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Back to the old amber CRT, then

Or, really, install f.lux, and set it to shift to cooler colour temperatures during the day, and let it go deeper in the evening. It's a brilliant piece of software, and will change the colour temperature of your monitor throughout the day, and dim as the evening goes on.

You will be amazed at how much of a difference it makes by skewing those colours a little. Not so good if you're doing stuff which needs perfectly accurate colours, but it can be disabled if you need. It also has an awesome darkroom mode which turns it to red on black.

I've got it on every system I use, and wouldn't want to go back. If I was to turn it off, my monitor would be blindingly white/blue to me now.

So, yeah, shifting towards the red/amber end of the spectrum is actually what you want.

I don't know about cancer, but just for the sake of your eyes, get F.lux!

It automatically dials down the blue component of your screen at night (with a gradual transition). At the very beginning, it takes a minute or so to get used to, and might look weird.
BUT! After using it for a couple of hours at night, I dare you to vidit a webpage with a white background, and turn it off for a second. Your eyes will hurt, and you will notice that looking at a monitor is like staring into a lightbulb at night. It's really painful.

Please, just get F.lux!

A free app, f.lux does the job, https://justgetflux.com/ Set the desired white balance/temperature at night time and you don't need any glasses.

I have it, and I eventually turned it off. Didn't make any difference at all, except make my screen dim and yellow, and nag me to go to bed.

A free app, f.lux does the job, https://justgetflux.com/
Set the desired white balance/temperature at night time and you don't need any glasses.

It's called f.lux. And before they had a binary for Windows, I used to use Cartes du Ciel's "night mode" that turned the display a dark reddish color. Of course, you can always use your video card's color profile manager as well.

Since the real problem is blue light (not just from your PC), you should really get a pair of glasses that block the entire blue spectrum.

In the early phase of the sleep period, the amount of stage-4 sleep (S4-sleep) was significantly attenuated under the higher color temperature of 6700 K compared with the lower color temperature of 3000 K."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...
== color shift by fl.ux and others: bad for sleep

No, this means f.lux is good for sleep. "Attenuated" means reduced. High color temperatures (i.e. not f.lux) reduced good sleep, compared to lower color temperatures (e.g. f.lux).

"Melatonin concentrations after exposure to the blue-light goggle experimental condition were significantly reduced compared to the dark control and to the computer monitor only conditions. Although not statistically significant, the mean melatonin concentration after exposure to the computer monitor only was reduced slightly relative to the dark control condition."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...
== color shift by fl.ux and others: bad for sleep

No, this means f.lux is good for sleep. The "dark control condition" was the orange-tinted glasses, creating f.lux-like conditions. The "blue-light goggle" condition was a goggle that _added_ blue light, the opposite of f.lux. Read the abstract again.

"After exposure to bright light of 3000 K but not at other color temperatures, the EEG alpha1 band ratio and the beta band ratio at 02:00 h were higher and lower, respectively, than that at 01:00 h. These findings indicated that lower color temperature bright light exposure during a night rest break led to a reduction of subjects' arousal level during the subsequent work."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...
== color shift by fl.ux and others: bad for sleep

No, this means f.lux is good for sleep. Lower color temperature (e.g. f.lux) made people more sleepy.

...many of the other articles were self-published by companies and associates selling products like fl.ux and "Blue Blockers".

No one sells f.lux. f.lux is free software. I am happy to link to it here: www.justgetflux.com

Yeah, not impressed by this study. With this sort of approach it's hard to disentangle the various possible causes and effects. For example, people who spend longer on line may have more stuff going through their minds or are people who find it difficult to switch off, which affects their sleep pattern. I know that was one of the causes of my life long insomnia.

There have been much better studies demonstrating the effect of artificial light on sleep patterns. We know that blue light in particular seems to affect our circadian rhythm, so using screens, especially close up in the evening, can send things out of whack.

I've been a life long insomniac, and one of the things that *seemed* to help was to use software like F.Lux on my laptops and similar apps on my phone. They adjust the colour temperature of your screen towards the red later on in the evening. Obviously that's an anecdote, but there does seem to be some pretty reliable basic science behind in.

Personally, I found that the thing that helped the most was a strong routine. The moment I start slipping out of that for more than a couple of days I know I'm going to struggle to sleep. One of the things that will do that is aimless browsing.

F.Lux works for me, and it's free. https://justgetflux.com/

https://justgetflux.com/

Turns down the blue at night then gets out of way during the day.
Works as advertised. Recommended.

Apple has finally caught up in iOS 9.3

http://metro.co.uk/2016/03/22/...

I'm guessing most of the Slashdot crowd already knows about f.lux, which I use on my PC's to (attempt to) reduce nighttime exposure to blue light. I don't know how well it does or doesn't work for me, but it helps just as a reminder to unplug an hour or two before my intended bedtime, if possible.

