I know. Without knowing the exact cause, the only thing that we can do is trial and error. We take one theory or possible solution at a time, and try it out, and see if it works or not. And hopefully one of the theory or possible solution actually works.
Usable Smartphones?
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Gurm Nobody has found anything definitive that they can turn off and go "HA! IT WORKED!" so we're sort of stuck.
Well, we can narrow it down to something to do with the way the OS renders content to the screen. The OS alone shouldn't affect refresh rate or flicker. It can affect dithering and color. Unless the driver subsystem was changed, that could do it to
Kray If this theory is true, that means if we install apps that changes the color profile of the phone like CF.lumen, then there might be a chance that the app will override or eliminate whatever it is that is causing the eye strain in the new OS.
That was me. Unfortunately those "color filters" don't change the way the dispaly render colors. It just changes the color it is displaying. For example, if you are sensitive to particular spectrum of blue light the display emits, f.lux and the like won't change that from being emitted. It will just add red and green to the color display to make it look less blue.
ICC profiles work by actually changing the way the display shows colors. Unfortunately Google has decided not to add ICC support to Android, which is weird since there already exists an ICC profile class for Java so it would be trivial for it to be incorporated into the OS, and color accuracy is a huge deal for photographers and have kept smartphone from really being considered high end cameras, but they have handwaved away the issue like so many people who do not suffer our symptoms. You can search the Android bug report/suggestion forums for ICC and see the discussions.
Kray Can someone give this a try?
I did already. I have a Moto G, zero issues with a Skinomi screen protector and Lollipop, massive eye pain when it was upgraded to Marshmellow. I tried every light filter app out there, changed screen protectors, adjusted every display setting, nothing worked. Ultimately I had to restore the phone to stock and root it to block the update.
Kray We take one theory or possible solution at a time, and try it out, and see if it works or not. And hopefully one of the theory or possible solution actually works.
Yeah, I know I keep harping on it, but honestly, the color theory is the only theory that actually would explain every instance of eye strain I have experienced from any device and/or lighting source.
The color theory might be a good direction. I always got eye strain when trying any other color profiles on my OP3 other than "Default" (or whatever it's named). So my solution was to not change the color profile. It worked on Android 6 ("Marshmallow") and Android 7.0. Sadly, on Android 7.1, this doesn't help anymore. Whatever "they" did with the other profiles in earlier versions, they now seem to do with the default profile as well.
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I use a Samsung S5. Android has color management coming in O. To me that meams installing color profiles similar to icc on desktop but on mobile. I have really never had too much problem with any version software on my phone. It has an amoled display. only when looking at it while in front of my monitor does The strain happen on my phone. in a room, with lights off, is usually fine unless my eyes are super tired and i get the hangover my desktop system causes and my eyes are completely beat.
However, If i have other leds shining on my phone it can be an issue. From room lighting or monitor.
Im hoping there is more to icc profiles and monitor calibration than i thought. That would take so much mystery out of this. I am calibrating my monitor. See how that goes. a custom icc profile for the individual monitor in use.
Wrightpt1 Android has color management coming in O.
Source? That'd be awesome, it would give us an additional thing to try to resolve smartphone screen pain
Im hoping there is more to icc profiles and monitor calibration than i thought.
I'm trying to dive more into the the world of color profiles but it is a bewildering topic.
Source? That'd be awesome, it would give us an additional thing to try
to resolve smartphone screen pain
Check the bottom. Romanian guy is someone i used to follow on twitter and is on the Android team from what I understand.
https://techspecs.blog/blog/2017/2/28/why-fuchsia-needs-color-management
I talked to tech support from X-Rite and he said you cannot "edit" an ICC profile. You can only change the settings when making a new one. DisplayCal seems to beat out private commercial software from what i have read on Amazon, one comment on Reddit and other general forums it seems.
All this talk about IPS panels. I prefer the VA panel from Samsung. I go to Amazon and the 32 inch LG IPS has rave reviews, i got to youtube, people say its the best screen they have ever had, but IPS doesn't draw me in like the VA panel. its just to artificial while the VA panel is more like looking out of a window.
Also, here LG is apparently investing in OLED screens. I assume this is only for mobile devices:
https://techspecs.blog/blog/2017/4/26/lg-display-rumored-to-be-investing-in-mobile-oled-production
I read somewhere but can not longer find it but individuals from AU optronics, i think ceo actually, stating that they expect quantum dot screen to beat out OLEDs in the long run in terms of cost and performance i believe.
Wrightpt1 I talked to tech support from X-Rite and he said you cannot "edit" an ICC profile.
When I say "Edit", what I mean really is to read it. If I could read that ICC profile, and find out what changes it was making, I could possibly have custom tinted lenses made that replicate hat change which may help with other lighting sources.
Wrightpt1 Also, here LG is apparently investing in OLED screens.
Unfortunately the underlying technology doesnt seem to matter two much, users on this forum have tried OLED screen with unsatisfactory results. It seems any display type is capable of producing a display that causes eye strain
Added tech armor Matte screen protector on my iphone 6 , eyestrain (migraine) has reduced considerably, though it does come after a longer time.
