Speaking of lighting, it is nearly impossible to find LED light bulbs that don't use PWM. I have been using Phillips Hue light bulbs and they appear to not use PWM or else they have a higher frequency than others.
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Other Eye-strain while using iPhone X and up
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I believe that is the case. I just think those of us that are sensitive notice it more, while the others are affected without noticing it. Maybe getting headaches a little bit easier, or more eye-strain but not enough that they can make the connection to anything in particular.
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Yes, it really is. Most (all?) Philips Hue bulbs do use PWM. I have yet to see a hue model that doesn’t. I have a couple of Osram and Philips LED bulbs that seem to be PWM free when tested with cameras, but I don’t have proper testing equipment... yet. I’ve tried many LED bulbs but I ended up stockpiling incandescents before they were banned here in the EU. I still haven’t managed to find a GU10 PWM free LED bulb with good color balance.
Not to throw cold water on this, but this has been a public discussion issue for fully two years now and apparently nothing has changed.
True, but the fact that other companies are starting to offer DC Dimming as an accessibility feature + Apple is switching to an all OLED lineup hopefully means that they’ll give us some kind of relief.
From this article about DC Dimming, here are the phones that currently support it:
- OnePlus 7 Pro and OnePlus 7(support will be extended to older OnePlus phones as well)
- Black Shark 2
- Xiaomi Mi 9
- Xiaomi Mi 8
- Redmi K20 Pro and Redmi K20
- Oppo Reno 10X Zoom
- Realme X
That is an excellent article! Thanks for posting! They added that as a software update? Wouldn’t it be great if Apple added that as an Accessibility option? Damn, that would be great.
"DC Dimming isn’t easy to implement for OLED screens. This is because, in AMOLED displays, each pixel is powered separately and reducing the voltage or current through these OLEDs also causes a shift in color. Which is to say, with DC Dimming, you will notice different colors at different brightness levels."
Apple won't do that if affect colors... maybe as an option to your own risk (risk I mean to losing color accuracy and consistency). But doesn't sound like apple.
Yes, PWM was confirmed in the iPhone 11 Pro models--just like the previous two generations.
This may be a stretch, but would dark mode lessen the effects of PWM by completely shutting off pixels within black backgrounds?
Would you use a 1000 dls phone in dark mode because if not gaves you eye-strain?
Great, I thought you mean use it all day in dark mode to avoid PWM (which I think it won´t solve the issue).
They have to solve it in hardware IMO; all the tricks that you can find there won't solve the issue, maybe help a little, but the problem is there in the technology.
I would. If having the camera I want, and the battery life I want, in the screen size I want can happen by using the phone in dark mode I would absolutely make that trade-off.
I have headaches while using the X in a few seconds, so maybe you can use the dark mode to avoid the PWM when using the iOs, but at the moment you watch photos or videos, the problems is there; at least for me; they are seconds, not even a minute to start the headache.
Well, don’t give up hope yet. I can see PWM on all OLED displays. That does not preclude me from using them. In fact I have LESS eye strain on my Pixel 3XL than I do on my Xr. I am fine on the Note 10+. I’m better than fine on the Pixel 3XL. I don’t know if those displays would look flickery using Nilay’s method or not. (Thanks to the person who tweeted to Nilay and thanks to Nilay for checking it out).
In fact, here’s a very strange observation I’ve mentioned before: after I’ve been reading ebooks on my Pixel 3XL for awhile, my extreme nearsightedness actually abates for a little while and I can see clearly without my glasses. That’s kind of freaky. Maybe the flickering was exercising my eyeballs somehow. 🧐
There was something odd Apple was doing in addition to pwm that was making many of us suffer pretty seriously. Maybe they have stopped doing whatever it was. They talk on the Apple Store pages about their new display and their new display drivers. Maybe they’ve used the new drivers to fix the problem for us. Or maybe they made it worse. We won’t know until we guinea pig it.
Give it a chance. Open the box. Look at it. If it hurts, return it and then hammer Apple with correspondence about it. Apple deserves a return and a polite professional complaint if they know about this issue (and they do) and have done nothing about it after 2 years.
In fact, here’s a very strange observation I’ve mentioned before: after I’ve been reading ebooks on my Pixel 3XL for awhile, my extreme nearsightedness actually abates for a little while and I can see clearly without my glasses. That’s kind of freaky. Maybe the flickering was exercising my eyeballs somehow. 🧐
There was something odd Apple was doing in addition to pwm that was making many of us suffer pretty seriously. Maybe they have stopped doing whatever it was. They talk on the Apple Store pages about their new display and their new display drivers. Maybe they’ve used the new drivers to fix the problem for us. Or maybe they made it worse. We won’t know until we guinea pig it.
Give it a chance. Open the box. Look at it. If it hurts, return it and then hammer Apple with correspondence about it. Apple deserves a return and a polite professional complaint if they know about this issue (and they do) and have done nothing about it after 2 years.
hahaha 😂
Hopefully they solved the problem; let's wait and see... in the store is pretty hard, there is too much light. But order one and try is not a bad idea.
When I bought the X I didn´t realise the problem until that day at night when I start setting the new phone in the dark of the room. Man, the eyestratin was overblow... I put it for sale in that moment.
Then I tried some X and XS from friends and was the same; I like the size (no the weight, but I can live with it), so crossing fingers for the 11 Pro.
Nowhere in my post did I suggest dark mode will avoid or solve PWM. I’m simply asking if dark mode provides one more setting to lessen the effects of it for users that are living with it on their current phones. Of course black backgrounds would be constantly changing during use, but pixels that are powered off (black) don’t flicker, right? Again, it’s a stretch at best and I hope the 11 Pro and certainly next year’s all OLED lineup address this issue fully.
Also when people test the displays in the store they need to check the settings. Most of the time the displays are turned all the way to maximum brightness. There shouldn’t be any pwm at all on full brightness. It’s when you attempt to dim the display to be bearable in normal lighting conditions that the pwm activates and problems ensue.