Apple's Night Shift May Have Zero Effect On Sleep (macworld.com) 79
eggboard writes: While blue light emitted by monitors and mobile displays has been widely cited as a cause in disrupting people's circadian rhythm, the evidence is thin: a narrow range of blue spectra might not be the problem (it may be a more complicated interaction), brightness may be more important, and Night Shift's (and f.lux's) effects are probably too negligible anyway.
Apple's Night Shift feature lets you adjust the color temperature of your display to the warmer end of the spectrum. Apple notes, "Many studies have shown that exposure to bright blue light in the evening can affect your circadian rhythms and make it harder to fall asleep."
bright blue flashing lights interrupt my rhythm (Score:5, Funny)
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For packing 6500K of heat.
They gon' go full Clockwork Orange on you back at the station, strapping you down while you're forced to watch a wall full of the worst and warmest.
Duly noted. (Score:5, Interesting)
If it helps my sleep, cool. If it doesn't, I still like it.
Re:Duly noted. (Score:5, Interesting)
Yep. Same here. If it happens to improve my sleep, it's merely a bonus. I've never cared. It is simply much more pleasant to use a display with a warmer color temperature in the evening.
Re: Duly noted. (Score:1)
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i manually set "redshift -O 3500" and lower brightness on my chromebook and i am happy with that setting. i noticed that flux goes as low as 1900. that setting just confuses me and i can't concentrate on reading anymore. maybe if i were a martian, that tint would seem natural but i'm not so it doesn't.
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i manually set "redshift -O 3500" and lower brightness on my chromebook and i am happy with that setting. i noticed that flux goes as low as 1900.
I installed f.lux on my Mac one evening, and that 1900K just about made my eyes bleed. It was actively uncomfortable - I just couldn't get past it. Now I've got it manually set to 2900K as the minimum, which still took some getting used to but now definitely is easier on my eyes at night.
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It all depends what your room is lit with. Different sources of light have different colour temperatures. What seems too red in your room may be just fine in someone else's.
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The warm glow is just as jarring than a blue one. First two nights I had it on, I stayed up way too late reading crap online
Same here. First two nights I had it on I stayed up reading crap online. Changed it to yellow, and stayed up reading crap online. Changed it to purple, and stayed up reading crap online. Changed it to green and stayed up reading crap online.
Fucken' Slashdot...
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Yeah, our screen tech was so bad back then our displays only had one color. Now get off my lawn.
Re:Duly noted. (Score:5, Insightful)
Wasn't it supposed to be amber that was best on the eyes? I always hated that myself, and was solidly in the green camp. One of the first things I always do on a new computer is set the terminal to green on black.
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I wish you could buy lighting that does this in the west. In Japan it's not uncommon to have an "evening mode" where you switch to a warmer shade (by remote control). Sometimes they have a dedicated daylight work light mode too.
Sadly all we get in the west are those stupid Philips Hue bulbs that change to a variety of pointless colours.
Re:Duly noted. (Score:5, Informative)
Sadly all we get in the west are those stupid Philips Hue bulbs that change to a variety of pointless colours.
Sadly, you have no idea what you are on about. Using the API, you can switch to any color you like, and you can get as complicated as you like with it [meethue.com]. And F.Lux has support for controlling Phillips Hue, so you can have it happen automagically through that or other means. What a surprise that you of all people are talking bollocks.
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Shame that system sucks though. The bulbs are dumb and forget their state when powered off. The colour reproduction for warm white is crap. You have to use a PC or smartphone. They use radio and the range is really bad, so you need to build a mesh. It's 2.4ghz too so good luck if you live in a contested area.
Worst of all we can't trust Phillips. They tried to block third party devices not long ago. At least IR remotes are generic and easy to clone.
The Hue has so many of the problems that typically affect sm
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http://jonls.dk/redshift/ [jonls.dk] is a open-source alternative
I don't like it at all (Score:2)
I don't know if it's a side effect of doing photography for a while or what, but I absolutely cannot stand a massive color cast across a whole display. Ugh.
I have to say I really like how you can elect to manually turn it on for a day to try and it will turn itself off forever after... so glad they didn't turn it on by default.
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Same. Another vote in favor. Even if it has no biological effect, the psychological effect is pretty significant. I've been using it on my devices for about 18 months now and never plan to go back.
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Sony have been doing this since 2006 on their PS3. Apple "invents" eh?
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Sony have been doing this since 2006 on their PS3. Apple "invents" eh?
1. Japan does seem to have realized/believed-in this effect significantly ahead of the rest of the world.
2. I haven't seen/heard of Apple claiming to INVENT or DISCOVER anything here; just that it is a feature they added to iOS 9.3.
Now go Troll somewhere else, fool.
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Not a sham, just not quite there. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not a sham, just not quite there. (Score:5, Interesting)
Yep. f.lux is definitely a winner. And when I'm paying attention when the display changes from day to night, it reminds me that the sun has just set and allows me to pause for a second to note the passage. It reminds me that there are other things to do in life and not to lose track of time.
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F.lux has a 'Darkroom' mode that does exactly that.
(Note: if you're using the Windows version, you'll have to enable 'Expand Color Range' first.)
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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?
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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 [justgetflux.com].
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Why not in OS X?
Dunno. From what I read in forums the developer has been promising it for at least a year.
May not a smoking gun, but certainly helpful (Score:2)
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Too little light has never caused any eye harm, it's too bright light that can burn out the retina. Otherwise we would all be blind now due to the darkness of the night.
The only problem with too little light is that it's easy to trip over stuff in the middle of the night.
It is good for some users (Score:4, Informative)
I can easily see how this could be of use to some users. These problems are idiosyncratic, so it varies between individuals. Making a blanket statement that it of no use is basically willful ignorance. It makes a quick headline, and helps no one in the long run.
