Blurred vision and blurriness are what cause the eyes to have problems focusing on objects and for the eyesight to be unclear and far from sharp.

It can be provoked in only one or both eyes and it may concern close or far eyesight.

It is quite a common problem amongst people who complain of eye problems.

The treatment of blurred vision may be dependent on what has caused it.

And there are many possible reasons for blurred vision.

It can be because of an injury, stress, vision loss, and an unhealthy lifestyle.

However, one of the most usual reasons is the blue light from computers and smartphones.

In this article, we are going to suggest five ways to get rid of the blurred vision at home.

Note that these treatments are mainly for blurred vision caused by technology and its blue light impact on human health.

But some of them might be as well working on other kinds of blurred vision triggers.

How can blue light affect the health of my eyes?

All technologies have LCD screens that emit blue light.

And this type of light by nature is highly energized because of its place in the light spectrum.

It can easily reach to the core of our eyes.

There is the retina and if it gets damaged once, it cannot be reversed.

There is blue light in the light that the sun gives us but in little quantity.

And there is also blue light in LED lamps, which are practically everywhere around us.

This is why it is difficult to avoid. But it is not unachievable.

Apart from eye blurriness, blue light can cause a lot of other eye problems.

Like red eyes, dry eyes, macular degeneration, headaches, lack of sleep, and even vision loss.

This is why it is not good to acquaintance young children with technology because their eyes will get damaged more easily.

And in the end, they will have to put on glasses for life.

To be thankful, there are some methods that can preserve yours and your children’s eyes from blue light, blurred vision, and other eye problems.

If you do not neglect the symptoms and take action on time, you can keep your eyes healthy with these five methods.

5 Ways to get rid of blurred vision

Use Computer Glasses

Computer glasses are specially designed to keep your eyes safe from the blue light that the displays radiate.

These spectacles are made with a coating that blocks a certain amount of blue rays before they reach your eyes.

And when looked thought, the glasses make the screen look yellow or red, depending on the intensity of the glasses’ filter.

But getting them is not easy.

First, it would be good to consult with a specialist.

Secondly, you have to know for sure the length from which you are going to look at the screen so that the lenses are constructed the right way.

Anyway, once you have the computer glasses and start using them, you will feel relief after a short period.

They are a good investment for your eyes’ health.

Rest Well And Do Eye Exercises

Getting a good rest is essential not only for your energy through the day but for your eyes.

When you sleep your body uses the opportunity to heal and recharge.

Plus, this is the only time when you do not use your eyes and they can rest.

Therefore sleep is important for your eyes’ health, too.

And while awake, if you start to feel any stiffness in your eyes you can try to relieve it with eye exercises.

Not only will eye exercises keep your eyes well moistured, but they will help you to stay focused.

And moisturizing your eyes is important because if your eyes are dry, you can scratch their surface.

This would lead to more problems and will need medical treatment.

Avoid anxiety and stress

It is proven that anxiety and stress have an impact on the health of your eyes.

You can try meditation and antistress activities.

Mental health is essential for the overall wellbeing of a human.

This is why one must avoid stressful situations and keep his mind clear.

Don’t smoke

Smoking is proven to be harmful not only to your lungs but to the whole body.

It leads to diseases and even lung cancer.

And apart from your lungs, the eyes are the other organ that gets a lot of damage.

And smokers are way more prone to getting cataracts, which is a disease that totally blindfolds the pupil.

One can also suffer from macular degeneration, uveitis, dry eyes, and diabetic problems because of smoking.

Use a blue light filter for PC

Iris is a blue light filter for PC and all other kinds of devices that keep the blue light away of the screen.

Iris is an installable program that immediately is going to filter the pixels on your screen to eye-friendly colors.

The filters of Iris differ depending on the intensity the user desires.

And this program is suitable for all ages – from students to grandparents.

For everybody who uses computers!

With a blue light filter like Iris, you are going to notice the effect in a very short time.

It prevents sore eyes, red eyes, and dry eyes.

In the long run, you will be protected by macular degeneration and sleep problems.

It is especially useful for the long-time device using.

Iris is a great alternative to computer glasses and even it is a lot better than them.

You can choose between reading mode, movie mode, programming mode, biohacking mode, working mode and so on.

Last words

Blurriness can be caused by many triggers, but one of the biggest of them is what we cannot live without.

And this is computers.

We use computers every day but that is dangerous to our health.

This is why we have to take care of that and protect our eyes without saying goodbye to technology.

And with Iris, you won’t be even thinking about eye care for it takes little time to set up and has no expiry period.

Author: Yoana Borisova
Publisher: Kalina Shushlina

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Productivity is not a talent that only the chosen ones have. Have you ever felt that you could do better, but never put yourself into it? 

Productivity is achievable with not so great efforts and simple habits.

Productivity is what helps us to do more in work and in our lives.

It makes us feel of use to the world.

Therefore every person tries to be as much productive as possible.

Yet, not everybody manages to do so.

This is why in this article we are going to show you some easy tips for better productivity that you could muster.

How to be productive?

The life hacks we thought of in this article are a piece of cake to start doing.

We will start with the most important and go through to the essential ones.

Here, take a look at these 11 tips 

Motivate yourself

First of all what motivates you?

For sure it is something from these: music; doing sports; watching movies; spending time with your family; coffee or something else?

Then do it in the morning before you even start your day!

Without motivation, nobody could do anything in the best way he/she is capable of.

Also, every day think that you will do better than the day before.

Try to outdo yourself!

Also, prepare your favorite music on a playlist to listen during the day for a dose of extra motivation. 

Use planners

Planners and bullet journals are the easiest way to remember what you have to do and what you have already done. 

Journals are also a great way to track your progress in a specific field. 

If you take notes every day, you can easily go back and see how you have been doing by the tasks that you have or haven’t done. 

Everybody could make his own planner in which to write down to-dos. 

All that is needed is a simple notebook and a pen.

Notebooks are very useful, for they do not need charging like smartphones.

And best of all – they are portable.

Plus, writing something down by hand is scientifically proven to be aiding for better memory.

Bullet journals are something fancier than a simple planner. 

They can have different sections for daily, monthly and yearly scheduling. 

A bullet journal may have many tracker pages.

For instance, about the books that you have read; the movies you have watched; the last time you did a full-house cleaning; etc.

Starting with something as simple as a notebook and a pen promises you to remember all the tasks you have to do. 

And making a reality check with a real pen is very delightful. 

Choose adequate deadlines

People are not robots.

We cannot take many chores and do them for several days.

So one has to cautiously manage his deadlines and the jobs he/she takes up to do. 

The best way to finish your job before the deadline is to monitor how much it takes you to do something for the first time and to remember that. 

That way when you come up with the same job again, it won’t bother you with the time it takes. 

Order tasks by priority

We know that you want to be a multitasker and do as much as possible.

But productivity isn’t about that, it is about quality, not quantity. 

And some things are more important than others.

Order them by priority in your planner or bullet journal and leave the others for another day or when you have more time. 

Take a rest

If you are feeling tired, do not force yourself.

Staying sharp all the time is not healthy.

Stop and take the rest you deserve for your hard work. 

Award yourself for the job you did.

You could take a day off and spend time with friends or to simply chill at home doing something you like. 

Reading books is a great way to rest and at the same time to be productive. 

Use some help

If you are struggling to do something, do not bother to dig into it forever. 

Try to find somebody who could help you and ask him kindly. 

Asking for help is not something to be ashamed of and it will help you to go along with your tasks faster. 

Decline unnecessary goings out

Going out with friends is pleasurable, but not at all times. 

When you have work to do and upcoming deadlines, better to learn how to say ‘no’. 

It would be best to leave time for such meetings in your planner and plan them sometime earlier.

That way the organizations would be better. 

Start with the hardest task

When you have a bunch of tasks to do, do the hardest one before all. 

That way you are going to concentrate mainly on it.

Otherwise, while doing the minor tasks you will constantly think about the hardest at the end. 

It may take some time to finish it, but once you do it, the others will feel like a piece of cake.

This tip is not necessary for all cases, but do it where it is applicable. 

Forget about your social media

Social media like Facebook or Instagram take a great deal of our precious time.

These apps are enemies to productivity. 

Unless your job is to manage the social media profiles of a firm, then try to cut the time you spend there.

Usually, we scroll endlessly through meaningless feed just for fun.

And after hours we still haven’t done anything productive. 

Of course, social media connect us with our friends and relatives. 

But the best way to be in connection with the world and still manage your chores is to put a regime to all social media you use.

There is time for everything if your life is well planned. 

Find time for sport

Sport is not only is going to motivate you, but it will give you energy. 

There is no difference what sport you will do, it could be yoga; running; fitness; dancing or just anything!

Being active has many advantages.

 It keeps you fit, strong and proactive.

But most of all it makes you healthy. 

Be healthy

Health is fundamental to productivity.

Make sure you do everything that is up to you to be healthy because if you are sick productivity is unthinkable.

And one of the most essential things to look after is your eyes.

Almost everybody works in front of a computer and usually for long hours.

There is the threat of the computer display to damage our eyes with its blue light radiations.

What blue light could provoke is red or dry eyes, headaches, and even vision damage.

What we suggest you are to install Iris – the blue light filter for PC, Android, and iOS.

Iris is a software that filters the blue light from your device’s display just like any professional computer glasses would do.

The program operates in the background of the computer’s tasks, so it wouldn’t stop you from doing your work and being productive.

 Iris has many options for you to personalize it for your exact needs. 

A great plus is also that Iris has a break reminder that will launch only when it is time for you to stop for several minutes and rest your eyes from the screen. 

Last words

To become productive is achievable.

You only have to find the best ways that work for you and here we gave you some tips to start with.

Motivation is what moves you throughout the day and health is what keeps you fresh and energetic.

Take care of both and everything else is going to come with ease! 

Author: Yoana Borisova
Publisher: Kalina Shushlina

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Are you an avid computer or internet user?

Well, let’s be honest, in this day and age – who isn’t?

Are you reading this exact text blurry-eyed with a headache not knowing the cause?

It might just be because of looking at those screens for too long.

Now, we’re not here to nag you like a parent, blaming health issues on “sitting on that computer and phone all day”, but we are here to explain to you the effects the light emitted by the screens all around us in the modern world has on human sight.

We are here to make you aware of the negative impacts that otherwise helpful technology has on our eyes and to provide you with a solution in the face of our product.

We are definitely not here to declare technology as bad, as technology lovers ourselves – we are only here to make it better and help you realize your full potential using it without sacrificing your precious sight.

How does Iris help?

Iris‘s blue light filter and screen optimization software serves the purpose of optimizing screens in different ways including:

Screen pulsations

Monitors are like lightbulbs, to be more precise monitors are like a million lightbulbs together in one place.

To control the energy consumption and for the monitor to function properly, the tiny bulbs (pixels) need to constantly be turned on and off – that’s called monitor flicker.

Flickering causes contractions in the eye muscles, opening and closing the iris, causing strain and muscle pain in the eye area with time.

One way to not be affected by monitor flicker is to purchase a flicker-free monitor, however, those can be quite expensive – a lower cost alternative being the Iris software.

Iris controls flicker through controlling the luminance of the screen.

The procedure has a slight color shift effect on the monitor, but it won’t bother people who don’t need color accuracy. The Iris software is a great low-cost alternative to buying a new expensive monitor.

Brightness

Iris matches the screen brightness to the light around you.

If you share your location to Iris it will know when it is day/night in your country and the Automatic mode will control the brightness.

Bright screens in the dark are a big no-no when it comes to healthy eyesight. A lot of people pay little to no attention to how bright their devices are in the dark, especially at night with the brain getting ready to sleep, causing further health issues and eye strain.

Iris software can be used to solve this issue as well.

It can be set to control the brightness of your monitor depending on the time of day, minimizing the light contrast between the environment around you and your monitor and minimizing eye issues.

Blue light

Iris also regulates the blue light emitted from the screen to help the brain produce more melatonin for better sleep.

It has been scientifically proven that blue light wakes us up. It throttles the brain’s production of melatonin – a hormone essential for healthy sleep.

Additionally, as red light gets blocked by our retina, blue light is let right in our eye causing issues such as eye muscle strain and headaches, staring into a monitor for longer periods of time not making the situation any better.

Iris software helps solve the issue by shifting the colors and controlling the amount of blue light emitted by the monitor, helping the brain regain control of its natural production of melatonin and increasing sleep quality.

Conclusion

All of these functions and helpful tools and many more can be available right at your fingertips.

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1. Set your monitor Hardware brightness to 100% using your monitor buttons

2. Use Iris to control the brightness without PWM

Iris Brightness will lower the lightness of your screen without PWM (read more)

Try Iris Brightness

If the button above doesn’t work here are some instructions for manual activation: How to try Iris Brightness

How to try Iris Brightness

How to Try Iris Brightness with Magic button

The post Iris Brightness appeared first on 💡👨‍💻 Iris - Software for Eye protection, Health and Productivity 🛌👀.

Keywords: eye protection, blue light filter, automatic brightness

The post Iris – Program to protect the eyes from the harmful rays of the monitors appeared first on 💡👨‍💻 Iris - Software for Eye protection, Health and Productivity 🛌👀.

Iris е софтуер, който намалява болката в очите, причинена от продължителното стоене пред компютъра и помага при проблеми със съня, причинени от недостатъчното излагане на Слънчева светлина с пълен спектър и прекаленото излагане на синя светлина вечер.

