A greyscale iPhone setup that works in everyday life

I'd love to see more attention given to what I've called "red mode".

It's a colour filter that, well, makes the screen red.

It's AMAZING for reading at night. Not bright, renders text clearly, amazing on the eyes.

I'd also like to see an eInk phone take off, but this is more doable.

Reduce White Point is also great for reducing max brightness and preserving eye health

Using my phone in grayscale convinced me of the power of shiny colours. It is shocking how boring my phone feels in grayscale.

This really does help break any feeling of attachment to the device and the solutions in this post really do make it more practical. It does kind of suck using the camera in grayscale.

Setting up triple click to toggle greyscale on or off in accessibility settings whenever I need color enabled works much better for me

Tried turning on greyscale mode and I am surprised by how effectively it works in making me not want to use the phone.

Not sure if it's the lack of color in general or because screens kind of turn into a black and white mush that's hard to navigate.

I've bound toggling greyscale on/off to pressing the lock-button 3 times, makes it very easy to switch back/forth when you need it, but still be able to leave it greyscale most of the time.

I just recently got an eink phone to focus more and work/do stuff in sunlight (always sunny here); samsung and iPhone kept overheating and are barely readable in some cases, even just having a coffee in the morning. It really helps focus on just spending my time in the terminal or in chat for instance and, while it actually really nice to work in one app, switching sucks so it works well. I could not have it as my only device, but next to an iPhone or android, it is been great so far.

This is actually very neat, my phone is already setup with grayscale and triple tap to turn on red light filter so I’m exited to add that!

Little plug since we’re in the topic of dumb phones etc, I have a completely free and non-creepy iPhone app launcher for folks who are into that:

- https://sxp.studio/apps/applist

(The app catalog is also open source)

How to switch on/off your computer with Windows 10/11 to greyscale mode

1. Press Windows Key + U to open the Accessibility/Ease of Access menu.

2. Click on Color filters on the left pane.

3. Toggle the Turn on color filters switch to On.

4. Select Grayscale from the list of options. (should be preselected by default)

5. Now you can switch on/off greyscale mode anywhere with Windows key+Ctrl+C shortcut.

Can remember how I set it up. Tap the back of my iphone 3 times and it toggles greyscale.

Makes taking and looking at photos nice.

Have been in using greyscale on and off to reduce my screen time. Due the issues that the author reported I switched back and changed the icon colors to monocolor grey with black wallpaper to atleast keep the phone default UI color free.

The first behaviour it changed is making app logos of Instagram, YouTube, Reddit stand out. Some of these apps became a reflex click when I unlock my phone usually as a fidget. Greyscale takes away the lure of these app icons.

Love the shortcuts tip. Setting it up to see if I can sustain greyscale full time now.

I use perpetual night mode blue light filter, it just feels cozy enough

Grayscale was a functional problem because some pics communicate with color (like colored maps) so it nudged me away

Accessibility > Vibration > Off

Removes a lot of purposefully rewarding/manipulating haptics. Makes a phone feel "quiet" and easier to put down.

This is such a clever way to automate so that the setup actually works. I just set it up, and wonder why the author didn’t set it up to trigger grayscale on app opening. I noticed that app switching also isn’t considered closing an app, so it seems most reliable to trigger on app open as well as close

Interesting idea, but it would be nice to preserve very minimal signal from color, tunable as one feels, something like this with Stylus extension:

  @-moz-document domain("youtube.com") {
  body { filter: grayscale(95%)contrast(110%); }
  }

I’ve been doing exactly this (with the shortcuts) for almost 3 years now. I don’t think it’s as powerful as I would like but it’s certainly helped. I do wish more apps worked in grayscale (calendar I’m looking at you) but that’s on my long list of grievances.

I switched to a nxtpaper pro phone which has a hardware switch for bw vs color modes and an e-ink like display (not as good but close enough)

I love it, mostly because it forces me to use phone less..

This is great, would love to see a similar way to do it in Android.

My addiction isn’t the phone, it’s the computer, Youtube specifically. And I can’t use greyscale due to creative Photoshop work. Kingdom to whomever solves my problem.

This is fantastic! I had greyscale on many years ago, but I had to turn turn colours back on for google maps... but this trick allows me to have my cake and eat it too!

Does running greyscale help with energy conservation?

For me grayscale was too radical but you can decrease color intensity too. It also useful for against addiction.

This solution is a really great argument for Apple(/Google) just adding per-app color settings.

This blog needed a video honestly, I tried to set it up but haven’t yet

This is awesome, hope it helps me squash my YouTube addiction

Clever!

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I want my phone to be greyscale (low-dopamine), but some apps need color. Here's my workaround that works for me (triple-pressing the side button didn't, I forget to turn greyscale back on.)