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Heart problems may result in both fatigue and trouble to sleep, especially congestive heart failure. It prevents sleep due to too low oxygen level in the bloodstream. But that's hardly corrected by proper daylight and due to all the other symptoms related to that heart condition it's not likely to be the cause in that case.
As for sleeping pills - there are many different variants, some are better than others, and side effects may vary.
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Many workplaces have this so called "warm white" light, which is to reflect incandescent light, not daylight.
If the fluorescent lights were to be replaced with "daylight white" light instead then the natural cycle would be improved, especially in the winter. It's a long term test that has to be done so it's hard to see any immediate result from such a change.
Night shift... (Score:2)
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I agree here, I can work flexible hours and up 05:00, leave work at 15:00 and get home to be able to get a nap if needed. Seems to me that a nap a few times per week helps a lot. I don't need it every day, just some days. The need to nap also seems to be somewhat related to what I eat.
Also realize that all the jokes about having Siesta is actually just part of the normal sleep cycle for humans.
Inability to sleep - that's often stress related, and sometimes lack of exercise.
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It is eye strain... (Score:4, Insightful)
Contrast ratios are too high when reading in bed. Warmer light is perceived as less bright, reducing apparent contrast.
I am happy they have it now, rather than making white backgrounds gray as an alternate.
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seems to help me (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm pretty sure redshift (which I'm running under PC-BSD) assists in managing my sleep disorder. I have three 24" displays. It's a lot of light. The last time redshift was inadvertently disabled, at some point in my evening work session I looked at the clock and went "holy shit, it's past midnight!" This does not comply with my sleep program.
My disorder is N24. After many years of personal study, I have fairly high confidence that while it is supposed to help, blue light in the morning influences me very little, if at all (I have a professional treatment box). Blue light at bedtime does, however, seem to make things worse.
What did cure my disorder was 0.75 milligrams of sustained-release melatonin roughly six hours before bedtime.
Before I tried SR melatonin, over several years of experimenting with non-SR melatonin I only ever managed to reduce my 25.5 hour circadian day to 24.25 hours. Drifting 15 minutes a day doesn't sound like much, but it's substantially less desirable than the full cure.
Apparently many people don't get groggy after taking melatonin mid-day. It happens to hit me pretty hard.
Recently I read a paper about how melatonin increases circulation to the hands and feet without increasing core metabolism, with the net effect that core body temperature declines (apparently, enhanced vascularization of the nail beds makes them efficient radiators). Since I started wearing warmer clothing after my daily melatonin dose, my early evening grogginess has declined by about 2/3rds. It doesn't hurt either to throw in some "orthostatic challenge". This was how the stuffy research paper described "standing up and walking around".
Given how blue light works, there's not much point shielding yourself from one source if you end up getting exposed to another source. The reading lamp in my bedroom is a yellow bug lamp. Added bonus: it's extremely slow to warm up, so it's a great lamp to turn on for a few seconds in the middle of the night, if my back pain treatment arsenal rolls out of reach under the bed.
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The important thing about night shift (Score:2)
Is if you have a dark, quiet environment to sleep during the daytime
and you stay on night shift, none of this rotating shifts crap
I gotta get ready for work
Physics Dad Joke (Score:3)
Drop in the bucket (Score:2)
So many other sources of blue light, it won't help unless you're a teenager with your nose glued to the damn thing.
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So many other sources of blue light, it won't help unless you're a teenager with your nose glued to the damn thing.
It's intended for use at night, e.g. for those who tend to read their iWhatever while in bed. In that case it will likely be the only source of light in the room.
Problem with summary? (Score:2)
While blue light emitted by monitors and mobile displays has been widely cited as a cause in disrupting people's circadian rhythm, the evidence is thin
and
Many studies have shown that exposure to bright blue light in the evening can affect your circadian rhythms and make it harder to fall asleep
I know the two quotes come from different people (the submitter and "Apple", respectively), but putting them both in the summary without further comment seems odd. Which one is true, then?
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Well, possibly both. There can, for example, be lots of scientific studies that have the same methodological limitations. This happens when there's lots of researchers all subsisting off modest grants, and all trying to use those grants in similarly modest, cost effective ways (e.g. using students as experimental subjects).
It's better for early morning wakeup. (Score:2)
As an owner of an iPad Air and iPhone 6, the Night Shift feature of iOS 9.3 has one advantage for me: because I have to wake up when it's still dark outside (I start work at 0630 hours in the morning), turning on my iPad or iPhone on the night stand next to my bed when I wake up no longer gives me eyestrain (and sometimes a headache) with that blast of bluish-white light.
Still brighter than the sun (Score:1)
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Sort your life out ... (Score:2)
... and stop blaming your phone for your insomnia.
my experience with f.lux on my pc... (Score:1)
Not surprised. (Score:2)
Best thing I've found is 70% amber tinted glasses for looking at any screen (nearsighted anyways). I put them on when I'm looking at a screen, then switch to normal glasses around the house (with low lighting through the house).
Anyways, melatonin is inhibited by blue light and melatonin is not nearly as correlated with sleep as the histamine system (mainly h3 receptors). Blue light inhibiting melatonin probably reduces the oxidative handling system more than it does effect sleep, as melatonin is a very stro
Turn Off Your Phone (Score:2)
PangoBright > f.lux (Score:2)
I discovered PangoBright [pangobright.com] when I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep one night.
It works great, and now I always work at 30% brightness at night.
Use Magavision Glasses (Score:1)
Just use Magnavision tinted glasses for computer use:
http://www.amazon.com/Magnivis... [amazon.com]