Iris е софтуер, който прави мониторите по-полезни за очите. Iris премахва предните лъчи излъчвани от мониторите, намалява синята светлина и контролира яркостта на екрана без фликър.

Iris is software which makes Monitors healthy for the eyes. With Iris, you can reduce the Blue Light emitted from your screen for better sleep, reduce the Brightness of your screen without PWM and avoid eye pain.

Iris е софтуер, който прави мониторите по-полезни за очите. Той предпазва очите ти като се адаптира автоматично към светлината около теб и премахва фликъра и вредните лъчи на мониторите. Намалявайки синята светлина вечер, Iris също така ти помага да спиш по-бързо и по-добре и да имаш имаш повече време за любимите ти занимания.

Iris е софтуер, който прави мониторът ти по-полезен за очите. Премахва синята светлина и фликъра от екрана ти автоматично, спиш по-бързо и по-добре, нямаш болка в очите и имаш повече време за любимите ти занимания.

Iris е софтуер, който прави мониторът ти по-полезен за очите. Премахва синята светлина и фликъра от екрана ти автоматично, спиш по-бързо и по-добре, нямаш болка в очите и имаш повече свободно време

Ключови думи: предпазване на очите, филтър за синя светлина, автоматична яркост

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The post Iris – Програма за предпазване на очите от вредните лъчи на мониторите appeared first on 💡👨‍💻 Iris - Software for Eye protection, Health and Productivity 🛌👀.

Eyes are considered to be the most sensitive part of the human body yet we do not pay much heed to their sensitivity and we are unknowingly destroying our vision with the each passing day.

Now if you are using a phone or a laptop to read this article then honestly even you are destroying your eyes without knowing it.

The reason behind it is awareness, there is very less awareness among the people regarding eyes and their protection.

However, today we are going to make sure that whoever reads this article, starts using a blue light filter or starts avoiding the excess use of laptops and other devices because at the end of the day, excess exposure of anything can have a bad effect.

 What Light Is Dangerous To The Eyes?

Before giving you the answer of what screen color is best for the eyes, we will first talk about what screen color and light is dangerous to the eyes.

You see, the light coming out of your screen at the moment is the most dangerous light specially if you are using it at the night time.

When one used screen light at the night time, know that you are putting extra stress and strain on your eyes and your nervous system too.

The light coming out of your screen is basically known as the blue light and where blue light has health benefits, it has some really terrible downsides too.

Excessive blue light at night is so dangerous that it can even lead you to permanent vision loss.

Now you might be wondering that what exactly can one do in order to make this light less dangerous for the eyes, well, we do have an answer for that too.

You can use different blue light filters to reduce the strain or you can use various screen colors to avoid that stress on your eyes and your nervous system. 

The Best Screen Colors For The Eyes

There are several ways through which you can protect your eyes from the dangerous light of your screen.

The number on solution to this problem is to reduce the brightness of your screen and make sure that it is reduced to a limit where it is not putting any strain on your eyes.

The next solution is to change the color of your screen, the background and the text on it.

You can use different color combinations and the best ones are black text on white screens or if you are opting for some other colors of the text then make sure that the text is dark and the background of your screen is kept lighter.

This can seriously save you from the excessive and disturbing strain on your eye.

Now the third and the best way to protect your eyes especially at the night time is to use blue light filters.

Blue light filters are no less than a blessing for someone whose nature of work demands the excessive use of the screen. One of the most used blue light filter is Iris.

Iris

Iris is a software that works both for a laptop and a phone.

This software is pretty intelligent and it works simply by analyzing the light around you and adjusting the light of your screen accordingly so that it won’t be irritating for your eyes.

With Iris, you will be able to stay active and put less strain on your eyes and your nervous system.

Right now there are thousands of people who are using this software to protect their eyes and it has given them some seriously amazing results.

The post What Screen Color is Best for Eyes? appeared first on 💡👨‍💻 Iris - Software for Eye protection, Health and Productivity 🛌👀.

The worst thing that one can do to his eyes is to put them under excessive and constant strain.

Strain and stress on the eyes can actually have a very bad effect on the overall health of a person and especially on the nervous system.

Has it ever occurred to you that you spent all your day in front of the screen and at night you didn’t sleep well?

Well, this happens and it is a reaction of the body and the nervous system when you put your eyes under a constant state of strain.

Every individual has one common sensitive part of the body and that is the eye.

Eyes are very very sensitive and sometimes even a small injury in the eye can lead you to chronic ocular diseases.

Also, sometimes the situations get so worse that it leads you to permanent vision loss.

Now, we all know the fact that injuries are inevitable but what we can do is that we can protect our eyes from the other dangerous elements around us.

Speaking of the dangers, one of the most common thing that can destroy our eyes is the light coming out of our screens. 

The Light Of The Screen

Not many are aware of the fact that the light coming out of our devices and laptops etc is also known as blue light and it is the most dangerous light, especially at the night time.

Why at night is a question that everyone asks, you see what actually happens is that at night time, everything around you is dark and the light around you is kept dim on the other hand if you are going to use your mobile phone or laptop with a dim light around you then automatically it will put double strain on your eyes than the daytime, this is where the problem begins.

Extra strain means the disturbed nervous system and hence all your body functions especially your sleep gets really disturbed.

The Solution

The need of the hour is that people should now start paying heed to their eyes and their protection.

You cannot just simply carry on with by destroying your vision because when you reach your 60’s you will then start facing some serious vision problems.

Now there are several ways we can protect our eyes from this light and we are now going to jot down some of the basic ones, so make sure you note down what we are about to tell you.

Change the color of your screen, the easiest color on your eyes can be dark text on a light background.

For example, your eyes can be at their maximum comfort if you use a black colored text on a white background.

You can change the color of both the text and the background by just keeping one thing in mind that the text should always be darker.

Another solution is to use blue light filters for your screens such as Iris.

Iris is currently the most popular blue light filter that can help you in reducing the strain on your eyes to a whole another level.

Iris is one intelligent software that works by adjusting the light of your screen in accordance with the light around you.

Moreover, with it, you can a variety of options to choose from and see which color makes your eyes more comfortable.

If you are someone who genuinely cares about his or her vision then we suggest you to give Iris a try once and the results will be in front of you.

The post What Color is Easier on the Eyes at Night? appeared first on 💡👨‍💻 Iris - Software for Eye protection, Health and Productivity 🛌👀.

Mental and physical health is an important thing to be taken care of but now it is high time that we all start talking about eye health too.

There is a huge number of people who are falling victim to some terrible ocular diseases and there even are a few people who have permanently lost their vision.

We all know the fact that eyes are the most sensitive part of the body yet we don’t pay much heed to this topic and we continue to be careless about our eyes.

But again, it is high time that people should start worrying about their vision too because let’s face it, a man half dies within himself if he can’t see.

So, before things start getting worse let’s spread awareness and talk about those factors that are destroying our eyes.

Where The Problem Begins

It is an undeniable fact that we spend half of our day on laptops and phones and mostly we use these devices at night when we get free from all the daily routine work.

Well, you see that is where all the problem lies, at night there is no natural light present around you and everything is dark and dim, this is the time when the blue light puts extra strain on your eyes and that strain then goes straight up to your nervous system and hence you lose the ability to focus on certain things and also, you don’t get to have a sound sleep at night.

In a nutshell, all of the problems start with the excessive exposure of the blue light to the eye.

What Can Be Done?

Now you might be wondering what exactly can be done in order to avoid the damage of the blue light to the eyes.

Well, this is the time when you can use the computer glasses for protection purpose.

These computer glasses are basically tinted glasses that come in two basic colors, brown and yellow and these glasses are known to be magical because they block the blue light from entering the eyes directly.

With the help of these glasses, you can easily use your mobile phones and your laptops all night long without harming your eyes in any way.

Another alternative that can save your eyes from the light of your screen is the blue light filter.

These filters are available online and you can easily download them on your phones and on your computer screens too.

Now, among all the other blue light filters, the one that comes on top is Iris.

How Iris Works?

Iris is one of the best blue light filter software because it comes with several special features and controls that can actually reduce the strain on your eyes.

Moreover, Iris is more of a 3 in 1 solution because firstly it can help in reducing the strain on your eyes, secondly, it can help you in having a sound sleep at night and thirdly, it reduces eye pain too.

So, yes you can say that it is the best software. The best part about this blue light filter is that it is available for both, Android and PC so no matter what device you are using, you can install the software at any moment and start using it to protect your eyes.

Currently, there are thousands of people who are using Iris and the results are really positive so if you also want to focus on the health of your eyes then we suggest you try this software right at the moment because it will give you some very positive results.

The post Do Computer Glasses Really Work? appeared first on 💡👨‍💻 Iris - Software for Eye protection, Health and Productivity 🛌👀.

What Is The One Thing That Is Missing On Your Windows?

Have you installed the best version of Windows in your computer?

Have you done your best to set all of its features and functions as per your requirement?

Well, if yes then wait for a while and think of what one thing is missing in your Windows and while you are trying to figure it all out, think of your eyes and their protection.

If you haven’t yet guessed the answer then don’t worry because here we are to answer your and tell you all the necessary detail that you should know.

What Is F.lux?

Your Windows and your computer is basically missing the F.lux software and you need to download it as soon as you can.

F.lux is an amazing graphical display that shows the current position of the Sun. Yes, you read it right, this software is made all intelligent and it is extremely useful for someone who wants to protect his eyes.

The best part about this software is that it can adjust the brightness of your screen according to the night and day time and even you can control the brightness by yourself according to what suits your eyes the most.

F.lux comes with features that you’ve never even thought of, with it you can easily do the color sensitive work without worrying about changing the brightness of the screen.

The use of this software depends upon your use of the computer in the office, make sure that you are using the computer in a place where the light doesn’t change much so that f.lux can do its job properly.

If you are someone who genuinely cares about his eyes and wants to protect them from the damage of blue light then you need to download this software right at the moment.

You see not only F.lux can be a life-saver for you in fact, there are plenty of other applications and softwares too that can put a filter on the blue light of your screens.

For example, Iris, it is also an amazing and outstanding software that can put a shield between your eyes and the blue light of your screen which is the need of the hour. 

How Does Iris Work?

Iris works by adjusting the blue light of your screen as per the light around you so that the screen light can appear natural to your eyes and the sharpness of it won’t irritate your eye.

You see, when too much blue light is exposed to your eyes, it becomes difficult for you to have a sound sleep at night but with Iris things are totally different and by using this filter you can have a good and sound sleep because there is no strain or stress on your eyes throughout the day and that is exactly what Iris specializes in.

Moreover with Iris you will never again feel stressed out or tired even if you have been using the screen all day long because Iris makes your screen and the light coming out of it so natural that it is not at all disturbing for your eyes and especially, your retina gets filtered blue light which is what you need to protect your eyes.

So, do try Iris for once and you will be impressed by the magic with which it comes.

The post Download F.lux For Windows appeared first on 💡👨‍💻 Iris - Software for Eye protection, Health and Productivity 🛌👀.

We have become more social, yet we do not know that what is happening in the house that is next to us.

There are millions of friends available on our social profiles, yet thousands of individuals are suffering from stress because they do not have anyone to take talk.

You might have been one of those and this is the reason that we need a cure for wellness more than anyone else.

Technology is damaging our health

We call this era the age of technology.

Science is innovating at a such a fast pace that it often gets hard for the humans to stay with it.

Every day something new is introduced in the market.

Since the introduction of the first computer, we have been working hard to assure that it will be used in every home and now every person has a computer in his or her hands in the form of smartphones.

We are not able to take our computers anywhere we like in the form of portable laptops.

We all know that in the present age computer is the biggest necessity because it is used in every organization whether it is a business, hospital or educational institute.

We have been thinking that technology is helping us to succeed.

Technological gadgets have been helping us to complete our tasks in limited time and we can control our business from any part of the world.

However, what we do not understand is that this technology is also one of the biggest reason that we are suffering from various health issues.

You should know that the blue light that is emitted from our phones and laptops is our biggest enemy and here is how.

Effect on eyes

When we use technological devices like smartphones and laptops we often do not pay attention that a particular blue light is emitted from the screens.

When this light reaches our eyes, it causes a stress.

During the day this light might not be very effective but at night we prefer to use our devices with a high level of brightness and it is the time when our eyes are poorly affected.

The light affects the eyes in different ways and it is the cause of different eye issues that we have been suffering from.

Pain

The worst effects of the blue light are the pain that you will have to deal with.

When you will stop using the device you will notice that there will be a stinging situation in your eyes.

Your eyes will be drier because of the continuous work and exposure to the blue light.

In the beginning, the pain will have a minor effect but if you will not take proper care of your eyes it can increase and lead to other major issues.

Most of the people say that sometimes at night the pain is not tolerable, and it becomes hard for them to sleep.

Sight will be disturbed

Eyesight is very important for every individual because without eyesight we cannot experience the beauty of the world.

Blue light can severely affect your eyesight.

You will be surprised to know that you can suffer from long-sightedness and short-sightedness because of the blue light.

It means that you will have to wear glasses all day.

An important thing that you have to consider is that if you will not start wearing glasses on time there are chances you will suffer from several headaches.

Most of the people have complained that because of the irregular use of technological devices now they are suffering from a continuous headache that makes it hard for them to work.

Insomnia

One of the worst situations that you will have to deal with because of the blue light is insomnia.

• When you will see the screen it will keep your brain active all the time
• Your system will be stressed because the muscles will be working all the time
• Within few days you will find it hard to fall asleep
• The lack of sleep will soon cause insomnia and it will lead to other health issues and the most common one is anxiety.

