Soft screen light
Night Light
Turn a phone, tablet or laptop into a dim, warm light. Adjustable brightness and colour, an optional clock, and a slow breathing fade if you want one. Go full screen and set it down.
Colour
Options
Your settings are remembered on this device. Press F for full screen, ↑ and ↓ to dim.
Choosing a setting
Which Colour for Which Situation
| Situation | Colour | Brightness | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Winding down before bed | Amber or red | 10–25% | Almost no blue light, so melatonin is barely affected |
| Night feeds and nappy changes | Amber | 15–30% | Enough to see by without waking either of you properly |
| Reading in bed | Warm white | 30–50% | Readable but soft; pair with a paper book rather than a screen |
| A nightlight for a child's room | Warm white or lavender | 10–20% | Reassuring rather than illuminating; keep the device cool and out of bedding |
| Video call fill light | White or cool white | 80–100% | Neutral colour so skin tones stay natural on camera |
| Finding something in the dark | White | 100% | Maximum output; a torch by any other name |
| Staying alert on a late shift | Sky or cool white | 60–90% | Blue-heavy light suppresses melatonin, which is the point here |
| Blocking a bright screen | Blackout | any | A dark panel to cover a status LED or an unavoidably bright display |
Light and sleep
Why Warm and Dim Is the Advice
The short version: the body reads light as a signal about the time of day, and blue light is the strongest signal there is.
Cells in the retina that have nothing to do with vision respond most strongly to light around 480 nanometres — the blue end. When they fire, the brain treats it as daylight and suppresses melatonin, the hormone that makes you feel sleepy. This is useful at eight in the morning and unhelpful at eleven at night.
Two things reduce the effect. Lowering the brightness reduces the total amount of light reaching the eye, which matters more than most people assume. Shifting the colour towards amber and red removes the wavelengths that do most of the suppressing. Doing both gets you most of the way to a light that you can see by without telling your body it is morning.
None of which makes a screen the ideal bedside light. A dim warm bulb across the room is better, and darkness is better still. But if the screen is what you have, warm and dim is the way to use it.
Step by step
How to Use the Night Light
Turn your screen into a soft, calming night light. Great for bedtime reading, baby care, meditation, power outages, or a warm ambience while you work.
Choose a color, adjust brightness, pick a mode and relax. Pick warm amber for bedtime, soft red for minimal blue-light, or cool white for reading and focus. Lower brightness reduces eye strain at night — keep it just bright enough to see comfortably, since lower is better for sleep.
The breathing mode creates a relaxing ambience by fading the brightness slowly up and down. Full screen works best on desktop; on mobile, rotate to landscape for a wider light.
Bedtime and Reading
Use warm or red light for bedtime routines, night reading, and calming environments. These contain almost no blue light, so they interfere least with sleep.
Baby Care
A gentle night light helps during feeding or diaper changes without harsh brightness. Keep the device cool, out of bedding, and the cable clear of the cot.
Emergency Light
Turn a laptop or phone into an emergency light source, battery permitting. Full white at maximum brightness is effectively a torch.
Privacy note: settings are saved only in your browser (localStorage). Nothing about your colour, brightness or usage leaves this device.
Answers
Night Light Questions
Sleep, colours, battery, babies and keeping the screen awake.
Does a screen night light actually help with sleep?
A dim, warm screen is far better than a bright, blue-heavy one, but it is not the same as no light at all. Short-wavelength blue light suppresses melatonin most strongly, which is why the warm presets shift towards amber and red. Set the brightness as low as you can still see by, and the effect on sleep is small. Set it bright and it is not.
Which colour should I choose?
Amber or red for anything close to bedtime, because they contain almost no blue. Warm white is a reasonable compromise for reading. Cool white and the blues are better suited to daytime use — as a fill light for video calls, or to keep yourself alert.
Will it keep my screen from turning off?
On browsers that support the screen wake lock, yes, and the toggle for it appears when it is available. Where it is not supported, the operating system's own sleep settings take over, and you may need to extend the screen timeout manually for the light to stay on all night.
Is it safe to use as a baby night light?
As a light, yes, on a low brightness with a warm colour. The practical cautions are about the device rather than the light: keep it off soft bedding where it can overheat, keep the cable out of the cot, and be aware that a phone left on all night will get warm and drain. A dedicated night light costs very little and is a better long-term answer.
What does the breathing effect do?
It fades the brightness slowly up and down over about ten seconds. Some people find the slow rhythm settling, and it is sometimes used as a pacing guide for slow breathing. If it is distracting rather than calming, turn it off — the steady setting is the default for a reason.
Can I use this as a photography or video fill light?
A tablet or laptop screen makes a serviceable soft light for close work. Use white or a cool white at full brightness, position it slightly off to one side rather than straight on, and expect it to be soft and low-powered — good for filling shadows on a face, not for lighting a room.
Does the light drain the battery?
Considerably. A screen at full brightness is usually the largest single power draw on a phone or laptop. Plug in for anything longer than a few minutes, and turn the brightness down, which helps the battery and your eyes at the same time.