I've found that removing the semi transparent layer helps to greatly reduce eyestrain and brainfog for me. I have removed them in five monitors so far and it has always helped (two old matte TN monitors, a shimian 27" glossy IPS 1440p korean monitor, and two HP 22es IPS monitors). It is the plastic sheet with the slightly silvery metalic sheen. Not the white, purely diffusive layers.
Just sharing my experiences.

Layer number 6 in this post
https://imgur.com/a/NNxWPnm

Excellent find. Have you noticed any quality degradation in the image? Can I ask what type of eye strain you experience and what symptoms were reduced?

Again, excellent find. And thank you!

    Wrightpt1

    In some ways the image actually improves. There might be slightly more ips glow and maybe slightly reduced contrast levels. But the overall image uniformity improves (especially wen viewing the screen at angles), and the screen is far easier to focus on. Also at the edges of the screen you can seen a slight non-uniform pattern caused by the edge lighting leds. But this is just a minor trade off for the reduction in eye fatigue.
    Here's a picture of the slight edge lit led nonuniformity. https://imgur.com/a/8mlsmtY

    Regarding eyestrain. I experience things similar to what many people report on this forum. The overall of becoming somewhat "allergic" to screens. Being able to tell in a few seconds how a screen just looks wrong, with that weird almost glarish glowiness that gives you blurry vision and red eyes and that otherworldly brain fog. The symptoms of how even when the screen is set super dark, it paradoxically always seems too bright and still hurts your eyes. Pretty much all of these symptoms were reduced by removing the semitransparent layer.

    I've tried a lot of things. Various panels, projectors. I've removed antiglare coatings, removed entire front polarizer films, removed/ rearranged the various plastic panel diffusers, ccfl backlights, led backlights, janky diy incandescent backlights(which was actually pretty nice), messed around with uvex blue blockers, gunnars, maui jim sunglasses. I've partially concluded that the semitransparent film layer is definitely a cause of eye strain. And I can be relatively sure that the pure white diffusive layers are most likely not causing eyestrain. Because if they were, then looking at those old library analog microfilm machines or staring at a back lit shoji screen would cause that characteristic mind numbing eyestrain, which they don't.
    Though the eyestrain has not completely been eliminated it has allowed computer screens to be relatively tolerable, vs feeling like I'm going blind at the end of the day. This would obviously not help fix any pwm caused eyestrain.

    Try this.
    If you look at your monitor (in my case ips) at an angle see if you notice if the part of the screen closest to you almost darkens in what I can only describe as a washed out silverish glare, while the part of the screen farthest from you stays relatively free from this glare. This isn't ips glow but an effect caused by the semitransparent layer. Removing this layer has interestingly removed that washing out effect and allowed the screen to stay more uniform.

      chahahc Is it easy to remove the semitransparent layer on a screen? Is it possible on all screens?

      Unfortunely that can't be done on smartphones.

        i have taken one monitor apart. a VA panel. i know exactly what layer you are referring to. i am now using a 24 inch IPS from Benq. i may venture to take it apart to see how it does.

        tfouto

        It's pretty easy depending on the monitor. The ultra thin monitors like my HP 22es are basically the panels themselves so you can just pop the tabs around the edge and lift up the lcd panel and remove the plastic sheet. The normal thickness monitors have to be disassembled since the panel is separately housed inside the exterior plastic shell.

        3 years later

        Hello!
        This layer is BEF (prism sheet) or something from BEF family, that can function as a reflective polarizer.
        If you have notifications from this forum, I hope you read this. Could you please share more info that you probably found about this later? I am also trying to detect which layers are responsible for my symptoms and I have some suspicions about LCD matrix, that you mentioned in another thread: https://ledstrain.org/d/575-my-interesting-results-from-dissasembling-and-messing-around-with-monitor

        dev