Was very excited to try this and purchased an open-box M3 15" MBA from BB. I installed Stillcolor 1.1 and confirmed it was working via terminal. I mostly used it with my 32" 4K monitor connected via USB3 -> DisplayPort and running at 3840x2160 60Hz. I tried various color settings with no real difference. I did not try to use any other program to reduce colors (although I may try that later).

The good news is that there was a noticeable improvement - no nausea! The bad news is that there's still something going on that's causing eye-strain/headache albeit to a lesser degree than before. I was able to use the machine to work all day with mild pain and did have lingering effects all evening. I do wonder if I would get used to it, but for now I don't have to so I'm going to return it.

personal eye-strain history:
I tried an M2 15" MBA last year and it caused the usual headaches nausea and returned it (just as I have returned a 16" Intel MBP, other M1 MBP/MBA, any touch bar 15" MBP, and last intel MBA).

I never had any problems with any displays until I purchased an iPhone X which i returned after 2 weeks of trying to get used to it. Since then I've tried every OLED iPhone and they all cause noticeable pain/nausea to a various degrees. I'm currently hanging onto an iPhone 11 (non-Pro with LCD screen) which causes no issues.

I am currently using a late 2013 Intel MBP 15" (pre-touchbar) with zero issues.

    I also want to add that I am blown away that this was even attempted! This is the first ray of hope I've had in years for this and I'm highly motivated to help test any new updates, features etc.

      specamfi try connect your external monitor with hdmi cable, it will be better. Type-c display port will use 10bit all the time, no matter what you do, don't know why, but its happening with my setup.

          specamfi So you're suggesting it's the OS doing something additional or the GPU?

          I have an early 2013 Macbook 13" and ever since I started having problems with screens, I wouldn't say that machine is issue-free either.

              madmozg should I try a usb-c to HDMI adapter? My monitor has an HDMI 2.0 input. Any idea if it will be limited to 30hz at 3840x2160?

                new-jdm honestly, no idea. Something changed on the MacBooks around 2015-16 for me (same with recent iMacs). Since it affects both the MacBook displays and external monitors, I'd always assumed it was dithering. I suspect that for issues, Stillcolor does something but doesn't eliminate the issues completely. Unfortunately, I'm not technical enough to suggest anything, just a sufferer.

                    specamfi purchased an open-box M3 15" MBA

                    specamfi The bad news is that there's still something going on that's causing eye-strain/headache albeit to a lesser degree than before

                    Check out my posts in this thread — there is definitely still something weird about all of the Airs!

                    For example, flicker can be detected on solid gray on both the M1 Air and M2 Air, when filming at 240hz slow motion (I suspect this is equally as true on the M3 Air too).

                    I also agree that the Airs did not work for me. I tried M1 Air and M2 Air, M1 Air made me feel very tired to use and M2 Air made me feel motion-sick when trying to think while looking at the screen, even with Stillcolor.

                    However, there is an Apple Silicon Mac that is not an Air but has a standard LCD screen…

                    I've been mentioning it many times already — so I hate to sound repetitive to others who have been reading my posts — but it's the 13" M2 Touch Bar MacBook Pro.

                    This MacBook has a standard IPS LCD similar to the Airs, but does not flicker on camera even on dark grays, and for me has none of the problems that all of the Airs had! For example, unlike the M1 Air, I don't "suddenly feel tired" after I start working on it.

                    The M2 Touch Bar MBP works perfectly with Stillcolor and appears completely still to my eyes!

                    It's 100% worth a try if the Air isn't working for you.

                    The screen feels very different to me compared to the Airs and works for me in areas where the Airs simply didn't.

                    The only issues are PWM on the OLED Touch Bar strip, but you can turn the touch bar off or create a custom setup with "invisible" buttons to get past this.

                    (One thing to note is that the screen is also slightly more reflective than the Airs, even when the computer is turned off. If this bothers you, you can always apply a matte screen protector or the like.)

                    The M2 Touch Bar Pro is the only Apple Silicon Mac out of every single one I tried that seems to eliminate dithering on the internal screen entirely after activating Stillcolor!

                          new-jdm it was completely fine until last year

                          There seems to be a running theme with iOS 17. I'm pretty sure that temporal dithering was either "enabled for the first time" on iOS 17 or "bumped up in strength by a significant amount".

                          For example, I saw a good amount of people here say that the iPhone SE 2020 is their "only usable iPhone".

                          Seeing this, I decided to buy an SE 2020 earlier this year as a secondary device as they have been going for really cheap recently — but mine came with iOS 17.2.1.

