Should I still be using f.lux if I want to be sleeping late (6AM or so)?

  • Hey.

    So I'm new to f.lux and I'm kinda having trouble as to what f.lux does exactly. From what I understand at night time it blocks blue lights from things like monitors, which gets you to sleep earlier.

    But unlike normal people I like to sleep at 6AM or so, which means my monitor will be tinted for 12 hours during night time before I sleep. Is there any benefit to this software for people like me?


  • Absolutely!

    In order to explain why I think so, I need to tell you how I use f.lux. You see, I never know when I'll be going to bed and when I'll be waking up because I have no real sleep/wake schedule: sometimes I'll be going to sleep at night, but sometimes it will be sometime during the day. When it is, I have to change my Location in f.lux to a place where sunset has occurred already so that I can use a color temperature that's warmer than 2700K (I strongly prefer 1200K). This is actually very easy to do and it only take a few seconds.

    That's not the only thing that I do though because this would be a waste of time if I am still getting blue light from other sources, such as my indoor lights (including plain incandescent lights). It's also a waste of time if the brightness of my monitor and of my indoor lighting is too high. So, to go for warmer indoor lighting, I change my bedroom's lighting to the warmest color that I have, which I have set up to be pure red (yeah, red!) using FEIT brand red LED lights. I also lower my monitor's brightness to about as far as it goes, and I also block all incoming daylight with my room darkening blinds.So if I'm going to bed in the daytime, I try to do everything that I can to simulate nighttime.

    So, f.lux is just a way to help you avoid blue light without having to turn your computer off because we can easily control the indoor lighting by just changing light bulbs, but computers require something like f.lux. Therefore, without f.lux, we have one option: turn the computer off as it gets closer to bedtime. With f.lux, we can keep using it for a little longer, just as long as the brightness isn't too high. Eliminating blue light is only a part of the 'battle'.

    Of course, there are other uses for f.lux - this is just the only way that I use it (I personally have no other uses for f.lux).

  • f.lux team

    One theory about extreme night owls (which I used to be) is that they have a long "internal clock" and so they are trying to see more bright light in their "morning" than in their night -- this is how they synchronize to 24 hours. They do this by waking up before the sun sets, but then spend the second half of their day in "darkness" according to the sun.

    With artificial light, though, these schedules have gotten much later. In natural conditions, night owls are only a few hours later than the average, but with artificial light and no "sunset" a night owl can stay up all night.

    So regarding your question: some people use f.lux at more moderate settings early in the night to reduce eyestrain--it shouldn't affect sleep very much 8 hours before your bedtime. But if you use stronger settings and lower the lights in your room right before bed, it could help you shift your timing earlier.

    Ideally, we think people should have the tools & control to be in charge of their own timing, so if there's a great job you want to take, but it requires you wake up at 8AM, you could manage it, even if you're an extreme night owl. Everyone is synchronized to SOME clock, and we'd like for you to be able to control what that clock does.

    What makes a person happy is complicated, and changing your schedule is hard to do for a lot of reasons (everything moves around!), but if you ever wanted to get up earlier, seeing the right amount of light at the right time of day is a major piece of it.