If you"ve used technology for any length of time, you might have encountered the rather unpleasant effects blue light has on your eyes when you"re working into the middle of the night. There are even studies that have shown the particular negative effects of exposure to blue light in the late hours of the day. Luckily, there are quite a few solutions for this, and one of the most popular is f.lux.
The cross-platform app, available for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iPhone and iPad, essentially acts as a filter for blue light, warming up colours as the sun sets. This can be done automatically, with the ability to set a transition interval (20 seconds or 60 minutes) between the daytime and nighttime values. Alternatively, you can manually adjust values via a slider, or disable the program for an hour if you"re doing colour sensitive work, like working in Photoshop.
Today, the makers of the app have announced a brand new beta version for Windows, which brings a series of improvements, among which a new UI.
Besides the user interface, other changes have been made to the overall experience, including:
- Bedtime mode: warmer light before bed gets you ready for sleep, and works with all kinds of schedules
- Disable by app (so you don"t forget Photoshop)
- Backwards alarm clock: reminder not to stay up late
- Presets to help adjust your settings
- Color filters for eyestrain and other uses
- A wider range of color settings
- New hotkeys to adjust color (alt+shift+PgUp and alt+shift+PgDn)
In addition to what is listed above, improvements have been made to how the interface scales, with support for high DPI displays, support for DualLink monitors, reduced impact on game framerates, as well as LAN API support and more light types for the Phillips Hue integration.
While Microsoft is planning on refining its similar "Night Light" feature in the upcoming Creators Update, it"s nice to see that there are options for those who want just a little bit more control.
f.lux version 4 beta image via f.lux forum