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link to reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/eyestrain/comments/160zda9/interesting_article_on_eye_strain_and_eink/

Post title: Very good article on e-ink and eye caring tech in general

Post content:
Original article in Chinese . I'm not a good translator please just point out parts that doesn't make sense I'll revise it. Its so long damn I need to rest my eyes now.

Broadly speaking, eye discomfort caused by looking at monitors stems from three main problems：

Blue light. Specific wavelengths of the blue light spectrum have a strong penetrating power and can cause damage to the eyes. Eye caring monitors on the market said no blue light is corresponding to this point, but the current backlight monitors still can not completely eliminate the problem of high-energy blue light.

Flickering. Eye caring monitors marketed dc dimming, or no flickering is to deal with this problem.

Ambient light problem: dark conditions look bright screen will lead to eye discomfort, this can be solved by manually adjusting the monitor brightness at night. Eye caring monitors with intelligent dimming, or automatic dimming, is the solution to this problem.

Flickering and ambient light problems can be solved by hardware and software, but high-energy blue ligh can not be completely solved. High-energy blue light will lead to short-term eye soreness and tears. Long-term will lead to cataracts, macular degeneration.

I have tried these methods.

Single-eye mask: the first method used, but it did not actually work, I used when eye strain was already serious, so using only one every one day anther eye every other day. But it can't solve the problem, for example, I wear an eye patch for my right eye to work, and when it hurts, it hurts in both eyes together, and the tears flowing from my eyes also flow together.

Drink more water: I feel that it has a certain effect on dry eyes, because I am busy and drink less water indeed feel tears are flowing dry, drink eight glasses of water every day can replenish tears.

Far-seeing: This should have an effect on visual fatigue, and cannot be used to solve the problem of dry eyes. I sometimes go out and walk for an hour then I feel much better but it would be back immediately when started working.

Eye drops: I used Hailu eye drops, which is supposed to be one of the best products used to relieve dry eyes, but it is still not as effective as natural tears. At the most uncomfortable time, my eyes were in constant pain and the drops could not relieve it, but if I summoned tears through yawning, it would bring immediate comfort. Therefore, I tried to use more water and yawning instead of eye drops to relieve the dry eyes. That said, the drops themselves are for emergencies, so I still use them occasionally when my eyes get dry.

Steam Eye Mask: I was initially unimpressed with this product because it does not contain moisture and it can aggravate dry eyes when they are severe. My ophthalmologist suggested that I use a hot towel to apply it wet, but the towel would quickly become cold. Later I used baby wipes covered with steam eye mask on the outside of my eyes and found that it had a very good effect on relieving dry eyes. Wet wipes are recommended for the cotton era, not even draw with cover design, long-term placement will not lose water. You can also use dry wipes with purified water. Whether it is wet wipes or dry wipes, it must be a non-additive model for babies, after all, it is used on the eyes.

Health supplements: Tried lutein fish oil supplements, ate two months the dry eyes or dry eyes. I feel that this supplement is more of a restorative effect, but there are articles that say you have to take it for at least 4 months to get results. I found a Norwegian bp lutein fish oil and looked at the ingredients list and thought it was more cost effective. Later on, I found @笨猪因 who said that sea buckthorn is the best solution he got after consulting a lot of information, and he is currently buying sea buckthorn syrup to drink. I researched a little and found that sea buckthorn is really reliable, rich in lutein, vitamin A and other eye care elements, and also helps digestion, antioxidants and so on. So I also started to buy raw sea buckthorn to drink.

High-end ccfl monitor: this gets very strange, the discussion of ccfl eye protection touted, but foreign forums that discuss eye caring monitor rarely mention the problem of ccfl, and old posts said that cfl monitor made eyes very uncomfortable, led is better. So once I suspected that the so-called ccfl eye caring claim is just marketing of manufacturers. But I bought the legendary EIZO L887, also known as ccfl asv, and personally experienced that it did work. At that time, my eyes were tearing and aching every day before I went to bed, but of course it was also related to the long hours I spent facing the screen every day. With this monitor I still got fatigue and discomfort, in the morning the eye balls are under pressure, but already much better. The most obvious feeling is at night, when the lights are low, my led monitor will force me to squint at the screen, even if I have turned down the brightness but not ccfl. I saw a post on quora that may accurately summarize the monitors : in terms of eye caring, low-end cccfl is not as good as low-end led, high-end led is not as good as high-end cccfl, and top-of-the-line led is the best. I wonder if there is a basis for this statement.

Dasung e-ink mointor: At first felt its too expensive, very suspicious, but after using a period of time I never want to use the backlit display again. For the first time I woke up with basically no discomfor in eyes. But remember to turn on the lights in the room as well as keep the front light on, otherwise there is no enough ambient light triggering fatigue. The disadvantages of this monitor are obvious: only 13 inches, ghosting, no color, expensive and response time. It is said that the pro version has fast response time , hd version has high definition. Despite all the drawbacks, this device is really good for eyes. E ink screen can completely solve my eye discomfort. If only use this monitor office, try not to look at other screens, walking in the street eyes can naturally open, feel very relaxed. Now I just hope some manufacturer can launch a full color reflective screen, by then, most talks about eye caring technology will become outdated. One thing to note about using this monitor is that it must use its own front lights whose default brightness is already the optimal setting. If you use external light source lighting, there will be a problem of too much light around the work area, which will lead to dry eyes after a long period of use.