                          "At least with iOS 17", I hate the screen on my SE 2020. Even the screens I wasn't really satisfied with on the M1 Air and M2 Air are still hundreds of times better than the seasickness-inducing, blurry, and "constantly twitching" image that I get out of my SE 2020 despite it having a "PWM-free LCD". The colors on app icons also look way too oversaturated to me.

                          On the other hand, I also own an iPhone 14 Pro that is still on iOS 16.4.1. Even though I 100% get all of the familiar OLED PWM symptoms and generally do not like the screen on this phone either, the image is sooooo much more "stable" and I don't really notice anywhere near the dithering I see on the SE 2020. It only has really bad PWM — so I still wouldn't try to do any heavy work on it — but it's generally tolerable for basic phone use and web browsing.

                          I have some older LCD devices like an iPad 6 and iPhone 7, both on an earlier version of iOS 15, that are so much more usable than the SE 2020. So I suspect iOS 17 is related in some way.

                            specamfi All Apple Silicon Macs should have the same behavior with Stillcolor and an external monitor. I've found output from Apple Silicon Macs (with Stillcolor activated) to look the same as output from an Intel Mac, and aiaf has verified this with capture card footage too.

                            In addition, another factor on macOS that can affect screen quality is whether macOS attempts to send out a "YCbCr" or "RGB" signal. RGB is generally ideal, but a lot of times macOS will choose YCbCr instead which can decrease quality. Search up "M1 Mac force RGB EDID" method for more info on how to fix this.

                            Outside of this if you're still having strain with a monitor, it's probably an issue with the monitor itself such as FRC.

                            Note that you should avoid any "HDR", "local dimming", "P3 color gamut", or "10-bit capable" monitors, as Apple Silicon Macs attempt to send out a 10–bit signal whenever possible, which would activate the monitor's own built-in temporal dithering functions on those types of monitors.

                            The best monitors to use with Stillcolor and an Apple Silicon Mac are "true" 8-bit that do NOT use built-in FRC temporal dithering (which are unfortunately hard to find, as information can be inaccurate about whether a given "8-bit" monitor uses FRC or not…)

                                specamfi BTW, the M2 TB Pro is currently still available on Apple's refurbished store with their 14 day return policy, which is a good way to try it out.

                                  DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs In that case it probably won't make a difference for me (although i may try the HDMI cable instead). My monitor is a HP Spectre 32 Studio Display (4K) which i've used with several older MBP's with no issues (specifically Late 2013 15" MBP, Mid 2015 15" MBP, pre-retina MBA). MBP's with touchbars, 16" MBP's, retina MBA's, and all M1's cause me headaches/nausea on the built in screen and with this monitor.

                                      specamfi Mid 2015 15" MBP

                                      really surprised you were able to use it with this with no issues, did you have one of the 15" MBPs that had integrated graphics only?

                                      if so, then that makes sense it would work better since on those models Intel graphics are wired to the HDMI port

                                      but if you had a version with AMD dedicated graphics, the HDMI port is hard wired to the AMD dGPU and that's the 2015 15" rMBP I own. it clearly shows moving temporal dithering in monitor output LOL (was able to disable it through one of the more obscure AMD dither disable methods, however)

                                      aside from that, the internal display of the 2015 15" rMBP is uncomfortable for me regardless though, even if forced to Intel integrated mode. i actually quite prefer the Intel 2016 13" (four thunderbolt 3 ports) screen over the Intel 2015 15" surprisingly

                                          async Is the overlay similar to what Flux or Nightshift does or different? If different, can you repost the zip, I could not find it. I'd like to give it a shot. Thanks.

                                            DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs I'm talking about a mid-2015 MBP 15 with integrated graphics that I tested. My current machine is a late-2013 15" MBP with discrete nvidia. I may have access to a mid-2015 MBP 15 with AMD which I'll test and report back on if i can.

                                              DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

                                              Will check when I have the full testing gear.

                                              Some 13 inch M2 MBP TB have more pixel flicker than others.

                                              This is hard to say but I tested a 24GB ram version M2 MBP TB and it has edit: "different" or slightly more pixel flicker than my base model version all else being equal (same sonoma 14, stillcolor running, same patch on gradient test chart). I used to say much more and similar to the Legion 7i Pro windows laptop at 60hz refresh rate but re-testing shows a more subtle difference. Whether this has a meaningful impact on eyestrain and how it can be still better than the other models I cannot say.

                                              I didn't have enough time for subjective feel but the screen seemed slightly off but this is hard to describe. PWM test with camera test seems the same as the base model with no backlight flicker at default resolution.

                                                  dev