You don’t have to be a light-shy computer addict to suffer from headaches and tired eyes when you spend hours in front of your PC. A blue light filter reduces the strain on your eyes. Sometimes it also helps you sleep better. There are several handy programs for filtering blue light, which we highlight here…!
After their day job, more and more people also spend in the evening and at night in front of a screen that is set to daylight in the factory. Only our body is not made to look at a daylight screen at night, with all the consequences that entails.
Therefore, notebook computers and also some desktop PCs regulate the brightness via a sensor that adjusts the screen display to the ambient light. There are also software solutions that filter blue light. As a result, your biorhythm is less confused. Your natural sleep cycle is not disturbed either.
The reason your eyes start to hurt after staring at the screen for too long is the blue light. That light color is part of the visible color spectrum and reaches deeper into the eye. In addition to the computer screen, the blue-violet light also comes from tablets, television, smartphones and LED.
During office hours, blue light is not harmful to health. But when you’re exposed to blue light for long evenings, it suppresses the production of melatonin, a sleep-inducing hormone. You probably want to avoid this!
First, let’s take a look at the options already present in your operating system itself.
Night light in Windows 10
In Windows 10 there is actually already a blue light filter, which is officially called Night lamp. Go to Institutions and System, then the submenu Display. Top right in the category Colour do you see the option Night Light. If that option isn’t already enabled, you can do it here.
Under this button you can further adjust the filter. Use the slider to determine the color temperature. Moving the slider more to the right makes the display of the screen in Nightlight mode warmer.
You will also find the option at Schema to switch on the Night Lamp at sunset based on the location facilities. Or you can also just set the hours when this filter should be active.
One danger with this automatic nighttime setting is that you can forget it’s active while you’re editing photos or other graphics. In that case you will of course get color deviations.
Night Shift on macOS
Do you have a Mac? Then you basically do not need a third-party blue light filter. In the System Preferences which you reach via the Apple icon in the top left, is in the section Displays the tab Night Shift. There you will find the option to apply the filter from sunset to sunrise to your location and create a custom schedule.
You determine the desired color temperature of the screen manually by turning the switch to Colder or Warmer to shift. Note that if you use Night Shift in conjunction with a third-party product, the effect is doubled if both programs are active.
iris mini
A tiny app for Windows, macOS and Linux is iris mini. The tool works very simply. You set it to Automatic, Manual or Paused. Iris mini ensures a warm color temperature, so the screen becomes slightly more orange.
If you choose the automatic mode, the color temperature during the day will go to 5000 k(elvin) and the brightness will be set to 100 percent. At night, the display changes to 3400k and the brightness drops to 80 percent. If you choose the manual option, you can change the color temperature with one click in night mode.
There is also a Pro version, with that you can hidden features open it to fine-tune the color temperature or to adjust only part of the screen. In this way, people who work with graphic software still see the correct colors in the central workspace.
The k-values ​​or Kelvin refer to the color temperature. A lower k means less blue light; so the lower, the warmer. 5600k is the default for daylight and 1200k is candlelight, for example. In artificial light the colors are different than in daylight, but the eye corrects the apparent color. The percentage values ​​are the luminance values ​​or brightness.
Sunset Screen
It’s completely free sunset screen not for Windows. You start with the trial version that you can use for a week, after that the tool costs 5 dollars. You can continue with the free version, but then you allow Brightdata.com to occasionally use the computing power of your machine for third parties and of course you don’t want that.
You set the sunrise and sunset times and you choose a day and night setting. Here you can control the screen display more precisely than in the standard Windows settings.
For example, the daylight presets include 6500K Sunlight, 7500K Cloudy Sky and 10000K Partly cloudy sky or 20,000 Deep blue clear sky. You can also set your own preset with the desired brightness level and color temperature.
CareUEyes Lite
the freeware CareUEyes for Windows, controls the brightness in 20, 40, 60, and 80 percent increments from the system tray. So there is no way to adjust the temperature or take into account the time of day. In fact, you might as well do this through the regular system settings.
A much better eye protection is the paid version of this title that adjusts the temperature and brightness smoothly and finely. You can also address profiles to enjoy a movie, to work in Office or to read, for example.
By the way, this is the only tool with a concentration function to dim the background of text or spreadsheets, so that the essence of the document is better captured. You can test the Pro edition for seven days, but after that it costs $ 14.90 per year.
f.lux
f.lux for Windows, macOS, Linux, and even Android and iOS, it runs in the background and adjusts the screen’s color temperature to match the time of day. The free program first asks if it can determine your location. If your computer or mobile device supports location services, your workplace will automatically appear on the map. Otherwise, you can just enter the location in the search box.
F.lux works subtly, for example you can control the speed of the transition. Where the other tools bluntly switch from one mode to another, F.lux follows the natural light transition. In addition, F.lux has a number of special color effects, for example to watch a movie or to use your computer in a dark room.
The tool has been around for a long time and has adapted to the biological clock during the day, the so-called circadian rhythm.
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