• Lighting

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

Just adding onto this excellent thread. I'd fallen for Philips' marketing and bought their "flicker free" bulbs to relieve my headaches. Since I'm still having headaches, I did some digging and found two documents, which might be the ones @jen found as well.

  1. Philips bulbs are manufactured by a company called Signify as referenced here
  2. Signify has a document (here) that, if I'm reading it correctly, attempts to discredit the IEEE1789 flicker standard

That second document was enough to confirm for me that Philips/Signify bulbs aren't really flicker-free at all. (Why try to get around a published standard if you're compliant?)

Per this thread, I bought a 6-pack of Waveform bulbs last weekend. Excited for them to arrive. Will report back on how they work out.

  • KM replied to this.

    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.

          6 days later

          I have not found "flicker free" bulbs to b any better or worse than any other bulbs

          I purchases pretty expensive certified "flicker free" Cree LED bulbs off Amazon. Triggered symptoms within seconds. I then went to Lowes and bought a box of the 18 count bulk el-cheaper GE LED bulbs. Practically zero symptoms.

          Never go by advertising, or hunches, or slogans, or "I think it's this", just go by symptoms. Keep switching bulbs until you find one that works and when you do stock up.

          a month later

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

          In winter months, incandescent bulbs do not negatively impact my power bill very much, as my heater doesn't have to work as hard with the bulbs helping by providing their own heat- it balances out the higher wattage of the bulbs. At some point, I'd like to do a test, but I wager some LEDs might actually lend to a slightly higher power bill than good old burning wire, in my case.
          In summer months, I may consider GE's High CRI HD LEDs- they were pretty decent when I used them. I don't know if they flicker, my sensitive eyes didn't have much issue with them, which is saying a lot as even the difference between the average fluorescent strip and average LED strip is very noticeable for me (I loathe the LEDs at my job).
          Regardless, there's just nothing like the pure, even lighting of incandescent.

          8 days later
          a month later

          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.

            7 months later

            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.

              Ok. I will try Tungsram BrightStik and some other Osram lamps including for testing halogen lightbulbs. All my HUE lamps became hard to use for me for some reason, can only use them for a short period. Eyes are itching when using them, that becomes worse when using them below 100% brightness or when i watch TV at the same time. I have other (older) LEDs in my flat, they are perfectly fine. I have some 2015 LED spots, super easy one the eyes, but new LEDs(including most backlights) stings my eyes (now). No idea why…

                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.

                  jen I am just testing an OLED TV from Sony, and my eyes dont react, but i feel like vomiting all the time(after trying to normal TV for 60 minutes). My old TV is like heavy 120 hz PWM but it only starts a mild eye twitch on the right settings, I will let it breath for a few hours and i hope it is only the smell of new electronics.

                  Now i am sitting on my 14 year old LG monitor and there are virtually no symptoms. It is madness!

                  I am not sure it is only my eyes, but i can only test different things and hope for the best.

                  • jen replied to this.

                      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.

                          • jen replied to this.

                              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. 😉

                                  waveform did not work for me, but they have free returns, so worth a shot.

                                  dev