Does Apples Night Shift Feature Block Blue Light
As electronic manufacturers are listening to doctors concerns about the harmful effects of overexposure to blue light, do they hit the mark with features such as Apples Night Shift?
Apples latest feature, Night Shift, uses geolocation and sunset time data to reduce the amount of blue light your device emits. However, the result isnt a technical reduction in blue light, but rather a filtered amber version.
Medical professionals have been prescribing and touting the benefit of blue-light reducing apps for several years. It just so happens that Apple finally listened to their science-driven crowd that wanted a solution to absorbing bright light well into the evening hours.
Scientists believe that overexposure to these harmful blue light rays can confuse and alter our bodys natural circadian rhythms. This means that over time, our bodies will lose track of when its time to sleep and wake up. The scientific theory surrounding circadian rhythms is that our bodies take these cues from our environment which happens to be blue light. A reduction in blue light triggers the body to produce more melatonin, which gradually lulls into a restful sleep.
While its a significant step in the right direction, Apples feature doesnt efficiently block all blue light. While any reduction in the intensity or duration of blue light is helpful, its important that people look to other means to protect their baby blues.
Heres what you can do to protect yourself:
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Apple Night Shift Vs Blue Light
The negative effects of blue light on sleep have been well documented. At night, the electronic blue light from your devices switches the brain in daytime mode, which causes the body to suppress its melatonin production, the sleep-inducing hormone that helps us sleep. As a result, our biological clocks are thrown off, which can lead to unhealthy consequences.
When Apple released the Apple Night Shift iOs 9.3, its purpose was to neutralize the blue light from devices, so that users sleep patterns would not be thrown off, and their sleep would not be adversely affected.
However, recent research conducted by the Lighting Research Center shows the Night Shift blue light filter fell short of its expectations.
The Blue Light Nightmare: It doesn’t end when you wake up. Find out why.
How To Change The Snooze Time On iPhone
Mahesh Makvana is a freelance tech writer who specializes in writing how-to guides. He has been writing tech tutorials for over a decade now. Hes written for some of the prominent tech sites including MakeUseOf, MakeTechEasier, and Online Tech Tips. Read more…
Your iPhone uses nine minutes as the snooze time for all your alarms. While theres no direct way to change this snooze time, you can use a couple of workarounds to get alarms at custom intervals. Well show you how.
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Windows 10 Night Light
Just like the iPhone, be aware that if your computer is using Windows 10, you don’t necessarily need to download a blue light filter application. A feature is indeed integrated, it’s called Night Light, and it’s quite effective on a daily basis. You’ll need to go to the settings to adjust it, but once you do, it also switches your screen from natural hues to warm colors after dark. Enough to rest your eyes and allow you to sleep well afterwards!
Your Screen Could Be Disrupting Your Sleep Here’s How To Reduce Harmful Blue Light
By, Contributor| 24 Feb 2021
If we’re honest with ourselves, we spend too many hours staring at phone and computer screens – often close to bedtime. The blue light emanating from those glowing rectangles can cause problems. Various studies have found for this particular area of the light spectrum can stimulate your brain into thinking it’s morning and therefore time to be awake.
Of course, the most sensible solution would be to simply lay aside those devices and read a good book or something equally as relaxing, but most of us aren’t sensible. Fortunately, help is at hand if you want to persist with that late-night doomscrolling, here’s how you can use blue light filters to protect your circadian rhythms.
How to use the blue light filter in Windows 10
The blue light filter in Windows 10 goes by the name of Night Light. This is a handy resource as not only will it remove the blue light from your display, but it can also be scheduled to turn on and off at certain times of the day. Heres what to do if you want to set up Night Light on your Windows 10 PC.
Open the Start menu then select Settings > System > Display > Night light settings.
Here youll see options to enable the feature immediately, a bar where you set the strength of the effect, plus the Schedule section for deciding when you would like it to automatically turn on and off.
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How To Filter Blue Light On Other Android Phones
Different manufacturers have coined different names for their blue light filters, but the majority have one. Youll generally find a quick setting option in your notification shade and scheduling options in Settings > Display.
LG calls it Comfort View, HTC and OnePlus call it Night Mode, Huawei calls it Eye Care, Motorola calls it Night Display, and Xiaomi calls it Reading mode.
How Do Blue Light Reducing Apps Work
Cell phones, televisions, tablets, and laptop computers all display images on a liquid crystal display . Screens consist of tiny dots, called pixels. Inside each pixel are three colored lights: red, green, and blue . These three colors light up in various sequences and brightness to create different colors your eye can perceive. For example, to generate the color purple, only the blue and red lights within the pixel would light up. The blue light emitted from these screens can build up over time.
