Make working at night more comfortable with F.Lux

[Tekno Venus]

Hello everyone,

I recently came across a program and have found it so useful I thought I would share it with you.

The program is called f.lux and can be downloaded from here --> f.lux: software to make your life better

f.lux: F.A.Q.

I can honestly say that this program has been fantastic and has definitely improved my sleep. The program serves one purpose, to tint the screen to the colour of artificial light when it gets dark. Simple as that. The website describes it well:

Ever notice how people texting at night have that eerie blue glow?

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

During the day, computer screens look good—they're designed to look like the sun. But, at 9PM, 10PM, or 3AM, you probably shouldn't be looking at the sun.


f.lux fixes this: it makes the color of your computer's display adapt to the time of day, warm at night and like sunlight during the day.

It's even possible that you're staying up too late because of your computer. You could use f.lux because it makes you sleep better, or you could just use it just because it makes your computer look better.

This program is just a small exe that runs in the background, taking up very little RAM. Right now, Flux is using 13MB of RAM, not much at all. When you first install flux, you need to tell it your rough location in GPS co-ordinates. You can find that out here --> flux: Where am I?

Then I would recommend changing the Transition Speed to 60 minutes since it is much easier on the eye.

Flux takes getting used to and the first time and does startle you and make things odd. However, leave the program installed and configured for a few days, you'll forget it's on there until you disable it. You can disable for 1 hour when doing colour sensitive work.

I cannot recommend this program highly enough, and strongly encourage you to download it and give it a try for a few days. This may seem like a biased review or that I'm being paid to make this, but I assure you I'm not. But I just love this program and it has done the world of good.

Stephen

 

[Corrine]

Just a suggestion -- if it is in the same room where you sleep, why not turn the computer off or at least put it to sleep?

 

[Tekno Venus]

That's not the issue this software is trying to solve. The software is designed to make the screen more comfortable whilst you are using the computer at night by reducing eye strain. Not for dimming/tinting the screen whilst you're not using it. :)