Usable Smartphones?

Sunspark

reaganry I am contemplating getting one for ebook reading but we will see. The bands are not very North American compatible so that leaves me with 3G UMTS and 1 LTE band so I wouldn't be using it for cellular.

@degen Yeah, it's pretty ok. I watched a movie on it last night. I'm on the December patch. I do find the device a little bit bigger than I'd like tho. Amazing battery life is a plus.

reaganry

Sunspark i could deal with 3g lol. where did you buy it? [edit:sold here.. https://www.cect-shop.com/en/hisense-a5.html?v=10348

Sunspark

reaganry I didn't. I'm just thinking about it. Cect-shop and jd both sell it. Be aware that it doesn't have google play services as this is a Chinese market device but that's not an issue for me.

select23

Guys, you're asking the wrong question. I have MAJOR LED sensitivity and I solved this problem 2-3 years ago. I can use ANY SMARTPHONE I want.
The question should be "how can I modify any smartphone?".
I've tried 10 different things, for me it's not frequency or blinking or blue light, it's literally the LED light itself.
None of the commercial blue light filters or orange filters worked at all. So the solution? DARK HEADLIGHT TINT! Yes, believe it not, seems to be the only thing that filters whatever part of the LED spectrum is causing my issue.
And for me it was 2 layers of 20% headlight tint that did the trick initially. And keeping the screen brightness at a minimum but where it's still comfortable. Obviously it's a bit harder to see outdoors even at full brightness, but that's minor for me. You'll need to cut it to size and practice applying to minimize bubbles. Touch sensitivity is fine on all phones, if you prefer you can attach a screen protector over top, but I haven't bothered. All minor issues considering you can comfortably use ANY phone. If you still notice issues, just apply another layer of tint.

1 layer of 35% Medium Black Smoke seems to work fine. Or 2 layers of 20%.

This is the best tint material from the few I've tested, no creases or odd patterns.
https://www.ebay.ca/itm/12-x72-35-Medium-Black-Smoke-LED-Headlight-Taillight-Fog-Light-Tint-Film-Vinyl/282139310811

Good luck, hope this helps.

vaz

select23

Are you sure PWM or brightness weren't your problem? Lots of phones have PWM below a certain brightness setting so putting dark tint on and having to turn brightness high to see would eliminate the PWM. It's a physical iteration of a lot of software than cranks brightness up to eliminate PWM and puts a software overly to dim. You would need to know if your devices use PWM and at what threshold to state it wasn't an issue. Do you have problems with computers and if so what hardware and OS? Does this trick work on those too? I cannot believe window tint "removes" some "harmful" LED frequency. I would bet this is helping the real problem somehow, but now how you think.

Sunspark

I wonder if there is any difference between headlight tint and car window tint. Do you know? Interesting idea though. I had my car windows tinted years ago and I liked it.

Gurm

I use yellow headlight tint to make my car dashboard usable, I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work in this case. It's super thick, though.

vaz

I would ask people for who tinting works is there any LED device or lighting you can use? Because I can use old iPads and iPhones with old iOS and not be bothered. I've not met many people who have zero usable LEDs in their life. I think this would only work if brightness was too high on things like dashboards since those usually aren't very adjustable. But for most displays they can be turned down so low you can't even read them in any daylight or lit room.

Gurm

The dash brightness is very high so that it can be viewed during daylight hours. It also has awful flicker due to being the cheapest possible LED's. So... yeah.

tsb

Just some short info about my phone experience so far:
Used and using Google Pixel 1 XL since it became available, without any problems.
Just got a Samsung S10, which makes me dead after like 1-2 hours of use.
I was trying an iPhone 11 from one of my colleges; i'm not completely sure, because it was just a 10 mins test, but i found it not really comfortable.

Generally i'm not completely sure what makes me sick, but i have the feeling it is not related to pwm and blue light and things like that (as i already detailed in my story before), but better something like how the screen is presented, e.g. i can have problems also from an empty dark screen, or PC games, etc. The only thing i know, is that the focusing on the screen/content is somehow different/uncomfortable, for example looking around in a shop with TVs, monitors turned on with some content playing is a no go for me; instant dizziness. Sadly there is even less products manufactured in the let's say "traditional" way, which causing no trouble.

Maxx

My xperia xz premium cracked, so I got Oneplus 7 pro with DC dimming. Eyes bloodshot immediately. The read about Huawei Nova 5t from Notebookcheck. No PWM. Confirmed also with a DSLR, no flickering. But still bloodshot irritated eyes, though not as bad. But not usable long term. Similar eye strain that I get with some laptops that are confirmed PWM free. Like Surface devices, except Sp2 at 100 brightness. So, have to fix xz premium, as that gives zero eye strain at >35% brightness.

