F.lux is a program that sits quietly on your computer or smartphone, removing the blue light emitted by your screen which can subconsciously affect circadian rhythms and adversely affect your sleep.
Essentially, F.lux — available for Mac, Windows, Linux and iPhone/iPad — helps you sleep better by calibrating your screen’s brightness to the rise and fall of the sun in your location.
The Mac version is still in beta, but it has just been updated with a load of new features. What’s most useful is that F.lux now adjusts to your actual day, and not just sunrise and sunset. All you have to do is tell F.lux when you wake up, and the new version of the program makes a schedule tailored to you, so you can use a screen that knows when you wake up and go to sleep, as well as when the sun is up.
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As the day progresses, F.lux automatically moves between its three light settings. However, as color perception differs across the world, the team behind F.lux recognizes that it isn’t accurate to predict how users see colors at different times. The Mac beta of F.lux thus also comes with a new interface so you can go back a few times, for just a day or two, to set it the way you like — after which the adjusting should kick in automatically.
Other new features include a Movie Mode, which lasts two-and-a-half hours, so you can watch movies while preserving shadow detail, skin tones and sky colors. This was introduced to the Windows version in a massive update last year. The Mac beta also now has a new way to disable F.lux until sunrise.
➤ F.lux
Headline image via Shutterstock
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