for the bulk of the staff, the lighting is red. Why? Because you can sleep in it easily -- it's always just red in that room because there are some day and night shifts even on a sub.

The story that I heard (from my army dad) about red lights for night work was that red lights cause less night blindness than white lights.

Wikipedia corroborates this story, but indicates that a Navy study (from the 1980's) didn't find strong support for the practice.

> 1: Doesn't understand it

That's a condescending interpretation. Just because someone doesn't like something doesn't mean that they don't understand it.

I wonder if the two groups are

1. the ones who discovered the "Slow" setting in preferences, and

2. the ones who didn't.

When the transition is set to Fast, I find it very jarring. When it's set to slow, I barely notice it.

So you're proposing that everyone should like it?

I don't think it's the slow setting. I tried it for a few months, and I did use the slow setting, but just found the washed out colors annoying. Regardless of the lighting in the room. I even tried forcing myself to keep it on for a couple of weeks straight, figuring I'd get used to it. No dice. It was usable enough, I just missed the colors and didn't really notice any difference as far as eyestrain.

It probably doesn't help that it has bugs. Sometimes my netbook will go through a horrifically jarring transition full of banding and a very obvious change in tone, it seems like sometimes flux gets a little stuck and then rapidly catches up.

Flux on my MBP is if anything even less predictable.

I also found when moving to my netbook to my MBP that I had to make very big changes to how much flux could change the colours - I have no idea what makes my previous settings so annoying on this computer, there's too many diferences between them to be sure.

On my MBP I completely ignore their recommended settings for lighting type. I picked the tone by adjusting the settings until it didn't feel like the light from my screen was physically attacking my eyes, which required a surprisingly small change in colour.

I had to make the night time colors much cooler for me to be able to tolerate it. I felt like the default was far too red.

I've tried it once for a short while and sided with camp #1.

Going to try it out again, "forcefully", for a longer while to see how it works out.

3: Hates how f.lux makes the display jumpy and slow when active. (Sorry, it's true, and once you see it, you won't be able to unsee it)

I actually would get used to the new temperature, but working with Lightroom a lot, it became a hassle to have to constantly disable it.

Also watching videos/flickring etc needed it to be disabled to get the right colors on screen.

My main issue with f.lux (and the reason I don't use it) is that you can't configure it to wait until a certain time to start with the transition. When I go to bed at 11 pm, I would like f.lux to start its one hour transition at 9 pm so that I don't see that much cold light the last two hours before sleep. And in the morning it should start directly with the settings for the day, without any transition.

Tying it to sunrise/sunset is what makes it useless. In winter it starts the transition at 4 pm while I'm still working. The amount of daylight I get in winter is already low enough, using f.lux would make the winter depression even worse. I could of course trick it by settings the location to place in the Southern hemisphere, but that won't help me during spring and fall...

I didn't set it to be in the Southern Hemisphere but just moved it further West. I never notice the transition from warm-to-cold anyway (not an early riser) and it delayed the cold-to-warm transition by 2 hours.

Unfortunately then I would have to disable f.lux every time in the morning because otherwise it wouldn't transition back until noon.

Similar issue here. I love it but it starts too early and clicking the "turn off for a hour" setting all the time was just a pain. I like that it initially tries to auto-tune itself, but I'd enjoy it even more if it had a customizable schedule.

And this might defeat the purpose, but if I could configure it to know what Spaces it was in in OS X, I could still design and not have to turn it off manually for just that one Space with the browser window in it, where knowing the actual colors is important.

Pick a location on the equator, and offset it to your preferred schedule instead of your actual sunrise/sunset time.

More improvements in this area are coming. There are interesting trade-offs between productivity and good sleep, and our next version strikes a better balance.

Well that's the thing, you need to adjust, not disable it. I found out that the slow transition over an hour is essential, otherwise it's too disturbing. It didn't work on linux for some reason though. I haven't had any trouble while coding with it, or see anything well enough. When you do some work where you need to see colors properly then it's not usable of course. But it's fine for late night reading.

Yeah, when I saw this post I doublechecked if I even had it installed. Yep. Installed and active. But with the super slow transition I'd only really see it if I turned it off.

I used to have the same issue as you.

F.lux emulates an undergoing sun. That doesn't happen in 20 seconds. Set the transition time to Slow.

Also select the right type of lighting. If none of the types match your lighting, juggle a bit with the settings until your screen looks the same way a piece of paper would look in the same lighting.

If you do that, you won't notice it's running at all. The only reason I turn it off is when I'm watching a movie. The colours in a movie usually already take darkness in account.

I wish there were some way for it to detect the ambient light of the room I'm in. Late at night I prefer the warmest setting. But I feel like I'm constantly adjusting f.lux based on where I am. If I'm out, I can't control the lighting of the room. At home in the winter when it gets dark early, I don't want to turn the lights off at 5pm. But if I don't adjust f.lux, it hurts my eyes.

For the most part, though, I think it's great.

It would be neat if it could auto-calibrate based on a reference image of what you look like sitting in front of your webcam.

As long as it can be set by command line or has a simple config file it shouldn't be that hard to set up a daemon to take a picture with a webcam then munge the color temp and brightness and adjust f.lux accordingly.

My grandfather had an ancient color TV with this feature. You could press a toggle button on the front that would open or close an iris over a sensor, and the TV would adjust the on-screen color to match the room lighting.

....I feel you're having trouble configuring the app.

