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The Story Behind F.lux
- jgrahamc 11y agoI've used it for a long time and it makes the difference between feeling sleepy in front of a computer and falling asleep in front of a computer. Highly recommend it.
- _Marak_ 11y agoSince I installed F.lux on my work computer I've experienced a significant decrease in eye fatigue and a general increase in productivity while working at night. Would recommend for anyone who works in low-light conditions.
- CuriousSkeptic 11y agoInteresting. I generally start to get really sleepy as soon as the red shifting kicks in. I like it, really need to sleep more, but I wouldn't say it's the recipe for increased productivity.
- dageshi 11y agoIf you suffer from any kind of eyestrain, it's a godsend. I have it set permanently to my night temperature here in the UK at the moment due to the short days and overcast weather.
- verusfossa 11y agoI use redshift[0] on my linux machines which I really like. Cyanogenmod has LiveDisplay natively which is practically the same thing unfortunately it works off off gps location and not manually editable lang/long. Both are really helpful. [0] http://jonls.dk/redshift/ http://jonls.dk/redshift/
- grahamburger 11y agoI also use Redshift,and an app called Twilight. It's fairly customizable if that's what you're looking for.
- icebraining 11y agoTwilight just doesn't feel the same. Unlike f.lux and redshift, which actually seem like they change the color of the screen, Twilight just seems to overlay a red filter. I can't tell you why, but the result is much less satisfactory.
- dota_fanatic 11y agoTwilight is just a red overlay. If you want the real deal like f.lux or redshift, there's Cf.lumen (requires root) which works great and even offers a "freeloader" option for pro features.
- rpgmaker 11y agoOn Linux I use the 'Negative' Compiz plugin. You can apply it on a window by window basis or desktop-wide. For both modes there are keyboard shortcuts (that's what makes it such a killer feature IMO). People find the screen weird when I enable the plugin but I'm a practical guy and this has saved my eyesight. I know you can invert colors in OSX but the effect is desktop-wide and you can't use a hotkey to enable or disable it. Does something similar exist for other OSes?
- brianclements 11y agoI've been using this method for years. Very simple, and gets the job done. Most websites and desktop apps default to whites and off-whites which convert perfectly to blacks and off-blacks when enabled. Pocket, Firefox, and FBReader on my Android devices all have dark modes for reading on my mobile devices; takes care of all my use-cases!
- 11y ago
- forgotpwtomain 11y agoIs anyone else puzzled by the idea of f.lux consuming 14 developer years (at least according to the article), it's an awesome app but that seems like a huge number for what it is: a gui interface to a very simple function*. [0] http://www.tedunangst.com/flak/post/sct-set-color-temperature http://www.tedunangst.com/flak/post/sct-set-color-temperatur...
- joshu 11y agothere is a whole bunch of stuff built but unreleased outside of the app.
- kobayashi 11y agoWhat kind of stuff?
- joshu 11y agoIt is complicated. I only know because I am a friend, so we have to wait till he releases stuff.
- edwintorok 11y agoWill it be released as open-source? Doesn't really make sense to develop it as a closed-source application, when the application itself is offered for free, and open source versions exist already.
- ssijak 11y agoI am puzzled by so much fuss about one simple and small app (I am not questioning its usefulness, I am using it too). Every once in awhile (and frequently lately) it pops up on hacker news front page or somewhere on the web.
- xcasex 11y agobasically its the old Microsoft adage that Apple somehow co-opted, embrace - extend etc etc. Apple implemented a feature for the next release of osx that does what f.lux does, knowingly.
- JeremyBanks 11y agoThat's not what that expression meant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish
- kedean 11y agoEhhhh, it's a grey area. They are definitely in the 'embrace' stage, but they're doing it on iOS, where f.lux doesn't really have a presence. You can argue that makes it different, or you could argue it's close enough.
- ssijak 11y agoThat is a story from a week ago. But news about flux pop on hacker news for as long as I read hacker news. And about that apple feature, I did not get that also, so what if they implemented it (and did not allow 3rd party apps to do it)? It`s not like they have to check if there is an app for something that they like to put in the OS (and there is an app for almost everything now).. Btw, I use Android primarily because of customization options, there was not one thing I could not do on Android which I needed and there were some really advanced stuff that I wanted from a phone :)
- kalleboo 11y agoBack in the olden days (System 7~8) Apple would actually buy out the third party tools they wanted to add to the OS (MenuClock, WindowShade, etc). Then Steve Jobs came back and they just started Sherlocking developers instead...
- irremediable 11y agoI use it, and I like it, and I think it works. But I also think they should really try to publish a paper on it, proving it works to improve e.g. people's sleep quality.
- robbiemitchell 11y agoWhat's the incentive to do so? People like the app.
- scott_s 11y agoBecause liking the app does not necessarily mean it has the effect on sleep as claimed. I would be very interested in studies testing its efficacy.
