Turn Flux on during the day
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The new Windows Beta is supposed to be pretty much the same as the current Mac version. From what I have seen so far, I have absolutely no trouble getting whatever color temperature I want at whatever time I want, regardless of what mode f.lux is in. It's super easy and I figured it out all on my own.
And yes, I have been involving myself in one too many threads and now I'm forgetting which one is in which forum because I'm focusing too much on trying to get my reply out quickly because some people are being rather demanding (and rudely so).
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So, I apologize that I forgot that this is all in the Mac forum. However, with how similar these versions of f.lux are now, I don't really think it matters as much as it used to.
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@TwoCables @lorna From my mac at this moment, having just downloaded the latest beta (Version 39.94), I am not seeing any way to change daytime color temperature to anything below 1900K. Is there a newer version I should be aware of, or am I missing something?
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@Charles-XII said in Turn Flux on during the day:
@TwoCables @lorna From my mac at this moment, having just downloaded the latest beta (Version 39.94), I am not seeing any way to change daytime color temperature to anything below 1900K. Is there a newer version I should be aware of, or am I missing something?
Hmm. Maybe, or maybe not. Michael may have made some small changes for the Windows Beta which might come to the Mac version when he finishes the Windows version. I don't know. From what I know though, it's supposed to be pretty much the same as the Mac version, except that it works for Windows now too.
What do you see when you open the f.lux menu? Do you see any options anywhere that allow you to go warmer than 1900K? For example, the Windows Beta has a "Change color to..." menu. There's another menu option for "Options (and Smart Lighting...)". In that window of options, I see "Use wider slider ranges (1200K - 9300K)".
Did they include any kind of keyboard shortcut to adjust the color temperature? The Windows Beta has one and I can go all the way down to 800K with that keyboard shortcut, and all the way up to 100,000K too.
Do you have more than one slider to adjust as well? I have one for each mode: Daytime, Sunset and Bedtime.
I can adjust my wake-up time too.
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@TwoCables Looking at the release notes for the Mac beta, it doesn't look like the majority of those new features are available yet. The interface doesn't show any of the options you've mentioned either. 800K would be a dream though.
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@Charles-XII said in Turn Flux on during the day:
@TwoCables Looking at the release notes for the Mac beta, it doesn't look like the majority of those new features are available yet. The interface doesn't show any of the options you've mentioned either. 800K would be a dream though.
What's in the "Options" menu? Is it just "Expanded Daytime Settings"?
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@asn79 Tell us about your schedule? Do you track your sleep?
Also it's important to say: even if your schedule is variable day to day, your body is still trying to maintain one circadian rhythm - it doesn't move around that fast. And a lot of variable schedules (like shift work) result in poor circadian alignment, so you are working exactly when your body wants to be sleeping. We hope that we can address these needs better than we do in the future - it's a major focus for us right now.
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Do you all have displays that dim well? Our measurements say that a Mac dimmed at 1900K is way way below threshold for most non-visual effects of light.
Someone post a schedule so we can talk details, like "I go to bed at 3AM some days and 7AM on other days, and at 6AM this thing doesn't work...."
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@herf said in Turn Flux on during the day:
Do you all have displays that dim well? Our measurements say that a Mac dimmed at 1900K is way way below threshold for most non-visual effects of light.
Someone post a schedule so we can talk details, like "I go to bed at 3AM some days and 7AM on other days, and at 6AM this thing doesn't work...."
When you say "dimmed at 1900K", do you mean manually dimming the monitor in addition to changing the color temperature?
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@TwoCables Yes or using good automatic brightness (which Apple is doing well).
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With my science hat on, one thing I'm trying to uncover if we're talking about "dark adaptation" or "using computers in dark rooms late at night" and not "alerting/circadian effects of light".
There are almost certainly circadian rhythms in the retina that may be driving these things, and very late at night, we may be talking about a different system entirely. But these rhythms also entrain, so there should be consistent times day to day when you're sensitive to light, and times when you're not.
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@herf said in Turn Flux on during the day:
@TwoCables Yes or using good automatic brightness (which Apple is doing well).
See, I worry that most people just leave their monitor's brightness up way too high, or even up all the way. I also worry that people treat f.lix as a magic bullet and don't consider other things like their indoor lighting, or their TV, etc.
