I scratched my $400 migraine glasses, so I built a Mac app as an alternative
I’ve lived with migraines and light sensitivity for more than 15 years. After scratching a pair of specialized migraine glasses (non-prescription) that cost nearly $400, as a builder and DIY-er I thought, "It has to be cheaper to just make my own."
Then I realized that most of the time, I didn’t need another pair of glasses. I needed something for the display I spent hours looking at every day.
That became Nox, a native Mac menu-bar app for light-sensitive users.
What I built
Nox provides 12 adjustable display presets, including FL-41-inspired tinting, warmer modes, grayscale, and other research-informed spectral profiles. It also supports software dimming below the Mac’s normal minimum, per-display controls, automatic scheduling, and break reminders.
One of my favorite presets is E-Paper mode. It turns the display grayscale and adjusts its gamma and contrast to create a calmer, paper-inspired reading experience. It can’t turn an emissive screen into a reflective e-ink panel, but it provides a useful approximation without buying a specialized monitor.
The technically interesting part was translating physical lens-filtering curves into something a display can produce. Research describes filtration across visible wavelengths, but a display ultimately gives me red, green, and blue channels to control. Nox models the target curve and converts it into adjustments those channels can approximate.
Software cannot perfectly reproduce physical lenses, and Nox only affects the display, not sunlight or room lighting. It isn’t a replacement for migraine glasses or a medical treatment. It’s a more affordable and adjustable tool for one specific source of light.
The business experiment
Nox is currently available for an introductory price of $5 after a full 14-day trial. On August 11, the lifetime price increases to $9.99. There’s no subscription or account requirement.
The product is still early, with only a couple of paying customers. My current challenge is finding the light-sensitive Mac users who genuinely need it.
I’d appreciate feedback from other founders:
- Would you lead with the story about migraine glasses, the E-Paper mode, or the additional control over Night Shift?
- Does $9.99 feel appropriate for a specialized Mac utility?
- How would you reach such a specific audience without making medical claims?
Nox is available at getnoxapp.com.
Nox is a display utility, not a medical device. It does not diagnose, treat, prevent, or cure migraine or any other condition.
Building the software version of a $400 physical product you personally needed is such a clean wedge — you know exactly what the glasses got right and where an app can be better (always with you, adjustable, no scratching). One thing worth doing early: watch one migraine-prone friend install and configure it cold, without you talking. Products born from personal pain often have settings that make perfect sense to the builder and nobody else — and for your audience, every extra decision during onboarding is literally painful.
What stood out to me is that you didn't try to recreate the product you bought—you asked what job it was actually doing.
That shift changes the category entirely. Sometimes the better product isn't a cheaper substitute, it's one that solves the same underlying problem in the place where people experience it most often.
That's the product muscle I'm actively trying to improve, seeing the world in problems and not in solutions!
I'm glad it resonated.
I'd be interested in continuing the conversation by email if you're open to it. What's the best email to reach you on?
The technical approach here is elegant - translating physical lens curves into RGB channel adjustments is smart. But I think your real insight isn't the engineering, it's the positioning realization: you went from "migraine glasses replacement" to "the display itself is the constraint." That shift changes who buys it.
For reaching your audience without medical claims, I'd lean on E-Paper mode. Not everyone with migraines needs you, but anyone who spends 8+ hours at a screen and wants less eye strain will test a $5 trial. The migraine angle gets users curious, but the general-purpose eye comfort angle gets them trying it.
Have you tested whether users discover the app through accessibility searches (blue light filtering, eye strain prevention) vs migraine-specific searches?
That E-Paper Mode sounds really intriguing, though honestly the entire app seems pretty incredible.
This is a great example of building from a personal problem. When someone is frustrated enough to create their own alternative, they usually understand the pain better than a founder who discovered it only through keyword research. I’m curious how the Mac app replaces the function of the glasses and whether it needs users to change their screen settings or follow a specific routine. Have you tested it with other people who experience similar migraines?