I also noticed reduced eye strain on my Benq VA monitor by using it's native color profile. It has anyway been very good to my eyes, but when I did this about 3 months ago and it got better.
I also found that iphone 7 is quite ok. Samsung S8 causes instant migraine. Has anyone used Sony Z5 or Lenovo Phab 2
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I have always been able to use HTC phones (with Super LCD3) display without a problem. I have owned HTC One (m7), HTC One Max, I skipped M8, now I am using M9+ Supreme Camera Edition. All these phones uses Super LCD3, and I look at the screen for hours e.g. watching you tube without any problem whatsoever. Note that my M9+ is still on Android 5 (Lollipop). I dare not upgrade to Android 6 because I read users get eye strain after upgrading.
I have purchases many other phones, LG V10, Huawei Mate 7, Samsung Note 5, even other HTC model like E9+ that uses IPS display all give me eye strain. So far, only HTC phones with Super LCD3 display I can use without a problem.
So now is time to upgrade my phone again. HTC has new model, HTC 10 and U Ultra that uses Super LCD5. The 10 is last year's model, so I bought the U Ultra (also because I prefer bigger screen), which comes with Android 7. Lo and behold, I get eye strain. My one hope and phone brand that I can use now is unusable. This sucks.
This eye strain is different than, say a PWM induced eye strain. PWM i feel the strain more inside my eye balls. This eye strain from the phone is more like a throbbing inside my head (skull, brain), from ears up.
This phone has no PWM. I am assuming that Super LCD5 is not causing eye strain to me (because Super LCD3 does not give me eye strain, but I cant know for sure), and I assume the cause of eye strain is really because of Android 7. I tried tinkering with color and display setting. Not much can be changed.
I have discovered that this combination that makes the eye strain a little bit better:
Disable HW overlay + use "CF.lumen" app and change the master color profile (change RGB values, and use the auto-brightness of the app instead of the phone's). These 2 combination helps to reduce the eye strain, but the eye strain is still there and not 100% gone.
The CF.lumen app says that if the phone is rooted, it can work better. How better I am not sure, but I am hoping the app can change things at root or kernel level to change the color is displayed. But rooting my new HTC U Ultra will void my warranty, and if it doesnt work, I would loose a lot in resale value if I need to sell the phone.
If anyone has a rooted phone, can you install and try the CF.lumen app, let the app control the phone's auto-brightness, and set any value RGB and brightness so that the app will control the color and brightness, and see if it helps to reduce eye strain or not.
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ensete That was me. Unfortunately those "color filters" don't change the way the dispaly render colors. It just changes the color it is displaying. For example, if you are sensitive to particular spectrum of blue light the display emits, f.lux and the like won't change that from being emitted. It will just add red and green to the color display to make it look less blue.
ICC profiles work by actually changing the way the display shows colors. Unfortunately Google has decided not to add ICC support to Android, which is weird since there already exists an ICC profile class for Java so it would be trivial for it to be incorporated into the OS, and color accuracy is a huge deal for photographers and have kept smartphone from really being considered high end cameras, but they have handwaved away the issue like so many people who do not suffer our symptoms. You can search the Android bug report/suggestion forums for ICC and see the discussions.
You should really try and install the CF.lumen in your phone. The app does not just change the color of the phone, actually this is true only if your phone is unrooted. But for rooted phones, the app can install and change the driver of the graphics itself. Here is some extract of what the app can do:
Drivers
CF.lumen currently supports several driver backends to adjust the display: the original CF.lumen driver, the KCAL kernel driver, the PCC/RGB kernel driver, and the rootless (non-root) overlay. Driver selection will only be presented to you if multiple drivers are actually supported on your device.
Drivers: CF.lumen: Performance mode
This driver mode overrides Android's rendering system in a different way. While it doesn't work on all devices and firmwares, if it does work, it is often significantly faster than the compatibility mode. It also doesn't suffer from short flashes of the original colors being shown. This mode causes visible artifacts on some devices, though it isn't common.
Drivers: KCAL
The KCAL driver is quickly becoming a popular kernel mod for Qualcomm devices. It allows color adjustments in the display hardware itself. There is no performance difference with this driver, but of course your kernel must support it. This is the fastest driver.
Drivers: rootless
The rootless fallback driver (for non-root users) uses a color overlay. This is an additional surface, causes at least one additional expensive full-screen rendering step, and is likely to throw your system into software compositing mode most of the time. This is the slowest (and ugliest) driver.
Drivers: CF.lumen
The CF.lumen driver requires software compositing, as it changes the colors displayed during the software compositing step. Of course, it lets the system go back to hardware compositing if it's not actively changing colors. This can slightly impact performance. This driver changes colors on the surface content level, and can perform all sorts of calculus before deciding what to display. This usually gives it the highest possible image quality output.
More info here: https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=51779367#post51779367
I think this is the closest or the best we can get to changing the ICC profile of android phones.
ensete, since ICC and color profile has positive impact on your eye strain, you might want to give the app a try.
