Yesterday, Apple released the first beta of iOS 9.3 and with it comes a new feature called Night Shift. Apple says that Night Shift uses your iOS device’s location and clock to automatically adjust the colors in your display, making them warmer and easier on the eyes at nighttime. In the end, Apple says this should make it easier to fall asleep as the bright blue light normally emitted from a display has been found to disrupt your circadian rhythms, making it harder to sleep. While Apple has solved this feature on iOS, it remains an issue on OS X…
Despite Apple touting it as so, Night Shift is not necessarily a new feature. Popular third-party app Flux (or f.lux) has offered this feature for some time now, but only briefly was the app available for iOS. Late last year, Flux was made available for iOS via side loading with Xcode, but not through the App Store as to not break Apple’s policies. A day later, however, Flux for iOS was removed from the developer’s website at the request of Apple. Nevertheless, Flux for Mac remains available and it’s incredibly easy to set up.
Flux on Mac does essentially the same thing as what Night Shift does on iOS. Flux determines your location and when the sun starts to set, it changes the colors of your display to be more conducive to a setting without natural lighting.
First, you’ll want to head to Flux’s website. From there, you can download the application for free. Then, you can open the Flux app just like you would any other OS X application. The first time you open it, Flux should ask you to share your location with it. This is important because it allows the app to track what time the sun will rise and set in your area. If for some reason Flux doesn’t ask for your location on launch, there’s a field in the preferences window of the app to enter your location.Once it knows your location, Flux will automatically adjust the temperature of your screen. If it’s past sunset, it by default will adjust the warmth to 3400K. You can adjust this number, however, by dragging the setting at the top of the preferences window to your desired temperature.
During the daytime, Flux sets your display to 6500K, which is the default setting of your Mac. Likewise, you can customize this by dragging the slider at the top of the window. Finally, there’s a bedtime mode that sets the display warmth to 1900K, which is meant to be used in dark rooms.
Because there is a considerable shock to switching between sunrise and sunset modes, Flux will gradually change the temperature of your display instead of instantly changing it. If, however, you’d like fast transitions between modes, you can enable this feature by clicking on the Flux icon in the menu bar, mousing over “Options” and choosing the “Fast transitions” setting.
From the same menu, you can set it to add an extra hour of sleep, which starts the bedtime mode one hour earlier. You can also enable warmer daytime settings for those who want to reduce eyestrain or match office lighting. There’s also a weekend mode that gives brighter light late on Friday and Saturday.
The Color Effects menu has a few more options. These options include a darkroom setting, a movie mode, and a setting to automatically enable OS X’s built-in dark theme at sunset each night.
- Darkroom: Removes 100% of blue and green light and inverts colors. Darkroom mode also preserves night vision while using a screen.
- Movie mode: Lasts 2.5 hours. Preserves colors and shadow detail for watching movies with reduced alerting light.
- OS X Dark theme at sunset: Uses the normal theme during the day and switches to dark theme (dock and menu bar) each night at sunset. Disabling f.lux will also disable dark theme.
Flux for Mac is available as a free download here. With the announcement of Night Shift for iOS, it might become more common knowledge that staring at your device screens could have a real effect on your sleeping schedule. Flux aims to solve that issue on Mac and it does a great job of it.
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That’s why I freaking love 9to5Mac lol
Love f.lux, been using it for a few months now and it really makes a difference. Takes a little getting used to, but well worth it.
I had f.lux installed on my jailbroken iPad (iOS 7 and/or 8, I think), and it was seriously one of the best reasons to jailbreak. Been using it on my iMac for years as well. Glad to see that Apple incorporated the concept, and hope they give f.lux a little credit where it’s due!
So what if I work at nights. Will my phone be in nightmode? I don´t want that :-D
You can set your own hours, but only to be the same everyday, so valid point if your days vary…you’ll just have to adjust the settings on certain days…easy enough
It’s PERFECT for people who work at night* as it removes much of the blue light. You’ll sleep much better when you get home if you use f.lux
PS: quit your job! Now. Working at night will take years off your life. Every aspect of your health suffers when you work nights.
Thanks…
on my iphone i have a blue light screen protector to help…but my mac just has a regular protector – but i use it a lot and often end up with tired eyes or struggle to turn myself off at night…So i have downloaded this and will give it a try :-)
For those of you using it, is this still an issue (from the developers website).
“Note for people using f.lux on El Capitan (10.11): The new version of “Automatically adjust brightness” in El Capitan seems to cause flickering with f.lux. For the moment, you’ll have to turn this feature off to use f.lux.
To make the fix, use System Preferences > Displays and uncheck. Occasionally, a reboot may also be necessary.”
Not for me.
Don’t think it’s flickering for me…but glare on bright bits of the screen when in full screen on YouTube…really frustrating…but I assume Apple won’t assist in fixing the issue with flux as they’re bound to build night shift into OS for Macs…hopefully it comes soon!!
Your suggestion doesn’t fix this issue, but was worth trying…any other ideas anyone??
“Night Shift” does not seem to work on all Devices –
can’t find the Settings for it on my iPad2 with A5 Chip…
As far as I know, Night Shift is only available on 64-bit devices (iPhone 5s, iPad Air, iPad mini 2, iPad Pro, iPod touch 6G or newer).
I wonder if Apple will add a Night Shift option to the Mac in a new update, and make f.lux obsolete, by already having the feature built in. It does make since to have it built in both iOS and OS X.
Agreed…and obviously Apple prefer to avoid third party apps in order to keep OS as light as possible.
Easier for the user in the long run…as long as it works well, and they start addressing reported issues more quickly, or just test it themselves before releasing…that would be the day…apple’s meant to be smooth…but bugs bugs bugs everywhere!! Sorry, turned into a mini rant…
In Norway the sun goes down at 3 pm this time of year…
It knows that…no problem
I’ve used f.lux for about a year now and I love it.
Flux works a treat. Thank you for the link.
flux was the only reason I jailbreaked iPads / iPhones, i’ve used it for years.
I feel bad for them not getting part of the credit for this
I snagged a copy of f.lux for iOS before it was removed from their website. I will probably use Xcode to try and side load while I still can.
A lot of waking hours went into ripping off f.lux.
What Apple can do themselves that flux can’t is in all new Macs going forward, they can use night shift to adjust the color temperature of the backlit keyboard as well; something that’s glaringly missing as I use flux right now.
how many lumens does apple use in it’s night shift mode? Flux gives us option to choose but I’m doing something wrong with the yellow level and it kind of gave me burning eyes in the morning.
It’s not called “Flux” it’s called f.lux !!!
This is perfect! Easy to download and use. Thanks 9to5Mac.