Lack of productivity

When you will suffer from a headache and pain in your eyes it will reduce your productivity.

The reason is that you wake up strong and healthy in the morning.

As soon as you will start working you will notice a weak sensation of pain in your eye and head, within few hours this pain will increase and it will become hard for you to accomplish your task.

You should know that when you will not be able to accomplish your tasks on time it will affect your productivity.

Due to lack of your performance, there are chances that the heads will fire you from the post because your inefficiency is disturbing their growth and revenue.

Inability to concentrate

Concentration is very important whether you are preparing a presentation or working on your school project.

There are many individuals that are suffering from lack of concentration only because they are unable to sleep at night and there is a continuous pain in the head and eyes.

Due to this pain, it is hard for them to concentrate on the given tasks.

Apart from that, when they will take any kind of painkiller or medication for the pain there are chances that they will fall asleep because they will be revealed from the pain that they are suffering from.

Using technology is important but it would be better if you could control your usage.

Increases stress

We all know that when a person is unable to complete the task by the given deadline the only thing that he will suffer from is stress.

There are many individuals that are suffering from stress only because they have been unable to complete the projects and now there are chances that their company will lose a major project.

There might be other reasons behind this issue but we all know that one of the most common causes of the excessive utilization of the screens that lead to a headache and pain in the eyes.

When the muscles of the eyes are strained they cause stress ins muscles and nerves around them.

There are many individuals that are looking for a cure for wellness to assure that they can get rid of these issues and increase their productivity once again.

Nothing can be better than Iris and here we have everything you need to know about the software.

Iris is your Cure for Wellness against technology

When you will go online you will notice that there are many high-tech applications that have been developed with the sole purpose to protect your eyes from the blue light.

You will be amazed to now that most of them failed because they were not properly developed or they were fake developed only to waste the time and money of the individuals.

In order to assure that your eye will be protected and you will not have to deal with the side effects that come with the blue light, Iris has been developed.

It is the latest and high-tech software that will meet all your requirements when it comes to using the software.

It has been developed with the latest codes and algorithms that make it better than the rest.

This is the reason that there are many other applications available online but none of them have been able to meet the standards set by Iris.

You might have been wondering that what makes it so special.

The reason is that developers of Iris have done a complete research on the blue light and how it is affecting our eyesight.

After that, they started to work on the solution to assure that people can keep using their technological devices but at the same time they will not have to deal with the side effects that come with the blue light.

In order to give the users best results the prototype of designed and tested several times to assure that it will never disappoint the users.

Everything used in the Iris is latest and the developers are working on the interface.

They are upgrading the technology on regular basis to assure that you will not have to suffer from any illegal activities while using the software.

You might have been wondering that how Iris is the cure for wellness.

Here we have all the benefits that you will get from the system.

Protection for your eyes

The first benefit that you will get by using iris is protection for your eyes. The main purpose of development of iris was to assure that people will not have to suffer from the pain that they have been dealing with. It is the cure for wellness because when you will start using iris you will not have to suffer from any issues. In the beginning it might become hard for you to adjust your eyes according to the technology, however, once you get used to it, you will feel like it is your perfect protection partner and you will have it in all your devices and technological gadgets with screens.

No more eye strain

As already mentioned that a common cause of pain in the eye is strain created on the muscles due to which it a headache begins. There is a special adjustment system in the iris due to which the light emitting from your laptop screen will never reach your eyes. It means that you will not have to deal with the side effects of the blue light. You will feel the same fresh eyes as they were in the morning. There will be nothing to worry about stress that might affect the eyesight.

Improve sleep

One of the biggest benefits that you will get by using iris is that it will help you to improve your sleep. Within few days of utilization, you will notice that it will be easier for you to fall asleep at night. All you have to do is make sure that you stop using your devices at least 2 hours before going to bed because iris can help you keep your eyes relaxed, but it will not affect the activity of your brain. With iris and proper rest to the brain, you will have the best sleep at night that will enhance your productivity and efficiency.

Automatic adjustments

The biggest attraction of iris and the feature that make sit the perfect cure for wellness is the automatic adjustment feature. When we go out we often increase the brightness of our phones but when we get back we forget to reduce it due to which it does not only affects the eyes but also reduce the efficiency of the device that we are using. With the help of Iris, you will not have to deal with this issue again. It will automatically adjust the brightness of your screen according to the light outside. It means that your eyes will be protected from the blue light and the strain of brightness in the most effective way.

Different modes available

Most of you might have been wondering that iris is very expensive and it will be hard for you to afford. However, the good news is that it is available at the most affordable rate.

There are two different modes of the product available Iris and Iris Pro.

You can have the one that meets your requirements and budget perfectly.

Once you will start using the iris you will notice that how easy it is to use and you will declare it as a cure for wellness yourself.

Iris as Cure for Wellness

Iris is the platform that has been developed as your cure for wellness.

Make sure that you start using it before it is too late.

It is acceptable that technology is an important part of our life but it does not mean that you should let it ruin your life.

Stop wasting your time and download Iris today on your device.

The post Cure for Wellness appeared first on 💡👨‍💻 Iris - Software for Eye protection, Health and Productivity 🛌👀.

Welcome to Iris!
There is Iris here
https://iristech.co/iris/
There is Iris there
https://iristech.co/iris-mini/
And basically everywhere.

Say Iris, Iris, Iris,
Iris everywhere.

Protect your eyes,
For every size
You get a sweet surprise.

With Iris, you can sleep like kid,
And everyone will ask you what you did.

The post Iris Iris Iris appeared first on 💡👨‍💻 Iris - Software for Eye protection, Health and Productivity 🛌👀.

Iris started as a student project for one competition and I want to thank my friends with whom we created the first version of Iris. Thanks to Alex Dimitrov, Bojidar Giorev, Martin Simeonov, Martin Kirilov and Cvetelin Marinov. Although Iris today has almost nothing in common with the original idea of blink reminding and the other guys are working in top positions in their companies together we placed really solid foundation. Special thanks to Alex for the initial logo and app design. Yes, he is the guy who made the green Iris logo.

Thanks to Start it smart for giving me head start into entrepreneurship. When I was 17 years old this guys totally changed my thinking and gave me so much with their Pre-accelerator program. Although my 3D printer business failed back then they introduced me to so many successful people and I managed to switch from the guy who was rowing in the woods whole day to a guy who thinks how to solve problems.

My knowledge in programming is thanks to Telerik academy and my high school TUES. I was really lucky to have some great teachers and to be free to pursue my interests not worrying about finishing school. When I was sportsmen I skipped almost all classes, but my school was really open for this and didn’t make me much of a problem.

Thanks to all of my teachers and coaches. Sport play really important role in my life. I spend my entire childhood training and I don’t regret anything. I managed to make so many friends, I won a lot of competitions, I learned discipline and build the foundation of my attitude towards life. If there was one thing which make me who am I today this is sport. Special thanks also to my family. Our opinions and lives are different on so many levels, but they did a great job making me a good human being.

Character traits and other things aside if it wasn’t for so many people who spread the word about Iris only I would use it today. There are so many people who tell friends about Iris. Even you are one of them. Some of the text will be in Bulgarian, but this is why in all started from here.

TODO add more info for each person

International

Ben Greenfield, Joseph Mercola, Uroš Bole

Boomer Anderson, David Krantz, Josh Trent, Karen Urbanek

Latin America

Christian de la Cruz

Bulgaria

Danail Dochev, Lazar Radkov, Georgi Nenov, Lilyana Shapkadjieva, Svetlin Nakov, Blagoy Cicelkov, Milena Encheva, Irena Rasheva, Andrea Ioveva, Spisanie 8, Bogomil Shopov

Desislava Kostova, Georgi Asparuhov

Czech

Chip Czech Republic

Users

Julian Bos, Anissa Jones, Valentin Kirilov, John Heeter, Denis Gerber, Sergio Diaz, Colton Parker, Ming Shao

Giveaway

Nicholas from Giveaway of the Day

Kent and Ashraf from SharewareOnSale

Julia Romanchenko from Giveaway Club

Translation

Laurent Huguet – French translation

Sven Rose – German translation

D Cunningham, Janusz Buda – Grammar checking

Sergey Hristov – Bulgarian translation and Grammar checking

The post Credits appeared first on 💡👨‍💻 Iris - Software for Eye protection, Health and Productivity 🛌👀.

Ben Greenfield

https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/2016/09/what-is-the-healthiest-computer-monitor/
https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/2016/09/transcript-what-is-the-healthiest-computer-monitor/
https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/2017/02/what-is-the-healthiest-lighting/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uguizXgCT6g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwG8MKKWgSo
https://www.facebook.com/BGFitness/videos/10155409611279179

Dr. Mercola

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2016/10/23/near-infrared-led-lighting.aspx
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2016/12/01/blue-leds-confuse-brain.aspx
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2016/12/22/dim-light-exposure-during-sleep-harmful-effects.aspx
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2017/02/05/therapeutic-use-of-full-spectrum-light-improve-health.aspx
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2017/02/01/improve-nearsightedness-with-the-help-of-sunshine.aspx

Jamie G Ward

http://jamiegward.com/2016/08/14/2-dr-jack-kruse-mitochondria-sunglight-quantum-biology/

Glarminy

https://glarminy.com/2015/07/30/10-blue-light-filters-to-relieve-computer-eye-strain-help-you-sleep-better-etc/
https://glarminy.com/2015/04/23/10-ways-to-change-background-color-reduce-screen-brightness/
https://glarminy.com/best-blue-light-filter-app-visual-comfort-iris-flux/

Podcasts

http://www.biohackerslab.com/ep20-daniel-georgiev/

Softpedia

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Desktop-Enhancements/Other-Desktop-Enhancements/Iris-Pro.shtml
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Desktop-Enhancements/Other-Desktop-Enhancements/Iris-Daniel-Georgiev.shtml
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Desktop-Enhancements/Other-Desktop-Enhancements/Iris-Micro.shtml

Product Hunt

https://www.producthunt.com/posts/iris-mini

https://www.producthunt.com/posts/iris-96099dd8-2a53-4a39-a83f-072074ec7d0c

TaiMienPhi

http://taimienphi.vn/download-iris-pro-32996

http://taimienphi.vn/download-iris-mini-for-mac-65727

The post Reviews appeared first on 💡👨‍💻 Iris - Software for Eye protection, Health and Productivity 🛌👀.

You get % from the sales you reffer to the Iris website.[svtimeline][/svtimeline]

For more info see this page
https://iristech.co/partners/affiliates/

The post Affiliates appeared first on 💡👨‍💻 Iris - Software for Eye protection, Health and Productivity 🛌👀.

It’s so ugly, but it was so light and functional and minimalistic. This was the time that I was searching for the first users. I remember how hard we worked and I was publishing new version every day. In fact we worked so hard that this is how Iris 0.1.4 looked on March 23rd, 2015

Yep, for 16 days we built 16 versions. In fact the other guys was like
– Dude we don’t need to build version every day
and I was like
– We need to be more faster than this. We are too slow. We need to work harder.
I guess I was really pain in the ass to work with.

The be honest the first month there was only one user and this was me. The next month I started to do marketing. Marketing for me in this early days was going to all kinds of articles about eye strain and writing comments. If I found somewhere the e-mail of the people in the comments I also wrote them an e-mail.

The first e-mail about Iris that I send was on April 4th, 2015

As you can guess nobody answered me, but I was persistent and after a month Iris had 10 users. They were actually some of my Facebook friends, because I was posting every day in Facebook and some decided to try it.

I actually have no idea why I did this promotion when Iris was free back then. There wasn’t even donate button. I guess I just wanted to help some people with eye strain.

After we failed to win our student competition the team broke apart. I really wanted to continue working on Iris, but after going to all the investors they all told us that the project is stupid and nobody is going to use it and there’s nothing for them to pay in it.

As every crazy person with an idea I didn’t wanted to listen to them and proposed to the other people in the team to leave our jobs and with our savings to make Iris. Well you probably know their answer and in there defense I will say that Iris was really strange project back then with no future at all.

A couple of months passed and nobody was using Iris, but the website was still working. Then something happened.

Julian first wrote me on May 4th, 2015

And 15 minutes later I made him a promise that I will add Automatic brightness for him to Iris. I am not sure when, but some of this days we said that the project is dead.

On May 29th, 2015 Julian wrote to me again to ask me if the feature is ready. I told him that Iris is dead.

But something was bugging me from the inside a couple of hours latter. I was keep telling myself
– You made him a promise. Is your word not worth anything?

I became angry at myself that I failed again and I just opened my laptop and started to make the new feature. After some time I send him this e-mail

This night I make promise to myself and decided to continue Iris alone. I made a promise that I will make Iris work or I am going to die trying. This time there will be no shortcuts and other options.

Back then Iris was free and I just made it to solve my eye problem, but after this point I decided to make a business out of it.

I quit my job, dropout of school and put my entire future and life energy into Iris. I don’t need to tell you that everyone thought I am crazy back then.

On August 9th, 2015 I wrote to the website that Iris is in active development again

I also wrote to every user to personally contact me for every minor bug and for everything. Later I learned that the same Julian promoted Iris in some Dutch website and brought so many new people to use Iris

Compared to now, it’s really small amount of views, but back then I was super grateful and so happy

This months was just hard hard work, no sleep and more hard work. I was trying everything to promote Iris somehow, but unsuccessfully.

I did some presentations and make one article which became a bit popular in my country.

