What f.lux is and Why You Should Be Using It

Available here, f.lux is designed to help improve the health of late night computer users and just computer users in general. If you use a computer screen, you can certainly receive benefits from this program - the best part is that it's free.

If you've ever seen anyone use any form of electronic device with a bright screen on it late at night, the blinding light bouncing off their face will allow you to see just how bright they can actually get.

The reason they're designed to be so bright is a good one. If you've ever been out in the middle of the day with your cell phone in hand, you'll have noticed if it's not bright enough it's very hard to see.

Now we understand why computer screens need to be bright during the day, but if we took that previously unreadable cell phone from earlier inside a dark building, we would be able to see it perfectly. So why do we need bright computer screens at night?

We don't.

F.lux's goal in life is very simple. It strives to match your computer's screen brightness to the room surrounding it. It does by simply changing the color temperature of your screen.

As you may have seen in the video above, the user's screen seems to change from blue to orange. The f.lux demonstration in the video is built in to f.lux and is designed to show how your screen will change over a 24 hour period.

Color temperature describes how much a room is being illuminated by blue or red light. It's measured in Kelvin(K) and seems to be backwards as the warmer temperatures are a lower value than cooler temperatures.

The later it gets at night, the more warm the screen will become. A clear blue sky can range from 15,000K to 27,000K and sunrise and sunset are usually around 1800K which is the same color temperature of a candle.

Where does this leave our computer screen? On average, they have a color temperature of around 6,500K which is in the same ballpark as an overcast day.

F.lux fluctuates the color temperature of your screen between 3,400K and 6,500K depending on the time of day and where you live.

Beginning at sunrise or sunset at your current location, f.lux will change the color temperature from cool to warm or vice versa over a period of 20 seconds or 60 minutes.

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Yes, it may make your screen look a little orangey at night and this may take a few minutes of getting used to, but it's well worth it.

The developers behind f.lux have collected research on how using f.lux can benefit your sleep and this can be found here.

However, to summarise the research listed, it is claimed that "blue light in the morning" treatment is a popular treatment for people with sleeping disorders. F.lux allows for this by increasing the color temperature at sunrise.

It is also agreed that it is best to avoid blue light within two hours of sleep. This is because it is commonly thought a high color temperature at night prevents us from sleeping for "roughly an hour and sometimes more".

Furthermore, f.lux prevents eye strain as warmer colors are far less harmful to eyes late at night.

It's very possible to see these effects yourself.

After you've downloaded f.lux and set it up, which takes all of a few minutes, you simply have to sit and wait.

Once it's been a few hours past sunset and your screen has changed to a much warmer color, disable f.lux. 

I've yet to see anyone not be shocked as to how bright their screen now becomes and since then anyone I've known to use it has continued to do so - and you should too.