Hi all, chronic migraineur here.
It seems that I find e-ink displays with a front light headachey (namely Kindle Paperlike 11, Boox Note Air and Hisense Mobile) even if the light is completely turned off.
The only e-ink display my brain likes is of my Kindle 4 which has NO light facility at all.
My first question is: are there any other devices that have e-ink but no light?
My second question is: why does my brain struggle with the e-ink with light devices even though the light is turned off!
Confused_Carrot_of_Casablanca It seems that I find e-ink displays with a front light headachey (namely Kindle Paperlike 11, Boox Note Air and Hisense Mobile) even if the light is completely turned off.
I don't know about the most recent Kindles, but previous models with LED backlight would still have it on faintly even when the system brightness setting is set to "9".
Hmm, my Kindle 11 emanates no light whatsoever on its lowest setting (I've a pitch black room) but my brain still can't deal with it. Same issue with the Boox. No light emanated on the lowest setting but headachey nonetheless.
In contrast, the Kindle 4, which has no light function per se, feels fine.
To sum up it appears to be the presence of a light function, whether activated or not (the inactive function might still be active in the sense that it has a bearing on the perceptible stuff), that my brain doesn't like.
Just want to chime in to say that I have a similar symptom pattern as OP — I get (pronounced) brain fog with the most recent Kindle and (somewhat less pronounced) brain fog with the Boox Note5. But I can use old Kindles without any issue.
I thought this was due to a low level backlight remaining on even when the backlight is officially turned off, but it sounds like that could be wrong, if the backlight appears to be off in a pitch black room. Is there any possibility that the backlight is adaptive, and actually goes to zero in a dark environment but otherwise stays slightly on?
I would be surprised if that were the case (I can't catch it emanating light e.g. there is no fading out of a putative light when turning off the room light in a 'dark room') but I'm not an expert by any means. Maybe what's going on is some sort of flicker or vacillation or the light layer is emitting something in the non-visible spectrum or is differentially refracting to confuse binocular vision?? I'm going to film the screens at 800 frames per second to see if that turns up anything.
P.S. The static motif that the Boox shows when turned off feels fine
It could very well simply come down to the font of choice.. which did change over time..
Carrot, go into the book settings on the 11 and change the font from Bookerly to Caecilia. Amazon changed the default font and you're probably too accustomed to the old one.