I made my first sale on November 10th, 2015

And in my first year of Iris this was also my only sale. I made 10$ for a year of non-stop work. I still remember how happy I was and I was jumping for several minutes in my room.

This was a period of time when I was really hungry. The only money I made was from selling Google Cardboard and some other Chinese things I bought online and I used the money to buy a little food.

When I left my job I had $6000 in by bank account and I managed to survive a year with this money. Don’t ask me how, it was hard. In fact this was the hardest thing in my life. I paid only rent and food. All my expenses were cut to minimum, I didn’t go outside, I lost all my social life and I was eating only the most cheapest food.

Looking back it doesn’t look so bad, but this was probably the lowest point in my life and I learned to value every penny.

On Christmas time I was sitting alone writing answers to questions in Quora trying to promote Iris somehow and on December 26th, 2015 I wrote an answer to Is C++ for Game Development only?

This answer became really popular and for couple of weeks it made over 100 000 views. Some people bought Iris again.

After this point I knew that maybe I can make it, I just needed to work harder. I guess this is a good time to tell about the business model or the licensing. I don’t remember exact dates, but Iris was free and donation based for almost a year.

I thought that people will love the program and donate some cash and I can make a small living out of it. You know I never wanted to me a millionaire or something I just wanted to work on Iris full-time.

What happened in reality I get exactly 0$ donations for it. At this point I didn’t had any money left from my saving and I knew that I need to change something.

In September, 2015 I make Iris to be free for one month and then to be subscription based for every month to be 10$. I thought, “Ok use it and if you like it you can support the project my giving 10$ every month”. I knew that this is not going to make Iris popular, but my point was that I needed only 100 people to pay and with 1000$ a month I will be good.

Well I didn’t managed to wait for the end of the month, but nobody paid again, so I started to think of new licensing model again. Then I came with the brilliant idea Iris to be free for 4 hours per day and if you want more you can buy 1 month of usage or 744 hours for 10$. I thought that this will be super awesome, because unlike most other companies it depends on you how much you will pay.

If you don’t use your computer much you can use this 1 month of usage for a year or more. Well this is the model that clicked and the first sales from Iris was from it. Later when more non-technical people started to using Iris they started cursing me greedy I’m, because they just didn’t understand the payment model.

This was until I made Iris mini at August, 2016 to be 2$ lifelong and so many people loved the program.

As more and more people was telling me that they want to use Iris, but it’s to expensive for them at first I was like “This is ok, I just want to make 100 users, they have Iris mini lifelong and free which is nice alternative”, but one day I just decided,

“My goal is to help the maximum amount of people right? Then I will make Iris free, but I also need somehow to make a living so I will make some pro features like in Iris mini.”

At this point somewhere in the end of 2016 I made Iris also free and Iris Pro which is 10$ for lifelong license. I was happy, because people started to also be happy. The ones who didn’t wanted to pay anything was just using the free version and the ones who wanted to support the project bought license.

I blocked the Business model in one section, but let’s get back to December, 2015.

There is so much more to say, but I’m going to leave it here right now.

This was the beginning of Iris.
TODO LinkedIn, Articles, TV, Magazines

The post Roadmap appeared first on 💡👨‍💻 Iris - Software for Eye protection, Health and Productivity 🛌👀.

If I don’t like Iris will I get a refund?

Yes, we have a company rule to always refund money if somebody is unhappy with Iris.

We will also probably delete the activation code since it’s not fair if you like and use Iris but want a refund.

I tried to summarize all questions related to your buying protection at this Buying Agreement.

In short, we always refund money and try to provide the best possible service.

Up until now, we don’t have not even one unhappy customer so we try really hard to be good and helpful.

If you don’t believe me, see the reviews on our Facebook page.

Types of Licenses

Aside from the free models of Iris, there are several different kinds of licenses that you can buy:

• Lifelong without updates
• Subscription for all products
• Lifelong including updates

I will try to explain them in the simplest possible way now.

All these licenses are valid for 1 device at a time.

You can move the activation code if you buy a new computer but 1 activation code is for 1 PC.

If you want to use Iris or Iris mini at more than 1 device at a time there are subscription options.

Lifelong without updates

With this license, you can buy Iris and use it forever but when there is a new version if you want to update you need to pay again.

I provide minor builds and bug fixes if I find something wrong.

I will also probably send you a new code if you have some bug which is fixed in the newest version.

You don’t need to pay again for anything and this is 1-time purchase.

You are also not forced to update if there is a new version.

You can use your old version as long as you want.

Think of this license option like something between a subscription and lifelong including updates.

Subscription

If you buy a subscription license basically you have a recurring payment every month or year and you have a code that you can use on all Iris products.

You can cancel the subscription at any time and the code will expire at the end of the period.

You can move the code to new machines and everything else.

You will also get all future new versions and updates for free.

Lifelong including updates

Basically buy once and use forever.

This is a one-time payment and you will get all future updates for free.

You can again move the code to new machines.

You will also get all new versions and updates for free.

This is not a recurring payment and you pay only once.

Payment methods

Currently, you can pay with Credit/Debit card via PayPal or 2Checkout.

PayPal is the easiest and preferred method.

If you don’t want to pay via PayPal the 2Checkout payment options will allow you to pay only by entering the numbers on your Credit/Debit card.

2Checkout doesn’t require any registrations but it asks you for more details like Address and your Names.

Iris is a digital product and you will get an activation code not something shipped to you but this is required from regulators.

You can also pay with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies if you like but this is not automated and you may need to wait for activation code a little because I create them by hand.

How to Buy?

You can see the Buy menu at the top of every page but I’m also leaving you all options here:

• Buy Iris
• Buy Subscription
• Buy with PayPal
• Buy with Debit/Credit card

These pages are mostly related to Iris, but if you want to buy Iris mini you can do this from here:

• Buy with PayPal
• Buy with Debit/Credit card

If you want to buy Vision you can do this from here:

• Buy Vision

All other products on this website are free at the moment.

You can find info about all the products on the Models page.

The post Licensing appeared first on 💡👨‍💻 Iris - Software for Eye protection, Health and Productivity 🛌👀.

Color Psychology: The Color White

• purity
• innocence
• cleanliness
• sense of space
• neutrality
• mourning (in some cultures/societies)

Color Psychology: The Color Black

• authority
• power
• strength
• evil
• intelligence
• thinning / slimming
• death or mourning

Color Psychology: The Color Gray

• neutral
• timeless
• practical

Color Psychology: The Color Red

• love
• romance
• gentle
• warmth
• comfort
• energy
• excitement
• intensity
• life
• blood

Color Psychology: The Color Orange

• happy
• energetic
• excitement
• enthusiasm
• warmth
• wealth prosperity
• sophistication
• change
• stimulation

Color Psychology: The Color Yellow

• happiness
• laughter
• cheery
• warmth
• optimism
• hunger
• intensity
• frustration
• anger
• attention-getting

Color Psychology: The Color Green

• natural
• cool
• growth
• money
• health
• envy
• tranquility
• harmony
• calmness
• fertility

Color Psychology: The Color Blue

• calmness
• serenity
• cold
• uncaring
• wisdom
• loyalty
• truth
• focused
• un-appetizing

Color Psychology: The Color Purple

• royalty
• wealth
• sophistication
• wisdom
• exotic
• spiritual
• prosperity
• respect
• mystery

Color Psychology: The Color Brown

• reliability
• stability
• friendship
• sadness
• warmth
• comfort
• security
• natural
• organic
• mourning (in some cultures/societies)

Color Psychology: The Color Pink

• romance
• love
• gentle
• calming
• agitation

The post Color Therapy appeared first on 💡👨‍💻 Iris - Software for Eye protection, Health and Productivity 🛌👀.

TODO

The post Glossy or Matte Display appeared first on 💡👨‍💻 Iris - Software for Eye protection, Health and Productivity 🛌👀.

With this article I will help you with the process to your Kindle into monitor. I will try to automate as much things as possible at the future, but the 1 thing I just can’t automate is Jailbreaking.

You need to Jailbreak your Kindle to use it as Monitor. I just want to note that this void your warranty, but it’s worth it.

To motivate you a little, this is a picture of my Kindle right now

On your Kindle side, you need to:

1. Jailbreak your Kindle
2. Install USB Network on your Kindle
3. Install Kindle VNC Viewer on your Kindle
4. Start USB Networking on your Kindle

This are the things that will be hard to me to automate and at the momment you need to read the tutorials and do it yourself.

On your PC side, you need to:

1. Install VNC Server on your PC
2. Configure Networking on your PC
3. Establish a Telnet Connection to your Kindle
4. Start VNC Viewer on your Kindle

All this things I will automate and they will be part of Iris and it will be just 1 click. At the momment for the eager ones I just write tutorials on how to do it by hand.

After the last step you will see your monitor contents on your Kindle. For any questions write to me.

Daniel 🙂

The post E-ink appeared first on 💡👨‍💻 Iris - Software for Eye protection, Health and Productivity 🛌👀.

If somebody wants I can make also a tutorial for DIY. At the momment it just uses LED strip and Arduino.

The idea is that by making constant illumination we will reduce the time for the eye muscles to respond from 3 minutes to 1 minute and this will greatly reduce the stress of your eyes.

There is also cool increase of the vision field and it will look like your monitor is bigger which is cool

You can see Iris backlight in action in this video.

[fbvideo link=”https://www.facebook.com/1506836949/videos/10205676034649272/” width=”500″ height=”400″ onlyvideo=”1″]

The post Backlight appeared first on 💡👨‍💻 Iris - Software for Eye protection, Health and Productivity 🛌👀.

In this article I will try to explain Why yawning and will propose some solutions for yawning reminding.

I personally think that yawning reminding is overkill, but if somebody wants them I will add them to Iris 🙂

Yawning is contagious. Even as I write about yawning I started to yawn which is nice. If you are reading this article about yawning you will probably yawn too.

This makes me happy, because even if you don’t use Iris, your eyes will be better lubricated during the next several minutes.

Let’s start with some super awesome video from ASAP science. I personally like their videos a lot

TODO

The post Yawning appeared first on 💡👨‍💻 Iris - Software for Eye protection, Health and Productivity 🛌👀.

Panic Shortcuts

This can be disabled only with a hidden feature and are used for force quit or reset Iris if the screen becomes black or unusable

Ctrl+Alt+F10 – Reset Iris settings

Ctrl+Alt+F11 – Quit Iris

Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F12 – Reset Iris colors

Note: In versions prior 1.2.2 the shorcuts were Ctrl+Alt+Shift+1,2,3

Other Shortcuts

This can be customized from the Shortcuts page

Ctrl+Alt+↑

Increase the Color Temperature by 500K. The key is called Up Arrow and it’s located next to the Num pad.

Ctrl+Alt+↓

Increase the Color Temperature by 500K. The key is called Down Arrow and it’s located next to the Num pad.

Ctrl+Alt+PgUp

Increase the Brightness by 10%. The key is called Page Up and it’s located next to the Num pad

Ctrl+Alt+PgDown

Decrease the Brightness by 10%. The key is called Page Down and it’s located next to the Num padCtrl+Alt+Page Up

Ctrl+Alt+Home

Enables Screen Overlay. Screen Overlay is useful for part screen Blue light and Brightness reduction. For example when you work with colors to select the affected screen area.

If you press this shortcut again you can select area for the Screen overlay by Left click and dragging the mouse.

Ctrl+Alt+End

Disables Screen Overlay. Screen Overlay is useful for part screen Blue light and Brightness reduction. For example when you work with colors to select the affected screen area.

Ctrl+Alt+R

Toggles Screen effects ON and OFF.

Ctrl+Alt+P

Pause or Unpause Iris

Ctrl+Alt+T

Pause or Unpause the Timer. This will not change the timer type, it will only stop the timer from showing rest screen. When unpaused timer type will be restored to the last set value.

Ctrl+Alt+M

Switch between Manual and Automatic mode

Ctrl+Alt+Enter

Have a rest now. Will do different things depending on which Timer mode is selected.

Ctrl+Alt+Esc

Quit Iris

Ctrl+Alt+Plus(+)

Zoom in the Screen. This is the Plus sign on the Num pad. The Plus sign on the main keyboard will not work. Works only on Windows currently.

Ctrl+Alt+Minus(-)

Zoom out the Screen. Works only on Windows currently. This is the Minus sign on the Num pad. The Minus sign on the main keyboard will not work. Works only on Windows currently.

The post Shortcuts appeared first on 💡👨‍💻 Iris - Software for Eye protection, Health and Productivity 🛌👀.

I spend the last couple of months researching and studying fonts technology. In this article I will present the things I learned about fonts, what fonts are best for our eyes and why.

Different font renderings packed with Iris. Click to enlarge.

Shortly

While reading on the computer try to avoid serif fonts. Times New Roman is common serif font. Curvy design with tiny tails on the ends of letters may slow word recognition and force you to stare harder and longer, contributing to eye fatigue. Sans-serif fonts like Arial and Verdana, which have more spacebetween letters, can make words appear crisper and easier to read from farther away, taxing your vision less.

Windows font rendering called ClearType is better for your eyes than OSX font rendering. However on OSX fonts are more smooth and beautiful. Also they match how the font looks on paper. Other difference is that ClearTyperendering of Asian characters sucks. This is why I integrated in Iris OSX fontsfor Windows.

I didn’t find medical researches on what leads the lowest amonth of eye fatigue. Try different things and see what works best on you. At the moment Iris can help you with easy tweeking of font rendering, but I don’t have enought sciencedata to make something crazy to be the default font rendering.

