[Shardz]

App: Bluelight Filter for Eye Care v2.9.21
Developer: Hardy-infinity
Category: Health & Fitness
Price: N/A
IAP: $0.99

Bluelight Filter for Eye Care is a unique and essential application that adjusts the screen color on your device to reduce harmful blue light that has been proven to have adverse effects on our health in certain situations. The blue light that inherently emits from our devices, especially with white screens displaying, can strain your eyes in dark environments, cause headaches over extended use, and dramatically affect your sleeping cycle. Recent studies have indicated that blue light is indeed disruptive to your sleeping routine, especially viewing glaring white screens thirty minutes prior to going to sleep. With the advent of Google's Lollipop version with blinding white screens and their complete lack of user options regarding the interface, this can be a problem for late night users that wish to use their devices prior to bed time. Blue light in the evening tricks the brain into thinking that it is daytime, which inhibits the production of melatonin and reduces both the quantity and quality of sleep. Poor sleep is linked to heart disease, type two diabetes and depression and is also one of the strongest risk factors for obesity. Chronic users of electronic devices at night are a primary target for this phenomenon and I personally have been affected since I prefer to use my tablet at night in dimly lit settings. I also found myself suffering from eye strain in such conditions, which can also lead to sneaking headaches over time that also can affect your sleep cycle and rest quality. The solution for me and many other Android users is Bluelight Filter, which aids in blocking the harmful light from your eyes in a very small and convenient application utilizing an efficient and non-invasive method. Our eyes are sensitive organs that can affect other systems in the body, and sleep is also required to maintain proper function; Bluelight Filter can be vital in leading a healthier lifestyle in essence.

Bluelight Filter displays an overlay hue over the entire screen of the device, masking everything visible with a shaded tone that filters blue light away from your sensitive eyes. It's a rather simple solution in a compact application that truly does wonders for the eyes and has given me positive results since I started using it regularly. The options page presents several simple configuration settings that will aid in convenient operation of Bluelight Filter to suit your preferences to how the app functions and displays its toggle in notifications. Starting at the top of the settings screen, there is a simple on and off toggle in case you prefer to launch the app with no visible box in notifications or icon in the status bar. There is an opacity slider that will span up to 80% visibility with a large numeric display; also, an additional free add-on to download that can extend the opacity to 95%, which is called Night Mode with a separate check box included. Five different colors are available for the filter effect and are separately selectable as natural, yellow, brown, red and black; all of them effectively blocking blue light equally in different hues. There is a toggle for filtering the navigation soft keys on the bottom and five options to display a shortcut; either always displayed, only when when Bluelight is enabled, only when Bluelight is disabled and always hidden for added flexibility. Due to Android regulations of disallowing installation of an app from another source other than Google Play when a filter is running, there is a toggle to turn off Bluelight Filter upon installation as it cannot be active as you install external APK files. Finally, you may toggle Bluelight to automatically run or not upon booting the device and another final option to display text labeled 'Bluelight Filter' in the bottom right corner when the filter is active. This simple page of options will custom tailor access to Bluelight Filter and adjust it to anyone's comfort level quickly and easily with no fussy configurations involved.

With the boost in electronic devices in our daily lives over the years, there are still scientific facts to be learned as to how these digital tools affect our health and well being over time. As results of extensive studies are released, solutions to these problems will appear as needed and Bluelight Filter for Eye Care is most definitely one of them. My initial complaint with Lollipop was the addition of painfully blinding white interface colors that hampered my night use due to sensitive vision, but I had no idea that this actually affected the way the brain inherently releases chemicals within the body. I would really like to see Google take more responsibility in implementing something like Bluelight within Lollipop or simply offering a basic night mode for this reason alone, but they are stubborn with their design philosophy and will not budge no matter how many complaints their receive. This factor ultimately encourages private enterprise to come to the rescue with simple solutions in the shadow of a mega-corporation that refuses to consider the end user and I'm glad Bluelight Filter exists for my humanly needs. I give Hardy-infinity kudos for acknowledging this phenomenon with devices and delivering a product which combats the harsh nature of modern electronics in our daily lives. The price point is more than reasonable at just under one U.S. dollar, the level of accessibility is convenient and the app does exactly what it sets out to do in bettering our standards of living. If you have sensitive eyes, value your sleep and have even minor concern regarding your health, especially as a chronic device user who loves the dark, then I cannot recommend Bluelight Filter for Eye Care highly enough.

Pros:

• A unique solution to combat the adverse effects of blue light.
• Several easy configuration options to allow accessibility of use.
• Very small memory footprint that will not slow down your device.

Cons:

• Additional colored filters would be a nice touch.
• Cannot install external apps while Bluelight is running.

Reviewer rating:
Device/OS used: Samsung Galaxy Note 3, Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 7 2012 / KitKat v4.4.4, Lollipop v5.1.1

Purchase at Google Play
Purchase at Amazon
Mobilism: Bluelight Filter for Eye Care v2.9.21 [Unlocked]