The right way to use it is to NOT use the default settings.

For me is: days, all the way to the right (bluish) and nights, about one third to the left (just a little reddish).

Also, make the transition last one hour (20 seconds is insane).

Also, I think it looks great only on HDMI, and ugly on VGA.

You say around 5pm the display turns orange, are you seeing an instant change? Try the slow option that changes the colour over a longer period so you don't even notice it happening.

>Around 5pm, your display turns pinkish orange and it becomes a lot harder to see anything. Code gets harder to read, colors display wrong, video just fades to black. None of the advertised happiness ensues.

You know that you can tune the white balance to your preference in the program, right?

If you just set it to fade in over an hour, instead of instantly, you wont even notice it. That's how I do it.

(author of f.lux here) Color adaptation actually takes about 2 minutes, and we transition by default in 20 seconds (some video cards use a ton of CPU during the transition time, so we pushed it a bit faster.) The slow transition option should help some people.

Also a badly-calibrated monitor can give a very undesirable result color-wise, but a white page should look like your room lighting if we do things right.

I wish there was something in between 20s and 60m. When I'm doing image editing, I don't want f.lux messing with colors, but I might not notice if I have it on 60m.... 2m would be better for me than 20s.

There's a button that completely disables it for color sensitive work. That's the best option.

I only see "Disable for one hour."

Is the Android version still on your todo list? I was thinking about making something like f.lux for Android.

> a white page should look like your room lighting if we do things right.

as someone in the "those colors look weird" camp, this might convince me to give it a try. it implies that those i've seen using it have it set up wrong.

I love f.lux, thank you. It's on my Mac and on my iPad. It'd be on my iPhone too if I could jailbreak the thing yet.

Oh and here is a bug that's been niggling at me. If you have your laptop plugged into an external display after the evening light kicks in, then unplug the laptop, it's in screaming bright normal colors on its own screen until you quit and restart f.lux. Same if you plug in the external screen in the evening.

Do you have flux set to slowly modify the white balance? If it changes over the course of an hour, then I find it's pretty difficult to notice the change.

Videos shouldn't be black though. Flux does have different white balance targets, have you tried selecting a different one?

I highly recommend using the 1 hour transition time instead of the instant one. It feels much more natural as your screen essentially dims as the sun sets. I've found that it's quite pleasant on the eyes.

Part of it is having to change the color schemes you code in to pay nice with the tints applied to the screen.

You can also change the color of the tint based on the type of lighting you have in your room (halogen, tungsten, fluorescent, etc) which makes a difference.

Still, it just might not be for you :)

Yes, same here. Default 3400K is very uncomfortable on my eyes. 4300K fluorescent is bearable, but still annoying. I much prefer to change brightness if I need to ambiently adjust the screen.

I love f.lux, I just wish it was adjustable for that exact reason. It is winter, it gets dark out early... I don't want it to shift to night time mode at 5pm. I find myself hitting "disable for an hour" 1-2 times a day before I leave work.

However, when I get home and get back on my system, then I'm ready for night time mode.

I prefer the 20 second switch over so I know to turn it off fast. With the long transition, I find myself being annoyed for a while until its enough for realize I need to turn it off.

I'd love a simple "activate at sunset, but not before X:XX".

Maybe set it it for a time zone a couple hours behind your location?

for some reason it would continuously flick between on and off, even when i had it disabled, so i just gave up on it too

I wrote a similar app called Brightness that lets you manually control display tint and brightness, instead of relying on a timed mechanism. Myself, and many other designers and developers, find it very useful.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/brightness-dimmer-tint-contr...

I think it's because of the transition happening too quickly. If the transition took an hour, it would be great :).

edit: You CAN make it take an hour! Just installed again!

Two (related) things about f.lux from my experience:

1. With only one exception I can think of, every instance of insomnia I've had in the last several years I can trace to not having f.lux enabled for some reason.

2. The reason that happens is that I often won't notice if f.lux dies for some reason, because I am so thoroughly used to it now.

I was having real sleep trouble several years ago, and f.lux is part of a battery of things I did (along with cutting caffeine completely after 12:00PM every day, getting some aerobic exercise, not coding after ~9:00PM, and taking over getting the kids out the door in the morning to force myself to get up) which more or less eliminated those problems.

For anyone who have tried F.lux, has insomnia, and HASN'T gotten this effect: install it on your phone too.

I had onset insomnia: took me about an hour to fall asleep each night. I jailbroke my iPhone just to install f.lux.

Now I don't have onset insomnia.

Is there any science on this? I've had a similar experience but have no idea if it's just a placebo effect.

http://stereopsis.com/flux/research.html

If I wasn't clear: I can trace insomnia to f.lux being disabled; I'm not aware of it at the time, but then the next day or so I'm like, "oh, yeah, f.lux was off, shit." It's not like 11:30PM rolls around and I realize f.lux is off and suddenly I can't sleep.

Yes: Short version is that you have light receptors in your eyes that you're not consciously aware of that are sensitive to blue light in the 460-480nm range & have a direct effect on sleep patterns. Exposing yourself to blue light at night time will delay the onset of sleep.

See the f.lux webpages for some references.

As soon as I saw flux pop up on HN this was the first thing that came to mind. I've had trouble sleeping the past 3-4 nights and could not figure out why (no change in any other aspect of my life--diet, stress, workouts, relationships, caffeine, etc. have all been consistent). I routinely spend 2-3 hours reading, working, or watching documentaries right before I go to sleep, but this week when that time rolled around I was still wide awake for another 2-3 hours. Last night I was up until 4AM!

