Several surveys undertaken over the last few years on the effect of modern day devices like smartphones, tablets and e-readers on our sleeping patterns have had similar results: these electronics have a huge negative impact on our sleep. Much of that is attributed to the “blue light” produced by such devices and others including television screens. Blue light affects the release of a natural hormone, melatonin, which is responsible for the onset of sleep.
This has led to a wider discussion on what can be done since these devices are part and parcel of our lives today and they are not going anywhere anytime soon. In fact, we’re just getting more every other passing day.
Suggestions have ranged from the introduction of a “bedtime mode” on mobile devices to the use of “blue-blocking, orange-tinted safety glasses”, a suggestion put forward from the contents of another survey’s recommendations as analysed by the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS).
Since there is no agreement (yet) on just what can be done to stop not just the effects of blue light on the amount and quality of sleep we get, there are some excellent short term fixes. The best one, yet, has been in the form of an application: F.lux.
F.lux’s working mechanism while complex, can be explained simply as tuning the colours on the displays of your mobile devices by warming them up to varying shades of red and yellow from sunset to sunrise. This has the extended effect of keeping blue light at bay hence not interfering with your circadian rhythm.
The app has been available on desktop computers running Windows, Linux and Mac for a while now. On mobile devices, however, its use has been restricted to certain Apple iPhones and iPads that had been tampered with or jailbroken. F.lux was yet to become available on Android, the world’s most widely used mobile platform. That is no longer the case though since the application is now available on the Play Store as a preview. There’s a caveat. It only works on devices that have been rooted since it requires elevated privileges in order to work properly. According to its makers, the application does not work well yet on most of Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones running on Android 5.0 (Lollipop) and later.
On mobile devices, however, its use has been restricted to certain Apple iPhones and iPads that had been tampered with or jailbroken. F.lux was yet to become available on Android, the world’s most widely used mobile platform. That is no longer the case though since the application is now available on the Play Store as a preview. There’s a caveat. It only works on devices that have been rooted since it requires elevated privileges in order to work properly. According to its makers, the application does not work well, yet, on most of Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones running on Android 5.0 (Lollipop) and later.
Since this is the first version of the product since it left its private beta which had been on for over a month, support is expected to be expanded to cover those devices since they are some of the most widely used in the world.
Access to the application on the Play Store is also currently restricted to certain regions so you may need to use trusted third-party portals like APK Mirror in order to get it and then side-load. Or you could continue using what some of us have been using while awaiting the arrival of F.lux, Twilight. It’s not anything like F.lux but it will get you halfway there.