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@TwoCables Yes, and also dimming the lights in the room (while not turning them off). There's a point where you get diminishing returns with reducing color temperature - it's extremely easy at these settings to have more light coming from your regular lighting.
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@herf said in Turn Flux on during the day:
@TwoCables Yes, and also dimming the lights in the room (while not turning them off). There's a point where you get diminishing returns with reducing color temperature - it's extremely easy at these settings to have more light coming from your regular lighting.
Yeah, I have seen a few too many posts on this entire forum that clearly indicate that the user is just expecting f.lux to work like a magic bullet. They don't consider their monitor's brightness, they don't consider the lighting in their room, they don't consider the lighting in the rest of the house, they don't consider the TV or any other devices that aren't compatible with f.lux, and they also don't consider other alerting/stimulating things that have nothing to do with light such as sound or physical activities. It's like, "Oh, as long as I use f.lux, I'm ok."
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On most Macs, you should be dimming beyond halfway at night, and hopefully a lot more.
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@herf I have a concrete example.
- Working late with a nap in the afternoon. I would have a bedtime of 4am and a wake up time of, say, 10am, which I can make work with the current flux configuration by adjusting wake up time settings. Then at 2pm I might choose to take a nap. It's at that point that I would want to go down to 1200k, rather than be stuck at 1900k. What I end up doing for that case now is changing my time zone (but I could probably also achieve the same result by changing my wake up time again). Of course, the work schedule is not great for circadian rhythms, but it would be nice for flux to be flexible enough to accommodate it.
It is possible to work around the constraints of the current version of flux with wake up time and timezone offsets, but a much simpler workflow (which would allow me to keep the other settings consistent) would be to just move the daytime slider down to 1200 for those odd cases.
@TwoCables At night, my monitor is dimmed to the lowest possible setting and there is no other light in the room.
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I think Michael and Lorna might say the same thing here, so I'll just say it now instead.
F.lux isn't needed for afternoon naps. The whole point of avoiding alerting light is so you don't suppress (prevent), delay, or interrupt melatonin production. I think it can take 2-3 hours before the body is in full production of melatonin. If you don't interrupt it once it starts, then it can last long enough for a full good night's sleep. For a nap though, well, you're just napping. At the absolute most, a nap should never be any longer than about 20 minutes. If you sleep any longer than that, then you will wake up feeling worse, and you will also hurt your sleep at night in various ways.
So, it is actually not beneficial to avoid blue light for a nap. Nothing is gained by doing so. If anything, you might be confusing your body's circadian timing system by making it think it's nighttime even though it's not.
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@TwoCables Take a more extreme variation of a nap, then, as the example: biphasic sleep cycles.
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@Charles-XII said in Turn Flux on during the day:
@TwoCables Take a more extreme variation of a nap, then, as the example: biphasic sleep cycles.
I'd better let Michael or Lorna answer that then. Even so, with how long it takes to begin producing melatonin, you may as well just black out your windows, turn the lights off and go to sleep unless you want to spend a couple of hours making your body produce melatonin so that you can get some good quality sleep. It doesn't happen immediately, especially if it's only 4 hours after you wake up.
I think Michael and Lorna can really answer this very well though because they've done the research.
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We are really interested in the different ways that people sleep, and we are very aware that everyone is different. f.lux doesn't tell people when to go to bed, only when to begin dimming the lights.
Based on the literature, even biphasic sleepers are likely to need a strong light dark rhythm, because melatonin release and uptake happens over a ~24 hour rhythm, regardless of how many hours you sleep or when you nap. So splitting the light exposure into segments means potentially reducing melatonin by a lot. So far, no one has bifurcated the melatonin rhythm in human beings (despite a lot of really smart people trying).
Most of the great thinkers referenced in an earlier post would not have had access to electric light and LED backlit screens, they were awake at night but they were still living under a solar rhythm, doing their work late at night in circadian darkness.
The idea behind f.lux is to provide healthy darkness at night even when exposed to artificial light and that happens on a ~24 hour schedule. f.lux is designed to meet different needs and schedules, and as the science becomes more clear, f.lux will be updated accordingly. Even if what you are looking for is different from the way the f.lux software is designed to function, we still appreciate hearing about your needs and thoughts.