Blue light reducing apps limit our exposure to blue light by decreasing the blue light brightness and intensity inside each pixel. The apps listed below make screens appear warmer in color and sometimes creates what looks like a red filter over the screen.
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How To Use The Blue Light Filter On Android
Android phones vary pretty greatly depending on the manufacturer. But if your phone supports a night mode, it should be in the notification shade. That’s where Samsung keeps it, for example, which I’ll use for this guide.
- Slide your finger down from the top of the screen.
- Look for “blue light filter” in the buttons that appear in the menu.
- Tap and hold it.
- Choose “turn on as scheduled” or “turn on now.”
- Adjust the color temperature slider to meet your preferences.
How To Use Night Shift To Reduce Blue Light On Your iPhone
Follow this simple guide to reduce the blue light coming from your iPhone at different times of the day, or through the night.
Most electronic devices emit blue light and your iPhone is no exception. While blue light is hard to avoid, getting too much of it before going to bed can cause sleeplessness. This is why many people are looking for ways to reduce blue light on their iPhone, which Apple made easy to do with the Night Shift feature.
If youre looking to reduce blue light on your iPhone, this quick tutorial will show you how.
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How To Keep Night Shift On Constantly
To turn on Night Shift, go to Settings / Display & Brightness / Night shift. You will see the screen below.
You can schedule night shift to turn on any time you’d like, but I recommend keeping it on all day. We get plenty of blue light and this way you never have to worry about looking at your phone.
To trick your iPhone into doing this, simply choose a time period, for example, from 4:00 AM to 3:59 AM the following morning. This way your phone will turn off Night Shift for one minute a day, and then immediately turn back on.
For some reason, choosing a time from 4:00 AM to 4:00 AM the following day doesn’t work. You need to have a one minute gap.
Although the screen may seem too orange at first, your eyes will quickly adjust. I don’t even notice it anymore.
Pairing this iPhone trick with glasses that block blue light gave me huge improvements in evening sleepiness and my ability to fall and stay asleep.
Android Blue Light Filter Requirements
Several Android manufacturers include blue light filters into their devices. Googles Pixel and Pixel 2 have this feature built-in, along with other manufacturers such as, Honor, Huawei, Asus, OnePlus, Samsung.
If youre running an older version of Android, like Android One or stock Android, and cant find this feature, there are a number of apps that can help you achieve the same results, such as Twilight and Blue Light Filter.
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How To Turn Off The Blue Light On My Android Device
The majority of the Android devices feature a built-in blue light setting, one which you can enable by going to Settings and tap on Display.
There you will find a setting named either Night Light or Blue Light, through which you can adjust the colouring temperature and schedule when you want to turn it on and off.
How To Enable The Ios Blue Light Filter
Our article continues below with additional information on enabling the blue light filter on an iPhone, including pictures of these steps.
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How To Enable Night Shift On Your iPhone For Easy Nighttime Reading
Jason Fitzpatrick is the Editor in Chief of LifeSavvy, How-To Geek’s sister site focused life hacks, tips, and tricks. He has over a decade of experience in publishing and has authored thousands of articles at Review Geek, How-To Geek, and Lifehacker. Jason served as Lifehacker’s Weekend Editor before he joined How-To Geek. Read more…
Bright blue-white light blasting in your face at night isnt so great for your sleep or general health, but dont worry: iOS supports color shifting so you can warm up the light of your iPhone for easy nighttime reading.
RELATED:Artificial Light Is Wrecking Your Sleep, and It’s Time to Do Something About It
There is a growing body of research suggesting that exposure to artificial light late into the evening, especially blue light like the crisp blue-white glow of our beloved gadgets, is a serious issue that effects our sleep cycles and general health. You can, however, minimize the effect of late-night light exposure by shifting the color to warmer tones. iOS makes this easy with its new Night Shift mode. Lets take a look at what you need and how to set it up.
What If Your Phone Doesnt Have A Built
If youre unlucky enough to have a smartphone without a blue light filter, or you dislike the option you do have, then you can always try a third-party app instead.
Our favorite blue light filter app on Android is Twilight. It lets you set up a number of different profiles to schedule on and off times, and it can detect your location to turn the blue light filter on and off automatically at sunset and sunrise.
If you use your laptop or computer late at night, then check out how to use a blue light filter on PC or Mac.
