Flicker Free LED Lightning it's the most important thing! Which one to buy?

KM I agree with you that almost all companies that advertise “flicker-free" are joking since their bulbs have very obvious 120 Hz flicker detectable by slow-motion cell phone video. However if they choose to engineer the bulbs differently, companies can make LED bulbs that are essentially flicker-free and much better than incandescents. I believe we should be asking companies to make this kind of bulb. Check out the flicker graph for these old LED bulbs - it’s pretty much flat and the flicker frequency is over 17000 Hz. I own these bulbs and love them. Never a twinge of irritation. They’re easier on my head than even some of my incandescents. This is the kind of bulb I think we should be hoping returns to the marketplace so people have the choice of installing something that’s essentially flicker-free.

I don’t have the proper equipment to test the flicker metrics of my new Waveform bulbs myself, but by cell phone slow-motion video I can’t detect even a hint of flicker and neither can my head. I think the flicker statistics they provide on their website (less than 1% flicker, 0.00 flicker index) are genuine - these bulbs really do seem to have been engineered to be essentially flicker-free.

Unfortunately, where I live, it’s hard to walk down the street anymore without being assaulted by invisible LED flicker. If we don’t want sensitive individuals like me to be in a constant state of migraine, I think we really need to encourage flicker-free LED manufacture. Only having homes with low-flicker incandescents may not be sufficient protection if there's too much invisible LED flicker in the environment. I know I can’t manage to avoid the flickering LEDs owned by others anymore. Unfortunately there are so few actually flicker-free LEDs being sold right now that people don’t have much of a choice. And the “flicker-free" marketing lies today from most companies make it seem like engineering that eliminates the 120Hz ripple and is actually flicker-free is a myth, when instead it is definitely something that used to be done in many LED bulbs several years ago.

cranthon To be fair, it seems the document is more about "temporal light artifacts", i.e. consciously perceiving flicker and stroboscopic effects.

KM It's entirely possible they aren't attempting to be deceptive and their labeling standards for flicker-free just aren't strict enough for our needs.

Decent read here https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/video/tips-and-solutions/flicker-free-lights-and-why-they-are-important-you

+1 to the waveform bulbs, they are really fantastic. I previously tried phillips flicker free - all shit. All flickered at somewhere between 60-120hz.

Patriot LED now offers flicker-free LED tubes. They are aimed at the professional market. See more at https://patriotled.com/flicker-less/

and https://patriotled.com/flicker-less-direct-wire/

I bought this:

Tungsram BrightStik 3000К E27 1521lm 240° (model number 93064056)

I measured it with this and it has no flicker. I cannot speak as to its subjective eyestrain amount yet.

hayder1983 Yes. But I'm also happy with all other lightbulbs. I mean, I've discovered that I'm not sensitive to any lightbulb technology/model.

I’ve been using Waveform Lighting A19 Centric Home flicker-free LED bulbs in most light fixtures at home, a family-member’s home, and at work for a year and a half at this point and they don’t trigger my flicker symptoms at all and seem to actually be free of both visible and “invisible” flicker.

Beware of “flicker-free” marketing from most companies. In 2016, the lighting industry decided they’d only use “flicker” to refer to obviously visible flicker and would use “temporal light modulation” to include the “invisible” flicker of LED lights that haven’t been specifically engineered to eliminate it. There are no regulations for when a company may market lights as “flicker-free” and to my knowledge none of the major US manufacturers currently make completely flicker-free household LED bulbs. I’ve tried many bulbs from many companies and corresponded with companies, including extensively with Philips.

Even Waveform Lighting erroneously uses “flicker-free” to market tube lights and power supplies for strip lights which do in fact flicker (lighting consultant flicker meter measurements) and trigger my symptoms.

hayder1983 I am not sure it is only my eyes

It may not be - lots of us, even from the subset of people here with eye strain, have other neurological symptoms too (varying from person to person). My persistent symptoms mimic the neurological effects of a concussion.

And for me, my first symptoms in the presence of flickering lights vary depending on the exact kind of flicker. Most often it’s sharp pain behind an eye or a subtle sense of spatial disorientation because my brain notices if the light is flashing and can’t ignore it. Sometimes it’s intense motion sickness/nausea. I think iPhones I briefly looked at at the Apple Store that made me super nauseous immediately were OLED. My new 2022 iPhone SE (LCD LED) triggers pain behind a eye first, but when I tried a matte skin from Skinomi on it (recommendation from this forum) my first symptom was delayed a bit and became moderate nausea instead of pain. I really dislike nausea so didn’t push it further to see if the pain would come eventually too. I think the matte coating, which gathered and refracted the light in mini areas all over the surface (white looked more like a rainbow close up) somehow altered things to make the flicker more nausea-inducing. I think it’s interesting that it was definitely doing something and maybe it improves things for some people.

jen It reads more or less like my symptoms. It is not only light nausea, new monitor are sometimes even doing a thing, where my body is like getting food poisoning, i get diarrhea. Testing my new OLED TV, i am shaking like crazy. I can send the TV back, it is not about that. I have fear of going into the office again, i cannot hide this in office. My worst device is my work laptop. And you cannot have another sort of laptop at my work!

At one point my Eizo had like colored subpixels around the black text. I think that was my brain. It is gone, no it is just massive eye sore.

Perhaps i get an e-ink reader monitor when i go to a doctor.

hayder1983 Perhaps i get an e-ink reader monitor

If possible try it in a way you can still return it. An eInk computer monitor (Dasung) is at least as bad if not worse for me than the normal monitor - the eInk amplified the visibility of temporal dithering. It was obviously flickering grayscale pixels on eInk instead of the “invisible” flicker from dithering on the LED LCD monitor.

I can even switch off dithering on the OLED TV, my eyes dont cramp, but I am shivering. My brain does not like it. The picture is fantastic especially with low brightness. I will give it one more day, if it is unusable tomorrow, i will send it back. I dont think it is dithering with the TV, even when there is still some hardcoded dithering. I even tried it in store with cheap lighting everywhere. At home with no lights and mild daylight, it doesnt work… but i can return it

But wow. What the hell. If i dont find new technology that i can use, i will get old tech to use. I have still 28 years of work in front of me… Some old superlow contrast monitors, unrefurbished. Watching TV on my old monitor is easily possible. I can see the dithering on my screen, but as long as i use black background and grayish text for my browser and dont look at static images i dont see it. White is dancing for me(not on every device, but on my PC). It seems there is no way to turn it off on my new PC

The thing is it takes away life quality to not be able to watch TV with your family or cartoons with your children. I will use my old TV, it "only" gives me eye strain, that is ok for 2 hour movie, as long as my eyes can get through 8 hours of work.

I am just now using a philips filament bulb. My eyes arent twitching, i cant see a flicker, no nausea. I just tested it a few hours, but my eyes are totally sore from work and still not acting up. It means no flicker or acceptable flicker. It is not dimmable, but not super bright when postioned behind you, so it is usable as ambient light for my PC, perhaps in the living room. It is still not the same color temperature as a normal light bulb, but acceptable.

https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B07G868RFK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I will test it another few days and as soon as i get the other 3 light bulbs i will share again.