Trouble Sleeping? You Might Want to Minimize the Blue Light on Your Phone Screen

Learn how to change the screen's tint to help you get much-needed shut-eye at bedtime

Edward C. Baig,

AARP

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Published June 03, 2025

I’ve read that exposure to blue light can make it more difficult to fall asleep. Can I can do anything to reduce such exposure on my smartphone and give me a chance to get a decent night of shuteye?

Taking a screen to bed isn’t a swell idea to begin with, but lots of people do so anyway. I’m as guilty as the next person.

To answer your question, yes, smartphones have ways to filter out blue light, which I’ll get to in a moment. First, here’s a bit of background.

Blue light is a high-energy shorter wavelength light whose biggest source comes from the sun. Of course, this discussion is about the blue light on your phone though also be mindful if you’re using a laptop or tablet in bed.

While blue light may help you stay awake during the day, it can have the opposite effect at bedtime because of the way it suppresses melatonin levels and disrupts the circadian rhythm cycles that are our body’s internal clock. And poor sleep has been associated with a string of health problems.

The answer may be to see red, and by that I don’t mean you should get angry. Instead, filter the display so it emits “warmer” shades of color and cuts down on blue light.

Such tools go by different names on Android devices and iPhones. Let’s examine three of them, starting with what you’ll find on two Androids phones.

Find Eye comfort shield on Samsung Galaxys

Go to ⚙️ Settings | Display | Eye comfort shield and tap the button to enable the feature. If you tap the listing for Eye comfort shield a second time, you can choose an Adaptive setting that automatically adjusts the colors of the screen based on time of day. Or choose Custom to set your own schedule for when this feature kicks in, as well as to display a slider to adjust the color “temperature.”

You can tap an additional setting labeled Enhanced comfort to adjust color tones and contrast, which Samsung indicates may make viewing after dark more comfortable.

Alternatively, you can get to Eye comfort shield by swiping down on the screen to surface Quick Settings and then tapping on the icon representing the feature to turn it on and off.

Google Pixel’s Night Light changes to amber glow at sunset

To access Night Light on Google’s flagship Pixel phones, head to ⚙️ Settings | Display & touch | and under Color, choose Night Light. When you tap the Night Light switch, the phone automatically takes on an amber tint at sunset, and unless you choose a custom time, it turns off at sunrise. Start half-width gray breakout box.

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To choose that alternative time, tap Schedule | Turns on at custom time and enter the start and end times.

When the feature is enabled, you can drag a slider to decrease or increase the intensity of Night Light. Dragging all the way to the right emits a reddish tint.

As with the Galaxy, you can also access the Night Light control by swiping down from the top of the screen to summon shortcut buttons. You may have to swipe from right to left to view the button for Night Light.

iPhone’s Night Shift warms up the screen in the evening

Apple’s counterpart for the iPhone is called Night Shift. Go to ⚙️ Settings | Display & Brightness | Night Shift and tap either Scheduled to choose start and end times for the feature or Manually Enable Until Tomorrow to keep it on until the next day.

Drag the color temperature slider from left to right to move to the warmer end of the color spectrum.

If you swipe down from the upper right corner of the display, you can also reveal a ☼ sun icon for Night Shift by pressing down and holding the screen brightness slider in Control Center.

Bonus tip: Choose Dark mode to change the screen style

All the major smartphones let you darken the screen through what is often referred to as dark mode.

It is easy to confuse this option with the blue light filters above. In fact, the option to toggle from light to dark is separate from the controls to enable or disable Eye comfort shield, Night Light or Night Shift.

Don’t mistake these features for the color filters typically found inside accessibility settings that may benefit people who are color blind.

In Light mode, the screen’s background is white or another light hue, and the text is often black, typically the default. Dark mode is just the opposite: A black or perhaps dark gray background and lighter text.

Some people turn on dark mode in low-light environments to reduce eye strain or because they prefer the aesthetic, which may be less satisfying in daylight. Enabling Dark mode, or as Google puts it, Dark theme, also may reduce energy and bolster battery life.

You may find that enabling dark mode and turning on blue light filter tools can help you catch those all-important Zs.

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Edward C. Baig covers technology and other consumer topics. He previously worked for USA Today, BusinessWeek, U.S. News & World Report and Fortune, and is author of Macs for Dummies and coauthor of iPhone for Dummies and iPad for Dummies. Follow him on LinkedIn; Threads; and X, formerly known as Twitter.