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hoelletoday at 3:04 AM3 repliesview on HN

> Hey nerds: dark theme is dumb. Just light up your space. Eye strain comes from the contrast between a bright screen and your dark room background. Fix your lighting. Or if you insist on being a cave goblin then lower your screen brightness. Dark theme is overrated. Fight me.

Light theme might have a readability edge in daytime / well lit offices. But I'd bet most people using Unity are hobbyists doing it at home in their evening hours, when you want to dial down your blue light for the sake of sleep.


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spijdartoday at 3:36 AM

I'm going to "partially" side with the author on this one, but with a big caveat: a lot of displays simply don't get dark enough to make light mode palatable, especially in low light conditions.

With high quality displays that have good contrast and backlight controls that go "really far down", I prefer light mode UIs nowadays.

But, only a few of my displays can dim enough to make it work in dark(er) rooms. CRTs were great at this, with the brightness control for the raster. LCDs generally aren't, though the fancy "FALD" backlight in my macbook pro does get dark enough to make light mode work well in dim spaces.

bob1029today at 6:55 AM

I started using light mode more often once I learned about the automatic brightness feature on my monitor.

I suspect that changes in ambient lighting over time are what drive most people to max out their backlight and use dark mode. It generally works in all conditions.

dundercodertoday at 4:36 AM

I’ll fight. Dark theme isn’t just a UI preference. It’s an accessibility tool. I have a degenerative eye condition that has progressed to the point where I literally cannot use a black on white display

So I use dark reader on web and get creative with apps that think dark mode is dumb.

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