I would like to make the screen go black every 8 seconds. How?

Question

As the title says, because I suffer from dry eyes I've been told to blink every eight seconds when I'm in front of the computer, and I thought a black screen might help.

Do you have any easy solution on how I can achieve this? My technical knowledge is limited so please explain in detail.

I use Windows 8.

Answer 1

A quick way to accomplish this would be to set your screensaver to blank, then run a scheduled task at your desired interval to run %systemroot%\system32\scrnsave.scr

Moving the mouse or pressing a key would turn the screensaver off, eliminating the need for a timeout or annoying key combination.

Answer 2

When working at a computer, people blink less frequently.Blinking is very important when working at a computer; blinking moistens your eyes to prevent dryness and irritation.So setting up the monitor to go black will fail the purpose of it , although it could make you remember to take the break.

It is a good practice to take frequent breaks when dealing with eyestrain.You may use application like Eyeleo to remind you to take breaks in a scheduled interval.

Answer 3

I haven't tested this solution with Windows 8, but it should work fine. It is a simple script that uses the scripting language Autohotkey.

1. Install Autohotkey

2. Create an .ahk file in a text editor and paste in the script below. You can change the duration of the black screen and other things as noted in the script.

3. Run the file

The only limitation I can think of is that the black screen steals focus/clicks when it is active. This probably isn't a big issue, but may be noticable.

screenblacker.ahk

;#NoTrayIcon    ; Uncomment to disable tray icon

Loop
{
    Gui, Color, Black
    Gui, +ToolWindow -Caption   ; +ToolWindow prevents taskbar button. -Caption removes borders and stuff.
    Gui, Show, x0 y0 w%A_ScreenWidth% h%A_ScreenHeight%
    Sleep, 100  ; This is the duration of the black screen

    Gui, Hide
    Sleep 8000
}

^F12::ExitApp ; This makes CTRL + F12 exit the script. See Autohotkey docs for a list of keys and modifiers.