The difference between ‘Serif’ and ‘Sans-serif’ fonts

Serif fonts have little feet and embellishments on the tip and base of each letter, making them more distinct and recognizable. Popular serif fonts are Times New Roman, Palatino, Georgia, Courier, Bookman and Garamond.

Nearly all books, newspapers, and magazines use a serif font. It’s popularlyaccepted that – in print – serif fonts are easier to read. The idea being that the serifs actually make the letters flow together – and subsequently easier on the eyes.

As the name states, ‘sans-serif’ fonts are fonts without serifs. While some sources say sans-serif fonts have existed since the 5th century BC, it wasn’t until the 1920s that they became somewhat popular – mostly being used inadvertisements.

One of the reasons for their lack of popularity was that typographers stuck with serif fonts because they felt they were easier to read.

It’s been said that serif fonts are for “readability”, while sans-serif fonts are for”legibility.” Which is why, in print, sans-serif fonts are often used as the headlinefont and serif fonts are used for the body text.

Some popular Sans-serif fonts are Helvetica, Arial, Calibri, Century Gothic and Verdana.

Best fonts for print

In his book Cashvertising, Drew Eric Whitman cites a 1986 study of fonts(printed on paper) that found only 12 percent of participants effectively comprehended a paragraph set in sans-serif type versus 67 percent who were given a version set in serif typeface.

Those who read the sans-serif version said they had a tough time reading the text and “continually had to backtrack to regain comprehension.”

In a test of three different fonts, two serifs (Garamond and Times New Roman) and one sans-serif (Helvetica), he found 66 percent were able to comprehendGaramond, 31.5 percent Times New Roman, and 12.5 percent Helvetica (out of a total of 1,010,000 people surveyed).

The conclusion being that serif fonts are easier to read when it comes to fonts on paper. So, if you’re sending out a sales letter or brochure in the mail, you probably want to use serif font (but, as mentioned in the first point, you could use sans-serif font for your headlines).

Here are the print font preferences of three of the copywriting greats:

• Advertising great John Caples liked using Cheltenham Bold for headlines.
• Advertising legend David Ogilvy preferred the Century family, Caslon, Baskerville, and Jenson.
• Direct marketing guru Gary Halbert used Courier in his sales letters.

Best fonts on–screen

Now, one might assume that what works on the printed page will be similar to what works on the computer screen. But that’s not the case.

In order to make the little serifs appear legible, a high degree of resolution isrequired. The more pixels, the more details of the font you can display.

Back 10 or so years ago, the best computer screen resolution was 800 x 600pixels – which wasn’t great for defining the intricacies of a serif font. Screen resolution has increased through the years (resolutions of 1024 x 768 pixels or greater have become the norm). This makes serif fonts more legible but still generally not as easy to read as sans-serif fonts.

Plus, now you have to consider how your site or email will look on handheld devices, such as the Android and iPhone.

So on-screen, the best font to go with is sans-serif.

A 2002 study by the Software Usability and Research Laboratory concludedthat:

” The most legible fonts were Arial, Courier, and Verdana. At 10-point size, participants preferred Verdana. Times New Roman was the least preferred. At12-point size, Arial was preferred and Times New Roman was the least preferred. The preferred font overall was Verdana, and Times New Roman was the least preferred. So here are your marching orders:

• For easiest online reading, use Arial 12-point size and larger.
• If you’re going smaller than 12 points, Verdana at 10 points is your bestchoice.
• If you’re after a formal look, use the font Georgia.
• And for older readers, use at least a 14-point font.

Dr. Ralph F. Wilson, an e-commerce consultant, did a series of tests in 2001. He also came to the conclusion that the sans-serif fonts are more suited to thecomputer screen.

Some of the highlights of the test results were that at 12 points, respondents showed a preference for Arial over Verdana – 53% to 43% (with 4% not being able to distinguish between the two).

Two-thirds of respondents found that Verdana at 12 points was too large for body text, but Verdana at 10 points was voted more readable than Arial at 10 points by a 2 to 1 margin.

In conclusion, for the best font readability, use Arial 12 point or Verdana at 10 points and 9 points for body text. For headlines, he suggests using larger bold Verdana.

Simple font rendering

Well Simple fonts are simple. You can thing of them as pixel fonts. They aresharp and crispy with no blurring. Based on my current research this fonts should be best for our eyes, but it’s not so simple. Simple fonts are difficult to read, but really clear. The clear thing is good, but the difficulty to read them may make them a little eye straining.

Aliased rendering is the most basic and the oldest method where the letters aredrawn by pixels, usually black and white. This method is also called bi-levelrendering, because each pixel is considered to be in one of two possible states: it is either painted or not, belonging either to the text or to its background. Because the method operates with full pixels, it draws round contours with noticeable steps, and if the screen has relatively large pixels, the steps are can be very visible. Aliased rendering can be used on any screen, includingmonochrome displays. All system fonts and web-safe fonts are designed to look good in aliased rendering.

Anti-aliasing

Anti-alising is technique for font smoothing. It makes fonts more easily readable, but a little blurish. This technique is used a lot in computer graphics and well in many places. I think it’s not best for our eyes, because it tricks our brain that the image is more high resolution.

Anti-alising or greyscale antialiasing is where, in addition to black and white,shades of grey are used. This method can be used on any screens capable of displaying gradations of colours, for example, CRT monitors. This approach makes the curves look smoother, but, at the same time, the text looks blurry. Usually, larger fonts, like headers, look better, and the smaller text looks quiteblurry and difficult to read.

Sub-pixel rendering

The third method for font rendering is called sub-pixel anti-aliasing. Tosmoothen the curves and reduce the steps, it uses red, green and bluecomponents of each pixel instead of painting the whole pixels. This is supposedachieve the look as if there were three times as many pixels. This method works with RGB sub-pixel geometry, which most LCD displays have. Each pixel is vertically divided into red, green and blue sub-pixels, and when only a part of a pixel needs to be painted to create a smooth curve, the corresponding sub-pixelis illuminated — this is why the letters get coloured fringes around them.Microsoft named its sub-pixel rendering technology ClearType.

Today this is the used method for font rendering of all modern OS. You can seecomparision of the 3 different methods in the picture above.

Apple versus Microsoft font rendering

Apple and Microsoft have always disagreed in how to display fonts on computer displays. Today, both companies are using sub-pixel rendering to coax sharper-looking fonts out of typical low resolution screens. Where they differ is inphilosophy.

Apple generally believes that the goal of the algorithm should be to preserve thedesign of the typeface as much as possible, even at the cost of a little bit ofblurriness.

Microsoft generally believes that the shape of each letter should be hammered into pixel boundaries to prevent blur and improve readability, even at the costof not being true to the typeface.

Note: To see the following illustration correctly, you need to have an LCD monitor with pixels arranged in R,G,B order, like mine. Otherwise it’s going to look different and wrong.

The difference originates from Apple’s legacy in desktop publishing and graphic design. The nice thing about the Apple algorithm is that you can lay out a page of text for print, and on screen, you get a nice approximation of the finished product. This is especially significant when you consider how dark a block oftext looks.

Microsoft’s mechanism of hammering fonts into pixels means that they don’t really mind using thinner lines to eliminate blurry edges, even though this makes the entire paragraph lighter than it would be in print.

The advantage of Microsoft’s method is that it works better for on-screen reading. Microsoft pragmatically decided that the design of the typeface is not so holy, and that sharp on-screen text that’s comfortable to read is moreimportant than the typeface designer’s idea of how light or dark an entire block of text should feel. Indeed Microsoft actually designed font faces for on-screenreading, like Georgia and Verdana, around the pixel boundaries. These arebeautiful on screen but don’t have much character in print.

Typically, Apple chose the stylish route, putting art above practicality, because Steve Jobs has taste, while Microsoft chose the comfortable route, the measurably pragmatic way of doing things that completely lacks in panache. To put it another way, if Apple was Target, Microsoft would be Wal-Mart.

Web-safe fonts

In the recent past, when designing websites, the designers had to use web-safe fonts — a group of fonts that were designed to look great in any rendering, including aliased. In fact, they look extremely crisp and sharp when displayed with aliasing.

Web-safe fonts are a limited set of very well-crafted fonts specifically developedfor on-screen use, so the display quality and readability of these fonts is outstanding. These fonts were a part of most operating systems and web-designers could use them knowing that the users definitely have them alreadyinstalled and the page will be displayed as intended. These fonts could be easilyrendered in bi-level with every character drawn on the pixel grid using only 2 colours — text colour and background colour, and while pixels were clearly visible on the edges and curves of the characters, the web-safe fonts were veryclear and easy to read on any device with any font rendering settings. These fonts could be rendered with anti-aliased and with sub-pixel methods, for those who prefer “smooth” text. The users had a choice. Anti-aliasing technologies like ClearType has been around for over a decade and was a part of many operating systems like Windows XP, but it could be switched off by the user. And because all websites used web-safe fonts, the users with anti-aliasing switched off could enjoy sharp, nicely rendered text when reading online.

However, web-safe fonts were offering little variety — there are only about 20 of them — because there is only so much flexibility in what could be drawn using 2 colours of bi-level rendering in a square of pixels a character of a certain font size was given. That wasn’t good enough. Many web designers wanted as muchfreedom on the screen as graphic designers and typographers have on paper. And there came web fonts, @font-face, ubiquitous blur, headaches and sore eyes.

Now, thanks to the web font revolution and WOFF (web open font format), web-designers got the freedom to use any fonts they like on their websites. No one is constrained by a small set of web-safe fonts anymore. Now anyone can place any font on a website, and it will look cute and smooth. It doesn’t matter if the user doesn’t have a particular font installed. Any fancy font is automatically downloaded on the “victim’s” computer and displayed in the only way it can be displayed — blurry anti-aliased and sub-pixel rendering.

With the ability to incorporate any font into any webpage and render it smoothly using anti-aliasing, more and more websites are moving away fromweb-safe fonts. They are using fancy smoothed texts without offering a non-blurred alternative for those who prefer to see sharp words and letters. If a user managed to switch anti-aliasing off in their system, the new fancy fonts lookbarely readable without anti-aliasing: they look jagged, pixelated and uneven, because the only fonts that can look good aliased were the limited set of web-fonts. Switching anti-aliasing off in the system makes the text look sharp in software interfaces, documents, menus and other parts of the system, but itdoesn’t help with the web-sites if the designer insisted on a fancy font that has to use anti-aliasing to be rendered. The only way to get rid of the blur is toforce the browser to replace the fancy fonts with web-safe fonts.

Yes, antialiased font-rendering and fancy web-fonts look cute at the first glance.Yes, WOFF brought a huge variety of fonts to the websites. Yes, there are many people who like those smoothly-blurred texts. But, they are also those who don’t. There are those who get visual fatigue, headache and sore eyes fromreading blurred fonts. There are those who want their eyesight to stay good for as long as possible. There are those who dislike, or even hate smooth font rendering. Perhaps, it’s all down to personal perception, perhaps they are in theminority, but who has extra time to waste on slower-reading fonts, or an extrapair of eyes to damage?

The headers and some other design elements may look nice in fancy variety fonts, but what would you rather look at if you need to do a lot of reading:

Perhaps, anti-aliased fonts will look good on very high pixel density screens, one day, when such screens are widely used, because they would need to createless blur to render, but at the moment, on usual displays, it makes text lookworse instead of better. Though, with very high pixel density, aliased rendering will also show very good results.

Left to right: a web-safe font with no anti-aliasing, “smooth” anti-aliased font, and a “fancy” font rendered with anti-aliasing off – the text looks “broken”, the letters are lopsided, have verticals with uneven thickness and some pixelssticking out on the curves.

A word Pixels displayed in a normal font and anti-aliased font, and the same word enlarged 12 times. Coloured “fringes” around anti-aliased text are obvious: it’s uncomfortable to read and harmful to the vision.

Eye soreness experiments

Here is really good experiment from AnnyStudio:

“I have experimented with what’s good and what’s bad for my eyes. Reading a black web-safe font on white background made my eyes tired, not sore, after 4 hours. Reading black anti-aliased text in non-web-safe font of the same size, also on white background, on the same screen, same topic, same line lengths and interline spacing made my eyes tired in 8 minutes, made me feeling dizzy in42 minutes, my eyes became sore in 1 hour and 3 minutes, and the speed of reading was about 20% slower. Reading the same text with anti-aliasing switched off made my eyes tired in 2 hours, but the speed of reading was nearly70% slower!

There are many websites with lots of useful information for reading, but if awebsite doesn’t offer an option to read a good old sharp font and is forcinganti-aliasing on its visitors, I try to find the same information elsewhere. Unless, of course, I manage to switch the blur off.”

How Iris can help?

Iris comes with 4 different font renderings at the moment. You can switchthem easily from the Fonts page.

GDIPP is Apple like font rendering for Windows. It renders asian charactersgreat and also has Apple like font smoothing.

You can see the difference of the different font types in the pictures above.

The post Fonts appeared first on 💡👨‍💻 Iris - Software for Eye protection, Health and Productivity 🛌👀.

In reality, the proverbial “blink of an eye” lasts only a tenth of a second, but that’s all the time needed to clear away dust particles and spread lubricating fluids across the eyeball.

Every time you blink, your eyelids spread a cocktail of oils and mucoussecretions across the surface of the eye to keep your globes from drying out.Blinking also keeps eyes safe from potentially damaging stimuli, such as bright lights and foreign bodies like dust.

So why don’t you notice the world plunging into darkness every two to ten seconds? Scientists have found that the human brain has a talent for ignoringthe momentary blackout.

