Hi do you have any contacts in industry that could develop a non-LED based monitor - perhaps using cold cathode fluorescents? Software is a factor but LED itself is the main problem I think.
I am the COO of Iris. A blue light filter that helps you have a better life
Thanks to this site and everyone on it. The video of Dgen filming the dithering had me thinking dithering was the number one problem. Or whatever other unknown thing FRC or graphics card issue causes the flicker that causes us eye strain and pain. Right now for the first time in 10 years I can use 2 monitors at what seems unlimited time. I'm still testing myself with extreme computer use to try and ruin my eyes. I now believe at least for me the main causes of strain are in this order.
1. Dithering
2. PWM
3. Blue Light
I don't wear any orange glasses or use any filter and am noticing no pain. At the moment I installed Windows XP and two monitors cause me no pain. I also have been playing my super NT(It's a super Nintendo recreated with real hardware that uses HDMI and no emulation)hooked up to both monitors and get no pain. The moment I hook up a PS4 to the monitors immediate pain. Windows 10 and 7 immediate pain. To me this explains why when I use my OLED phone I get no pain. It runs Android 4 so that crazy dithering algorithm isn't on this phone. It's the same thing for my phone unlimited use unless I read tiny writing on it but I believe that's a different issue. I can't believe I'm saying it but I'm not sure LED is the only problem. The part of our brain that processes LED/PWM is probably the same part that processes dither.
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Pernichev Its probably one line of code that would take few minutes to fix. I suspect noone wants to do it as it will show the displays for what they are - inadequate compared to the marketing about them. However if you guys at IRIS could figure this out as a test tool, Id buy a lifetime subscription and go meet you personally and buy you a fancy dinner.
Hi Mihail, thanks for dropping by and trying to solve our eye strain and headache/migraine problems. Here are some causes of eye strain and headache/migraine that I know of:
- Pulse Width Modulation (PWM)
- Intel Graphics Driver (especially newer versions)
- Temporal Dithering
- Anti-alias / fuzzy fonts (first surfaced in Windows 8)
- Android 6.0 and above
- Windows 10 (Anniversary version and above)
- Blue light
- Glare / screen too bright
- Eye fatigue from looking at the screen too long
Item 7-9 are applicable to everyone, but I believe most of us are here is because of 1-6.
To complicated matters, a smartphone/laptop/PC that is causing eye strain, it could have a combination of items from the list. For example, one laptop could have multiple sources of eye strain e.g. PWM, intel graphics driver, dithering etc, while another laptop only has PWM.
To further complicate matters, a person may get eye strain from one, or from multiple items from the above list. Plus a person may know some of the items in the list causes them eye strain, but may not know if others items causes them eye strain or not.
So to solve an eye strain problem for someone, say Person A, first need to know how many items from the list would Person A get eye strain from. Then need to look at the device (smartphone/laptop/PC). The device has how many of the items in the list? Then need to eliminate the cause of the eye strain one by one.
Take me for example, I get eye strain and headaches from item 1, 2, 5 and 6. These are what I know. So if I use a laptop that has PWM, and newer intel graphics driver, then I would get eye strain. For me to use a laptop without eye strain, I need to choose a laptop that has no PWM, has older intel graphics driver, and older version of Windows 10. If I buy a laptop with just no PWM, I will still get eye strain if the laptop is using newer version of intel graphics driver. The laptop still have other causes of eye strain that is affecting me.
So if a person says to you, hey I tried your Iris software on my PC but it still giving me eye strain. Maybe that person is effected by other causes of eye strain in the list. Getting rid of just one cause of eye strain (e.g. blue light), will not get rid of the eye strain if that PC still has other causes of eye strain such as PWM, dithering etc. Need to get rid of all the causes of eye strain from the device that that particular person has, before the eye strain can be eliminated.
PWM is mostly hardware. But dithering is software and hope you can find a way to get rid of it. Other things like intel graphics driver, we still dont know what exactly in these drivers that is causing the eye strain. Intel investigated for over 2 years+, then gave up and stopped investigating. So unknown factor x still remains unknown.
Any efforts you and your company can do to find the root cause of these eye strain, and find ways to solve it, would be greatly appreciated. Right now you already have a solution for one of the items in the list, which is blue light. If you can find the solution for one or two of other items in the list, that would give a huge positive impact to many of us here.
a month later
do some of you have any experience with this software so far? I bought the lifelong pro and in some cases it feels like that the eyestrain gets a bit worse.
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Harrison hey there, I bought it too a week ago. I have been playing around with the settings. I am trying to settle on (58/46)% of blue light and (50/46)% brightness (day/night). At the start I also set greyscale as screen effect, but from time to time I need colors, and since there are already too many variables at play, I decided to stick to one setting so I disabled screen effects.