Sure enough, I forgot to turn F.lux back on after disabling it for some photo editing on Sunday, so while I don't have any proof this seems like a strong correlation echo'd by all of the existing research on Herf's website.

On Linux, you can use Redshift: http://jonls.dk/redshift/

Well, you can use f.lux too. I prefer redshift because of its CLI nature.

Does anyone else here use f.lux on Linux? I installed the Ubuntu version but not only does the "pause/unpause" option sometimes do nothing at all but other times it simply forgets to change the colors.

I have it working reliably here (64-bit Ubuntu 12.04), though it is noticeably lacking a lot of the configuration options available in the Windows/OS X versions.

Tried it 2 or so years ago, had same issues mentioned by others, discovered redshift, been working perfectly since. Maybe flux is good now too, don't know.

I tried f.lux a month or so back on Xubuntu, and it just flat out wouldn't work for me. So I tried redshift, and it worked just fine.

I came here to post just that. I don't use f.lux because it doesn't ship packages for anything but ubuntu... The beauty of redshift is that you can just stick it in a shell script and start it with every desktop session.

I have been using it with the following parameters: redshift -l <my latitude>:<my longitude> -t 6500:5200 -g 0.8 -m vidmode

This results in slightly reduced gamma all the time but only a moderate redshift that doesn't offset colours too much. I have it set to autostart and I really don't notice it being there, however I do notice it is missing when switching users or OSes!

RedShift is pretty nice, easily configurable and you can just add it to your wm's startup. Pretty stable too, been using it for an year now.

redshift has constant problems with it's geolocate service in recent versions of Ubuntu. Not sure what the issue is, but you can specify the longitude and latitude to circumvent it. I use, for example:

    redshift -l <long>:<lat>

I've not had good luck with the f.lux port for linux.

Another vote for Redshift. Use Flux on work PC and Redshift on laptop. The colour transition seems to be a lot more subtle with Redshift and I find it easier to adjust. On the other hand, the change feels very sudden with Flux. Often use my laptop in work, but I suppose it could well just be a difference in lighting between home and the office, as others have mentioned. Maybe my eyes deceive me.

I love f.lux and can't recommend it enough for software developers who work with code.

If you're a designer then you probably can't use this. Desginers need colors to display properly.

Set the transition to slow and you won't get blindsided by the temp change when it's dusk; use your machine for an hour or two and by 22:00 turn off f.lux and see how bright your monitor is. It's the sun! That's why I love f.lux.

If you happen to have a /sys/class/backlight/acpi-video0/brightness file on your system (e.g., linux laptop). Here's a light weight and easy to customize option.

First make this file writable.

    chmod o+w /sys/class/backlight/acpi-video0/brightness

Then add something like the following to your crontab. I'm constantly doing this manually, and never thought to crontab it until this article.

    0 17 * * * echo 14 > /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness
    0 18 * * * echo 13 > /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness
    0 19 * * * echo 12 > /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness
    0 20 * * * echo 11 > /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness
    0 21 * * * echo 10 > /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness
    0 22 * * * echo  9 > /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness
    0 23 * * * echo  8 > /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness
    0 00 * * * echo  7 > /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness
    0 05 * * * echo 12 > /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness
    0 06 * * * echo 13 > /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness
    0 07 * * * echo 14 > /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness
    0 08 * * * echo 15 > /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightnes

Note: 15 is the max brightness for me, not sure if that is standard, just cat the file to see your current level of brightness.

Summary of feature requests so far: - default to a slower transition - support dimming too - Add an API - Sunset is fine, except in the winter

Most of these are on our list but it is all good feedback!

I'd also request testing on multi-monitor setups. When plugging my MBP into an external display, sometimes flux transitions to the external monitor, sometimes it doesn't.

I have a color profiled MBP and also see unreliable transitions now and again. Opening System Preferences > Displays > Color and flipping two profiles back and forth fixes it.

First, thanks for creating f.lux.

A feature request: some way for me to get rid of the f.lux menu-bar icon without quitting f.lux.

(I am willing to switch to an app or a preference pane to interact with f.lux.)

Yeah, if i can adjust it so it gets dark by 10pm rather than sunset, that would be pretty awesome.

Just adjust your location so that you are 4 time-zones behind.

F.lux doesn't seem to support my multi-monitor configuration.

I have three monitors, one at the bottom and two above it side by side (top ones are primarily used) and F.lux only works on the main monitor. :(

An Android version, please. The clones available all suck. It annoys me that I could run flux on an iPhone, but not my Galaxy Nexus. :/

Surprised nobody brings up the line in the footer, which seems pretty important:

> F.lux is patent pending.

So they're applying for software patents on this so-far-free piece of software that has an open-source linux equivalent?

Why not?

Not sure if that's sarcastic or trolling or not. In the event that it's earnest, software patents are relatively frowned upon by most non-corporate entities: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patent_debate

Using patents is frowned on.

Given the existing system, it's silly not to participate. It's not a case where a boycott would help, and by holding the patent you ensure that no one else uses it against you.

> and by holding the patent you ensure that no one else uses it against you.