The very act of blinking suppresses activity in several areas of the brain responsible for detecting environmental changes, so that you experience the world as continuous.

Researches on blinking

We all blink. A lot. The average person blinks some 12-15 times per minute— so frequently that our eyes are closed for roughly 10% of our waking hours overall.

Although some of this blinking has a clear purpose — mostly to lubricate the eyeballs, and occasionally protect them from dust or other debris — scientists say that we blink far more often than necessary for these functions alone. Thus, blinking is physiological riddle.

Why do we do it so darn often? In a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a group of scientists from Japan offers up ananswer to this — that briefly closing our eyes might actually help us to gather our thoughts and focus attention on the world around us.

The researchers came to the hypothesis after noting an interesting fact revealed by previous research on blinking: that the exact moments when we blink aren’tactually random. Although seemingly spontaneous, studies have revealed that people tend to blink at predictable moments.

For someone reading, blinking often occurs after each sentence is finished, while for a person listening to a speech, it frequently comes when the speaker pauses between statements. A group of people all watching the same video tend to blink around the same time, too, when action briefly lags.

As a result, the researchers guessed that we might subconsciously use blinks as a sort of mental resting point, to briefly shut off visual stimuli and allow us tofocus our attention.

To test the idea, they put 10 different volunteers in an fMRI machine and had them watch the TV show “Mr. Bean” (they had used the same show in their previous work on blinking, showing that it came at implicit break points in the video). They then monitored which areas of the brain showed increased or decreased activity when the study participants blinked.

Their analysis showed that when the Bean-watchers blinked, mental activitybriefly spiked in areas related to the default network, areas of the brain that operate when the mind is in a state of wakeful rest, rather than focusing on the outside world.

Momentary activation of this alternate network, they theorize, could serve as a mental break, allowing for increased attention capacity when the eyes are opened again.

To test whether this mental break was simply a result of the participants visual inputs being blocked, rather than a subconscious effort to clear their minds, the researchers also manually inserted “blackouts” into the video at random intervals that lasted roughly as long as a blink.

In the fMRI data, though, the brain areas related to the default network weren’tsimilarly activated. Blinking is something more than temporarily not seeing anything.

It’s far from conclusive, but the research demonstrates that we do enter some sort of altered mental state when we blink — we’re not just doing it to lubricateour eyes. A blink could provide a momentary island of introspective calm in the ocean of visual stimuli that defines our lives.

Why you should blink more?

Ever find that your eyes have an irritated “scratchy” feeling after a long sessionusing the computer? A relatively normal blink rate is 12-15 blinks per minute, but computer users tend to blink much less frequently, more typically around4-5 blinks per minute. Why?

The eyes normally jump around the screen in pattern called a “saccade.” Blinkingdisrupts this pattern and lowers productivity for someone concentrating on an intense visual task, especially when under deadline to get a big project done.Blink less and you get more done… but it can take a toll on your eyes.

A dry, scratchy sensation is a common symptom of dry eyes. Interestingly, insome cases, computer users actually suffer watery eye symptoms due to the fact that the eyes are irritated but the reduced blink rate doesn’t spread thetears effectively.

In conclusion: As we stare at the computer screen or while reading, our blinkrate decreases. We actually blink 66% less while working on the computer. This can make your eyes burn, dry out, turn red or feel itchy.

The 3 types of tears

Before I start to explain about the 3 types of tears I want to share with you thisvideo. It’s about a girl named Iris. Sounds familiar?

Crying is so innate, we produce 10 ounces per day and 30 gallons a year. When it comes to gender, it seems more women compared to men are shedding tears. Women cry an average of 5.3 times a month, while men cry an average of 1.3times per month, according to a 2011 study published in the Journal of Research in Personality.

Researchers believe this is because women are biologically wired to shed more tears than men, since female tear glands are much smaller than men’s.

Regardless of gender, we actually all cry every second of our lives and produce the same types of tears. The lacrimal gland, located in the outer part of theupper eye, is constantly secreting a protein-rich, antibacterial liquid. This fluidgoes from the outer edge of the eyeball toward the cornea and lubricates theentire eye surface every time we blink.

The crying we are all familiar with is when excess liquid overwhelms the drainsof the nasal canal of the tear duct, which overflows and falls down our cheeks.

Basal tears

Basal tears are always in our eyes to serve the purpose of lubricating,nourishing, and protecting the eyes. Basal tears keep our eyes lubricated, which is important in preventing damage by air currents and bits of floating debris.

Reflex tears

The second type of tears, known as reflex or irritant tears, protect the eyes from irritants, including wind, smoke, or onions. Irritant tears (or reflex tears) are produced when the eyes are hit by wind or sand (or insects or rocks). Bothbasal and irritant tears have the same goal: protecting the eyes.

Emotional tears

Lastly, the third type are those that are produced by emotion. Although these tears contain higher levels of stress hormones, such as ACTH and enkephalin — an endorphin and natural pain killer — they can also work by directly calmingthe iris down while signaling the emotional state to others.

Emotional tears are secreted in moments of intense feeling – sometimes joy, but more often sorrow. They contain stress hormones as a way of getting rid of them. This may be one reason that crying is therapeutic when we’re under a lot of stress.

We’ve been crying since we were babies and will continue to do so for the rest of our lives, so even if we don’t always know why we cry, it’s nice to know the intricacies.

How Iris reminds you to blink more?

TODO

The post Blink Detection appeared first on 💡👨‍💻 Iris - Software for Eye protection, Health and Productivity 🛌👀.

I am a night owl and one night I was reading articles in one super white website. It was a huge strain for my eyes. Even with Iris, with the blue light reduction and with the low brightness it was still bad for my eyes. The idea came to my mind. I just want to make the black white and the white black.

Long story short now there is Color inversion feature in Iris. At the first release it was a little hard for me to combine Color temperature and Brightness with this new Color inversion and you kind of have to choose. Color inversion or the other features. Now this is fixed and you can combine the features whatever you like.

How to invert my Screen colors?

After I finished the implementation of this Color inversion I started to add otherColor effects. At the moment there are several different Color effects availableunder the Screen effects page.

Simply click Color effects toogle to enable/disable the selected Color effect.

Pro tip: You can also use the shortcut Ctrl+Alt+R to toogle the desired Color effect.

What are the available Color effects?

Here we will list the available Color effects at the moment.

No effect

Simple Inversion

Grayscale

Washout

Washout 2

Washout 3

Grayscale Inverted

Smart Inversion 0

Smart Inversion 1

Smart Inversion 2

Smart Inversion 3

Smart Inversion 4

Sephia

Negative Grayscale

Negative Grayclase Red

Grayclase Red

The post Color inversion appeared first on 💡👨‍💻 Iris - Software for Eye protection, Health and Productivity 🛌👀.

Most of you probably have a little idea how the eye works.

The retina contains two types of photoreceptors, rods and cones. The rods are more numerous, some 120 million, and are more sensitive than the cones. However, they are not sensitive to color. The 6 to 7 million cones provide the eye’s color sensitivity and they are much more concentrated in the central yellow spot known as the macula. In the center of that region is the “fovea centralis”, a 0.3 mm diameter rod-free area with very thin, densely packed cones.

However one scientist named Ignacio Provencio found in 1998 a new photoreceptor called Melanopsin.

Blue light and sleep

It has been shown that Melanopsin regulates a wide range of non-visual functions, such as the synchronization of the circadian rhythms and the sleep-wake cycle with the light-dark cycle.

Studies show that exposure to blue light a couple of hours before bedtime actually suppresses melatonin and delays deep REM sleep significantly. So cutting back on tech use at night means getting better sleep, making people more productive at both work and school.

Blue light and eyes

We all know that light can be both harmful and beneficial for our vision and our overall health. Natural sunlight contains both UV and blue light. We all know the dangers of UV or Ultra Violet light and we often wear sunglasses to preventlong term damage. But, what do we know about Blue light?

Blue light, which is part of the visible light spectrum, reaches deeper into your eye and its cumulative effect can cause damage to your retina and it is connected to the development of age-related macular degeneration.

Blue light is not just entering your eye from natural sources like the sun. Our eyes are also absorbing blue light for digital sources on a daily basis. Over time, our eyes are exposed to various sources that emit this blue-violet light in LED lighting, tablets, TVs, computer screens and smart phones. There’s no doubt ourexposure to blue-violet light is on the increase. This cumulative and constant exposure to the blue-violet light is going to accumulate over time and has the potential to cause damage to the retinal cells, which is going to slowly lead toretinal cell death and can in turn lead to Macular Degeneration.

What to do about this?

Enough science. Now I’m going to present to you several solutions to the harmful effects of blue light.

Don’t use computer at night

Well this is kind of a strange advice, but good for some people. If you like to go to bed early and it’s OK for you to give up computer and devices do it. However for many people like me who work late at night, for programmers and for any individual who must use computer for many hours per day this is a bad advice. We simply cannot do this.

Yep, we are addicted.

Use blue light reduction glasses

There are several like this on the market. Basically this are some orange glassesthat you put on your face and they just absorb blue light. It’s a solution for somepeople also. If the glasses look good why not. It will help for sure, but the fact that they are just glasses means that your image will always look the same.

At Iris we think this is solution, but not the best one. If you are the kind of person who likes to wear glasses, then OK, try maybe you will like this.

The good thing about glasses is that they reduce every kind of light from your TV, computer, phone and etc. The bad thing is that you will always get one level of reduction. You can never customize the amount of blue light your eyes get. The truth is that blue light is not toxic and not always bad. Remember that we have a Sun over us that radiates it constantly.

Software solution

This is what Iris does. It enables you to customize your screen temperature and the amount of blue light your eyes get. Iris hooks to the graphics pipeline and enables you to reduce the blue light on your monitor backlight. For us this is the best solution, because it is highly customizable. You can make small and super big blue light reduction.

Choose what best suits you. Iris also uses your position to automatically adjust screen temperature based on the time of the day. Cooler display during the day and warmer at night.

Notice: There is a bit of confusion about cooler and warmer color temperature. First of all color temperature is measured in Kelvins(K). Cooler temperature means higher value like 6500K (No blue light reduction) and warmer means lower values like 1900K (Candle light).

After we present several different alternatives for blue light reduction we will talk about Iris. What are the available features and how to use them.

What you can do with Iris?

One of the main features in Iris and our main focus for now is blue light reduction. We have 6 whole pages of settings for blue light and this is a lot.

Maybe too much, but these were all features that you needed and we added them. And maybe we will add more. the time will show.

By default

By default Iris will use automatic color settings and manual brightness. The default value for night color is 3400K(Halogen) and during the day 6500K will be used.

Brightness is set to manual by default, because it should match your room lightand we still haven’t implemented automatic light detection. You can setautomatic night brightness and during the day 100% will be used.

Simple view is used by default and there you can find the types of night colorthat you can set.

Color section

The first thing you are going to find in the Advanced settings is the Color section. From here you can customize brightness and color temperature. There is aColor temperature slider with bigger range and more values. It goes down to1000K for the moment.

If Manual color settings is set to ON your color temperature will be constant the entire day. Color temperature value will be used.

By default when Iris starts it will save your current color settings and then restore them. This was requested by several users who used Catalyst control center for color correction. If you press Reset temperature Iris will clean this saved presets and when you close Iris, it will reset your computer to default settings without color correction.

If Iris is the first color correction program you have used chances are that Expand color range button will be shown. If Expand color range button isshown the dropdowns and sliders will have limits. This is because your systemdoes not support big changes in the color profiles. Press Expand color rangethen Restart and all values will be unlocked.

Night duration

From the Location tab you can set custom Latitude/Longitude pair or hours forstart and end of the night. If you want to use Manual location or Manual night duration remember to set the slider to ON. If the 2 sliders are set to ON Manual night duration is used.

Notice: By default if you have Internet connection Iris will find your locationautomatically and will save this location for later use. This is the automatic location feature.

Color graphs

Color graphs are the king of customization. From here you can set Color temperature and Brightness for every hour of the day. This is probably too much for some people, but other people like this feature. Use them if you are the kind of person who likes ultra customization.

Priority of the Color settings

Because Iris has many color settings there is logical priority for deciding which settings to use at any given situation. We will list the current priority here and the first items are with highest priority. This means if they are set to ON they will override other settings. The current priority is:

• Color graphs
• Manual Color settings and Brightness
• Manual night duration
• Manual location

Color pausers

If you use Color pausers list Iris will stop color changes when one or more of the programs in this list is running. This is good for people working with colorsand for programs like Photoshop and 3DsMax. It will work with any type of program. Just enter the name of the process. For example: photoshop.exe

Iris for artists

We are making Iris Artists-friendly and if you are an artist the Screen overlay page is for you. From here you can customize red filter which can be applied to part of the screen like this:

Use Ctrl+Alt+Home to activate Screen Overlay.

Use Ctrl+Alt+LMB to select part of the screen. LMB = Left Mouse Button. Drag for selection.

Use Ctrl+Alt+End to deactivate Screen Overlay.

Conclusion

You now understand why blue light can be bad for you. Whatever method you choose, protect yourself from blue light at least at night. Your eyes will thank you 🙂

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Monitors have been flickering for many years. A CRT monitor basically created its picture with flicker and if you found it uncomfortable to sit in front of a CRT monitor, you were not alone. But it can also happen on modern PC monitors. We are not talking about visible flicker as in a defective monitor, but “invisible” flicker that can affect your experience in front of the monitor.

