Awful LED lights everywhere in USA...and upcoming incandescent ban!

photon78s I have the 27" solar and a 24" incandescent bulb for night, at full incandescent bulb power touching the display feels warm, not too hot, at half power is just room temperature. The light box has three fans running at low speed, its very quiet but you can still hear a whisper, i think it has a pretty good ventilation

jordan Oof, yeah I would not consider buying until there is an option without FRC.

In monitors, FRC consistently gives me much worse symptoms than PWM.

My most reliable laptop actually has some mild PWM (which has a low enough flicker depth to not impact my productivity but occasionally I feel light eye pressure or very minor headaches from).

However, despite this PWM, the reason why I can consistently get so much done on that laptop is that I was pretty much entirely able to eliminate FRC and any image enhancement / post-processing.

Bad high-flicker-depth PWM can totally make a display unusable or very irritating to look at for me too, but FRC and other post-processing methods are always "the ones that really get to me" and cause longer term effects in addition to significantly interfering with reading and learning.

Incandescent colors have so much power to heal but if the display still has FRC that's something I almost always notice, it will prevent this display from living up to its brand and achieving "true expanded 2D peripheral vision field and completely still dreamlike quietness state as if frozen in time ꩜" effect.

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs I contacted them about the frc color dithering and they said the same thing as Jordan and Photon78s said, its about a supply chain issue, seems non frc panels are really hard to get.

Before I was just like you guys, always searching for the next display or tweak to see if the eye strain disappeared, but now since i got these i don't need to search anything else, because i know i have the best displays available on earth. No joke, the experience changes entirely when you change the light, is much more immersive as well. LED light that fu...s you up, is no coincidence that the name of this forum is LEDstrain.

I guess there are two schools of thought then, one that thinks the strain arrises from software related and the other that the strain arises from the light itself. I have not had any strain whatsoever of any kind, but its just my experience. Besides that the monitors themselves are awesome, they are made of wood, so much nicer than plastic, you can actually feel the hand of the people that made them, these monitors should be three times the price, at least.

I think it would be useful if the company performed the kind of testing folks here are doing with high speed cameras, oscilloscope measurements of PWM, microscope videos of pixel inversion and FRC, color spectrum measurements and more and shared that with us.

LED strain is not only about the static spectrum of the light but also the dynamic fluctuations (flicker) and motion that humans are naturally and biologically wired to be sensitive to. I think natural light sources even if flickering (sun, reflective water, fire, etc.) do not have the same frequencies and rhythms of light intensity and color changes that these displays and other artificial sources produce.

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs Ok I agree both software and light matter, but more light because light is the raw substance from which the software then gives form, like pottery in which the clay is the substance and then is shaped, but you cannot make fine Chinese ceramic for example with mud, the kind of primal substance defines the boundaries of what can be done with it. So i would first fix the light, and then its configuration and all the ways you can give form to it.

photon78s you are right on target, will pass the word, some more hard core data that can be measured by anyone.

photon78s I think natural light sources even if flickering (sun, reflective water, fire, etc.) do not have the same frequencies and rhythms of light intensity and color changes that these displays and other artificial sources produce.

agree, different types of light have different frequencies and rhythms of intensity and color, but here is where it gets interesting, what is artificial light, how do you define it, is artificial light electric? Then are thunderbolts artificial? My take is the same as the spectrumview site and other sources says, there are really just two types of light, incandescent and luminescent, nearly all electronic displays are luminescent, but there is natural luminescence like in fireflies.

beyondthelight

By artificial and in the context of this forum, I mean light from devices using led based backlight technology, oleds, etc.

This is a great site by a scientist who is also a participant on this forum ("jen" username on this forum):

https://www.flickersense.org/testing-leds-and-screens

Quoting that webpage:

Random flicker might be better than regularly pulsed flicker. Candlelight flickers slowly, but it doesn't harm me and even makes my brain feel a little better when I'm recovering from LED injury.

I view that many natural light sources do not have the same regularly pulsed flicker as our devices (artificial source). FRC (temporal dithering) and pixel inversion are very regular flicker patterns. Lots of measurements (including my own) on this forum confirm the regularly pulsed flicker aspect of current displays.

Also [emphasis mine]:

All of the LED lights that are OK for me have some special quality. Some are DC or have good AC/DC conversion and have low, non-periodic flicker. Some have low flicker that lacks color flicker and that has either a very random pattern or slight randomness to its pattern. This suggests that specific engineering for qualities not yet described by the IEEE report and not yet clearly defined may be required to create safe LEDs.

I wrote previously about what would be a more "ideal" display. I mentioned and included color spectrum as a criteria (WLED backlight spectrum peaks) so I am definitely interested in seeing improvements in the "quality" of the light itself, "the raw substance" as you termed.

https://ledstrain.org/d/2589-products-to-try-or-avoid-pwm-flicker-and-temporal-dithering-testing/158

More about FRC here: https://forums.blurbusters.com/viewtopic.php?t=6799\

I wonder if these older LCDs due to their being not as accuracy as current displays are more comfortable.

Very old LCDs like an early portable TV or old 1994 Thinkpad, had a lot of pixel noise, the electronics weren't able to adjust pixels as accurately as they can today.

I wonder what folks here have to say about this statement from https://forums.blurbusters.com/viewtopic.php?t=6799

Looks to me that FRC is not "below the noise floor" of people's vision despite claims to the contrary [emphasis mine]

Human vision already has natural noise (but most brain filters that). The same problem affects camera sensors.

