Blue light filters vs pure black backgrounds, still split after that conference in Austin

Went to that design conference in Austin last month and two speakers straight up contradicted each other. One guy showed studies saying pure black (#000) causes more eye strain because of the extreme contrast, and the other showed a demo where his app's battery life tanked 15% without true black on OLED. I run my own moving company site at night and always used dark gray backgrounds (#121212). But after seeing both presentations I've been flipping back and forth. Half the comments section on here swears by blue light filter settings, the other half says just use warm dim lighting. Does anyone else feel like the science is all over the place on this? What's your default for body text on dark backgrounds, pure black or a shade of gray? Curious if anyone's actually tested this with their own users instead of just reading the same 2019 articles.

1 comments

1 Comment

keith_henderson12d agoMost Upvoted

The battery life thing is what gets me, because that 15% number is real but it only matters if people are actually staring at their phone for hours in a dark room. I've been running my own little tests with my team, just swapping between #000 and #121212 on our dashboard for a week at a time, and honestly the gray wins for comfort every single time. Pure black makes text look like it's floating and my eyes keep trying to refocus, plus on cheaper screens you see all the backlight bleed. The blue light filter stuff feels like a separate thing entirely, since that's about messing with your sleep cycle, not reducing strain while you're actively working. If I had to pick a default I'd say stick with that dark gray and just lower your screen brightness, because that contrast ratio is doing way more work than people give it credit for.