8 ms·

f.lux was basically unusable in its previous version that was tied to sunset. In Toronto, for example, f.lux would start kicking in at 5pm in the winter which i

f.lux was basically unusable in its previous version that was tied to sunset. In Toronto, for example, f.lux would start kicking in at 5pm in the winter which is no where near most people's bedtimes. My solution was to continually disable it for an hour at a time until I had enough and uninstalled it. Happy to be able to try it out again.

smackfu 13y ago
It's supposed to be tied to the time you turn your lights on (with their different color temp), not when you go to bed. But maybe some people use it differently?
- JoshTriplett 13y ago
  > It's supposed to be tied to the time you turn your lights on (with their different color temp), not when you go to bed. This assumes you work in a room exposed to sunlight during the day.
  - Crito 13y ago
    It also assumes you don't work in a well-light environment during the 3rd shift. Regardless though, I think these shortcomings should be resolvable by simply setting your location in flux/redshift "incorrectly". So if you work the 3rd shift and use artificial lighting to give yourself an 'artificial day', then you'd just set flux/redshift to think that you are a continent or so over.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 13y ago
    Not sure if you use flux, but you can set the colour temp for your daytime and your night time to match the kind of lights you are working under. They even mark certain temps like tungsten, fluoro, halogen etc ... So you don't have to assume anything. I also use flux to match colour temperatures. It's pretty great!
- Dylan16807 13y ago
  I use f.lux when I want to avoid bright light. I don't use it to try to match the color temperature of the room. As such, I turn f.lux on around the point I start turning lights off, long after winter sunset. And I have it set to a rather dramatic setting.
- baldfat 13y ago
  It's not brightness, it is blue light. You are not suppose to turn blue off when it is time to go to bed. Blue light suppresses melatonin and it is important to start this early and not when your headed to bed. Personally I hate artifical light and except for my kitchen my house is fairly dim. Work I just keep the lights off and have flu.x installed and dim my screen.
gamache 13y ago
"Basically unusable?" That's a bit dramatic. I never minded the warm screen kicking in before the end of my workday.
- jere 13y ago
  It might be placebo, but I've noticed a pretty dramatic drowsiness set in immediately following the f.lux "sunset." A lot of the time I will turn it off so I can stay up and get things done. If that's what one experiences at 5pm, I'd call that unusable.
  - tobych 13y ago
    Likewise. As with a pomodoro ending and the bell rining, the sun setting on PyCharm stops me working. All sorts of chemistry going on.
  - sorahn 13y ago
    New version has "working late" mode. http://puu.sh/7lImw.png http://puu.sh/7lImw.png
- unepipe 13y ago
  Not dramatic - having your screen turn orange at 6pm is unusable. I'm going to work until 11 or 12pm. Let met set it so I start winding down an hour or two before I go to sleep. It does decrease the contrast of text, making it harder to read.
  - jonah 13y ago
    The new stepped changes and options including "Working Late" should help a lot.
  - timdiggerm 13y ago
    To be fair, I think the flux developers would tell you to stop working a lot earlier than 11pm.
    - 13y ago
afterburner 13y ago
There's a disable until sunrise option, I kept using that (and don't set the location). No reason at all to tie this to actual local sunlight/sunset.
Kluny 13y ago
Huh, I had a different reaction - it was kicking in much too late, an hour after the light outside started to get dim in Victoria, so I changed the timezone to Calgary so it would start an hour earlier.
smsm42 13y ago
I had the same issue, but I disagree with the "unusable" part - it definitely was very usable and I felt serious improvement in my sleep schedules. Yes, I had to postpone it regularly and I'm glad to try new version, but the old one was very useful too.
nanidin 13y ago
I got a bit more creative, and now f.lux thinks I live near the equator, a few time zones west of where I actually do.
- skrause 13y ago
  ... which means that your screen stays orange for hours in the morning when the sun is already out.
  - nanidin 13y ago
    That's ok - I usually get up around 10 or 11. By then, it's all peachy
roel_v 13y ago
Couldn't you just change the location to some place where the sun actually set at around the time you wanted to stop working?
watson 13y ago
It's funny how we see things differently. It is my understanding that this was "by design". I.e. that if you work after the sun is set, it's bad for your natural sleep cycle for you to stare at a monitor screen which emits light that looks like the light coming from the sun. By tying the emitted color from the screen to the rising and setting of the sun, your brain isn't affect by this any more. This doesn't mean that you have to go to bed when the sun sets and your monitor turns yellow - it just means that you increased your chances of feeling tired at a more natural point during the evening. I'm a long time f.lux user and have happily accepted the yellow sun set on my monitor when the sun outside set. I've even worked long hours with this setting since it's a great ease on the eyes. If you ever worked at night with this setting for a couple of hours and then tried to switch of f.lux, you will feel your eye becoming VERY sore. Only then do you realize how uncomfortable the normal light from your monitor is.
- sp332 13y ago
  When I had a problem with flux dimming my monitor too early, I just changed the intensity so it didn't get too orange. Just taking a little of the blue off still helps.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
Raphmedia 13y ago
Simply use a different timezone. That's what I do during the winter.
shonn 13y ago
My solution was to set the location to south of Hawaii. That gave me the best combination of bright during the day and not dark until 8pm or so. Setting my actual location was making it darken before 4pm.
abandonliberty 13y ago
The old flux was basically a sunset simulator. Complaints about it really have more to do with the solar system and your lat/long. You could set it to an appropriate lat/long to produce desired behaviour... Then you could move there since the day cycle would be more to your tastes :)

smackfu 13y ago

It's supposed to be tied to the time you turn your lights on (with their different color temp), not when you go to bed. But maybe some people use it differently?