The important job is to make sure FRC/temporal dithering is below the noise floor of human vision. Also at high resolution, FRC pixels are so fine that it's almost like invisible spatial dithering instead of temporal dithering. Also, FRC is dithering only between adjacent colors in the color gamut, not between widely-spaced colors (like some technologies such as DLP has to).

beyondthelight

Happy that the monitor works for you. At the moment I will wait for more reviews and testing data.

Anyone care to explain this statement:

In fact, many modern light sources, such as LED lights, use a combination of incandescence and luminescence to produce light. Incandescent materials can provide the initial heat to activate luminescent materials, resulting in a more energy-efficient and versatile light source.

Reference: https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/incandescence-vs-luminescence.382420/

jordan

Promising. Ideally, they must show the testing data for FRC (and how the pixel inversion looks like in motion) including what computer/software/gpu/driver/cable/bios version etc. is driving the display not just simply claim "true 10 bit" but turns out to be actually 8 bit + FRC like with so many other manufacturers. I also care about matte texture roughness issue coming from bad experiences with modern high end supposedly verified 10 bit Eizos. I'm not interested in any compromised "solution" as it seems that the tech exists just scattered in different products and never combined into one (too high cost?). Mentioning wood enclosure is nice and aesthetic (hopefully less VOC off-gassing but that is another issue) and part of their natural oriented viewpoint but just for myself I prefer costs and engineering time to be more focused on the actual display tech.

photon78s yeah that's true that would be nice to know. The datasheet from panel manufacture seems to always specify if frc is being used. Panel look alone sadly isn't always right, datasheet PDF is a must. Oh right!! If I could I would definitely prefer glossy myself. Recently I tried a matte film on my phone and it made me feel not so good. I think with what you were saying with matte harshness it adds a rainbow grainy/ dither like effect if you know what I mean. Unsure how to properly describe it but I think you'll know what I mean.

jordan

Yes, not just the rainbow effect but an eye focusing issue especially working on black text on white background or even in dark mode in apps while coding etc. I find my 7i screen (in between matte and glossy but leaning slightly towards smoothness/glossy) much more comfortable for longer work sessions than a pro grade Eizo but others may differ on the issue. Also they should verify the lack of backlight flicker even if it is using incandescence. For example, see Incandescent light bulb "gentle" flicker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HUrYoqxQpw

Datasheet + high speed microscope pixel-level videos would be even better at the relevant frame rate to show the motion if their is still some unavoidable pixel inversion.

If an incandescent light flickers in brightness with the same waveform pattern (frequencies and amplitudes) as a known harmful led source, will it have the same or similar negative effect on the viewer? This is making sure the only thing different is the color spectrum and CRI. Any examples/studies on this?

photon78s In fact, many modern light sources, such as LED lights, use a combination of incandescence and luminescence to produce light. Incandescent materials can provide the initial heat to activate luminescent materials, resulting in a more energy-efficient and versatile light source.

This physicsforum.com user's statement is pure nonsense, there is no such thing, luminescent light activated materials are not activated by heat, its nonsense. Phosphors that convert UV light (black light) into white like in LED's and the old CFL's are activated not by heat but by cold ultraviolet light. Only in those old white CFL fluorescent tubes a ballast was needed to provide a second long incandescent light for the mercury vapor to start being conductive for the high voltage that came afterwards, this generated UV light, and as this UV light shined on the white chalky phosphor coating around the glass tube, it produced phosphorescence, which is a type of luminescence. Which is the exact same principle used in WLED, except it does not use mercury vapor to produce UV light or needs a ballast to start up, now its just a purple diode with a phosphor coating, the amount of coating determines the kelvin temperature, "cool" or "warm", but the photons are still luminescent in nature.

photon78s If an incandescent light flickers in brightness with the same waveform pattern (frequencies and amplitudes) as a known harmful led source, will it have the same or similar negative effect on the viewer? This is making sure the only thing different is the color spectrum and CRI. Any examples/studies on this?

This would be interesting to explore, but it could not physically be possible for an incandescent light source to flicker in similar waveform frequencies as a LED source, because in incandescence bulbs for example, the filament that heats red hot cant turn on and off that quickly like a LED, most it can do is a sine wave, LED's can flicker in square waves, just completely on and off at hundred or thousands and even million times per second, that's how information is transmitted by fiber optic cables, with lased diodes, which are just collimated LEDs. But incandescent light can't do that, not even in your wildest dreams, its just physically not possible. Any frequency that you put in an incandescent bulb naturally dampens into a sine wave, the heated filament dampens any high frequencies or square waves.

Cool site. They actually say on the site that they have a non frc 10 bit monitor.

31.5″ 3840 x 2160 (4K), 75Hz, HDMI, VGA, DisplayPort, 178° viewing angle, 10 bit (No FRC) 7W, 120/240V, 81x62x3cm 5.2Kg. With electro-incandescent light box: 40-300W, 120/240V, 81x62x16cm 7.6Kg.

They even have a link to an open source guide at the bottom of the page. They seem like nice people, and I'm sure they would provide more details if others want to experiment here. Tbh it wouldn't be too hard to create a project here around building an optimal monitor with a 3d printed frame and incandescent backlight, provided someone can source proper panels from a supplier that has drivers that are easy to work with.

solar-backlit-laptop-screen-plans.pdf (solarbacklight.com)

Edit: This was somewhat interesting We made our own monitor for under $100! (youtube.com)

Edit2: Might also be possible to just buy some montitor, strip off the back and use a new controller. eDP: are controller boards universal to panels? | Ars OpenForum (arstechnica.com)