The word "Antumbra" means the region from which an occluding body appears entirely contained within the disc of a light source - like a solar eclipse.

Antumbra | Glow is a small light emitting device, designed to enhance your work and entertainment experience while reducing eye strain. Simply mount it behind your monitor, point it at a wall, plug in the included micro-USB cable and start the Glow software.

Anyone can benefit from Glow - however, people who use their computer in low light environments will enjoy it most. Games, movies, and even work are all better with Glow.

Glow can be controlled any way you like. You can manually set its color (16 million discrete values), or allow it to react dynamically to the content on your screen. We will be launching an Extension Store for Glow that will allow users to easily download extended functionality. In addition, we're an open-source project, so if there's a missing feature you want, feel free to implement it. If we like it enough, we may just add it to the official release.

Glow is connected to your computer via a Micro-USB cable. This connection provides both power and data, allowing you to manipulate your Glow from the Antumbra application.

Ambient backlighting creates a seamless transition from your bright display to dark environment. In doing so the light object you're looking at (your monitor) is extended into your peripherals. For a more in-depth explanation check out this scientific study.

Glow mounts behind your monitor (or to almost any surface you'd like) using 3M Dual-Lock, a super strong plastic "velcro". We are also developing a clip-on stand for laptop users, but we don't expect to ship it with beta. Right now, Antumbra is best suited for users with desktop monitors (15 to 30 inches diagonal) that are placed anywhere from one to three feet from a wall. Results may vary in other configurations.

By illuminating the wall behind a computer monitor or TV, the contrast between the display and the rest of the room is reduced - making long sessions of both work and play more comfortable. Your eyes are meant to look at light reflecting off of objects, not the light source itself. By introducing more light into a dark room, your pupils constrict and limit the amount of light from the monitor that enters your eyes, preventing eye strain caused by staring at a (relatively small) bright source of light. In addition, more constricted pupils allow the screen to go from dark to bright quickly without causing discomfort - a common issue when watching many movies and videogames. Colors, brightness and responsive modes can all be set in software, allowing you to create the perfect experience for any task. Check out this study for more info.

In order to control Glow, you will need to be able to run one of the controller applications. We currently offer software for Mac OS X 10.7, 10.8, 10.9 and 10.10, Windows 7 and Windows 8 / 8.1, as well as Linux (command-line interface only). However, if you would like to see support for a different platform, just shoot us an email! In addition to this, your computer must have one powered USB port (USB 2.0 or better).

Yes. Glow is open-source software and hardware. Aside from the customizability offered by default (such as choosing colors, fades and responsive modes), developers, engineers, hackers and makers can add and implement whatever new features they want. The possibilities are endless!

Glow is still in development. Although all the hardware and software is complete, fully functional and very reliable, we need to ensure that everything works absolutely perfectly for every user before we move into large-scale production. Beta allows us to test that, gather user feedback for additional features, and tackle any bugs that might arise. Beta units are offered without warranty and are not guaranteed be perfect - so we advise that users who aren't comfortable solving computer problems hold off until the official product launch. If you like being on the cutting edge and getting your hands dirty with open-source products, Beta is perfect for you.

Glow ships within three days of your purchase date - buy yours now!

Completely. We're releasing all our code, all the hardware designs, and even the code for this website. Feel free to use anything for commercial purposes or otherwise, just attribute the original work to us and link to our site. We're not pursuing any patents and are excited to see what the open-source community will contribute. Hardware will be released under Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike Non-Commercial, and all software will be released under GPL.

We've had an overwhelming interest for a Glow implementation for TV's so we are looking into different solutions including streaming devices, and open-source content platforms. We also have plans to take our technology to other lighting applications including customizable, controllable, and extendable ambient lighting. If you have another idea on some cool way to use this technology shoot us an email at contact@antumbra.io.