Windows 10 Night Light vs. f.lux
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I've had Windows 10 for about a week now, so I've had a chance to try Night Light and compare it to f.lux.
The verdict? I think Night Light is better.
Night Light can be set as as warm as 1200K, but f.lux can be set as warm as 800K, and it can also do much more than Night Light can do (f.lux has more features and settings). However, as I set the temperature in f.lux warmer and warmer, everything gets more and more washed out. I hate it. It makes everything harder and harder to look at as the color temperature gets warmer and warmer.
Night Light doesn't do that. Even at Night Light's warmest setting, I still have the same visual clarity and ease of looking at my monitor as before turning it on. All that changes is the color temperature. Not with f.lux, With f.lux, I find that I'm constantly feeling a need to adjust something because I'm never happy with what I'm looking at. It's washed out and ugly at my preferred color temperature. I often feel like my vision is getting blurry or something.
Night Light also wins on custom scheduling. I can't easily configure f.lux to change the color temperature at whatever time I want. I have to manipulate it using Bed Time Mode. Night Light has two schedule settings: one follows sunrise and sunset, and the other can be scheduled however I want.
The biggest problem for me is the washed-out effect. So I guess until the washed-out effect is removed from f.lux, I will just use Night Light.
Note: To get around the bright white cursor while using Night Light, I just open the Magnifier. It's not a problem for me. I know I could leave mouse trails enabled in the Registry, but that makes the cursor invisible in some games. I don't play video games when I'm using a warm color temperature, so using the Magnifier works out just fine.
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@twocables That's interesting. I've tried Night Light recently and don't see a visual difference with it. What kind of number are you talking about where you see it happen? I don't really go below 5000 or so.
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@rseiler said in Windows 10 Night Light vs. f.lux:
@twocables That's interesting. I've tried Night Light recently and don't see a visual difference with it. What kind of number are you talking about where you see it happen? I don't really go below 5000 or so.
Anything warm, like as low as 1200K.
I use temperatures this warm so that I can still use my computer before going to sleep without getting exposed to too much alerting light.
It's not noticeable until you compare it to Night Light. Once I saw the difference, I no longer liked f.lux.
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Huh. Well, it looks like 4.97 provides the option to fix this problem by turning off "Use GPU for better quality with warm colors". I don't get better quality with this option turned on. Sure, I can see certain things that I couldn't really see before (such as the details on red icons), but it's also very washed-out and it constantly makes me feel like I have to make some sort of adjustment to increase the clarity. It's like trying to drive with a hazy windshield or something. Or maybe it's as though the contrast is too low. I use 800K which is pretty much pure red, and I'd rather have it appear the way I expect it to appear at 800K, so I'm leaving this option off.
Back to f.lux then.
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It seems 4.97 isn't quite as bad as 4.84 in terms of looking so washed out. It's just less washed out. It's nice to have the setting enabled called "Use GPU for better quality with warm colors" because it makes things visible and easy to see that are otherwise next to impossible to see. So, I don't know. Maybe I like it!
