Are computer eyewear the way to go?

I got to try out a pair of Gunnar Optiks glasses for a couple weeks. Essentially these glasses get rid of the harsh blue hue that monitors and displays emit by layering the lenses with a yellowish tint. So, theoretically, headaches and eye strain caused by looking at a monitor for long periods of time can be reduced by wearing these glasses. They also have other features, such as a sharper, clearer, and a slight magnification of the image.

However, after a few days of trying them out. I just couldn’t fully get into them, and I’m not really sure why. It might have something to do with how I hate wearing any kinds of glasses on my face for an entire day (thank God I have better than 20/20 vision).

I think I also didn’t really like the Gunnar glasses because they screwed up the colors on the monitor. The yellow tint overcompensated for the blue hue and changed the “true colors” of the image, so looking at a shade of green through the glasses wouldn’t be the true shade of green that’s shown. This really is only a big deal for graphic designers and not so much a huge deal for those who just surf the web, but it still bugs me…

My solution? I started using an application called F.lux. It’s a tiny program that can change the color temperature of your monitor in order to get rid of that nasty blue hue. You can even set it up so that the color temperature automatically changes based on the time of day, but what I really like is how you can manually adjust the color temperature to your own liking. It’s working out great so far. In fact, after using it for a couple of weeks, I temporarily went back to the default color temperature and almost blinded myself. The blue hue was horrific and I can’t believe I went all these years looking at my monitor like that. Of course, that might be because I was so used to the warmer color temperature, but even after getting used to the default temperature again, going back to the warmer option was still a lot better.

Have you experimented with Gunnar glasses or F.lux? I’m very curious to know what your thoughts are. Leave them in the comments below!