- gwern 11y agoIt's free and not obviously harmful and has a plausible biological rationale, but if you think it may not work, it's easy to run your own self-experiment: stick it in a little randomized script and record when you go to bed for, say, 50 days and see. That's what I did with Redshift: http://www.gwern.net/Zeo#redshiftf.lux http://www.gwern.net/Zeo#redshiftf.lux
- irremediable 11y agoFair point; more of us should imitate your attitude to these things.
- scott_s 11y agoUnfortunately, that self-experiment has the problem of the subject (yourself) knowing which "treatment" you're getting. I'm not sure how to double-blind something like this, though. It may require a study where we record subjects' sleep patters, make them use a screen at night, but don't tell them that it's the screen colors that are under experiment.
- gwern 11y ago
- laretluval 11y agoI am one of the people who love the idea of f.lux. I use it and it makes my eyes feel a lot better and makes me feel sleepy at the right times. But the app itself is terribly broken, at least on El Capitan. Whenever I switch modes, the screen flashes the original blue colors---my impression is that even a few seconds of blue light can mess up melatonin production, so this is unacceptable, especially from an app that is pushing the idea of color temperature mattering. Also, "movie mode" results in pulses of blue light every few seconds. Sometimes I select "disable for an hour" and nothing is disabled. "Disable for current app" is also spotty. For this concept to work, and if the ideas about the effects of color temperature are true, then the implementation has to be completely solid. So I'm glad that Apple is duplicating the functionality of f.lux rather than supporting f.lux itself on iOS. I've also been looking into alternatives on OSX. It's time that we move on to an implementation that actually works.
- zyxley 11y agoThe issues you're talking about aren't ones I've seen anyone else complain about (and don't happen for me), so I'm wondering if there's something specific to your configuration that's affecting it.
- xtian 11y agoActually I believe these problems are fairly common. I've seen them mentioned before and I experience them myself. I think it has to do with integrated vs discrete graphics in Mac laptops. Disabling transparency in the accessibility options used to fix it, but it doesn't anymore. I'm very much hoping that Apple will include this functionality in the next major release of OS X as f.lux has historically had trouble keeping up with OS and hardware updates.
- oldsj 11y agoI believe this is a known issue, I have the same issues on elcap
- wilg 11y agoI don't think so – this happens for me as well.
- dharma1 11y agoI've been using it for a few years. It works. Sometimes, if using a laptop in bed, I wish it would be possible to make the LED backlight dimmer than the minimum setting, or apply a black semi transparent overlay to dim things, from within f.lux. At the moment I have to use another 3rd party app for that
- slavik81 11y agoThere's 29 comments here and every single one is neutral or positive about Flux as an idea. Am I the only one who used it, and hated the fact that my colours were obviously all wrong? Each time I used my computer at night, I noticed that everything was tinted red, and it had no obvious effect on my sleep.
- melted 11y agoGive it time. You'll get used to it after a while, to the point where a couple of weeks later you won't perceive the colors as "wrong" (assuming no other light source in the room). You'll just perceive them as slightly warmer.
- seanwilson 11y agoDoesn't this get in the way if you're doing graphical work where you need to know the colours are right?
- melted 11y agoThat's not what it's for, though. For graphics you need D6500, there's no way around it, circadian rhythm be damned. This is mostly for reading things late at night.
- AndrewKemendo 11y agoThere is a large button in the UI that says "Disable for one hour (for doing color-sensitive work)" specifically for this reason.
- izacus 11y agoIt still bothered me after a few weeks, specially since "automatic" setting started making my screen red at like 18:00, more than 6 hours before I usually go to sleep. It was incredibly annoying :/ Maybe I just didn't see that much benefit because I never look at screens in rooms without additional (yellowish) lighting.
- viraptor 11y agoNow it would be great if android included it in the system soon. I used an app for it, but as soon as 6 came out, I dropped all unnecessary privileges from installed apps. Unfortunately you can't have any app drawing directly on the screen if you want to change privileges. That means I had to choose between silly-bright screen or more secure system... and that's a terrible tradeoff to present to users.
- chungy 11y agoCyanogenMod has it built-in, called LiveDisplay (and even a default tile in quick settings for toggling it).
- viraptor 11y agoCM has its own issues though. For example nexus 5 gets monthly security patches from upstream right now, but CM-13 for the same model was last updated in September 2015 :/
- emmelaich 11y agoAndroid has adaptive brightness, which goes some way towards the goal.
- viraptor 11y agoThat's not comparable. I'm using the lowest brightness 99% of the time already. (the other time is when I'm outside, at midday, in summer) Flux was still a huge improvement in the evening.
- mrbill 11y agoI was working a REALLY long shift at work about a year ago (datacenter move). Came back to my desk from the DC at about 3am and for a few minutes, thought my system or monitor was broken because everything was dark dark shades of orange. Then I finally realized I'd never been up at that time with f.lux running... D'oh.
- racecar789 11y agoFyi Display Link devices (which are used to dock a laptop to two monitors via a single usb cable) do not support color calibration, so flux does not work. Found out after purchasing a usb docking station. Still fairly happy with the purchase though. Display Link is actively releasing new drivers so there is hope.