MacBook Air M1 eye strain only since Sonoma 14.1.2

Donux Rejection of sinusoidal PWM (with soft signal attenuation) in favor of cheap Pure PWM (instant pixel on/off, backlight strobing). Stop suffering! Just don't buy Apple. Here's the solution to the problem.

AlanSmith Yes, but Microsoft own branded laptops all have PWM. Lenovo, HP, Acer, Dell, …, … - all lottery to some degree. Writing this from linux machine, which is useful for me, not so useful for shipping apps to customers however.

@"bliink"#p35148 No it doesn't for us, your advertisement for your generic posture app is pretty useless here.

We HAVE been trying to improving posture, using eyedrops, blinking more, taking breaks, trying new glasses and none of those truly fix "bad screens" for us.

But on the other hand, when I finally disabled temporal dithering on my old Windows laptop I suddenly was able to read my screen perfectly for hours with no strain because I fixed the core issue with that screen. It doesn't even matter if I'm in the worst posture ever, because even then, that laptop doesn't strain me at all anymore because I fixed the screen's problem itself

Also, blinking more actually hurts to do while looking at temporally dithered screens for me, as then I have to refocus and it feels like everything starts to move around and go double and I also feel pain while trying to realign the image.

However, on screens without dithering, yep I intentionally blink more and it helps a lot! But I can't do that on every screen… AKA that does not help me at all while using bad screens!

Lauda89 the laptop was from 2012 so ditherig.exe worked on it perfectly, it reduced colors all the way down to true six bit surprisingly

but yeah unfortunately it doesn't work on a lot of laptops, i was just lucky with it being compatible with mine (2012 Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13, Windows 8.1, Intel HD 4000)

Donux By full reset do you mean DFU restore including rolling back system firmware?

Because my Air M1 currently has a weird combo of Ventura 13.6.6 OS in About This Mac but running "on top of" newer Sonoma 14.4.1 "firmware/bootloader/whatever the M1 equivalent of a BIOS version is" (which I wasn't aware was the case until recently) and I have issues. I'm suspecting that if I DFU restore, instead of just reinstall, to make sure even the firmware is back on Ventura too it might improve things

Donux BTW, interesting note about firmware versions is that Asahi Linux runs "within" a different macOS version firmware (and thus different display control processor firmware as well) from my main macOS installation — even though I have Ventura 13.6.6 within 14.4.1 firmware on my M1 Air, whenever I'm booted into Asahi it's "temporarily" running within 13.2 firmware instead.

What I've noticed is that even though Asahi doesn't yet have a Stillcolor equivalent and I can still notice a certain level of temporal dithering flicker around edges of text because of that, the level of flicker I notice is generally less than macOS (even with Stillcolor) — and, most importantly, the backlight feels totally different in Asahi.

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My M1 Air backlight in macOS (Ventura on top of Sonoma firmware) feels too bright at all brightness levels, everything has a sort of glow to it and the display still feels very bright at low backlight levels.

However, in Asahi (which is running on top of a different "temporary" Ventura 13.2 firmware that's loaded in at boot) — even though I still notice some temporal dithering flicker, the backlight of the display feels much more "low contrast and mild with MUCH less glow" at the same time as colors remain able to appear just as saturated as they would on macOS.

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There is also much less "false sense of 3D depth effect" while running within Asahi's temporary macOS 13.2 firmware, even if looking at identical photos, screenshots, or wallpapers (but not entirely solved).

White backgrounds especially feel notably different between OSes. The IOMFB backlight compensation disabling trick I recently discovered finally made white backgrounds in macOS feel much closer to Asahi Linux, but it's still different.

I also don't believe the difference in this "backlight feel" is because of PWM because the PWM detectable on dark gray when filming at 240hz is still present in both macOS and Asahi.

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Overall, the display feels entirely different, but at this point I'm not sure whether it's "because of Linux" or "specifically because of how Linux temporarily loads in older macOS display firmware".

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Final note about M1 Air is that I can actually use it very well outdoors in sunlight on both OSes. This is why I still prefer it to the M1 Max M1 MBP which was unusable everywhere… I'd actually consider the M1 Air usable outdoors which is why I kept mine.

I'm not sure if this is because of some effect of the ambient light sensor or just that sunlight masks a lot of the problems of the display. I know that it's not because of reflections on the glossy screen "helping", as I actually use a matte screen protector and that makes it better for me in all conditions. (Seemingly contrary to many others here, I strongly prefer matte over glossy.)