Projector: BenQ w1120 and Epson ef-100w have been purchased, connected to the computer as a monitor. One is bulb light source, one a laser light source, both has noise problems. And eye comfort is not as good as ordinary monitors. Too dark will cause visual fatigue, too bright will hurt the eyes, no matter how will caus discomfort. Later I bought a led light source projector jmgo j10 (坚果j10), very quiet. In order to solve the problem of too dark and too bright, I turn both the room lighting and projector to a higher brightness, and wear ptk pro anti-blue light glass when using (the blue light filter rate of this lens is 99%), so it can be used for a long time comfortably.

Fujitsu rlcd monitor: this monitor is often a modified product, really shady. I bought various versions of this monitor from two sellers on Taobao, one called 倍力数码 with a low-cost half-transparent half-reflective screen sent to me. At first did not know enough about this product, did not find it wrong. After a long time that I realized I had been scammed. Another more reliable seller said most people would choose the version without front light, which I didn't understand at the time. Then I realized that if I use its own front lighting, my eyes will be slightly uncomfortable after a long time of use. If you do not use its own front light, instead of using daylight or desk lamp lighting, the eyes are more comfortable. However, after using the lamp for a few months, I still experienced dry eyes in the morning. The following points need to be noted when using this monitor with desk lamp : ambient light must be present when using it, and at the same time, the brightness around the monitor will be higher than the screen brightness due to the low reflectivity of rlcd, so the overall brightness near the monitor needs to be strictly controlled. I use a cloth over a desk lamp so that the light will only be restricted to the vicinity of the monitor, while laying a black absorbent cloth on the desk to reduce reflections. This is very, very important: make sure that the brightness of the area around the monitor is lower than the brightness of the screen. In the vast majority of cases, a dark absorbent cloth needs to be laid on the desktop to reduce desktop reflections.

Desk lamp: because Fujitsu monitor needs external lighting, I bought a 7w focus led desk lamp. Later bought a few different eye lamps, brightness is not significantly improved, only more expensive and large, so I stick to the first lamp . After a month, I found that after long use will cause dry eyes, so even for the reflective lighting, the choice of light source is also very important. After research, I learned that a healthy light environment should meet three conditions at the same time: 1, the working spectrum contains very little high-energy blue light or no blue light at all. 2, the work area brightness can not be lower than the brightness of the surrounding area. 3 brightness of the surrounding area must be higher than 1/3 of that of the working area. After understanding the advantages and disadvantages of halogen, incandescent, fluorescent, and led, I purchased a million bulbs for testing. The quality of the lamp itself, the ambient light, the angle and location of exposure, and the different configurations of brightness all can have an impact on the eyes, which may trigger symptoms such as dry eyes, irritation, visual fatigue, and red bloodshot. Another problem is that the damage to the eyes from the light source is not immediately apparent, and all the bulbs work well at first, with symptoms appearing only after a while. After a long period of testing, these bulbs will invariably cause eye discomfort after prolonged use, including the halogen bulbs that claim to kill all led with its pure natural spectrum. After that, I purchased the Xiaomi desk lamp 1s, yeelight light desk lamp, Lenovo thinkplus desk lamp. Before the test, I think these lights are good enough, there will be no perceptible difference. But after really using it, I realized that the thinkplus 5100k is significantly more comfortable than the Xiaomi Desk Lamp 1s 4500k, which may be related to my dry eyes that were already serious at the time of testing. The minimum brightness of the thinkplus desk lamp is much higher than the brightness I am used to with the Xiaomi desk lamp 1s, but it is extremely comfortable to use, and even after a long day of heavy computer use, my eyes will not feel uncomfortable. Finally, I tested the yeelight light-sensitive desk lamp, when the color temperature is set to 5000k, eye discomfort, if the color temperature is set to 3000k or 4000k, after prolonged use will still cause eye discomfort, but the subjective feeling than the Xiaomi desk lamp 1s really better (thank God for my double dry eyes). It seems that the principle of "you get what you pay for" still applies here. My current opinion is that eye dryness is related to the luminous flux of a specific band of blue light, determined by a combination of spectrum, brightness, and color temperature. thinkplus' spectrum has been optimized to be very close to sunlight, only cutting out the high-energy blue part of sunlight, so it can still remain comfortable when both color temperature and brightness are high. In addition, one day I stumbled upon a desk lamp called 阳光流自然光台灯 whose light spectrum is exactly the same as thinkplus, only the looking is not so good, and has poor marketing . Compared to the thinkplus, the switch and dimming of this desk lamp is mechanical, solving the problem that thinkplus desk lamp can not remember the brightness after power failure, and the brightness is also lower, its maximum brightness is a little lower than the lowest brightness of thinkplus. So I sold the yeelight desk lamp replaced it with this 阳光流自然光台灯(sunlight flow natural light desk lamp). Since the spectrum of these two lamps has been done to completely get rid of high-energy blue light, so in theory, it is even better to the eye to use it as a light source to watch the monitor than to read books in natural daylight. The actual using experience is the same, in the case of using the two desk lamps with Fujitsu total reflection monitor, even after a long period of heavy use of the computer eyes can still remain comfortable. In addition, there are two more well-known high-priced desk lamp: Yamada Lighting z80 and Dyson desk lamp. Although I did not test, their claimed spectrum is similar to other full-spectrum desk lamps, so also has a high-energy blue light wave peak.