In the past I got used to very low levels of blue light with f.lux at the point that people were wondering how I could read/see anything. I also tested UVEX glasses blocking blue light, and I would tend to rule blue light out. No blue light is a plus but does not remove my eyestrain. So my main goal here is to disable PWM. Question: not that I do not trust the vendor (we could ask them directly), but has anyone tested whether there is actually no PWM independently of the brightness set via Iris? I wonder what happens at 50%, which is what I am using. My Mac Air has become super-harsh last November. Since then I have been suffering of extreme twitching. I never had it so intense and continuous in the past with any electronic device. I have not seen an improvement using Iris so far, but I want to give it some more days. I am also looking into Dasung, as I cannot seriously go on this way.
AGI Iris just provides you with a way to dim the screen in-software. So you can set the screen brightness at 100% - that is where normally LEDs don't PWM. And then bring the screen harsh max brightness down in Iris app. Resulting in a screen that looks like lower brightness but actually the LEDs are at 100%.
a month later
I know this is subjective, but which color temperature do you guys use? I am on 3400K and 40% brightness day and night. Of course indoors. I wonder whether I am exaggerating, and a bit more blue light would be beneficial...
For some reason around sunset I start struggling more, and in the past with a "good" computer I never did...
24 days later
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Hi, I did not read whole discussion, I just want to share my experience: I am using IRIS cca 1 year on notebooks Thinkpad T220 and E580. I like low brightness but on T220 & E580 Ive got headache after dimming my screen. With this app, it is quite better. I can use my notebook more than hour.
I did not use any other app, this is my first one (so I can not compare). What is good is, that I could install it without administrator rights (company computer).
It looks, that they dont use PWM for dimming, they just lower brightness of output (picture) on screen. The downsize of this is, that you can not use it for sharing the screen during meetings - projectors, webex or printscreens - they are all too dark.
Right now I have following settings: Windows 10. Laptop brightness on 100%: Iris settings 4485K / 39%.
Cheers.
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CareUEyes does more or less the same (windows only) but with more clear pricing policy and better interface.
4 months later
Anyone using Iris? I would like to know which blue light / brightness settings you settled on. Recently I re-started playing around with them. I had been for a while at about 45% for both parameters and began wondering whether too little blue and too little brightness are not harming instead of helping. Thanks in advance for any comment!
AGI I do use IRIS on my OLED phone but on a regular LED it doesn't really do anything. Anytime the pixel is black or grey you are getting full exposure to the black light. I don't even really notice any improvement on my phone either. Me personally I don't like bright screens.
jasonpicard Thanks. When you say you get full exposure, do you mean you are exposed to PWM? Was that measured?
AGI https://forums.blurbusters.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&p=40984 This guy explains it best. There was another good article where the guy put a black image on the screen put flux on and measured it and it's full exposure to 380 UV and high amounts of blue light as is typical with LED. It does nothing. You are better off controlling Gamma and turning down the brightness. I believe you can get some relief possibly by changing the harsh white back ground of a website with a slight orange tint but that is a different issue not blue light related.
AGI I remember another guy measuring it on a Facebook group I used to be part of and said it was almost useless. It makes sense because LED on a black pixel is just a closed shutter.
jasonpicard Very interesting and well supported by literature. Thanks!
jasonpicard You are better off controlling Gamma and turning down the brightness
What does changing gamma do differently than f.lux? Isn't that how it works by altering it? Did anything you read talk about Redshift or other color changing methods? Apparentl they don't all use the same method and it would be interesting to know if some did or didn't actually affect output.
hpst I have a gamma control on my monitor. It dims the back light and finally the brightness are the best ways to control the back light on an LED screen. I don't see how software can filter out blue light when you have a black pixel you get a closed shutter with back light bleed. LED doesn't display true black which is another crazy cause for eyestrain in dark scenes in movies and games. Maybe OLED if someone can prove it because each pixel is controlled. I'm willing to bet this conversation isn't going to matter much longer because OLED always has way less blue light then Regular LED.
https://www.whathifi.com/us/news/its-official-oled-tvs-really-are-good-for-your-eyes
https://eyesafe.com/dell/
Even Dell is releasing regular LED screens with a hardware solution in place. I'm willing to bet most people on this site won't be able to use these Dell screens because LED screens have 8 million other issues probably causing most of us worse pain then blue light. I would argue that these blue light software companies are pointless by next year because Dell will have all these other monitor makers and companies scrambling to catch up. If blue light is truly your concern we have options. CRT/Plasma/OLED/DLP If you still are worried using your LED screen thrown on some SCT orange glasses.
https://www.oled-info.com/reports-say-lgd-aims-change-its-woled-tv-structure-yb-rgb
It seems it was the 2018/19 models of LG OLED's that really started doing good with the low blue light from a hardware solution.
Next year when the JOLED models come out they should have less blue light as well because they are straight RGB from what I understand can't find the chart explaining as it was awhile ago I looked at it. Again this probably won't solve most people on this sites problems because OLED really only fixes 3 problems of the crazy list of LED problems. It will help some people though. If anyone knows more problems it will help with please let me know. I'm stuck in this crazy mess just like the rest of you.
Blue light
Fast GTG
True Blacks