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F.lux Brings Its Blue-Light Filtering Magic to Android, But You’d Be Better Off Using Twilight

16176452878_ea1cd67a30_bAt long last f.lux is available in Google Play, but the anti-climactic launch has proven to be too little, too late.

TNW and other sites report that f.lux is far less useful than many competing apps:

F.lux has been a staple on the desktop for some time already – with versions existing for MacWindows and Linux. Hell, there’s even been a version for jailbroken iPhones and iPads since 2011. Now, finally, Android users are getting a version of their own – sort of.

The app, like its desktop counterparts, has one simple function: to control the color temperature of your screen in order to reduce strain on your eyes as the day progresses.

However, for now it requires a rooted phone to work properly and the company says that many Samsung Galaxy devices running Android 5.0 or higher won’t work, rooted or not.

This type of app works by lessening the blue light emitted by a screen, and letting the red and yellow colors dominate, giving the screen an orange, red, or yellow tint (this varies by the app).

While I kinda like f.lux (I’m even willing to forgive the punctuation messing up the name), it doesn’t work on anything other than rooted smartphones so there’s really no point in even considering using it.

Instead, if you want a similar app you might try Google Play Books, which has a rather basic blue-light filter with limited functionality. Or if you have a Fire tablet, you can use the Blue Shade filter Amazon added to Fire OS Bellini (iOS 9.3 has a similar filter).

There are a number of reading apps with blue light filters, but if you want a more general solution on Android then you should consider Twilight.

When I wrote last June about apps with blue light filters, Twilight was the one app that all the commenters recommended. It comes in a free and a paid version, and based on my testing I have to say that it is the best option for Android.

If you need this type of app, get Twilight. Don’t even bother trying f.lux, because the odds are good that it can’t help you.

image by s.schmitz

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Comments


Eddiepwns April 23, 2018 um 1:28 am

It’s worth mentioning a lot of the newer Samsung phones/tablets have a blue light filter option in settings. I’m guessing functionality wise it’s the same feature that f.lux offers, would you agree?

Nate Hoffelder April 23, 2018 um 6:10 am

yes – this is an old post


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