Well Artis it seems that we are qutite similar people. I have also "dry eyes" and a slight astigmatism in my right eye.
Also I was very sensitive to laserpointer and microscopes etc.

Which hardware overlays do you mean exactly with android?

Maybe take a look at one of my other threads in this forum:
https://www.ledstrain.org/d/23-konjunktivitis-sicca-sicca-symptomatik/14

I also don't think that PWM is your problem.

    6 days later

    Harrison

    Sorry for answering late i forgot to check the welcome thread. Yeah i also think that pmw is not the problem because during my student job in a tv studio i have to work with three pc screens and they are all the same model from EIZO. Two screens give me only slight strain but one of them (which shows a livestream and is not connected to my desktop pc) strains my eyes very badly and gives me a headache. So it seems that the input source is my problem.

    And for the hardware overlays in android:
    You go into the developer options and check "disable hadware overlays".

    12 days later

    CFL/LED/Halogen problems

    For over a year I have experienced a range of medical problems related to my exposure to all new light bulbs. My symptoms include strong headaches/migraines and severe eye pain with sensations akin to cutting or strong pressure.

    Unfortunately consistent exposure to LED has left me vulnerable to other forms of lighting such as CFL and Halogen which I no longer find tolerable. It could simply be a cumulative impact of exposure to hostile lighting for several years but I can longer use a smart phone (previously I used an iphone, Blackberry etc without any problems) or any other LED based devices. At present, I only feel comfortable using (the now phased out) incandescent lighting and I think the roll-out of LED was the catalyst for my decline as I was definitely able to handle Halogen (still available on the market) before LED became commonplace.

    Increasingly I am encountering these LED bulbs in most homes and businesses. As the bulbs are now widely used and as my reaction to these bulbs is extremely severe, I am faced with clear limitations on my daily activities. For example the overhead lights in most shops cause me to experience some of the above symptoms within seconds. There are numerous places I avoid altogether due to the eye pain caused by the presence of these new bulbs. At work all co-workers are now using LED monitors and many parts of the office use LED lighting. Unfortunately this makes it very difficult for me to work and I am reaching crisis point as I am working in an environment with almost intolerable lighting.

    As well as this forum there are various groups of people across the world complaining about light sensitivity. Are most of you only prone to pain from LED backlight devices or do you also suffer from LED street lights and home lighting as well?

    3 months later

    Hallo from Scotland! Very glad to find this forum!

    I had absolutely no problems with my eyes until I purchased a Macbook Pro in January 2012. I began to get headaches almost every day which often developed into intense migraines with swirling nausea. I refused to believe it was the laptop that was to blame for far too long, changing my diet, getting eyes tested etc, all the while my eyes became more and more photosensitive to the point that being in sunlight hurt.

    I then believed that it was LED technology that was to blame, and since I had to use Macbooks every day for work (teaching music production) I set about speaking to Apple about it. They were great and replaced the internal screen in my laptop several times as there are different brands of LED screens in each Macbook. None of this worked unfortunately.

    Fast forward to now and through years of testing I've narrowed down that my primary problem is temporal dithering (although I'm also less sensitive to PWM). I am now able to comfortably use a screen for 12 hours a day, with my current systems being desktop PCs with an Nvidia graphics card (currently GTX560 & GT610) and an LCD monitor. I've yet to find a laptop that I can use! I tried with ATi / AMD graphics cards but since they have dithering on by default they give me the same symptoms as OSX does with ANY configuration (OSX also has temporal dithering enabled across the board).

    I'm a regular contributor (as SimonStokes) to this huge forum thread on the topic for those interested: https://discussions.apple.com/message/29906650?tstart=0#29906650

    I look forward to working with you guys towards a solution! :]

    Hi Simon,

    Welcome to the forum.

    What LCD monitor are you now using without pain and does it contain CCFL backlight or LED?

    Are you adversely affected by LED room lighting or just the monitors?

    Cheers,

    APC.

      APC75 Thanks APC75. I'm currently running CCFL LCD monitors for all 3 setups - these were actually purchased prior to realising that LED backlighting itself wasn't necessarily to blame in my case so I haven't tested with LED monitors yet - I'm going with 'if it isn't broke, don't fix it' for now.

      The monitors I'm currently using are EDIT: Viewsonic 2855 and Benq v2400w, both of which cause no problems with the Windows / Nvidia setup but will cause big problems if used as an external monitor with my Macbook since temporal dithering is applied for external monitors as well as a Macbook's internal screen.

      I recently installed LED room lighting in a studio with no noticable negative effects, although I had to find warm, yellow tinted bulbs as I find most LED lighting to be very harsh and blue. My eyes have always been sensitive to blue light as well - this combination of temporal dithering, PWM and blue light makes it very hard to narrow down what's causing the main problem but in my case it's definitely TD.

      • JTL replied to this.

        si_edgey It's interesting to see that people have sensitivity to different things. For example I have a 2015 Macbook Pro with Intel/AMD switchable graphics and can use it just fine for >10 hours per day. First time I've been able to use a computer that long in years. But give me a laptop with PWM and I'll be having a headache in seconds. My father's work laptop (HP Elitebook) has Intel Broadwell integrated graphics with some sort of IPS screen built in (but no PWM) and I am able to use it just fine.

        https://i.imgur.com/hnZnDUd.png

        si_edgey

        Benq v2400w

        Wow. A 1920x1200 monitor. Quite a rarity to find that aspect ratio these days...

        a month later

        Good news - a new charity called LightAware has just launched. Please visit their crowd funding campaign and watch the brief cartoon here https://chuffed.org/project/lightaware.

