We have just updated our Opera Mini for iOS to version 10.2, and now our cool browser has a night mode — a feature that not only dims the screen, but also helps you get a better night’s sleep after late-night browsing in bed.

In designing this feature, we wanted to deal with two obvious problems first:

1. Reading on a bright screen in a dark environment hurts your eyes.
2. The bright light emitted from the screen can disturb other people around you.

But, as we continued our investigations, we found a bit of a science to support our design of the night mode, namely the fact that the blue light emitted by a glowing screen can disturb your sleep. How? Well, turns out that the human body receives a “wake up signal” through melanopsin, a protein that undergoes a chemical change when exposed to light. It is like your body is saying: ”Hey, it’s morning - time to get up!”

By contrast, red-color tones are associated with sunset, and they try to convince your brain that it is evening and time to go to sleep. From a biochemical point of view, these tones protect melatonin, the sleeping hormone.

To sum up — our night mode dims your screen even more than iOS does by itself, but it also offers a “Bedtime” option, which adds a subtle orange overlay on top of the browser, filtering out blue tones and enabling you to sleep more soundly.

Give it a try and leave us some feedback!

You can download Opera Mini from the App Store: https://appsto.re/se/ykHRv.i

Opera Mini for iOS Team