Lava Lamp Screensaver

What it does

Blobs of color rise slowly through a darker liquid of the same hue, sink back, and merge and part as they pass one another — the way the wax in a lava lamp does. Press Start, or Go Fullscreen to fill the screen. Until you do, it is a still picture.

Pick Orange, Pink, Blue or Green. A new color blends in over most of a second instead of switching at once, because the colored area is large. Speed and Density each have three steps: Calm is a few blobs, Busy a crowded lamp.

How slow is slow?

At Normal speed a blob takes between about 24 and 46 seconds to rise and fall once, and no two keep the same rhythm, so the picture never settles into a repeating pattern. Slow halves that pace. It is meant to be glanced at, not watched.

As a light

A screen full of slowly moving color does throw a soft, shifting glow onto a wall in a dark room, which is most of what a lava lamp is for. It is not a lamp you can read by, and it will not light a video call evenly; for that, a steady screen such as the Warm White Screen or the Ring Light does the job better.

Leaving it running

Keep screen awake is off until you switch it on. If you do, it is held only while the blobs are moving, released when you press Stop, hide the tab or leave, and the status line says whether your browser agreed. Nothing you pick is stored; the lamp opens in orange every time.