A - Wouldn't they be protected due to f.lux being prior art? B - Would a competitor be able to get a patent on this in the first case? (due to A)

We all know that prior art can be missed when issuing a patent -- I'd assume having it already in the patent system makes that less likely to happen, and easier to deal with when it does happen.

Not sarcastic or trolling. Can't one hold a patent and also offer the product for free, provide open source code, and allow others to do the same?

On the flip side, suppose the patent holders do lock down this idea. Do you really think that humanity (or the US) is going to benefit from competing copies of a program that changes the color of our screens?

Are you truly concerned that the patent is going to take this program away from us? Have you contacted the patent-applicants to ask what they plan to do with the patent? Why is the pantent-pending "pretty important" for this piece of software? Why not patent this idea? If the only answer is "software patents are bad!", then it's worth thinking about these questions more.

> Can't one hold a patent and also offer the product for free, provide open source code, and allow others to do the same?

Yes, or you could write open source software and defend prior art in precisely the same way as you'd defend a patent. Given that one option is free and the other one requires the patent process, it's unlikely that they're patenting something just for kicks.

> Do you really think that humanity (or the US) is going to benefit from competing copies of a program that changes the color of our screens?

Yes. How about this as a built-in feature on iOS?

> Are you truly concerned that the patent is going to take this program away from us?

Yes. The lifetime of software, especially indie software, is dwarfed by the lifetime of a patent.

> Why is the pantent-pending "pretty important" for this piece of software? Why not patent this idea?

Software patents are rare outside of very large corporate entities, and it's worrying to see that a small group would think that they're worthwhile.

> If the only answer is "software patents are bad!", then it's worth thinking about these questions more.

Even a brief, two-minute read of the wikipedia page or any other of the top few google results on software patents should make the case that this is more than knee-jerk reaction.

You can't remove yourself from the patent world if you're a company, no matter how much you might hate it. You as much get a patent to protect yourself as you get a patent for any other reason. It is a universally sound business strategy to protect your way of doing business, as the world is currently structured.

Secondly, a method for easing eye strain on long-term monitor viewers by changing the light frequency of the monitor gradually sounds like a great patent (I don't remember literally exactly what f.lux does, but it's something like that, right?).

Thirdly, software patents don't technically exist, and I know it may sound nitpicky to mention that, but from the phrasing you've used (open-source linux equivalent) it seems you think they're patenting the literal software, when in reality they're patenting the method. You can't patent software code itself. For at least a little while longer, we're living under a 'first-to-invent' system of patenting (until March 16th) so even if the linux equivalent exists, as long as f.lux can prove it's method was invented before the linux one was (and it was), they still have their claim.

The last time I checked, this wasn't open source. I don't like running foreign binaries on my system. This doesn't rule it out completely for me, but puts me off enough that I haven't tried it.

Redshift is an open source equivalent for Linux and Windows: http://jonls.dk/redshift/

Doesn't work on my Windows. :(

>Display device does not support gamma ramps. >Failed to start adjustment method wingdi. >Trying next method... >No more methods to try.

This also means that you cannot fix any of the things that annoy you. I would love to enter custom times or fix transition bugs. :( At least it works with multiple displays now (on OS X).

For all my fellow f.lux windows fan, I created a little app (in Delphi) : Reflux.

You can download it here (There is also another package with source) https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=CD51CF0B626581E!134...

Basically, you can configure it to kill f.lux (and thus get your precious color back) when certain applications are executed. When all the "killer" applications are closed, f.lux is restarted automatically. It's barebone (there is no GUI) and I tried to keep it light (CPU & memory wise)

Reflux quick readme :

- It's windows only

- If you want reflux to start on windows startup you have to do it yourself. (I personally added an entry in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run)

- I recommend putting the exe and the ini in the same directory than flux.exe (on my computer C:\Users\YourUsername\AppData\Local\Apps\F.lux

- In the ini (open it with notepad), you can add a list of "f.lux killer" in the KILLERPROCESSES part. ie: KILLERPROCESSES=mpc-hc64.exe;photoshop.exe;vlc.exe

- There are 2 other options.

- If you didn't put reflux.exe in the same directory than flux.exe you can add a FLUXPATH entry. ie: FLUXPATH=c:\flux\flux.exe

- The process (by default) is executed every 2500ms. If you find it too slow or too quick you can add a CHECKINTERVAL entry. ie : CHECKINTERVAL=5000

Hope you guys enjoy it

Nice to know someone is still using Delphi :) I had a lot of fun with it as a kid.

F.lux is the reason I jailbroke my iPhone. It really is an awesome program. You can feel your eyes adjust if you disable and re-enable it. It definitely helps on the phone because it is usually the last screen I look at before bed...

Adding flux to my iPhone fixed my insomnia.

I love f.lux. It does take a bit of getting used to, but if you wait it out, you'll enjoy it. And, the research they've done on light is quite impressive too: http://stereopsis.com/flux/research.html

That being said, this has been around for a while, so I wonder why it's trending now. They haven't put out any recent updates afaik

> It does take a bit of getting used to

Just install it during the day. You'll be inseparable by the evening.

I feel like it trends in waves and they do not do any advertising so it's always by word of mouth...

I just wish it would go based on ambient light if you have a webcam rather than what the sun is doing. Where I work, I'm not always exposed to natural sunlight, and I don't always work during the day going into the night where I'm going to want my screen to adjust to me trying to fall asleep halfway through a second-shift schedule.

