Expert’s Rating
Our Verdict
Some of today ’s LCD displays are so bright they can be uncomfortable to look at — especially at night . I ’ve covered several utility program for adjusting your CRT screen ’s luminance beyond the normal hardware and software package controls , but most of these usefulness focalize on merely reducing luminance . As it turns out , there ’s more to display - view fatigue than brightness .
One treatment for mass who have difficulty commence to slumber at night is a purposeful evening shift from bright , higher - temperature ( bluer ) light to cushy , gloomy - temperature ( warmer / violent ) lighting.F.luxaims to mime this natural transition on your computer ’s filmdom .
When you launch F.lux , it postulate to use your location to determine the local metre for morning and sundown . You then select the type of nighttime lighting you use in the room host your computing machine : tungsten , halogen , fluorescent fixture , or daylight ( brightness that mimics sunshine ) . A Preview button shows you how the screen will look when dimmed for the choose character of lighting — I recommend using the preview feature at night , in the aim lighting , rather than during the Clarence Shepard Day Jr. . ( The developer says you should choose the setting that makes an onscreen papers smell “ like the page of a book under your way lights . ” )
After that elementary setup , F.lux sits in the background , hold off for sundown . Once the sun commence to go down , the utility gradually — over the course of an time of day — dims your screen and shift its color temperature to touch that of the character of lighting in the room . ( you could opt for this change to happen promptly , but I find the 60 minutes - tenacious transition to be much less jarring . ) Similarly , if your computer is in use at sunrise , F.lux gradually brightens the screen and change its color temperature back to normal .
I ’ve definitely found my grown , smart iMac concealment to be more well-situated to look at tardily at night when using F.lux — the display simply “ mate ” the ambient lighting easily . And although I have n’t done any controlled experimentation , it seems to me that I ’m less encompassing - eyed and wired when I turn off the computer . It did take me a couple nights to get used to the different people of color balance of my F.lux - dimmed displays , though .
When using F.lux , you’re able to still adjust your display ’s light separately if you detect F.lux ’s dimming to be too dramatic ( or too limited ) . Unfortunately , you ca n’t fine - melodic line the specific temperature configurations to better match the lighting of a special way . Another limit is that although F.lux ’s systemwide computer menu lets you deactivate the public utility for an hour — to do some work that postulate color accuracy , or just to temporarily percolate up when working on something particularly tedious — there ’s no mode to line up that time period of time if , say , you plan to watch a movie for two hours . The workaround is to quit F.lux and relaunch it afterwards .
The F.lux Website notes that the developer are working on some of these venial topic . But even without those improvements , if you occasionally — or on a regular basis — combust the midnight oil , F.lux defecate those late night easier on your middle , and possibly on your sleep oscillation .
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