Iris Micro

Iris Micro is a command-line application designed as the lighter edition of Iris, a Windows utility which proposes to improve your eyesight and boost your productivity while working on the computer by changing your screen's brightness and tint.

Because it's wrapped in a console-based package, the tool can be scheduled using the Windows Task manager. It doesn't require installation and has no software dependencies, so you can unpack the downloaded file and run Iris Micro immediately as well as store it on a USB flash drive to fire it up on any PC with minimal effort.

There are three batch (.bat) files included in the pack. By simply double-clicking them, you can set the Iris Micro to day mode (5000 temperature and 100 brightness) or night mode (3900 temperature and 80 brightness), as well as reset the settings to restore the default brightness of your display.

You can call the .exe's process from a Command Prompt dialog in order to specify custom temperature values. The syntax is iris-micro.exe temperature brightness_percent, such as iris-micro.exe 2000 50, which sets the temp to 2000K and the brightness to 50%. If you call the .exe without additional commands, it sets default values (temperature to 3900K and brightness to 80%).

There's an additional file available, which enables lower values on monitors below 3900K and 80% since this doesn't work by default. It's a .reg file that makes registry modifications and might require you to restart the computer to apply the new modifications.

We haven't come across any compatibility issues with Windows 10 in our tests. The software tool worked smoothly, quickly reacted to commands and had minimal impact on the computer's performance.

All aspects considered, Iris Micro turns out to be a simple and efficient command-line tool dedicated to users who prefer the console to the graphical interface and wish to prevent eye strain when working long hours on the computer. According to the developer, it also works with all Linux distributions.