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VisionGuard: a dry-eye relief app

2026.5.9

The problem

I stare at a screen all day and my eyes pay for it: dry, sandy, unfocused. f.lux handles color temperature but ignores blinking. BlinkMore tracks blinking but only with the built-in webcam — useless in a clamshell setup with an external monitor. Nothing combined the pieces I needed.

What it does

VisionGuard is a small native macOS app I vibe-coded with Claude Code. Three things, bundled:

  1. Rest reminders — automated 20-20-20 look-away nudges.
  2. Blink detection — when I stop blinking enough, the screen edges pulse softly. Works with Continuity Camera and external webcams. All processing is local.
  3. Dynamic color temperature — f.lux-style warm shift in the evening.

The menubar icon is a small blue parrot that mirrors my eyes — open when I'm looking, sunglasses on when I blink:

Parrot with eyes open
Eyes open.
Parrot wearing sunglasses (blinking)
Blink — shades on.

It helped

My eyes feel noticeably better at the end of a long day. The parrot turned out to be the most useful part: a passive glance tells me whether I've gone quiet on blinking, often before the screen-edge nudge has to fire.

DMG on the releases page; source here.