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However, the M1 Air still very exhausting to use indoors (and it doesn't matter if it's under my otherwise awesome Waveform Centric bulbs or under bad 100% flicker LEDs/flourescent bulbs). Whenever I'm at home, I can get literally dozens of times more work done with almost no strain through my 2012 Windows laptop + remote desktop into macOS.

M1 Air is not "absolutely crippling" indoors like the M1 Max MBP was because I can still get some work done on it giving the "illusion of productivity", but the moment I switch to my 2012 Lenovo it's like my productivity skyrockets and so many tasks no longer feel difficult.

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I can't DFU downgrade at the moment as I'm busy and a lot of important work is currently running off of my M1 Air… but when I'm more free I'll try to DFU downgrade to 13.2 and see if the backlight while macOS is able to feel more like Asahi Linux does + remaining able ro run Stillcolor at the same time.

Not super confident but something in me feels like it's worth a try. I'm willing to be the "test subject" here as I'm not satisfied with my M1 Air screen indoors anyway.

Glad to hear that just a simple downgrade improved your screen, in your case definitely avoid messing with a setup that's working for you.

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs I recall that you were praising the M1 Air + Stillcolor + BetterDisplay as a near perfect solution with minimal eye strain. You're now saying it's not "absolutely crippling". I take that to mean "somewhat crippling". That's a 180 on your original position. I'd be interested to know what made you change your mind?

For me, Sonoma 14.5 is the best yet on M1 Air. And l've run all releases since 2020 release of the M1. That said, I have only run Stillcolor and the other fixes on some version of Sonoma. So, Ventura with Stillcolor could indeed be better.

I haven't tried Asahi for a while, so I'll give that a try. I actually tried an old PC with Linux and it was worse than the M1 Air

I think I'm stuck with the M1 for a while unless someone knows a laptop available today that's comfortable.

I've never had eyestrain with a modern TV unless I use it as a laptop display. So there is that

ledstrain2024 That's a 180 on your original position. I'd be interested to know what made you change your mind?

Using it indoors more made me realize this — since it actually is pretty good outdoors even today, but when at my desk and in some other buildings (type of lighting doesn't matter) I used it in I was thinking something felt pretty off.

Nothing changed BTW, this is still the same M1 Air I've had since day one on the same macOS version. If you read back in the Stillcolor thread you can also see the flaws I had pointed out about the M1 Air display even immediately after receiving it. You might be remembering when I said that "it's the best you can get with an Apple Silicon Mac" but in the wider realm of laptops I don't think I've ever claimed it was perfect.

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As I mentioned, I was still getting a good amount of work done on the Air (unlike the M1 14") especially with a matte screen protector. I was even learning some new complex software, reading some long articles, sorting through lots of files, which was a good sign as that's the kind of stuff that would kill me on the 14"…

But one day I was feeling pretty tired and felt like I didn't want to work on the laptop. Since I actually wasn't sure if my tiredness was coming from the screen or other factors (the air quality that day was pretty bad), I booted up my 2012 Lenovo again and boom, it felt like my tiredness instantly stopped and I then proceeded to get 10x amount of work done in the second half of the day.

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What I've realized my issue is with whatever the M1 Air is doing is that the screen always feels "too close to me" at any distance (except for outdoors where this issue seems to not happen) which causes it to go totally double vision when trying to read it using the same exact eye motions I would use on a truly good display. I can put in effort to bring it back together of course but then that's when the strain starts.

Matte screen protector actually fixes many of the other issues, for example it eliminates the "glow", looks way flatter, reduces brightness, no more glare etc… again, on M1 Max 14" with the same type of screen protector this didn't work so the Air is better in many ways in a relative sense.

(but also running Asahi Linux significantly reduces the "glow" too without needing the protector, which makes me really confused what the screen/DCP firmware is even doing to cause this. It's not just regular temporal dithering because I can totally see temporal flicker in Linux too but the glow is much less. The double vision issue still remains.)

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However, the "double vision" issue remains (indoors) and that makes up the core of what's wrong with the Air for me.

BTW, if you're wondering if patching helps with this, it does and the screen is no longer able to go double! It also feels like I can process more on the screen at the same time.

This is another "win", as on the M1 Max 14" patching either did not improve productivity at all (would still get immediately tired) or sometimes made strain even worse.

But the fact the double vision issue indoors exists in the first place, when a truly good screen like my 2012 Lenovo "can be used without any patching at all and can present an extremelt information dense UI to me in a way that feels like I can see every single icon and button all at the same time", means the M1 Air ultimately doesn't live up to the criteria of a screen that is able to "cross the threshold".

