New car, LED screens/lights, PWM

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 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

Understood

mike 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.

I'm not sure I follow. August 2020 was only 11 months ago. Do you mean "20 minutes"?

What I am interested in is:

1. How many times a day did you use the eye patch?
2. Each time you used the eye patch, how long did you use it for?
3. How many months did you do that training before you were able to use screens without the patch and not get symptoms?

Thanks

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?

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

ensete

In this case, it's not "old". It'll last me a decade or longer.

But this has done wonders for my anxiety, as the pressure to make a change/decision is off. 

Gurm

Same here, I'm still driving that car to this day and I am learning about car maintenance to keep it on the road. I also took up electronics repair so I could fix my TV's and computers (and maybe one day phones if I get good enough) so when I find devices that work for me I can keep them running as long as possible.

I drove a new Kia over the weekend. It was very uncomfortable for my eyes. The speedometer and gauges were still analogue but they are constantly lit up with white led's, I could only turn them down but still gave me eye strain. Could not turn them off. Fun times.

Gurm

I think that led strain problems came around 2008, when Apple and others updated their computers with led screens. I tested a friends MacBook back in what i remember was 2009, and got headache. Is years later I understood that i could have been the screen. I have also seen a couple of person in this forum report troubles earlier then 2010.

But one thing is really interesting for me. My sinus hurts from screen and I take medicine for it every day now. Back in 2007 I also had much problems with sinus when I worked much behind screens, but at that time I didn’t understand the connection between eyes and screens, and at that time I didn’t got tension headache and red eyes. So maybe this problem can be from my LASIK from 2002 or something older.

mike

I used Macbooks with no problems, including LED models, until they changed "something" around 2011. I do know some people more sensitive than me started having issues around 2008-2009 and some people who are very LED-sensitive or PWM-sensitive had issues even earlier. Heck, my grandmother had problems in the 1960's and 1970's with flickery fluorescent lights in her factory job and needed special glasses with a brown tint.

But I think the majority of us were good up through the iPhone 4/4s era, which also included Macbooks through 2009/2010. My personal trouble started when my formerly-ok Macbook (Core i5 Matte-finish UHD, 2010 model) went out for service and came back with a screen I could no longer use. Then lights began bothering me, many LED screens, etc.

The year 2011 was zero problem for me, it was 2012 that really kicked my ass.

But that's just me - others have different experiences.

I have a 2017 Golf GTI and the lights and screen don’t bother me. It’s rare that I have problems with screens in cars. I do get headaches from heads up displays however. It has a very similar effect on me as looking at an OLED iPhone. Pain in the eye and migraine.