Usable Smartphones?
I tried Android 8.0 (OxygenOS) on my OnePlus 3, but it's extremely unusable, like 7.1. Burning eyes and feeling exhausted just by looking at the screen for an extended period of time. I installed the firmware files (proprietary blobs by OnePlus), modem firmware excluded, from the usable Android 7.0 OxygenOS release over the 8.0 installation: The OS still works, but no relief. I installed LineageOS 7.1x (current) with the 7.0 firmware files: no relief. So it looks like the device firmware might not be responsible for this problem.
martin @TechSensitive I interviewed the head of Apple display engineering back in 2015 and he says the majority of Apple products with LED backlit displays made after late 2009 use PWM around 120Khz below 50% brightness, otherwise there is no PWM.
Sadly he is very busy and the person who connected me with him has retired from AAPL.
Notebookcheck has upgraded their oscilloscope and are able to detect it now.
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JTL I see! Its very weird to think my nervous system would notice 120khz, but I feel how I feel when I try to use these.
Cant they just stop making this shitty tech? PWM, shitty light spectrum, and expensive anyways. I wonder if it also affects other people who dont notice it and we are actually the lucky ones to avoid it long term.
Im building an oscope from my external sound card and some cable and soldered photodiode using freeware scope software. Ill post if I get any results. The amplitude of the flicker is very important as well for us I believe.
martin Cant they just stop making this shitty tech? PWM, shitty light spectrum, and expensive anyways. I wonder if it also affects other people who dont notice it and we are actually the lucky ones to avoid it long term.
Remember, we are the tiny minority. The truth is unless something impacts them directly, most people just don't care.
I agree that we are ahead of the curve, all we can hope if that the public and science will catch up with us. Keep spreading awareness wherever you can
martin I see! Its very weird to think my nervous system would notice 120khz, but I feel how I feel when I try to use these.
I highly doubt it's your nervous system noticing 120Khz PWM. A good way to check would be to find a "known good" LED light that doesn't cause any symptoms when constantly DC driven and run it at 120Khz PWM with an Arduino.
martin Cant they just stop making this shitty tech? PWM, shitty light spectrum, and expensive anyways. I wonder if it also affects other people who dont notice it and we are actually the lucky ones to avoid it long term.
Apple balanced the aspect of making a flicker-free display with preserving color accuracy. I say we "won the war" with PWM now that more flicker free laptops and such are available now.
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JTL if that is the case, why are thr devices still unusable? Dithering, LED color?
Im taking macushield supplements that should make me as indifferent to blue light from LEDs as 90% of the people who have no issues, but so far not much difference.
Are you covinced its dithering then?
Im not an engineer to be easily able to build the arduino test device. Would have to study it and it doesnt seem like a fast task. Thank you for the tip though, goes on my list.
I recently purchased an iphone 8 plus for my wife. I tried it for about half hour with 100% brightness and night shift constantly on. Did not get harsh headaches, but still feel uncomfortable. I will try to find another time to test it for a longer period of time and report back.
iPhone 8 plus works for me. True tone on, brightness at a lower setting.
martin Im taking macushield supplements that should make me as indifferent to blue light from LEDs as 90% of the people who have no issues, but so far not much difference.
Careful buying into those claims. Non of that shit has been through extensive testing. I took every eye suppliment on the market, non of them made a lick of difference.
Another data point: my buddy has a Samsung Galaxy S5 (older phone) and I was able to use it with zero eye strain
I recently got a OnePlus X. While the PWM of its AMOLED screen is pretty bad for my eyes, PWM turns off at brightness 81/255 and above, making the device perfectly usable. High brightness is not an issue. Even LineageOS (Android 7.1.2) is usable.
And on my OnePlus 3 I discovered that Paranoid Android (also known as "AOSPA"), a custom ROM, is usable. It has Android 7.1.2 and lacks the color profile options of OxygenOS (Android 7.1 and 8.0) and LineageOS (Android 7.1.2), which are totally unusable on any profile, including default. [Default was fine earlier on Cyanogenmod (Android 6.x) and OxygenOS (Android 7.0 and below).]
Which leads me to the assumption that something is wrong with how the color profiles are applied to the video output. Feels similar to the Firefox Quantum and Windows 10 post-1511 builds eye strain. I don't see anything flicker on a camera. Whatever it is, it causes eye strain reliably.
In summary: The OnePlus 3 so far had ROMS of Android 6, 7, and 8. Color profiles other than the default one always hurt. Then OnePlus changed something in their Android 7.1 ROM, so that the default color profile now hurts as well. LineageOS seems to have copied that change. The Paranoid Android developers obviously didn't bother at all to implement any color profiles, and the result is: no eye strain.
Maybe all of you who had trouble after upgrading their usable Android ROM had their video output changed in a similar way. If you are stuck on an older Android ROM and your device is supported by Paranoid Android, you may want to give it a try:
http://get.aospa.co
Hi,
I have used Galaxy S3 and most recently Galaxy S5 in the past. Recently tried Google Pixel and Samsung S8 and they both give me migraines and eye strain. This seems weird since both Galaxy devices I have used are AMOLED screens. I've played with the brightness settings, used blue light filter, does not help. Clinging to my Galaxy S5 and hoping it to get some more life out of it.
I've confirmed with a camera that the Galaxy S5 that does not cause me eystrain does have PWM. So it seems like PWM is not the cause of my strain. Any ideas or good phones to try? On Verizon but willing to switch to get a modern phone.