Practicing good sleep hygiene has tangibly improved my sleep and well-being over the past several years, though I noticed results within a week, once I learned and adopted good practices from my sleep doctor. Keeping the right ambient temperature (a surprisingly low 65-70 degrees for me), avoiding light exposure (completely blocked bedroom windows, taped over LED lights, removing all light sources but two red night-lights), getting a truly comfortable mattress, avoiding late meals/snacks/fluid intake, and (more challenging for couples) sleeping alone make the biggest differences for me.

f.lux does support Philips Hue lighting and will adjust the room color in conjunction with your display. Except if you're running the OSX version.

Why not in OS X?

Because OS X sucks and doesn't have necessary api's/services to do that?

To do what, exactly?

Oh, that's right: You have absolutely no idea! Because if you did, you would have simply told me that it's coming in the next f.lux update.

Flux for iOS is gone. Apple threatened legal action.

I've started using f.lux and on my iPad and Computers. I feel it makes a huge difference at the end of the day plus it visually alerts me to bedtime.

f.lux® software to make your life better

Some initial studies has shown that using f.lux on your screens at night is equivalent to getting extra sleep.

Apple claimed f.lux violated the developer agreement and made them take down the source, but you can still get it here:

Git Hub for f.lux

Just use Xcode to install and side load.

What is flux?

f.lux indicator applet
Better lighting for your computer

f.lux indicator applet is an indicator applet to control xflux, an application
that makes the color of your computer's display adapt to the time of day, warm
at nights and like sunlight during the day

This is widely known, in fact I use a small app in Android that filters the blue color in the screen after noon,

f.lux does a similar thing on Windows PCs, in case anyone was interested.

Just in case some slashdotter hasn't hear of it yet:
The people between the very awesome F.Lux software have been saying this for quite a while, so their great little software adjusts your monitor's color temperature after sunset, and before dawn, to be 'warmer'. Their logic being that the blue components of white light are just unnatural to stare at at night, and mess up our biorythms.
All sounds a bit esoteric, but I challenge everybody to use F.Lux for a week or so (until you're used to it), and then disable it at e.g. 2am.
Your eyes will bleed, and you wont understand how people can stare into a super bright white square (the monitor) for hours on end at night.

Lights on during the day?

You don't need 7000k LEDs, you need a house with windows.

Good luck with your circadian cycle in the meantime! (I'll just leave this fuckton of citations over here.)

redshift-gtk on Linux and f.lux on Windows (although nowadays there is an f.lux version for Linux, but I'm used to redshift). Both use geolocation/entered geographical coordinates to match the changing color balance to your local day night cycle, and have adjustable day and night color temperature. Both work very well and considerably reduce eyestrain when working at night, and are set-up once and forget. I recommend them to everyone who spends hours in front of a screen.

(for Android I have Screen Filter, it doesn't do the reddening but it does darken the screen beyond what the usual bright control can do.)

f.lux is available for iDevices, but not Android.

For Android devices there's nearly identical products like Twilight. Plus a thousand apps that dim or invert the display without affecting the colour temp.

Causes the body to suspend production of the sleepiness stuff. Or something like that. There's a way to change the screen color: https://justgetflux.com/

I use f.lux on my MacBook and it's great (also available for Windows and Linux, but I haven't tried those versions). It adjusts the colour temperature of the screen, using your location and the time of day, to match the colour temperature of the natural light of that time of day. I have noticed a significant difference in the quality of my sleep since I started using it. Plus, whenever I happen to get up during the night and want use the computer for something, I'm not blinded by the screen.

Just get f.lux.

I also wrote a program to adjust my video cards 'color temperature' setting depending on the time of day (but it only worked on XP)

Perhaps you'd like to investigate this then.

It adjusts the colour temperature of your monitor according to sunrise / sunset times, helping to trigger your circadian rhythm. Almost completely fixed my sleep pattern problems. http://justgetflux.com/

Don't need any studies for that. Some people's eyes are getting hurt or tired after some time and others not... it depends on the person. You can do the test yourself, just play(or work) on a computer screen for 12 hours starting at 10am till 10pm and you'll see for yourself. If your eyes hurts or getting tired then your affected by this problem.

One solution to this on the computer is to use the program called FL.UX which is free and it modifies your computer's display to adapt to the time of day, warm at night and like sunlight during the day.

So reading a boook on a PC wont be a problem for me but using anything than that could be a problem as I know lots of people with this kind of problem. For me, i don't have any problems with that. i could stare at a screen for more than 12 hours straigh and my eyes wont be tired, stressed or anything like that. I recently had my eyes checked and they're in full heath as well

And one more potential issue with white LEDs is that white light with a high color temperature disrupts your sleep.

At ~8:05 into the video they discuss the harm of bluelight from LCD screens and the importance of melatonin.

I've been using f.lux for years. It's makes working at night much more comfortable.