        Please share and encourage donations.

        Please also follow their Facebook page by searching for LightAware Charity on FB. Share this far and wide with as many people as possible in order to help grow this movement towards finding a solution to the lighting problems that we all struggle with.

        Current charity website is http://www.lightaware.org/ but far more support is needed to expand on this.

          APC75 Cool!
          Start a new thread about it though (edit: which I see you already did 👍) - that will help it gain proper exposure as opposed to being hidden in this thread 😉

          • JTL likes this.
          12 days later

          Hi all. I also have eyestrain from all LED screens.
          I am 32, Male. Working in sales. Have glasses prescription for distance but this is it. My eyes are fine.
          This problem is hard to diagnose. I will try to summarize.

          I have 3 screens which I can use without any eye discomfort:
          1) LCD display Samsung SyncMaster P2350 connected to VGA output of NVIDIA 8300GS or ASUS EAH5450 cards (Windows 7).
          2) Dell Inspiron 1420 laptop with LCD screen (Nvidia 8300) – can work whole day without eyestrain (Windows 7).
          3) Google Nexus 5 – can watch movies on it for many hours

          There is also Acer Aspire One from 2012 with intel 2000 and LED screen but I can use it for 3-4 hours before my eyes are tired (Windows 7). Eyes feel more comfortable using UBUNTU on this laptop. Maybe because of darker color scheme.

          All new LED screens kill my eyes in 20 mins.

          Now the interesting part begins.
          1) If I connect Samsung SyncMaster P2350 to any Intel graphics using VGA/DVI/HDMI I get bad eyestrain
          2) If I connect Samsung SyncMaster P2350 to DVI or HDMI output of NVIDIA 8300GS or ASUS EAH5450 cards I get bad eyestrain
          3) If I use any new laptop, PC, Mac with LED screen I get eyestrain, red eyes and even lose sleep
          4) If I connect any new LED monitor via VGA to my Dell 1420 or PC with ASUS EAH5450 card, I get same problems
          5) My phone Huawei PE-TL10 has LED backlight and gives me pain in the eyes, problem is partially solved with blue-light filter glass protector. I am not watching movies on it anymore.

          I think there might be 4 reasons and sometimes they mix:
          1) Flicker (PWM in LCD and LED monitors)
          2) Blue light
          3) Intel drivers
          4) Digital output

          Nobody around me has these problems and everybody is very happy with their new Macs and PCs.

          Btw, I have eyestrain and pain using LED bulbs and lamps. All other light sources are fine.

          All my attempts to find reasons have failed. I am forced to use my old heavy Dell 1420 laptop and pray it will work long)

          I tried few flicker-free, low blue light monitors like ASUS and Benq last year but no success. After 20 mins, my eyes are red and tired. Ordered Jins PC glasses – same. This is a big mistery to me.

          • JTL replied to this.

            Thanks for sharing your experience Alexmam. This is a very enigmatic issue for sure. I basically cannot handle any LED monitor either. Anyone in the office that has one, I almost always convince them to come to my desk instead. If I don't, I will have an ocular-like migraine for pretty much the rest of the day. The pain is almost immediate when I look at their monitor too.

            I visited an neuro-ophthalmologist this month, and in dilating my pupils and looking in, he said my retina and head of the optic nerve looks OK (that's good at least! Good to know these painful monitors aren't causing any eye damage). He suspects the pain is actually coming from the brain (like the visual processing center). Some of his associates have said that some people have gained some relief from the FL-41 tint. I think a company called Theraspecs in the US makes them.

            It's also been suggested that I may have a form of Irlen Syndrome (Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome). I'm a bit skeptical, but it at least makes sense in theory. For now, I'm just sticking with my U2410 LCD monitor on 0% brightness with f.lux enabled. That seems to be the most tolerable thing I have found so far.

            I can use an iPhone 6S+ fine for a few minutes each day as well. That doesn't seem to bother me as it does some others on here.

            Alexman thanks for posting your experience. It certainly rings a bell with many here. and It deservers its own thread.

            Does anyone own laptop based on AMD? Do you also get eyestrain from it?

            • JTL replied to this.

              Alexmam Well I have 2015 Macbook Pro with AMD graphics chip. I am only sensitive to PWM though.

              Works very well.

                Alexmam Apple has never used AMD CPU's and I think AMD cpu's are slow.

                But I think that would have nothing to do with quality of graphics as I've seen laptops with the same AMD GPU but Intel or AMD CPU.

                  JTL in Intel based laptops CPU integrated graphics is used for office tasks and video card used for 3D. I am wondering how it is done in Apple.

                  • JTL replied to this.

                    I am trying to understand if buying AMD based laptop will solve my problem. Intel drivers definitely give me eyestrain.

                    • JTL replied to this.

                      Alexmam Apple uses a hardware multiplexer chip (like the input select on a TV) to switch between GPU's, as in the display is hooked up to this chip. All external graphics ports are hardwired to the AMD graphics chip as well.
                      image https://i.imgur.com/e8RdMng.png

                      dev