It's hard to measure ambient light correctly for something like this, because in a dark room, most of the ambient light is actually coming from the screen itself.

I've tried to use it for a while, but couldn't get used to it and deactivated it again.

It's just been unusual to me that my screen was being tinted/shaded..

Both my wife and I use it. I don't work with images at all so it works out fine. I now find the slight tint very pleasant.

I setup f.lux on all my machines to always use the darkest settings. Might as well spare my eyes the effort of absorbing any light that they don't have to!

In a similar vein, one someday project is to setup a vector-based (HUD-style) display using a laser projector (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005D6D6DY/?tag=hn2013-20 [affil]) and its SDK (http://www.picop.org/distros discovered http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4827130).

Always looking for ideas on reducing eye strain -- looking forward to my Oculus Rift! http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus-rift-s...

I've been using this for about a year and a half now... Protip: the fast transition speed is a little jarring, I found. If you really want to "set it and forget it"... set the transition speed to slow and you won't even notice that it's changing over time. Also, make sure that the color temperature it goes down to is correct. Otherwise you will have a noticeable color cast at night. I have mine set for fluorescent lighting since that's what's around my desk.

The goal here is to essentially forget that flux is running yet reap all of the benefits of it.

User for 3 Years here. Some Tips for new users to help smooth the transition.

-Install during the day.

-Use the Slow Transition Method

-Don't go all the way down to 3400k for night time if you think it'll bug you. I personally love it.

The slow transition is the biggest difference I've found when introducing people to it. It's actually pretty hard to notice it taking effect.

Flux is a great first approach, but I think that something like this needs a lot more tweaking (on the hardware side as well) to become viable. The issue with flux is that it just creates a color overlay on your monitor - it doesn't actually reduce the brightness of your backlight. This is understandable because very few desktop monitors and video cards support dimming the backlight via software. This is tremendously annoying to me as a designer, because on one hand I would love to have my displays dim automatically to save my eyes (and more importantly, to save me time as I end up manually dimming each of my 3 monitors at home every night as I'm working; something that eats up a few minutes because I have to navigate through the annoying on-display menus) but sadly flux isn't an option because it reduces the dynamic contrast of the monitor as well as the number of possible colors that the display can output.

Flux works decent for reading/coding/web browsing/etc, but it needs access to the backlight levels to truly be fantastic.

I hated f.lux on my old MacBook with a TN panel, however on my retina MacBook with an IPS panel it's unnoticeable except when I look at another screen.

My neighbour has a MacBook Air with a TN panel, and when I put my computer next to his with f.lux on, his screen looks like a gradient from purple to green with yellow in the middle, while mine has a uniform warm feeling (not yellow at all).

Some macbooks have a light sensor, It would be great if this app used that. Sometimes you are at a dark room, even if it is daytime...

I used f.lux for a few months last year, I did not stick with it because:

• It overrode the brightness settings on my screen, so it was actually much brighter than I would normally have it.

• Whenever I needed to work on anything with colours (most design tasks) I would have to turn it off to get hues correct.

The first one may have been sorted out by this point though.

F.lux is unusable on my work external LCD (junk panel), since I have the brightness/contrast/gamma turned way down in the display driver panel. I don't see any option to tweak this in f.lux unfortunately. I'll have to try it on my home LCDs, though.

I also use Nocturne for mac (http://www.blacktree.com) at night when I am reading something in bed. It turns the screen basically red and black, and is useless for anything besides text. Watching videos is impossible, so I just finish what I'm reading.

As far as I can tell all this does is enable High Contrast mode.

I tried it and the only effect is that I get sleepy/tired when it gets darker.

I seem to need my harsh cold 6300K in the night ;)

Isn't that completely the point of f.lux??

Oh, I thought it should just reduce eye strain. But if it's all about making people sleepy then they've written a damn good piece of software :)

For Linux users, redshift has better multi-monitor support.

Thats what I read elsewere, but it didn't work for me either. Running fglrx.

I've tried f.lux and while it's great for ios devices(if jailbroken), the colors seem to come out weird in most situations.

What I use now is a Chrome extension called "Hacker Vision" and I highly recommend it to anyone reading this. It flips the colors of websites so you get a white text on a dark background. It's really great in a dark room or sitting next to someone at night AND I can turn my MacBook Air's backlight down to 2 and read everything clearly; that resulted in an extra 30-40minutes of battery life!

Here's the link: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-vision/fomm...

I happened to start using f.lux on my macbook 3 days ago, and I'm loving it. Where I am (south west England) sunset is around 4pm, and I usually work until 5 or 6pm. Having a much warmer screen tone as the sky gets darker really feels nicer on my eyes.

I think you really have to use the slow transition (1 hour) mode, 20 seconds is quite jarring.

I program in Aptana with coloured text on back background, and I don't find it any harder to read in night mode. Overall, I can't recommend f.lux enough.

On a related note I've just started using http://www.protectyourvision.org to remind me to get up and move around every 20 minutes, also a highly recommended tool.

Haters gonna hate, I guess?

Mine is set to 4500K nighttime and I hardly notice it changing 4-5pm when the sun goes down. If I'm working on something that requires color accuracy, I use "disable for an hour" or I quit it.

So: When it (rarely) gets in the way, it's easy to swat away

I used it. Didn't really notice much difference for a few days and then saw that it was maxing out one of my cores to I got rid of it. Might try redshift at some point, but I guess I can probably do without as I mostly code 9-5.