JoshTriplett 13y ago
> It's supposed to be tied to the time you turn your lights on (with their different color temp), not when you go to bed. This assumes you work in a room exposed to sunlight during the day.
- Crito 13y ago
  It also assumes you don't work in a well-light environment during the 3rd shift. Regardless though, I think these shortcomings should be resolvable by simply setting your location in flux/redshift "incorrectly". So if you work the 3rd shift and use artificial lighting to give yourself an 'artificial day', then you'd just set flux/redshift to think that you are a continent or so over.
- 2muchcoffeeman 13y ago
  Not sure if you use flux, but you can set the colour temp for your daytime and your night time to match the kind of lights you are working under. They even mark certain temps like tungsten, fluoro, halogen etc ... So you don't have to assume anything. I also use flux to match colour temperatures. It's pretty great!
Dylan16807 13y ago
I use f.lux when I want to avoid bright light. I don't use it to try to match the color temperature of the room. As such, I turn f.lux on around the point I start turning lights off, long after winter sunset. And I have it set to a rather dramatic setting.
baldfat 13y ago
It's not brightness, it is blue light. You are not suppose to turn blue off when it is time to go to bed. Blue light suppresses melatonin and it is important to start this early and not when your headed to bed. Personally I hate artifical light and except for my kitchen my house is fairly dim. Work I just keep the lights off and have flu.x installed and dim my screen.

gamache 13y ago

"Basically unusable?" That's a bit dramatic. I never minded the warm screen kicking in before the end of my workday.

jere 13y ago
It might be placebo, but I've noticed a pretty dramatic drowsiness set in immediately following the f.lux "sunset." A lot of the time I will turn it off so I can stay up and get things done. If that's what one experiences at 5pm, I'd call that unusable.
- tobych 13y ago
  Likewise. As with a pomodoro ending and the bell rining, the sun setting on PyCharm stops me working. All sorts of chemistry going on.
- sorahn 13y ago
  New version has "working late" mode. http://puu.sh/7lImw.png http://puu.sh/7lImw.png
unepipe 13y ago
Not dramatic - having your screen turn orange at 6pm is unusable. I'm going to work until 11 or 12pm. Let met set it so I start winding down an hour or two before I go to sleep. It does decrease the contrast of text, making it harder to read.
- jonah 13y ago
  The new stepped changes and options including "Working Late" should help a lot.
- timdiggerm 13y ago
  To be fair, I think the flux developers would tell you to stop working a lot earlier than 11pm.
  - 13y ago

afterburner 13y ago

There's a disable until sunrise option, I kept using that (and don't set the location). No reason at all to tie this to actual local sunlight/sunset.

Kluny 13y ago

Huh, I had a different reaction - it was kicking in much too late, an hour after the light outside started to get dim in Victoria, so I changed the timezone to Calgary so it would start an hour earlier.

smsm42 13y ago

I had the same issue, but I disagree with the "unusable" part - it definitely was very usable and I felt serious improvement in my sleep schedules. Yes, I had to postpone it regularly and I'm glad to try new version, but the old one was very useful too.

nanidin 13y ago

I got a bit more creative, and now f.lux thinks I live near the equator, a few time zones west of where I actually do.

skrause 13y ago
... which means that your screen stays orange for hours in the morning when the sun is already out.
- nanidin 13y ago
  That's ok - I usually get up around 10 or 11. By then, it's all peachy

roel_v 13y ago

Couldn't you just change the location to some place where the sun actually set at around the time you wanted to stop working?

watson 13y ago

It's funny how we see things differently. It is my understanding that this was "by design". I.e. that if you work after the sun is set, it's bad for your natural sleep cycle for you to stare at a monitor screen which emits light that looks like the light coming from the sun. By tying the emitted color from the screen to the rising and setting of the sun, your brain isn't affect by this any more. This doesn't mean that you have to go to bed when the sun sets and your monitor turns yellow - it just means that you increased your chances of feeling tired at a more natural point during the evening. I'm a long time f.lux user and have happily accepted the yellow sun set on my monitor when the sun outside set. I've even worked long hours with this setting since it's a great ease on the eyes. If you ever worked at night with this setting for a couple of hours and then tried to switch of f.lux, you will feel your eye becoming VERY sore. Only then do you realize how uncomfortable the normal light from your monitor is.

sp332 13y ago
When I had a problem with flux dimming my monitor too early, I just changed the intensity so it didn't get too orange. Just taking a little of the blue off still helps.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

Raphmedia 13y ago

Simply use a different timezone. That's what I do during the winter.

shonn 13y ago

My solution was to set the location to south of Hawaii. That gave me the best combination of bright during the day and not dark until 8pm or so. Setting my actual location was making it darken before 4pm.

abandonliberty 13y ago

The old flux was basically a sunset simulator. Complaints about it really have more to do with the solar system and your lat/long. You could set it to an appropriate lat/long to produce desired behaviour... Then you could move there since the day cycle would be more to your tastes :)