Was temporal dithering (known as "surface dithering" in the Android system) disabled in your fork of Android 13 to prevent the additional subpixel flicker that affects newer Android devices?

If not, y'all need persist.sys.use_dithering=0 in your build.prop to disable it 😉

Temporal dithering is when display drivers, usually by default, are configured to flash between two similar colors over and over again to try to approximate an "in-between color" in order to fake "smoother" color transitions in photos, gradients, transparency, and shadow effects, in addition to inducing flicker and "shimmer" on the grayscale edges of pretty much all antialiased text (because of the many shades of gray present at edges of text).

Temporal dithering can exist in different forms both at the GPU/OS level (the aforementioned "surface dithering" Android feature) — and at the LCD panel level (known as FRC/Frame Rate Control)

This unfortunate tactic is used on pretty much all modern iOS and Mac devices, and most importantly, I'm pretty sure is also the display driver default on recent Android versions such as 13.

For example, my PWM-free iPhone SE 2 still has extremely annoying temporal dithering flicker to my eyes when looking at a static page, compared to my old iPhone 6 that appears much more comfortable, still, and honestly more beautiful. I also own an iPhone 5 with iOS 6 that appears entirely still.

Because of this pixel-level flicker, the SE 2 is not a comfortable device to use despite not showing obvious backlight flicker on a slow motion camera.

E-ink devices are usually immune to this as they simply don't refresh when a static page is being displayed, but given that your display is a 60fps RLCD, it's extremely important that this additional source of pixel flicker is verified not to be present in your version of Android.

For me and many other members of this forum, devices that utilize heavy temporal dithering — even with a PWM-free backlight — can sometimes cause just as much (or more) eye strain and reading difficulties as devices that use PWM dimming.

Let me know if your team has already been aware of this 🙂

    To me it seems that option is the same as "Surface Dithering" in Developer Options. If I understand correctly, it is static dithering and not temporal dithering. I.e. it is not to be classified as "pixel flicker" and there are is no change happening over time. Though the information available online seems rather limited, and online talk about this does typically not differentiate between "static" and "temporal", so I'd be curious what others here think.

    I'd love to win this and I have an eink yt channel so I'll do a review. I recently bought the tcl nxtpaper 40 and while it does reduce eye strain its still an lcd with filters and matte screen. Is yours RLCD?

      I really hope it doesn't use temporal dithering or FRC. I think everyone here would prefer true 6 bit over 6+2frc. Can you verify if this tablet uses FRC and dithering ?

      I wish it was 120hz or at least 90hz refresh rate

      orangepeel Thanks for the great question! And I'm sorry to hear about your nausea. We have a setting in the tablet that pushes it to work at 60-120 fps. So no effort required.

          vegeta97 Hi, thanks for your question! The Daylight Tablet uses a special kind of ePaper, with some proprietary IP that makes it - in our humble opinion - pretty darn special. We call it LivePaper. It's similar to the Pebble watch.

          It lets us look like e-ink, while having a fast and smooth frame rate.

          Also, what's your Youtube channel? I'd love to check it out!

            Daylight_Co wow that's awesome! If this thing does not use FRC and is true 8 or true 6 bit color depth and not 6+2 FRC or 8-2frc, and does not use any form of dithering.. I will totally buy one

              I think this is some kind of scam.

              It seems to be just and LCD that is made to be black and white, but I don't see any reason why it would not have temporal dithering or other source of flickering as any other LCD.

              Why they just cannot make the displays they made some 7 years ago - those were perfectly strain free, just copy that techn and most of us would be done. No need for any fance e-ink or reflective LCD's. It's not about blue light at all, it's all about flickering due to various forms of dither and PWM.

                Maxx Why they just cannot make the displays they made some 7 years ago - those were perfectly strain free, just copy that techn and most of us would be done. No need for any fance e-ink or reflective LCD's. It's not about blue light at all, it's all about flickering due to various forms of dither and PWM.

                Agree 100%. The fact that a screen has no backlight does not exclude flicker; it is not even a 2 way dependance, like the backlight can be flicker-free, not tens of kilotertz mumbo-jumbo. Instead of going back to a solid-tested route, the producers like to scratch the left side of their head with the right hand, bringing up all kind of marketing gimmicks.

                One other main issues is that the marketers don't even understand the problem (therefore neither the fix) and they just relay on whatever the tech division tells them. They sell something that sounds cool.

                  This looks way better than eink display. How many OS update does it get? Are you guys working on a color too?

                  Maxx I totally agree with you on this. But maybe this have to do with fining manufacturer that can produce them.

                  Do you know what are the technical specs that 7nuesrs old lcd design that make so eye friendly?

                  Two things that I really like about eink display is no really bright light shining on your eyes and can view in a bright sunny day outside.

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