In the past, we’ve reviewed setting up and configuring Night Shift on iOS and Night Light on Windows 10, and today we’re going to review how to enable blue light for macOS and Linux.
How to Enable Night Shift on macOS
In order to run Night Shift, your Mac needs to be running at least macOS 10.12.4 as well as supported hardware. Here’s the list of supported Macs:
MacBook Air (Mid 2012 or later)MacBook (Early 2015 or later)MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 or later)Mac mini (Late 2012 or later)iMac (Late 2012 or later)Mac Pro (Late 2013)
If you have both 10.12.4 and the supported hardware, follow the steps below to enable Night Shift on macOS.
Users can also enable or disable Night Shift on the fly from the Notification Center or use Siri commands Turn on Night Shift or Turn off Night Shift.
Blue Light Support on Linux
Setting up blue light on Linux is a little more involved, but nothing to scare you away. As with pretty much everything in Linux, it’s a community effort. First, you will need to download a third-party package, maintained by developer Nathan Renniewaldock. Make sure you download the right package for your distribution of Linux. In my case, I am running Ubuntu 16.04, also known by its code name Xenial.
After downloading the package, double-click it; this will then launch the Ubuntu software center, where you can begin the installation.
Open the F.lux Indicator Applet, which will prompt you to enter your latitude. Yeah, I know, not exactly the most friendly UI in the world. The app does provide a link to finding your Latitude and Longitude, however, I just used Google to quickly find where I was located. For those in the US, F.lux also provides the option for simply entering a zip code.
The app also provides several Nighttime color temperatures to choose from. I found Halogen (3400K) to be most comfortable, but you can play with several others to see if they suit you more. The F.lux Indicator Applet adds a menu bar item where you can quickly access settings for the app and even pause it. Users running Android can download a third-party app for their device. Learn more about setting it up here. If you want to learn more about f.lux in general, check out our previous coverage here. Comment Name * Email *
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