Fully transmissive displays: They are ordinary backlit displays, as opposed to fully reflective displays, which require a light source to shine on the back of the display to provide an image. As mentioned above, current backlit displays cannot completely eliminate high-energy blue light. However, I have seen sellers on the 闲鱼 has ones that removed the backlight panel and convert them to full transmissive monitors without light sources, which can be used with their backs facing sun or artificial light source. So if this kind of monitor paired with the non-high-energy blue light light source like thinkplus desk lamp, will be the perfect eye caring monitor? With this in mind, I purchased a 22" fully transmissive backlit monitor. The seller said I was his first buyer and gave me a halogen lamp. This monitor was very crude, its case was made up of a wooden board and paper shell. The seller said he made this monitor with a monitor panel, driver circuit and wood drawer. I placed a sunlight flow natural light lamp behind it to the lowest brightness lighting, the whole screen image is very clear. After using it for 3 days, I feel that this screen is still not as comfortable as Fujitsu lcd monitor, as it should be because when using the light source as backlight, all the light is concentrated to the monitor panel, making the brightness on the screen too high. This problem should be solved by blocking the lamp, but subjectively I still feel that Fujitsu is more comfortable. I finally gave up.

Blue light lenses: compared with ordinary eyeglass lenses and lenses with anti-blue light layer, Blue light lenses do have a significant effect, can significantly reduce the symptoms of dry eyes. But the layer, after all, has to consider the needs of normal use, the reflection rate of blue light is limited. To achieve better results, you need professional anti-blue light glasses. I bought ptk pro anti-blue light clip, blue light blocking rate is said to be 99%, with this lens watching the backlight monitor will still cause a slight discomfort, but much better than directly. Because of the bright office lighting, even with the e-ink screen, I felt dry eyes after a long day, so I also wore ptk pro clip-on lenses when using the e-ink screen. After a few days, I noticedred blood under my eyes, which indicates that the environment of using eyes is too dark. So I purchased the AHT anti-blue light clip-on with 40% blue light filtering rate to use with the e-ink screen in the office, and I no longer have eye discomfort.

E-Ink cell phone: bought Hisense a5pro cc color ink screen cell phone. Like the Dasung screen, even after a long time use of the eyes will not be uncomfortable, while I use the iphone 8 plus when it is easy to feel dry eyes. When using it, you must keep the ambient light sufficient, otherwise there will be red blood and visual fatigune. This phone can even watch videos smoothly, although the picture quality is bad. I have now replaced my iphone with it.

Eyeglass frames: In the process of researching eye care methods I discovered that lens height affects the degree of eye dryness. Initially, it was due to the aggravation of eye dryness after buying a new pair of glasses, then I tried to replace the lenses several times before I suspected that it was the frame. My previous frame with 33mm high lenses, and the new frame with 40mm height lenses, the comfort of the old glasses was significantly higher than the new glasses. So I purchased a frame with 28mm height lenses and my eyes felt significantly more comfortable. Large frames are popular nowadays, and most people wear 40mm or higher frames, and I have not heard of any health problems caused by this. I don't know if the difference is only felt by people with dry eyes, or if this applies only to me. If you suffer from severe dry eye symptoms, try a frame with a lens height of less than 30mm.

Conclusion: The most effective solution is a Dasung monitor. It is important to keep the room well lit with ambient light while using it. If red blood appears in the eyes, it is likely that the ambient light is too dark. But a screen with a reflective light source will make the eyes absorb more blue light from the ambient light, so a better configuration when there is no sunlight is a Dagung monitor + sufficient indoor light + AHT anti-blue light lenses/clips. Another option is the jmgo j10 (坚果j10) projector (or other high-brightness led projector, if not sensitive to noise can also use non-led, but at least with brightness 2000 lumens, resolution 1080 or more) + brighter indoor light + AHT anti-blue light lens/clip. rlcd such as Fujitsu display should also be possible, the problem is that rlcd reflectivity is too low, and has reflection problems, so it requires a strong ability to perfect the light setup. Whether using an e-ink screen or rlcd, if using a non-sunlight external light source exposure, you still need to wear aht anti-blue light lenses/clips at the same time. This is because the eyes are more susceptible to the effects of blue light from ambient light when using such displays than under a backlit display.

Lutein supplementation also makes sense if the eyes are already showing more obvious symptoms, but it should be taken for at least two or three months to be effective.