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Turn Down The Tv Brightness
Another great way to reduce blue light from TV is to simply turn down the TV brightness. Granted, youll have to venture into the TV menu to do this, but the results are well worth it. If youre watching in an otherwise dark room, the TV certainly does not need to be as bright as it needs to be in the daytime to be visible.Were not suggesting turning it down so much that it becomes difficult to see, but ratcheting the backlight down 20-50% can have a huge impact on the amount of light entering your vision. Once you start adjusting this setting, youll be surprised at how blindingly bright your TV has been.
How To Turn On Night Shift On Your iPhone
Since the release of the iOS 9.3 software update, Apple allowed iPhone and iPad users to activate the inbuilt Night Shift option on their iPhones.
Night Shift automatically shifts the colours of your display to the warmer end of the colour spectrum after dark. This may help you get a better nights sleep.
Message on iPhone Screen
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How To Turn Off Blue Light On iPhone And iPad With Night Shift
Like with many of the user-focused settings in iOS, the Night Shift setting is easy to find and use. Here’s the full procedure:
With this process completed, iPhone users should be able to see the colors of their device’s screen change at their specified times and hopefully have an easier time getting to sleep and staying asleep. We can’t personally attest to these types of results, but anything that’s meant to help smartphone or PC users stay rested and avoid fatigue is a win in our book.
For more tips on mobile phones, including iPhone and Android-specific guides, keep it tuned right here to Shacknews.
How Blue Light From Tv Impacts Your Health
Remember back to science class: colors are waves that we perceive visually. Blue light is on the short end of the spectrum, inhabiting a high-energy, noisy frequency that can give you eye strain. You might be wondering, Do TVs emit blue light? Yes! In fact, most digital screens output a whole lot of this type of light directly into your eyeballs. And TVs are one of the worst culprits because of their extreme brightness and size.
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Bore Yourself Into Putting Your Phone Down
Ideally, you should get off your phone, tablet or computer after a certain time each night and forget about it until your alarm wakes you. The longer you stare at a screen, the more you get pulled down the various rabbit holes that are found on Reddit, Facebook and Twitter — and the later you stay up, regardless of which color of light your screen projects.
But for many of us, that’s not very realistic. How many of you wrap up the day reading e-books or news stories, or watching videos online? Maybe you like to decompress by scrolling through your social feeds. If that’s you, do yourself a favor and take advantage of the tools and Apple have built into their respective platforms.
Android’s Digital Wellbeing feature includes a bedtime schedule that will limit access to apps, stop notifications from showing up. You can also apply a grayscale filter to your phone’s screen. For example, you can turn it on from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. When it turns on, it drains the color from your display, which shields you from colored light and makes the screen less compelling. The idea is for you to naturally put the phone down on your own.
Screen Time is a similar feature for iPhone users, and it has a Downtime setting that you can schedule to restrict access to only the apps you absolutely need, like Messages, Podcasts and the Phone app. Let’s be real — you don’t need access to Facebook late at night.
That yellow tint, it turns out, may not be the best thing to help you sleep.
What Are The Blue Light Filter Options For An iPhone
There are two free software options available to help reduce the amount of artificial blue light emitted from your iPhone screen.
Using one of these iPhone settings will help to limit the amount of blue light emitted from your screen, which is a good idea to do to help protect your natural circadian rhythm .
However, I would use one of these iPhone settings in conjunction with also wearing a good pair of 100% blue light blocking glasses for adults or childrens glasses at night. .
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How To Turn Off The Blue Light On My iPhone Or iPad Device
Your iPhone and iPad devices offer users a feature called Night Shift, which helps you filter out the blue light by changing your device’s screen temperature to a warmer colour.
The two ways to turn Night Shift on and off according to Apple are as follows:
– Open Control Center. Firmly press the Brightness control icon, then tap brightness icon to turn Night Shift on or off.
– Go to Settings > Display & Brightness > Night Shift. On the same screen, you can schedule a time for Night Shift to turn on automatically and adjust color temperature.
To modify the temperature you can go to Settings and tap Display & Brightness, with the Night Shift screen providing you with the option to change the screen’s colouring.
You can play around with this feature until you find the perfect temperature balance for you, with warmer colouring being ideal for nighttime.
Users also have the option to turn the setting on a predetermined hour at night and turn it off in the morning. To do so, you need to tap on the Manually Enable Until Tomorrow option.
To set Night Shift for sunset to sunrise, you can go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services > System Services, and turn on the Setting Time Zone option. Then, go back to the Night Shift settings and there you will find the option for setting it at Sunset to Sunrise.