Seagull

Maxx

From what I have seen of testing of DC dimmed oled screens, they still kind of flicker. I often see a 60hz dip in brightness on oscilloscope outputs. I presume its an artefact of updating the current frame to the next. Owing to OLEDs being an emissive type of display, any interruption in output as a pixel updates will result in flicker. I tried an old LG Flex 2, reported to be PWM free but still had problems with it.

KM

I think that 60 Hz flicker is a scanline. Should be easily revealed with not 1 but 2 oscilloscope probes and then looking if there's a delay between top/bottom of the display.

Maxx

With a DSLR the OnePlus flickers like mad still with the DC dimming. The black band that passes the screen is like 1cm think in lower brightness settings. So the DC dimming is just a decoy or a hoax for us who are sensitive to PWM. For me the PWM sensitivity is such that even at 2300 Hz with the Sony Xperia ZX I get bloodshot eyes in 30 min if I let the brightness dropo to under 35 %. So somehow my optic nerves are still able to sense even the very high 2300 Hz flicker. And why not? Ears are able to sense a "flicker" of 20Khz. E.g. dogs are able to sense ultrasonic sounds much higher than that, so why would the optic nerve not sense flicker of 2300 Hz. It's a different thing then what the body does with this information that it senses. Most people don't get any noticeable symptoms.

Maxx

But the curious thing is that what is causing the eye strain in the displays that are measured with a high sensitivity oscilloscope to be flicker free? My guess is that it is some sort of dither, because I'm completely unable to use my Surface Laptop that is flicker free. I'm again guessing but I kinda feel like I would see something like "snowing" effect of the analog TV's in the surface screen and also with the Nova 5t.

But what amazes me even more, is that I've talked to at least 10 eye doctors and a neurologist over the years and each one of them either thinks that it's all in my head or that I have dry eyes. Yes, I might have dryer eyes on top of the flicker sensitivity, but I ha absolutely ZERO problems with my eyes with displays that do not flicker and do not have, what I assume is the dither like with Surface devices. The Lenovo laptop at work is perfectly OK, my HPZR2740w display is completely OK. My Sony Android LCD TV is OK. I cannot use any OLED device, not even the televisions which show only like a 1mm think band with a DSLR passing at 120 Hz.

I don't know if anyone has noted this about themselves, but I seem to have much quicker reflexes than most people. Say an input lag test (you can find one by googling) I'm much faster than anyone I've tried it with. So maybe there is something in my nervous system that is "tuned" to notice things that flicker faster than others, that might be a factor that affects the ability to sense flicker of high Hz.

Seagull

Maxx

In my experience, doctors would much rather give a weak diagnosis than say I don't know. Despite the later being much less harmful.

degen

The DC dimming works, it's just the devices have so many other problems like OS and GPU induced strain. If removing PWM were the cure, we would all be on the many LCD-based iPhones for years now.

Maxx

degen sorry degen, but you are wrong. DC dimming absolutely does not work. It still flickers like PWM in notebookcheck. net tests and is easily visible with a DSLR. For me, PWM is Most of the time the only issue. Most of the time if I can not detect any flicker with DSLR, then the display is OK, like my new sony android TV and many other devices. In fact, now I can confirm that even the Nova 5t seems to be OK, my eyes were just so irritated from Oneplus DC dimming that I thought that the Nova is also irritating.

Of course, if Oneplus DC dimming would actually prevent all PWM type flickering, then there might still be the similar source of eye strain that is with the Surface devices, but we can't test this as the PWM remains the main source of eye strain even with DC dimming.

Maxx

degen Sorry degen, you just are plain wrong. For my eyes, a flickering screen is not ok under any circumstances. DC Dimming flickers just like PWM when taken a video with a DSLR

Maxx

Maxx It would be a different scenario if there would be even one single display with PWM that I could tolerate. But that is not the case. PWM = eye strain and DC dimming = PWM

KM

Something must be wrong if stripes are visible while using DC dimming. It seems the function is not working at all in your case. The 60 Hz flicker shouldn't be visible in the form of black stripes. If at all, only very, very faintly.

Maxx

KM With DSLR at 4000 shutter speed in video or even in photo it is. And it does flicker less when switching dc dimming on, so I doubt anything is wrong per se, it is just not the solution for PWM. Noteboocheck also have confirmed that dc dimming does flicker.

degen

Maxx

I'm looking at that article which highlights the OnePius 7 Pro DC dimming feature on notebookcheck and it is flatline on their oscilloscope. The 60 Hz flicker remains but that is seperate.

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