You can download the app here:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.chainfire.lumen&hl=en
I am going to install the CF.lumen on my new HTC U Ultra. Actually I have already installed the app on the phone, but my phone is not rooted yet, so it is operating on rootless-mode, which is just color overlay.
I am going to try installing the full app / kernel based driver.
But need to root it first. At first I was hesitant to root my phone, but after thinking about it, I have decided it is worth voiding the warranty (and losing considerable resale value) of my new phone for the possibility of finding a solution and for the possibility of being able to use the phone without eye strain.
But I have never rooted my phone before, so I need some time to learn all the steps and even the terminologies (like TWRP, bootloader etc). Right now all these terminologies are like foreign language to me. :-) Might take a while, but I will update how it goes once all is done.
Others, especially those who has rooted phones, should give this app a try too and see if it helps your eye strain.
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Kray My phone cannot be rooted as my work requires an unrooted device as a requirement and my job has a heavy mobile component. Interesting to see that CF.Lumen works that way on a rooted device though, curious if something those alternate drivers change would make a difference. Would love to see results of someone who had a phone that gave them problems, they tried CF.lumen, i didn't help, they then rooted the phone, tried it again, and found one of the alt drivers eliminated the eye strain. Not only would it be a good solution for people to try, it would narrow down the cause of the eye strain as something that driver is changing
7 days later
Hi, I was also having problems with some phone screens, especially Super Amoled, they caused headache and dizziness. I'm searching for a new phone now, but it's difficult to make the right choice of safe screen. I don't need powerful processor or good camera, I just want that it wouldn't cause headaches ...I know the best way is to test it , but in my country it's not so easy to order and then to return it, most online shops are somewhat reluctant to accept return; and in real-world shops you can't look at the phone for a longer time. That's why I was trying to narrow the possibilities by reading opnions here and finding any dependencies. I think there should be some rules for safer screen, yet.
I made some common observations after reading posts here:
-older phones seem to be safer than new phones,
-older Android/IOS versions seem to be safer, too,
-definitely avoid Super Amoled screens with pwm,
-the fewest complaints are from Super LCD (HTC) / TFT screens
-some IPS displays cause problems, too, GPUs,color profiles may be the reason for this;
I excluded Moto G3/4 due to a post I read here. I tested Sony Xperia XA in a shop and it seemed to be OK, but I also saw a post in this thread stating it causes headache after a day, so still hesitate about it. I tested 2 Lenovo phones (Lenovo K5 and S1 Lite) in a shop. Both gave me headache and dizziness though they are IPS. My oldest smartphone is Samsung Galaxy Core. I didn't have problems with it but after watching at Pwm screens, I think my experience with Galaxy Core is worse, it causes some headache but it's still usable. It's strange that as if screen problems are contagious, after seeing one bad screen, you got eyestrain with screens that were ok previously ...
Due to the above considerations I narrowed my choice to several older (and not so powerful) phones.They can still be found in local online shops:
HTC Desire 610
HTC Desire 626
LG G3s (Beat)
LG G2 mini
Samsung Galaxy Express 2
Has anyone tried any of these phones, could you recommend any?
Also, do you think there is some dependency of the GPU used in the phone and its effect on eyes? is it possible that certain GPUs (e.g. Adreno 450, 306) are causing eystrain/headache, and others (maybe the weaker) not? I started wondering about this after reading the thread about Moto G4 problems: https://ledstrain.org/d/202-moto-g4-plus-causes-brain-pain-eye-strain/3
I can say with certainty that Apple has done something to address this. The new ipad 9.7" 2017 does not cause me eye strain over hours and the iphone 7 over the short time I spent did not cause me any strain as well. The best result is with my old iphone 5 but 6 & 6s cause a lot of strain. Samsung is terrible all models after galaxy s2 cause immediate strain. I hope someone tests the new sony xperia phones so we can know how they are. I prefer android but am stuck becuase only these Apple devices can be tolerated by me..
I think one of the best approaches for now might be to look up current and new AMOLED device reviews on notebookcheck.net, and search the article for "PWM". If it says "no PWM" or "PWM below 25% brightness", I believe it's worth a shot as long as you could easily return the device within some days. Because currently AMOLED seems to be the only display type we know either flickers at 240 Hz or not at all (not considering the small amplitude 60 Hz flicker that's always there).
Ok so I've checked LG G6 and Huawei P10, this phones are great but not for us - I had to return.
I had those phones for few days and no one was usable for long time like my iP 6 which i use only for few minutes.
I hoped that P10 can adjust color tint in setting, but it don't work at all or maybe a little bit.
I use LG G2 D802 with bluelight filter at 30% whole day without strain but in this phones this don't work at all.
I'm afraid that I have to stick wit G2 for long time but even with last Lineage OS it is not so fast.
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I read that LG G6 uses pwm at 2400 Hz 
and also all new LG models, as well as Moto G5...
I'm thinking of trying an HTC phone . Unfortunately M8/m9 are a bit too expensive for me now, so I am turning to Desire 610/626/630. I watched some videos of HTC 610 and it's interesting a flicker can be noticed in the screen, as here:
(in the upper right) .How do you think , what can it be due to? Do you think it is some kind of pwm or dithering?