New car, LED screens/lights, PWM

Gurm I’m looking at an older BMW - before they switched to digital screens (2018 has analogue dials and just one heads up screen in the middle above the dash) - and hoping it is tolerable, as their new (2019 and up) digital screens are reported to be bad.

A couple of months ago i upgraded my car from a Volvo V70 -11 to a BMW 5-series 2020 with the new live cockpit (all big digital screens). Bad news, I got tension headache that wouldn’t disappear. I have a friend who has a 2018 5-serie, no troubles with his car. So my girlfriend drove and i sat behind her in the backseat, it worked. But driving wasn’t working because the live cockpit was in my field of vision. So after the three weeks with tension headache i sat in the car i the garage with one eye covered for 4-5 times x 12 minutes. After that it works for me!

mike

How long did you do that training for? A day, a week, a month, etc

ensete

First i did training for 3 weeks back in Nov-Dec 2018 which gave me pretty good results. In the beginning of 2019 it took some time for me to go from a iPhone 4S with iOS 7 which was the only working phone for me to a 5S. In the summer I trained so I could use a iPhone 7. In the beginning of 2020 i bought a iPad Pro, had it a month, didn’t work so returned it. In the summer of 2020 I change to a iPhone 11 Pro, i had taking me around 9 month of training before I could use it. Then I bought a iPad Pro again and got it to work. After the summer of 2020 with all the training I discovered that with new screens i got tension, so i coverages one eye for 30-60 minutes with the new screen and then i worked. Have done it on 6-7 screens now and i am so happy for that.

mike

30-60 minutes one time, and it worked sae day? Or 30-60 minutes a day, then that was it, for some period of time, and then it was useable?

Sorry to bug you for more details but I still can't put together your exact training schedule and regime. Could you spell it out in very clear detail? How long per session, how many sessions a day, and how many days before training was no longer needed?

Gurm

Nice to hear that you like nice cars. I have owned a couple of BMW M3, and drove them as they deserved. Back in 2007 i got the chance to drive with Colin McRae, a dream that come true. I have 2 friends that both have got BMW 440 Gran Coupe -18 for some months ago, they’re super happy. WRX is also a really nice car.

I keep my fingers crossed!

mike

I love the WRX - handling, performance, everything - but it may not be… sensible… considering it's my only car most days and I have to do a lot of kid taxi service on questionable roads.

I am strongly leaning towards the 430i Gran Coupe - 440's are in short supply - from 2018 if my eyes can tolerate it (or 2017 which was Xenon instead of LED and had even better dashboard layout), they are really reliable as BMW's go and I can readily get one inside my budget with around 30k miles on it and in pristine condition.

I've never been in a financial situation to own an M car, but seriously an M440 is my dream - all that power but still civil enough to drop the kids off at school.

ensete

I am happy to answer, the biggest problem for me just now is that English is my second language so be patient with my bad translations.

In August 2020 i had trained with one eye for approximately 20 months, not every day, but in many periods. It was then I discovered that 30-60 minutes one time could fix so i could use a new screen which gave me tension headache, and now i have done it 6-7 times.

Sometimes when i have trained, i put my open right hand between my nose and my right eye. So i can see things some meters away, but the mobile screen i can only see with my left eye. Maybe that have worked for me, I don’t know the magic formula, i have trained and test many things.

mike

So it sounds like the "hard part" was the 20 months of multiple days per week single eye training, and now your eyes are strong enough that a quick refresh fixes most problems. I think that's where we all hope to be!

So I drove a 2018 BMW 430i for about 30 minutes today. First of all, what a gorgeous car. OMG.

Second… my eyes are tired, but they weren't during the drive. They were a little tired immediately after, at the dealership, with their weird lighting. I will see how I feel in the morning. So far, promising - far better than most modern cars.

I did, for the record, spend a LOT of time playing with the infotainment system. The rest of the dash was pretty innocuous, TBH. The dials only faintly light up orange until it gets good and dark out, probably the least obtrusive possible coloration.

I'm going to also try to drive a 2017, which has even older screen tech and Xenon HID instead of LED for headlights.

mike

Gotcha, thanks for that! I'm comfortable with the eyepatch, but it seems an eyepatch or a pair of glasses with one lens covered should achieve the same effect

The good news is I am about 2 weeks into patching and I can notice a difference. It's not much, but while before I couldn't go any time at all ithout getting triggered, I can go a solid 5 minutes now, so progress is being made, just slowly

ensete

I think we all have different levels of muscular accomodation. Think of it like any other muscle. If your right bicep were atrophied, doing two-handed curls would cause your whole body to hurt because all the other muscles would have to compensate. 

Then, depending on age and health and a million other factors, how long does it take to get from curling 5lbs. to curling 35lbs.? Months, most likely. I used to be able, when I was 30, to curl 35lbs. per arm as a normal workout. Now, getting from 10lbs. to 20lbs. took me weeks, and getting from 20lbs. to 25lbs. took just as long, and that's where I'm at now.

So I think we all have to have patience. I think some of our issues CAN be overcome here, it's just gonna take a WHILE.

ensete

One more thing to think about, before I started training in late 2018 I couldn’t find any screen newer then 2011 that worked for me. I used a computer from 2009 with CCFL and my iPhone 4S with iOS 7. So the first weeks of training I got to the point that I could use at least one screen newer then 2011, which I believe that quite a few can do on this forum without training.

Gurm I think we all have different levels of muscular accomodation.

This is interesting.

Back in 2002 I did a LASIK, because I was nearsighted. After the operation I got like perfect sight on near and really good on long distance. When you do a eye operation, they fix the eye, not the eye muscles.

First I did one eye and was going to wait four weeks before I did my other, that changed to seven weeks. Can something have happened during this time?

mike

Hard to say but I bet your issues would have cropped up anyway, nobody started having these issues until roughly 2010+

Drove a Volvo S60 today. 2019. Eyes a little tired but nothing near as bad as some other vehicles. Going to give it a day or so. I’ll also drive a 2018 this week which has less digital real estate on the screens. And I’ll drive a 2017 BMW.

So this might be moot. My wife's Subaru Forester (2019, every available option) is a car I'm fond of and can tolerate the screens on… and she will blow past the warranty if she keeps commuting with it. I may take over the payments and registration on that, and let her trade the WRX for whatever she wants to commute with for the next two years (she puts 25k-30k a year on the car commuting for work). Then I can take my sweet time finding something I like.

Gurm

Same thing happened to me. My car got totalled in an accident, I could not tolerate modern cars, so I took my wifes old car and bought her a new car