In my opinion, it really depends on the brightness of your monitor(s).

My iMac screen is rated at 350 nits, a.k.a. super-bright, so when Flux kicks in, I don't mind it if I'm working on that screen.

On the other hand, my 2nd monitor is an el-cheapo Samsung I bought before I cared what "nits" meant, and is rated at 250 nits -- a significant difference.

My typical workspace at night is, left screen (iMac) holds the browser where I view changes, and the right screen (Samsung) has my code editor.

So when f.lux kicks in... my options are one of two things: - disable it - buy a new monitor

Guess which one I go for?

So are you enjoying your new monitor?

(Have you tried calibrating both screens? flux should not affect brightness/gamma differently.)

I've got irregular sleep patterns and this didn't help so I didn't bother setting it up again on next OS reinstall.

I work from home, so can get away with working "whenever". For a while I've basically given up trying to "fix" my sleep cycle. I'm awake until I pass out and I wake up when I'm rested. This is of course suboptimal for workouts--you need to rest properly after workout to get max benefit from it. But lying in the bed and trying to get asleep is such a bother. If I'm not sleepy I'd get up and be active until I get sleepy.

Yeah, I have a similar "problem": I'm 'rotating' my sleep cycle. I constantly stay up longer and longer so in a few months I'm awake at night and sleeping in the day - and a few months from that I'm awake in the day and sleep at night.

But to be honest that really doesn't bother me that much. It only get's weird when I have to set a wake up alarm to do grocery shopping before the stores close ;)

This sounds fun :)

I've installed the ubuntu version into my kubuntu. After launching it does nothing. Which isn't strange because the /usr/bin/xflux is a 32-bit binary and the package didn't request the required libraries. I have to consider it doesn't support 64-bit linux.

Come on. Linux is not Windows. Everybody and their dog already run 64-bit version. It makes no sense not to. All the software is built for 64-bit too. It's just a fact of life. Nobody uses 32-bit anymore except for netbooks and like.

I've also installed redshift and redshift-gtk as suggested and they both crash on start.

Altough redshift doesn't if supplied with all the required parameters outright.

Create a config file in ~/.config/redshift.conf with the manual parameters you use, and redshift-gtk should work.

Sample config is at http://jonls.dk/2010/10/redshift-1-6-released/ - I only need to set lat and lon to get it to run, though I also have temp-night set for my personal preference.

Thanks, it works that way. Still I have to ask: are they crazy to make their program crash silently when no config is present?

I seem to remember it looks for gnome-clock to discover your location, and gives up if that's not found, although the GTK version does unhelpfully just exit without a message. It can't work without knowing your latitude and longitude to work out sunset/sunrise times.

redshift segfaults actually.

Please submit that to the author. Segfaults should not happen.

Filed a bug against libgeoclue.

I have it running fine under 64-bit Ubuntu, sounds like it might be a problem with KDE. Have you tried looking around for other packages for it?

Should I? I've added an entire repository, they have all means to deliver just the right package to me, and they fail it.

This doesn't sound like a KDE problem:

    % ldd `which xflux`
        linux-gate.so.1 =>  (0xf773b000)
        libXxf86vm.so.1 => not found
        libXext.so.6 => not found
        libX11.so.6 => not found
        libstdc++.so.6 => not found
        libm.so.6 => /lib32/libm.so.6 (0xf76f6000)
        libgcc_s.so.1 => not found
        libc.so.6 => /lib32/libc.so.6 (0xf754e000)
        /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0xf773c000)

I'm not sure what you mean by "Linux is not Windows" in this context. In my experience, most installs of Windows these days (Windows 7 and Windows 8) are 64-bit installs. That's what is sold at Best Buy on their desktops and laptops for example. On the contrary, when a user goes to install Ubuntu, they're recommended to use 32-bit. When I'm on forums, people mention compatibility problems with 64-bit Linux and recommend 32 bit instead. Maybe I'm outdated on that information? Can you elaborate?

Do you remember Firefox trying to cancel 64-bit build for Windows? Stating they have a lot of extra bugs in it?

In Windows they still run 32-bit software on 64-bit OS, but a typical Linux install will have not a single 32-bit program.

That's why not having a 64-bit version is pathetic.

Oh, I see what you mean. My apologies. Thanks!

In fact, the majority of software installed on my 64-bit Windows 7 system is 32-bit. Sad.

I use xflux on a 64-bit Debian system and it works. I'm not sure, but you might have to specify the location parameters when starting it.

Took me a few days to get used to the color but now I really like it. Sometimes I'd stare at the screen so much that I'd have watery eyes by the end of the day.. doesn't happen so much anymore. (I'm hoping this is not just a placebo)

Another app that's helped with eye-strain is TimeOut (http://www.dejal.com/timeout/). It helps to take a regular break from the screen every few minutes.

Probably too late to mention, but someone suggested yesterday that the colours blue and yellow could help those with dislexia. Looking further into this, there's mention of using yellow and blue filters to help read. There's at least one mention here of someone wearing yellow sunglasses. Interestingly redshift, kind of is like a red filter. It might be interesting to see how alternative colours could work.

I found compiz and it's filters made it easier to look at the screen.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5037538

I tried it for a long time and just found it distracting. I don't work with images these days but perhaps my background in graphics makes me picky. I'm familiar with some of the research but I'd be interested to know if the approach taken by f.lux actually works - real world light wavelengths and colors faked by mixing red, green and blue are subtly different things.