My 2012 Lenovo Yoga 13 with Windows 8.1 and ditherig.exe remains one of the only few screens I know that can.

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I can put my 2012 Lenovo and the Air side by side, focus perfectly on some text on the Lenovo, then while maintaining that exact same focal point I shift over to the Air and that screen appears double to me instead. That's what confirmed I just can't focus on them in the same way, at least indoors.

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Also I never have really thought that the M1 Air is perfect, because if I recall my whole comparison of 2 M2 Touch Bar Pro models and the M1 Air…

I had to settle for M1 Air in the end because previously, the first Touch Bar Pro I tested with "000000" ID panel — despite feeling pretty comfortable (more than M1 Air TBH) and no detectable PWM — had really bad uniformity issues (even worse yellow tint than usual, and white backgrounds totally changed color on the right half of the screen, this would not work for me as I am a UI/UX designer).

I returned it excepting the second one to be the exact same but without the uniformity issue. At this point I had traveled somewhere else hours away meaning I had to regrettably return the first one before leaving. I had also already sold my terrible 14" Pro at this point. However, instead, my second M2 Touch Bar unit ended up with a totally different "FMX" ID panel that caused extreme strain and had way too intense oversaturation and contrast.

Since some deadlines were approaching I needed a modern and decently powerful macOS device for, I didn't want to take a gamble on another Touch Bar Pro since there was a high chance it would be another FMX panel.

I wanted to try an M1 Air instead especially as Apple estimated it would ship much faster. Immediately I noticed it had PWM unlike the Touch Bar Pros, but colors and contrast felt more relaxing than the weird "FMX" Touch Bar Pro unit and there wasn't any uniformity issues.

After a week of using it (mostly outdoors), it felt decent enough, way better than the "FMX" M2 TB which I couldn't use even outdoors. I knew with the addition of detectable PWM on camera filming the M1 Air, I wasn't getting something totally ideal, but it was definitely not "mini-LED bad".

Since in the end I always have my 2012 laptop remote desktop setup to fall back on that's why I (semi-begrudgingly) kept the Air.

Given that the M1 Air is usable enough oudoors and I can remote into it instead while I'm indoors, it's okay enough where I don't "hate looking at it for even just seconds to a few minutes" like I always felt with the M1 Max 14".

It serves its purpose as a stopgap as I ultimately find a way to migrate my entire workflow to Windows in the future where I at least have more options than a full lock-in to one brand and one display.

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Even though there's obviously still some bad flickery Windows laptop displays I've spotted especially in newer devices, I personally have never seen any IPS LCD Windows laptop (aside from a newer MS Surface) that's had that unique brand of "twitching vibrating pulsating false 3D depth stickiness attention grabbing total distortion of perspective nothing is ever locked into one solid position display effect" that even the better Apple products have. Meanwhile I sit next to someone with a new MacBook and notice all of those issues immediately even if I'm not the one using it.

To be clear this is only in regards to internal laptop displays. On the other hand, I've definitely seen these kinds of issues on many PC desktop monitors and TVs.

Even older and very usable Apple devices like the iPad mini 2 I've never had huge issues with still manage to carry this "effect" in some small way, which in that case isn't too noticeable at first until I put it next to an old Android and it becomes clear which one is really still.

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However you're correct in that I wouldn't reccomend the M1 Air to any screen-sensitive user at this point. It's also almost certainly the last Apple product I will ever buy for a long time.

This sucks as I love the keyboard and trackpad ergonomics of macOS, Logic Pro, the ecosystem, the development environment etc.

But at this point I've accumulated enough old Apple devices and enough methods of using them comfortably enough for those purposes. I've accepted that (due to the direction Apple is continually heading and dwindling support for old devices) Apple products are simply no longer suitable as my daily driver.

Each time I use someone else's Windows laptop, even when they still cause strain or I notice flicker, it's clear to me every single time that even the bad ones just do not have "that infamous Apple display feel".

And my personal "reference device" (my 2012 Lenovo laptop with LG IPS LGD0360 panel) has proven to me that bad screens and display drivers are the issue, not my vision. When I use that laptop it's almost as if I have a totally different set of eyes because of how consistently rewarding and productive it is to use. And I'm saying that even considering it still has some mild PWM. My endgame setup is quite literally if I can find another laptop that feels like that plus zero PWM.

Sorry for the extremely long post but I strive to document my experience in a way where others online in the future arriving here from a web search, etc. may find it useful

ledstrain2024 try to use it with LG Ultra-Fine 27UP850N-W (in reading mode). Perfect for eyes