Modern PC LCD monitors are not flicker-free but in order to understand why we need to include a short introduction. LCD monitors started out by using CCFL (cold cathode fluorescent lamps) as a backlight source but in recent years manufacturers have shifted to LEDs (light emitting diodes). If you have a thin monitor then you have a LCD monitor with LED. If you are unsure check the model number on the backside and Google it.

As you might have noticed you can adjust the backlight on pretty much any monitor today via the buttons on the front. In a brightly lit room a higher monitor brightness level is preferable and in a dimly lit room, for example a cellar or studio, a much dimmer monitor is preferable. Some monitors adjust automatically based on surroundings but often you have to do it manually. Whether it is the one or other is irrelevant. The important aspect here is the actual method used to reduce brightness on a monitor with LED.

Why your monitor flickers?

When a monitor is set to maximum brightness the LEDs are typically glowing at full strength: 100%. If you reduce the brightness setting in the menu to, for example, 50% the LEDs need to omit less light. This is done by inserting small “breaks” – or pauses – in which the LEDs turn off for a very short time. When reducing the brightness setting in the menu further the breaks become longer, basically.

90% duty cycle	50% duty cycle	10% duty cycle

This happens with CCFL based backlight units and LED based backlight units but CCFLs have a much longer afterglow than LEDs that basically turn off instantly. Therefore, the breaks when using CCFLs are much easier on the eyesthan when using LEDs. Thus a greater risk of experiencing eyestrain, tired eyes or in the worst-case scenario headache when working in front of a LED based monitor.

The use of LED obviously has numerous benefits, including much lower power consumption, far fewer toxic substances and some obvious picture quality advantages but here we are only focusing on the potential eyestrain issues as it is a separate issue that can be avoided on new monitors and even reduced on the monitor you own right now.

Notice: We need to emphasize that all eyes are different. Those who are affected never see the actual flicker – it is “indirect”. Studies have shown that approximately 10% of people experience discomfort. The rest experience eithermild discomfort or no discomfort at all.

PWM (Pulse Width Modulation)

The method of introducing breaks to reduce the brightness level is called PWM (pulse width modulation). It is a cheap and effective way of controlling the light output of a LCD monitor with LEDs as it gives a huge span of brightness levels. But, as you can see, it also has drawbacks.

PWM is not the actual problem. It is not necessarily a bad thing. The problem occurs if the blinking/flickering is indirectly perceptible by the human eyewhen the PWM is running at too low frequencies. The most common scenario is that you buy a new monitor that is far too bright out-of-the-box and reduce brightness to maybe 20-30%. Brightness is typically measured in cd/m2 and the brightest monitors hit around 450-500 cd/m2 but this is not necessarily anadvantage because no one can sit in front of a monitor this bright. The recommended brightness level is approximately 120 cd/m2 in a bright roomwithout direct sunbeams coming in.

The alternative to the PWM method is to lower/raise the electrical voltage for the LEDs. The method can also be used for CCFLs but they are not nearly asflexible as LEDs. The disadvantage to this method is that it is more expensive and that it can be very hard to control the color temperature of the backlight. There is also a risk of burning out the LEDs very fast.

90% continuous	50% continuous	10% continuous

The number of cycles (on / off periods) used in LEDs can obviously be measuredand as so many other things it is measured in Hz. 100 Hz means that it updates 100 times per second.

But what frequency do LEDs run at then? Well, most monitors use PWM with a frequency around 90 to over 400 Hz. Those with 90 Hz PWM are worst, obviously. PC monitors with CCFL backlights all run at 175 Hz (but as mentioned, the afterglow is very different). For comparison, ceiling fluorescent lamps found in many offices used to operate at around 100-120 Hz and they have been proven to cause headache many times in the past. Newer installations are better but we need to reach much higher frequencies for a perfect result. Again, it depends on the individual and some will experience problems where others do not. We probably have to surpass 2000-3000 Hz before we can call it a safe zone.

If manufacturers want to use the PWM method in LCDs with LED there are two ways to eliminate the issues. The first option is to run the LEDs as a much higher frequency (combined with a decent brightness level). The second option is to use a combination of PWM and modulation of the electrical voltage.

But you can also help yourself. When you are looking to buy a new one you can often leave out the cheapest PC monitors (the same is true for displays in smart phones and tablets) as these have proven to be most affected by the issues. Many of us work in front a monitor for many many hours daily, so it is really worth saving a few bucks?

Look at the maximum brightness (the cd/m2 number). It is around 400-500 cd/m2 then you can be sure that you need to lower the brightness level considerably – and then you risk increasing flicker. Many graphics monitors run at much lower brightness levels – and it can actually be an advantage. Higher is – ironically – not always better.

How Iris is fixing PWM issues?

You now understand why PWM is bad for your eyes and a little of the science behind LCD monitors. We thought a lot how not to experience eye problems while still decreasing monitor brightness. Today with Iris you can decrease your brightness without flicker on every monitor out there. “How exactly this works?” you ask.

At the end of the graphics pipeline, just where the image leaves the computer to make its journey along the monitor cable, there is a small piece of hardware that can transform pixel values on the fly. This hardware typically uses a lookup table to transform the pixels. Iris controls this hardware and uses it to decrease your brightness. You get flicker free low brightness. Set your hardware brightness to the MAX and control it with Iris. WIN WIN.

Let’s see how you can actually do this. Open Iris by double clicking your tray icon.

You can control brightness either from Simple and from Advanced view.

You can also use automatic brightness feature, which will use sun positioning and your location and gradually decrease brightness when night is coming.

What brightness value to use?

The rule for brightness value is to match your indoor lighting, which means that the monitor should not look like light source in the room. My advice is just to set it whatever you like and feels good to your eyes.

Remember: Iris does not use PWM to control the screen brightness, so set it as low as you like.

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Staring at a computer monitor for hours on end has become a part of the modern workday. And inevitably, all of that staring can put a real strain on your eyes.

The name for eye problems caused by computer use is Computer vision syndrome (CVS). CVS is not one specific eye problem. Instead, the term encompasses a whole range of eye strain and pain experienced by computer users.

Research shows computer eye problems are common. Somewhere between 50% and 90% of people who work at a computer screen have at least some symptoms of eye trouble.

In addition, working adults aren’t the only ones vulnerable to computer vision syndrome. Kids who stare at portable video games or tablets or who use computers throughout the day at school also can experience eye problems related to computer use, especially if the lighting and computer position are less than ideal.

How Can the Computer Screen Affect Vision?

Computer vision syndrome is similar to carpal tunnel syndrome and other repetitive stress injuries at work. It occurs when you’re carrying out the same motion over and over again.

Just like those other repetitive stress injuries, computer vision syndrome can get worse the longer you continue the activity.

Working at a computer requires that the eyes continuously focus, move back and forth, and align with what you are seeing.

You may have to look down at papers and then back up to type, and the eyes have to accommodate to changing images on the screen in order to create a clear picture for the brain to interpret.

All of these functions require a lot of effort from eye muscles.

Working on a computer is more challenging to your eyes than reading a book or piece of paper, because a computer screen also adds the elements of screen contrast, flicker, and glare.

Computer eye problems are more likely to occur if you already have an eye problem(such as nearsightedness or astigmatism) or if you need glasses but don’t wear them or wear the wrong prescription for computer use. Working at a computer gets even more difficult as you get older.

That’s because the lens of your eye becomes less flexible.

The ability to focus on near and far objects starts to diminish after about age 40 – a condition called presbyopia.

What Symptoms Are Part of Computer Vision Syndrome?

There’s no evidence that computer vision syndrome causes any long-term damage to the eyes. However, regular computer use can be the source of significant eye strain and discomfort.

If you have computer vision syndrome, you may experience some or all of these symptoms:

• Blurred vision
• Double vision
• Dry, red eyes
• Eye irritation
• Headaches
• Neck or back pain

If these symptoms are not treated, they can have a real effect on your work performance.

The 20/20/20 rule?

Repetitive stress injury (RSI) and eye strain are common ailments among computer users, and there’s no silver bullet for avoiding them beyond taking regular breaks to relax.

There is a really popular rule among ophthalmologist and doctors called 20-20-20 rule. The 20-20-20 rule suggest that after every 20 minutes, you (the computer user) should take a break for at least 20 seconds and look at objects that are 20 feet away from you.

So give your eyes a break. Look away from the screen every 20 minutes or so and either gaze out the window or scan the room for about 20 seconds to rest your eyes. Blink often to keep the eyes moist.

How Iris reminds you to take a breaks?

Finally we get to the point. How exactly Iris can help you?

Normal mode

The standart Iris setup or the Normal mode is an overlay window looking like this:

You can change work and rest time duration from the Simple view. Save the new settings with Save and close and test the new settings with Have a rest now.

Pro tip: You can also use the shortcut Ctrl+Alt+Enter

Strict mode

WARNING!: There is no way to skip Strict mode. Only restart will work.

The Strict mode is disabled by default, because well it’s really Strict. Your keyboard is disabled and the only way to skip this window is to restart the system. We will show you how.

To activate Strict mode go to advanced settings. Select Timer section page and from the Strictness level menu choose Strict. After you click Save and close you can test the Strict mode with Have a rest now button.

Pro tip: You can also use the shortcut Ctrl+Alt+Enter

The Strict mode is an overlay window similar to Normal mode, but without Skip button:

How can I skip it?

We are sorry to disappoint you, but there is no way. This is why this is called strict mode. If you don’t have the will to stand up just don’t use it. Use Normal mode instead.

How to restart the computer?

In Strict mode almost all key combinations are disabled, but you can still useCtrl+Alt+Del on Windows. And from this window select the Big red button and choose Restart.

Productive mode

Productive mode is for people who have high willpower and are masters of their time. It’s small window with a timer in it on top of everything. You cantrack time with it, manage rest and work and well if you are the type of person who will use this you have a lot of creativity. You will find your way to use it.

Productive mode can also be selected from the Timer section and looks like this:

It is simple and effective timer for productivity like Pomodoro

Which one should I choose?

You are unique. Every person is. Everyone has different needs and wants. This is why we added so many options in Iris. So everyone can find his favorite way to use it. My advice here is to just experiment. And if you ever need something we are here to help and make it happen 🙂

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In this first revision of this document let’s get back in time. In the mid-1920s, an executive in Michigan studying the productivity of his factory workers realized that his employees’ efficiency was plummeting when they worked too many hours in a day or too many days in a week. He instituted new rules, including an eight-hour work day and a five-day work week. “We know from our experience in changing from six to five days and back again that we can get at least as great production in five days as we can in six,” he said. “Just as the eight hour day opened our way to prosperity, so the five day week will open our way to a still greater prosperity.”

That company turned out to be one of the most profitable companies of the mid-twentieth century, and the boss at its helm is remembered as one of the most talented executives in American history. His name was Henry Ford.

And to this day many companies embrace eight-hour work day.

Regular breaks v0.0.1

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Iris

At the beginning Iris was free then I make it freemium and then paid with a free trial.

You can still find the freemium Iris from here:

• Free Iris for Windows
• Free Iris for macOS
• Other Builds

It’s not as great as the latest versions but it still works and it’s free 🙂

The standard Iris is easy to use with a nice user interface and several presets.

You can easy switch between Automatic, Manual and Paused mode and choose between several different type presets.

You can recognize the standard free Iris by the clean and stylish black icon. If you use Iris Pro this icon will be green and all Advanced settings will be unlocked.

Iris is free forever, but if you click the Use advanced settings button and try to enter some of the advanced menus you will get a notification that you need Iris Pro because Advanced settings are available in the Pro version.

Most people will never need Iris Pro, but if you want some extra features, checkboxes, and sliders to customize Iris you can support the project and buy Iris Pro.

Iris Pro

You know that your Iris is Pro if the icon in the top left corner is green. If you need more features you can upgrade from Iris to Iris Pro by buying Iris Pro from the Buy page.

You will get an activation code and when you enter this activation code in the input box next to the License label your Iris will become Pro.

With Iris Pro, you have access to all Advanced settings in the Advanced settings view. If you click some of the items from the Advanced settings new page with customizations of this feature will open.

All features are grouped by categories and you can always get help for every feature by clicking the blue  buttons on every page.

These blue buttons appear when you hover over some section of the program.

With Iris Pro, you also get Timer functionality for break reminding, many customizations of blue light, brightness, screen effects and transition times.

Everything new which I make goes to Iris Pro, when something is used a lot it goes to Iris mini Pro and if there is something really awesome it will go to all free versions of Iris so all users can benefit and be healthy.

Iris mini

Iris mini is a minimalistic version and smaller version of Iris.

When installed it looks like this

You have Blue light and Brightness reduction again but you just don’t have so many options for customization.

Iris mini has 3 modes which you can change by left-clicking the icon (this blue icon above).

Automatic mode: During the day color temperature will be 5000K and 100% brightness and at night this will change to 3400K and 80% brightness.

Manual mode: Use 3400K and 80% brightness all the time.

Paused: Iris is paused and does not apply color changes.

Iris mini Pro

Iris mini Pro unlocks more values of Iris mini

Basically, you can make your screen more orange and more dark to adapt it better to your preferences and the light around you.

Iris micro

Iris micro is a command line version of Iris.

It’s totally free and if you have programming knowledge you can automate it or use addons made by other users.

Iris micro will not do anything automatically but it’s super small and super fast.

It doesn’t use any CPU and after it changes the screen the program closes.

Some people like it.

Iris OS

Iris OS is OS for eyes protection. Basically, I had really big problems with porting Iris to all different Linux distributions so one day I just build one Ubuntu distro with prepackaged Iris.