I've been using this for a year or so, both on my computer and on my iPad. It really does reduce the stress on your eyes.

Is there any evidence that color temperature negatively affects the eyes?

BTW I just scale down the contrast and brightness of my screen

I've been rather content just turning my brightness down when I turn my lights off. That said I keep my room flooded with light so as to not strain my eyes trying to look at a screen or read in the dark. I kind of want to give this a shot though as my eyes are very sensitive to light and changes in light levels.

F.lux is a godsend when reading black-on-white web pages(so the majority of pages out there) late at night.

I tried this a while ago, but just found the colours weird and distracting, probably because I don't really have a problem with the normal colours/intensity at any time, but more a gamma issue.

I was hoping more for a decent gamma adjustment tool as there don't appear to be any decent free ones out there.

Installed on Xubuntu 12.04, using dual-monitors. "f.lux indicator applet" shows up in my Accessories menu. First time running it I gave it latitude & longitude. It starts up (its icon shows up in the tray), but it doesn't seem to have any effect.

Trying to open the applet's Preferences has no effect.

I have been using flux for years and I definitely notice a difference late at night and early in the morning.

Also, though, I have higher astigmatism and a high prescription and it might be why my eyes feel tired and notice a difference.

Either way this software is not a hallucination and makes a difference for me.

I just recently started using flux ~2 weeks ago and I've finally gotten used to the "temperature" change. First couple times it happened I was kinda thrown off, but I find it does actually help lessen strain on my eyes (since I sit in front of a computer screen all day)

> Or wake up ready to write down the Next Great Idea, and get blinded by your computer screen?

This happens to me all the time on my MacBook Air. The problem is that Mac OS X wakes up at the previous backlight level, which is often way too bright for a pitch black environment.

What's the business model on this? Are they selling data on users? Is there a premium version?

We are not selling data, and we won't. There may be a premium version in the future. Some exciting improvements coming, but you don't have to worry about privacy or spam.

Is there a way to sign up to be notified when a new version is available?

Not too useful for me... I've invested the time / money to properly color profile my monitor with an X-Rite device so the times I end up creating graphics assets / working with photos, they will look correct.

Although I may play with it ... I spend a lot more time coding.

So not useful for you, except for most of the time? If you need to see something in true colors, just turn it off for a second. Also, how do you play with it? You just use it at night and then your eyes feel better.

Redshift ( http://jonls.dk/redshift/ ) is a generally better piece of software with far longer transition times and better configuration options, rather than the abrupt change that f.lux provides.

f.lux has a configuration option to transition over an hour instead of 20 seconds.

Also, it doesn't look like Redshift is available for Mac OS.

Does flux practice readable colors on their own website?

It seems like they do - I just returned to HN from reading flux's pitch, and my eyes did not take too well to the higher contrast on HN. Can anyone confirm if the colors on their website change over the day?

I love it, it has absolutely changed how well I sleep. Twice it's happened that I've had trouble sleeping, then noticing that I had turned off f.lux becausse I had been gaming earlier in the evening (gaming with f.lux is not a good idea).

I used to wear yellow glasses for the same purpose. How silly is that. =)

Flux helps a lot but the display side still sucks. I have to adjust the the brightness few times per day. Apple display have a nice brightness control but it's a mirror.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5042010

Why use f.lux when you can just pop a metatonin pill thirty minutes before sleep? I've been doing that and I sleep like a baby every night regardless of how long I stare at my bright monitor beforehand.

I'm glad that works for you.

I imagine melatonin works better with minimal exposure to blue light after taking it. This might be good for those who have it harder time with sleep schedules than you do.

How does staring at a bright screen affect sleep? If anything, it makes me tired and I fall asleep even faster.

Like any other bright light source (such as the Sun), the light coming from the monitor breaks down some of the melatonin that your body naturally produces. You may still become tired when using a computer and subsequently fall asleep, but the quality of that sleep will be adversely affected unless you account for reduced melatonin levels somehow (either via a program like f.lux, or with supplemental pills).

Melatonin is prescription only in the UK. So, go careful if you're travelling from US to UK with off the shelf sleep meds.

I read some article that investigated melatonin supplements in the US. It said that because supplements aren't as heavily regulated you couldn't be certain which pills had melatonin or how much.

Actually, most brands will list the amount in milligrams on the bottle itself.

It would be really great if F.lux would also adjust for local cloud cover. Sun is out - screen is bright, it's cloudy - screen dims. has anyone else noticed that the pointer in windows dosen't dim?

Has anyone done a rigorous experiment, even on just themselves, with f.lux or redshift?

Sleep-monitoring wristband data + "did I see a screen, a red-shifted screen, or no screen" would be really interesting to me.

I tried this for like six months. Couldn't stand it. I get far better results adjusting environmental lighting. An LED strip casting a glow behind my monitor made the most difference.

Does anyone else notice the slight display lag that f.lux exhibits? On my mac it's just the slightest bit annoying, and I had to get rid of it.

Otherwise I'd love to use it. Maybe I'll try redshift.

f.lux caused my mouse to randomly jump on OS X. It didn't seem to matter how fast I'd move it, every 10s or so it would jump 1" in the direction I was moving. Really, really annoying.

Yep, that's what I saw as well. I attributed it to display lag or something. It was unacceptable and I had to remove it.

