• Lighting

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

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.

                          hayder1983 You can see if a bulb flickers or not by clicking on the "Product fiche" link on Amazon (for countries in the EU) near the energy label. Search for the values of Pst LM and SVM at the end of the document, for this Philips bulb the values are Pst LM = 1,0 and SVM = 0,9, which means that the flicker is strong.

                          For a flicker-free bulb the values should be near Pst LM = 0,01 and SVM = 0,01 (for example this bulb : https://www.amazon.de/-/en/GreenAndCo-Filament-Light-Dimmable-Flicker-Free/dp/B01E7FM3GW?ref_=ast_sto_dp&th=1&psc=1)

                          You can find flicker-free bulbs on https://www.derlichtpeter.de/en/light-flicker/market-tests/, you have to search for CFD: <1%, FfT

                              insta42014 Well this is very strange. My eyes are not revolting with the philips LED. Perhaps there is a reason my eyes accept a lot of the cheaper LEDs i bought years ago and only a few of the newer ones. My eyes are totally ok with halogen lamps, we have them in the bathroom and actually like them. 100hz seems fine for my eyes, HUE(1000 hz) not so much. Perhaps these Phillips bulbs are more like 100 hz? 312hz laptop screen is super hard to watch for me, 1000 hz is better. But everything could have more than one reason, perhaps i mix up things.

                              I also ordered this one(data sheet below), which seems to be 100.000 hz. There is no value for Pst LM and SVM, but i will try.

                              https://www.sahkonumerot.fi/4780496/doc/brochure/

                              But i would prefer flickerfree, i just ordered 5, thank you for your suggestions 😉

                                I found that list not to be as helpful as it first seemed. The bulbs I bought after studying the list flickered, perhaps because manufacturers regularly replace their bulbs which different wiring. Ironically, the worst LED bulb I have, by far, is an "FfT" GreenAndCo from that list. It makes me feel sick, disoriented real quick. It has no fixed frequency - instead, the frequency seems to change rapidly, producing a noise. For me this is not a bulb but a weapon. How they can sell something like that and put a "flicker-free" sticker on the box is a mystery.

                                I could just use my eizo as a superexpensive LED Panel and place it facing the wall 😃

                                Most important thing is that my eyes dont twitch and dont dry out from the light. Worst case i keep using the flickery philips bulbs or halogen, because my eyes somehow like them. Perhaps 100hz halogen flicker is easy for my brain to filter, because it is slow enough?

                                a month later

                                So i tried Green&Co, Tungsram and phillips and not one of them i can use for longer time. Phillips hue white are the worst, only phillips hue white & color are bearable but i prefer to not use them if possible.

                                I have halogen lamps here from osram(e14 classic 700lm 46w) and really like the light, but after 1 minutethere was a smell of burnt plastic. It is actually not possible to use any of my lamps with halogen, because they all do not support 46w. 😃 Have to buy a cheap lamp that supports that, amazon has some.

                                I ordered these one too, 2700K, they have a flickerindex of 0 and are cheap. German manufacterer. They also have a 4000K bulb, but it has a flickerindex of 0,3, sooo… 2700K it is 😉

                                https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B01K3ERHGC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

                                  hayder1983 Please report back your experiences with these Paulmann light bulbs, since that would be awesome if they would work considering that they're cheap and I also reside in Germany, because Waveform sent out an email telling previous internationals customers that they are pondering raising shipping charges 🤔

                                      dev