It’s Linux distro which I’m sure that Iris will work on because it comes with the OS.

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Why I created Iris?

When I was young my vision was perfect, but as a programmer I was sitting for more than 10 hours per day in front of computer. Not short after that I started to experience huge eye pain and strain. I even got glasses for the first time in my life. It was time for a change. I started to search the internet for programs for eye protection and started to read every single article for eye and vision health. After I didn’t find anything good enough out there I decided to create my own software for eye protection, health and productivity. Iris is the product of this decision.

How Iris makes you healthy?

Iris combines all tips, tricks and medical researches for eye health and eye protection. It reminds you to take short breaks on regular intervals, makes your monitor better and improves your sleep.

Iris blocks distractions and was built with productivity and health in mind.

And most of all I update it regularly based on your feedback and on new innovative ideas for health and productivity. My goal is to make the best and sexiest desktop software out there.

What Iris actually is?

Iris is a desktop software for health and productivity. It works in background and doesn’t interfere with your work. It works on every operating system and has slick UI and good tech support.

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Iris is the tool which billionaires, entrepreneurs, performance athletes, bodybuilders and olympic champions use on their computers.

Iris is the modern equivalent of supplement for your eyes.

It will remove the blue light from your screen at night, control your screen brightness without PWM, help you to sleep better and feel less eye strain.

The project was started in 2015 and now Iris is used in more than 180 countries.

More than 1 million people use Iris and this number is increasing rapidly due to the easy to use interface and the good packaged presets like: Health, Sleep, Reading, Programming, Biohacker, Sunglasses, Dark, Movie and Overlay.

Free, smart, powerfull. You are one click away from living a whole new life. Ready to take the dive?

https://iristech.co/install

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How Iris come to life?

Back in 2015, I was working as a programmer and I had huge eye problems. I put glasses for the first time in my life and I was using eye drops let’s say constantly.

My eye doctor exam was the tipping point and I decided to fix my vision. I started to read every article and medical research that I can put my eyes on and started to make some exercises and take breaks from the computer.

The Timer

I found that when I program it’s super hard for me to stand up from the PC and programs like WorkRave and EyeLeo was just not strict enough for me. Not to mention that there was just no good alternative for Linux and macOS.

So I decided to make my own program which locks my screen, disables my keyboard and basically forces me to get up and look at distant objects.

You probably know that the best health advice doctors were giving these days was 20-20-20. Every 20 minutes, stand up from your PC for 20 seconds and look at objects 20 feet away.

What I hated about this rule was that 20 seconds was not enough to get some rest, but enough to lose my focus on my work. So I wanted a Timer which reminds me every 30 minutes or 1 hour to stand up for 5 to 7 minutes.

Something like Pomodoro technique, but for eye strain.

I tried the 20-20-20 with really bad results decreased productivity and the same amount of eye strain and dry eyes.

And this was something like the beginning of Iris before I found about f.lux and other blue blocking software products.

The Childhood

I was always some kind of a strange kid meaning that my goal in life from maybe 10 years old was to build my own business and I was always trying to make the next big thing.

I started programming in 8th grade and my first project that was made to change the world was in 9th grade. I needed 1 year to learn some basic Pascal and this is the reason why. Before 8th grade, I was modding my GTA with Freerun and Parkour tricks.

In 5th grade, I spend maybe my whole school year modding GTA and making promotional videos of my mods. I still don’t understand why I was trying to promote it, but I spend literally months making several videos. If you are interested (which I know you are maybe not) I found them on my old Vbox7 account and uploaded them to YouTube.

Yes, Yes, I know that gaming was probably not my top talent, but I was trying really hard. The same was with football, but they kicked me out of the team in 7th grade for being, well bad player.

In my defense, I would say that I trained every day 2 times per day and I was better than half of the team that played, but as an introvert, I was never kind of a team and social player. Well, I was also not so phenomenal player so whatever, this was for good.

After this, I started rowing and my dedication put me to World Championship so I am happy with my sports achievements.

Nevermind, going back to 9th grade and my super awesome Super Mario like game with snowball which was eating coins and my teacher who didn’t believe I made the game, and my bad grade for programming, because of this I almost got discouraged, but somehow I got up again.

Going forward to finishing school and half a dozen more unsuccessful software projects like spell checking, articles website like HowTo guides, I made my first finished game and put it into Google Play.

The game was called Super Dodo (you can still play it btw with this link) and I was really proud.

I was going to rock this world one more time. Several months later it didn’t become viral, nobody wanted to play it and this was one more fail to my collection.

The point when my eyes started to hurt was somewhere here. I started working as a programmer from 17 years old and after my 8-hour workday, I was programming this game in the night.

My total PC time was something like 14 hours every day +- 2 hours reading Kindle books about startups and programming languages on the bus when I was going to school.

This is after I stopped rowing. When I was only going to school and training I read this Kindle books maybe 8 hours per day, because I had 2 hours of travel to the rowing venue and 1 hour of travel to my school. Not to mention that all my classes in school I spend them reading this books because I didn’t think most subjects in school will be beneficial for me in the long run.

I started going to entrepreneurial events, I created my first private company for manufacturing 3D printer which failed again after 1 year and started going to university.

I build the timer and put glasses somewhere here when I was 18 years old. This was 2014 and I remember that first versions of Iris were made in March 2015 and I was 19 years old (born on 1 November).

The Competition

There was some competition for programming my first year in university and me, of course, started to build rockstar team meaning my old classmates from my high school.

The school competition was international and for the world champions, there was a price of 50,000$. My pitch as you guess to the people I wanted was:

“Guys we are going to win this 50,000$ and then we are going to drink them”.

Not to mention that I don’t drink or smoke, but it sounded like motivational speech. 1 year after I realized that money is the worst way to motivate someone to work with you. Passion and sense of a mission are much more healthy ways to build teams, but I am still bad at working with people.

We were 3 programmers, 1 hardware, and 1 designer. From the initial team, the designer and one of the programmers left after 1 week, but you know this is how student projects go.

While eating something in one shopping center we were brainstorming ideas. The best ones were wireless electricity, anti-mosquito sound repeller and reminding people who use computers to blink more.

I guess we were not so innovative and creative, but whatever. After several more days, we decided to do the blinking software and started to work.

I wanted we to have a brand name, something magical, something stylish, something sexy which represented our future brand and from all the parts of the eye and the alphabet I really liked Iris.

Iris, software for eye protection. Iris, software for health. Iris, software for productivity. Well, why not, Iris – software for eye protection, health, and productivity.

Fast forward we won the first round in Bulgaria, but they didn’t like in on the semifinals and we didn’t win 50,000$.

We had a website, installer, and .exe file which all antivirus programs detected as a virus, because I was hooking Iris to disable the keyboard and we were also starting the Camera to use AI and detect users blink rate.

Later I realized that users find this camera enabling thing after installing Iris super creepy.

I found our old website with WayBackMachine, but some images are missing.

Credit to the great design and the initial Iris logo design goes to Alex, our second designer which was really fantastic for our age of 19 years old. Credit to the first versions of our software also goes to Bozhidar, Martin, and Ceco who along with me were coding the app.

We had our “Why?” as Simon Sinek said in his famous TED talk god damn it. (Taken from the movie Wall-e as you see, but whatever).

We believed in a world without glasses. We believed in a world without eye pain. We believed in a world without Computer Vision Syndrome.

Or at least this was the thing I believed in.

The Startup

After we failed at the student competition I was ready again with my motivational pitch. We were going to get investment for this project, we were going to make millions, fuck the judges, fuck the money, we are going to directly help the whole world with our project.

From 5 people team, 2 decided that they don’t like enough the project and Alex and Bozhi slightly agreed to pursue the startup team, but only if we get investment.

Fast forward several months, I talked to all accelerators, venture funds, angels and all of them told me one thing. Our project was stupid, there was no way to make money from this, no one is going to buy it, it doesn’t have the potential to be a successful business.

I was really discouraged at this point. Maybe all people were right. Maybe Iris is really not so good idea and the fact that we didn’t have any users aside from me was also really discouraging.

The thing I didn’t realize back then was that aside from me, no one else was really passionate about the eyes. No one from the team had this big kind of problems with the glasses and with the eye pain thing. And investors, well they are just stupid and like to lose money, so there is no point to listen to them anyway.

This was the death of Iris and all of us returned to our normal jobs. The other people from the team seemed like they accepted this quite well, but I felt miserable. I don’t remember any other point in my life in which I was so sad and unhappy.

All my projects and tries to make my own business were a failure. My 3D printer business failed several months before this, my game did bad and now, no one liked Iris also.

I was young and I missed my whole childhood pursuing my dream to start my own business. When the other people were having fun I was learning. When other people took the summer and went to the beach I was training in the woods for competitions. When other people were partying in university I was working as a programmer in office in front of computer whole day.

I had a girlfriend, had some money, had some friends and had some spare time, but I felt miserable. I didn’t though life is going to be like this.

Hitting Rock Bottom

After the fail of Iris, I tried to analyze myself and what made me fail every time. I had read all startup manuals and I still failed. I tried to solve a problem every time and I failed. Back then I was still living with my parents so I have never felt hungry and broke.

They fought quite often when I was young, but back then something started to change and the shouts and screams started to feel unbearable.

I can’t tell I had a bad family since thanks to them I’m who I’m right now, but they were a little bit toxic. All my life I didn’t want to go home because there were constant fights.

I started planning to get out of this and I went through one military training school for several months. I didn’t start new projects because I didn’t saw the point in this, but I still wrote many ideas in my “Ideas notebook”.

Analyzing myself I realized that the one thing I haven’t done was to leave my comfort. I never left my job to pursue my own business ideas and it was always really easy for me to give up.

I never felt like I’m going to die if my idea fails. Now I realize that exactly this is the reason why some businesses succeed, but back then it was not so clear.

I realized that if I don’t try one more time when I’m young maybe I will never do it and this was the tipping point after which I decided to quit my job.

This was the summer of 2015. I quit my job I think around July 2015 when I was 19 years old to try to start my own business one more time. This time giving everything I have.

I had 5000$ saved money to live several months until I find a way to make money from something.

The next half a year was really hard. I tried different projects, but somehow I always thought about Iris and that maybe it’s something I would love to do my whole life.

Then one day I decided to do Iris again. This time alone and giving all my energy and focus on it.

I decided to commit to Iris.

The first thing I did was to connect to all my old teammates to ask them if they want to be part of no funding, working day and night new business with no guarantee for future money.

They didn’t want to do this of course, but I wanted to make sure that they are ok if I continue to build the project all alone and if it becomes successful one day they will not come and tell me that they made this project successful.

All of them agreed that they don’t care about this project and I started working. I started working like hell.

In the next several months, I quit university, I got away from home and started to live alone and I was programming Iris basically every waking hour.

I wrote posts, articles, tried to do some marketing, I talked to every new user and asked what was their problem and I was hungry. Literally hungry.

At the beginning, Iris was donation based, but after half a year and 0$ income, I started to make some activation codes and license options.

In the first year, Iris made 0$. The first sale came at the beginning of 2016.

I was also selling some Chinese things like Google Cardboard to have some income and to not die from hunger.

Little by little more and more people started to use Iris. Little by little some of them decided to buy. And little by little you found about Iris.

I build Iris from the thing on the left to the thing of the right and then much more.

Even to this day I continue to improve the software and at the time of this writing it looks like this

And I’m going to improve Iris until it becomes the best software in the world.

A lot of things happened in the past 3 years. I’m now 22 years old and some people look at me as some kind of a role model.

Iris has more than 2 000 000 users worldwide and is used in more than 180 countries, but there is still a long way to go.

I’m still the same kid who just wants to help other people be more healthy in front of the PC and my goal is still to make the world a little better place, but at this time with a lot more experience.

And I still believe that you can be anything you want in life. If you work hard, if you are good to others, if you are helpful to society, you can achieve anything. 🙂

Contacts

If you liked the story of Iris you can download the software from here.

Give me feedback, write suggestion or just say Hi here, here or here 🙂

Daniel Georgiev
CEO Iris Technologies

Publishing date: 16.12.2017

The post The story of Iris appeared first on 💡👨‍💻 Iris - Software for Eye protection, Health and Productivity 🛌👀.

My name is Daniel. I’m 22 years old programmer from the small country of Bulgaria and I’m the creator of Iris.

I was born in 1995 in Sofia, Bulgaria (This is in Europe) and spend the first 17 years of my life trying to become an Olympic athlete. As you can guess I failed at this, but whatever I have many good memories and awards. I even managed to participate in the World Championship which considering my non-athletic body am really proud of.

After this, I started working as a programmer and the monitors at my work were kind of bad. After 1 year I put glasses for the first time in my life and I knew it was time for a change.

After many eye drops and failed experiments, I started working on the first versions of Iris and this is how the story of Iris begins. Left my job, drop out school, you know the standard things crazy people with dreams do.

The guy with the red border. This is me with friends.

Basically, I am the person behind Iris.

If you are not sure what problem Iris is solving, you can see my TED talk 🙂

If you have any problems or feedback about Iris you can contact me at:
E-mail: daniel@iristech.co
and
Phone: +359879031353

This is the phone with which I talk to my friends and family, so please don’t spam me.

Additionally
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1506836949
LinkedIn: https://bg.linkedin.com/in/daniel-georgiev-2194ab7a

Thank you for using Iris,
Daniel <3

The post Hi appeared first on 💡👨‍💻 Iris - Software for Eye protection, Health and Productivity 🛌👀.