Am I the only one that keeps the same value for night and day? I have it set to 5400K regardless of the hour. I like the subtle warm glow to remain constant instead of fluctuate.

While a bright monitor can reduce the quality of your sleep at night, I actually read somewhere (sorry, can't find it now) that a bright monitor at daytime can be beneficial for your circadian rhythm if you don't get exposed to much sunlight otherwise.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_therapy

  xbacklight -set 0 && xcalib -invert -alter

Had flux for around a year and I can't imagine not being without. Just to see what life it like without it, sometimes I pause it.

My eyes - they burn with blue light.

F.Lux has been a standard program for me for years. The best compliment I can give is that I forgot I had it installed. It's simply perfect.

I wish f.lux was smart enough to detect when I change my desktop clock to a new timezone and change it's own location info automatically.

My MBP has two light sensors and adjusts it's display brightness automatically based on actual light levels instead of time.

Since brightness control has never worked on my installation I expect f.lux to have problems. Or does it not rely on this?

Love it. Couldn't live without it now that I'm used to it. Wish iOS allowed direct control of screen settings also.

I never even realised flux was still installed. Definitely helps my eyes at night, and I never even notice its on.

I like on my desktop but on my laptop it seems to conflict with some Asus energy management program.

I quite liked the way my old powerbook would change it's brightness depending on ambient lighting.

Every time I find my eyes hurting while looking at a computer, I realize Flux hasn't been running.

It's available for iOS but not for Android? I didn't even know you could do that on iOS.

It's only for jailbroken iOS devices.

It's worth jailbreaking for! Www.jailbreakme.com As of now, you can jailbreak iOS 6, but not an iPhone 5

You can jailbreak only a 3GS or iPhone 4. A much better resource is http://jailbrea.kr/.

And if you want more details or help, see http://www.jailbreakqa.com/ - it includes a tutorial for jailbreaking iOS 6.0.1 on iPhone 4/3GS and iPod touch 4th gen, which has a tricky bit where you have to use the 6.0 IPSW (firmware file) as part of the process.

There are a few similar apps for Android, you can find most linked from here:

Screen Filter https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.haxor

I only use that Screen Filter app to shut off the soft-key backlights since last time I tried it all it did was drop a configurably-transparent black over everything on-screen.

I used it for 1 year straight on my pc... It bothered me much more than anything.

I love flux, except that it messes up the mouse movement speed on Mountain Lion.

great idea !

though my iPhone is higher than OS 5, so I don't have any idea about how to install it to my iPhone,

but I think , maybe if Apple sensed this, would the integrate this into iOS as new feature? just call it the Platform's feature

I love f.lux. I've been using them for the last 2 years on all my devices.

I find lowering the brightness on my monitor 10x better than f.lux.

I miss a Berlin toggle, there is no sun for two thirds of the year.

Love Flux. I've used it for months now and it's super helpful.

didn't like flux, instead arranged small 15watt lamp to read kindle/book in my bed but leave the light levels in the bedroom low. this was before kindle paperlight :)

I love f.lux. It helps save my eyes. It's a savior, indeed.

"save your eyes" - huh? (I've used the program and like it).

I'm sure this makes front news of HN every few weeks or so?

I've been using for a couple of years and it's great :)

good idea but , hurt indeed...

getting red and red my screen, feel like I am looking at some fire through the screen

Is this not a repost?

As long as seeing correct color is not important to you. I'm the kind of person who can immediately tell when an LCD is not at native resolution and what temperature the color is set at, so the strong yellow tint of f.lux was unbearable.

If your eyes hurt at night, just alter your brightness contrast, or write a script to do that instead of messing with color!

Me too. I am very sensitive to what's going on my screen. Even though it takes hours to transition, you can tell. And I love it. Flux is brilliant. It's also generally easier to wind down your brain toward the end of the day. It's not easy to sleep soon after staring at high temperatures.

Messing with the colour is the whole point! It's that blue-white light right in front of your eyes that is cuing your brain into thinking that it's daytime.

Why not mess with colour? I have no need to see the 'correct' colour, if it's less comfortable to me.

I actually leave my LCDs at a redder tint most of the time now, as I find it more comfortable. This is particularly useful as most desktop LCDs won't adjust their brightness down far enough for me. Laptops are better, since they actually bother to adjust the power of their backlight.

I prefaced my post with "as long as color isn't important to you".

Since it clearly isn't to you, there's no reason not to mess with it!

The whole point of flu.x is to emulate color temperature.

If you can have a driver or software that does it at a native level instead of emulation, that would be awesome.

However, I don't think monitors have an API or programmable interface for that, therefore we have flu.x.

This severely affects the emotionality of information I receive. The aesthetics of one's environment, I believe, is significant to how information will be processed. At first I noticed headaches after reading, using f.lux, but soon after I realized that the sensation was a placebo. What I believe was going on is that my brain was adjusting to the emotional information packed into the content I was reading; a more significant emotional bond was being established between myself and "mere content" not dissimilar to spending too much time with a friend at the café.

Over time, your endurance for it increases, and reading becomes more of an emotional activity, unwittingly.

At first I liked the idea, and the app is nice, but when you think of it, what does my monitor and the document I am working on have to do with the color of the skies? You can adjust the room lighting that way, but not the document I working on at my computer, damn, that's even stupid! The monitor can adjust its brightness with the brightness of the surrounding environment, but that is the monitor's own business, and it's brightness adjustment, not the color scheme.

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