The Best Screen Filter Alternatives to Protect Your Eyes
Screen Filter is a popular Android application designed to protect your eyes by applying a shade that acts as a dimmer, going far beyond Android's built-in brightness settings. It's fantastic for low-light gaming, web browsing, eBook reading, and even saves battery life on AMOLED displays. With features like widgets for quick access, Tasker/Locale plug-in integration, and fine-grained logarithmic brightness control, Screen Filter offers a robust solution. However, you might be looking for a Screen Filter alternative that offers different platform support, open-source options, or unique features. This article will guide you through some of the best alternatives available.
Top Screen Filter Alternatives
Whether you're on desktop or mobile, searching for an open-source solution, or prioritizing specific blue light filtering capabilities, there's a perfect Screen Filter alternative for you. Let's dive into the top choices that can help reduce eye strain and improve your digital experience.
f.lux
f.lux is a highly regarded Screen Filter alternative that automatically adjusts the color of your computer's display to adapt to the time of day, making it warm at night and like sunlight during the day. It's available across multiple platforms including Free, Mac, Windows, Linux, Android, iPhone, Android Tablet, and iPad. Key features include a blue light filter, various color temperature modes, night mode/dark theme, scheduling, and temperature monitoring.
Redshift
Redshift is an excellent open-source Screen Filter alternative that adjusts the color temperature according to the sun's position, setting different temperatures for night and daytime. It's free and available on Windows, Linux, and BSD. Its features include color temperature adjustment, color correction, a command-line interface, blue light filter, Debian package compatibility, Fedora Repository, KDE Widget, and night mode/dark theme.
LightBulb
LightBulb is a free, open-source Screen Filter alternative for Windows that runs as a background application, adjusting screen gamma to make colors appear warmer at night, thereby reducing eye strain. It is highly customizable, lightweight, portable, and configurable, offering automatic brightness dimming, automatic lighting control, a blue light filter, color correction, and optimal performance.
RedshiftGUI
RedshiftGUI is a free, open-source Screen Filter alternative available for Windows and Linux. It serves as a graphical user interface for Redshift, making it easier to change your monitor's color temperature to better match your surroundings, with cooler temperatures during the daytime.
Red Moon
Red Moon is a free, open-source Screen Filter alternative specifically designed for Android devices, available on F-Droid and GitHub. This app is ideal for night-time phone use, offering features like automatic brightness dimming, a blue light filter, color correction, color temperature adjustment, and time scheduling.
Twilight
Twilight is a free Android-specific Screen Filter alternative that filters the blue spectrum on your phone or tablet after sunset, protecting your eyes with a red filter. The filter intensity smoothly adjusts to the sun's position, offering automatic brightness dimming, a blue light filter, and color correction.
SunsetScreen
SunsetScreen is a commercial Screen Filter alternative for Windows that allows users to set the time of sunset and sunrise, giving full control over their sleep cycle. It is customizable, lightweight, portable, and includes support for keyboard shortcuts and temperature monitoring.
Desktop Dimmer
Desktop Dimmer is a free, open-source Screen Filter alternative available for Mac, Windows, and Linux. It enables darker-than-dark desktop dimming for your displays with a small resource footprint and minimal user interface. Settings are persisted and restored per-display, and it features automatic brightness dimming.
Iris mini
Iris mini is a freemium cross-platform Screen Filter alternative for Mac, Windows, and Linux, focusing on blue light reduction and PWM flicker-free brightness software.
PangoBright
PangoBright is a free Windows-based Screen Filter alternative that offers screen dimming software, allowing you to control the brightness of both your main screen and external monitors. It is portable and supports multiple monitors.
With a variety of Screen Filter alternative options available across different platforms and with diverse feature sets, you're sure to find software that perfectly suits your eye protection and screen dimming needs. Consider your operating system, whether you prefer open-source solutions, and the specific features like blue light filtering or scheduling to choose the best fit.