Other Eye-strain while using iPhone X and up

[PhoneMe1]

I have turned FID off for unlock for awhile now mainly as its useless in the car and slower anyway and doesnt' always work, just have password set for 4 hours and use for apps and safari passwords that need it.
Much better phone without it, was going to sell for a 8 plus but have had them and find too big plus the loss on my X would be too much.
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Please don't take this personally - I don't understand the logic of paying $1K (or more) for a phone for which the big selling point (and a lot of the cost) is FaceID and then turning it off

Easy answer no more home button

 

[jtl_]

No.
[doublepost=1522118245][/doublepost]Gotta say I’m becoming concerned about my long-term health. Hopefully all recovers and the fix works out. Even taking a second to turn off my iPhone X gave me eye pain and a persistent headache. For my health my iPhone X’s are powered off and I’m (unhappily, to be frank) using iPhone 8+ until there’s news.

My eye is still intermittently throbbing, by the way.

I'd take a break from screens for a bit. Listen to music or a podcast, etc.

 

[MICHAELSD]

Real progress is happening but I’m still not sure what I can share publicly so unfortunately I’m probably going to have to leave it at that for a while.

 

[Faste]

Real progress is happening but I’m still not sure what I can share publicly so unfortunately I’m probably going to have to leave it at that for a while.

Can you at least tell us if it’s hardware or software? I went through 2 iPhone X hoping it would get better and I’m about to pick up my third one 2 months later

 

[Tijdelijk]

Can you at least tell us if it’s hardware or software? I went through 2 iPhone X hoping it would get better and I’m about to pick up my third one 2 months later

Please understand the OLED panels in the iPhone X ALL uses PWM dimming.
It's a fairytale that some panels do not show the flickering.

Also to be honest I just don't believe that there will be a fix for PWM dimming by Apple.
Yes it's done by a Samsung phone (not by Samsung itself) but there a major tradeoffs and I doubt Apple would do this.

Don't forget PWM dimming is done for a reason!!!

Unfortunately some people are sensitive for it.

 

[majkom]

Only solution is to switch oled supplier, samsung is using cheap pwm solution, afaik lg is not...

 

[Tijdelijk]

Only solution is to switch oled supplier, samsung is using cheap pwm solution, afaik lg is not...

Cheap has nothing to do with it.
It's not true that PWM Oled panels are cheaper then the analog counterpart
PWM dimming has also some advantages over analog. That's why PWM dimming is chosen.

https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1281013

 

[majkom]

Cheap has nothing to do with it.
It's not true that PWM Oled panels are cheaper then the analog counterpart
PWM dimming has also some advantages over analog. That's why PWM dimming is chosen.

https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1281013

Not sure about smartphones, but in TVs, if pwm has such advantages, hows that sony with better and more accurate color reproduction/motion processing can either supply tvs without pwm or with pwm with much higher frequencies than samsung AND usually sony uses pwm only on very low brightness settings while samsung using pwm all the time? Easy answer, samsung is using pwm to lower the cost...

 

[Tijdelijk]

Not sure about smartphones, but in TVs, if pwm has such advantages, hows that sony with better and more accurate color reproduction/motion processing can either supply tvs without pwm or with pwm with much higher frequencies than samsung AND usually sony uses pwm only on very low brightness settings while samsung using pwm all the time? Easy answer, samsung is using pwm to lower the cost...

This topic is about smartphones.
See the topic before where you can read why PWM is used instead of analog dimming.

And no it's not an easy answer were PWM is ONLY used to lower the cost. There are other reasons why PWM is chosen besides lower costs

IPhone X uses PWM and that's how it is.
There will be NO fix from Apple for this
It works like it's designed

 

[Nieels23]

https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2018/03/...to-stop-oled-flickering-in-just-three-clicks/

this really helped me. Screen always on full brightness and with balance 66%.

 

[Tijdelijk]

https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2018/03/...to-stop-oled-flickering-in-just-three-clicks/

this really helped me. Screen always on full brightness and with balance 66%.

In the blog I read:

--
Phones such as the Moto Z2 Play, ZUK Z2, Nexus 6, OnePlus 5, and iPhone X use OLED panels that won’t flicker beyond a certain brightness level
--

That's not correct at all.
Even at 100 procent brightness it's still flickering. It's just done with a higher frequency.

This can easily be seen with a Slowmotion recording from the screen of the X

X full brightness :

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3qvh1pvmblxtfx2/X_SLOW.MOV?dl=0

Iphone LCD full brightness without PWM dimming (perfect)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/aoss88h8n2h8gci/5_SLOW.MOV?dl=0

 

[majkom]

This topic is about smartphones.
See the topic before where you can read why PWM is used instead of analog dimming.

And no it's not an easy answer were PWM is ONLY used to lower the cost. There are other reasons why PWM is chosen besides lower costs

IPhone X uses PWM and that's how it is.
There will be NO fix from Apple for this
It works like it's designed

Its primary about oled and pwm - same tech used in tvs and phones... samsung is cheapo and apple as well. Saved few bucks thx to pwm and harmed small percentage of users... in cooks book, its probably all right.

 

[Harthag]

Its primary about oled and pwm - same tech used in tvs and phones... samsung is cheapo and apple as well. Saved few bucks thx to pwm and harmed small percentage of users... in cooks book, its probably all right.

LG uses PWM as well (Pixel 2 XL and V30). There isn't a single OLED phone that doesn't use PWM. LG OLED TV however, different tech and can't be compared to cell phones, imo. Their latest (using B7 as example) is flicker-free and doesn't use PWM.

I fully support this thread, but Apple won't do anything about the 1% of overall population who is impacted by this. Just like it has done nothing about the people experiencing speaker clipping with the iPhone 8 / X. They just made the max volume lower per users' reports, lol, that's not a fix. I can't see them completely adjusting the kernel to modify the PWM frequency. Would they just push an update to iPhone X? They could instruct owners to bring their X into a store for the fix, they'd almost have to. An iOS update for this isn't relevant for the 8/8+, so I don't see that happening. You need to use an entirely different tech to totally eliminate PWM. I hope I'm wrong and Apple does do something. PWM sensitivity can be debilitating. For the money we are paying it isn't acceptable.

 

[MICHAELSD]

Can you at least tell us if it’s hardware or software? I went through 2 iPhone X hoping it would get better and I’m about to pick up my third one 2 months later

The flicker is the intended operation of the display. If there is a fix on this model it would likely be via a software update. A replacement won’t be any better than the last two at this time.

 

[TDDM]

I'm pretty much done hoping for a fix for the current X. All I want at this point is for some kind of solution in the next models, or at least SOME kind of hope that they'll address this someday. If not, those of us who are affected will be locked out of any new iPhones, and that would just suck.

 

[Tijdelijk]

I'm pretty much done hoping for a fix for the current X. All I want at this point is for some kind of solution in the next models, or at least SOME kind of hope that they'll address this someday. If not, those of us who are affected will be locked out of any new iPhones, and that would just suck.

Well maybe the IPS version? (This model is rumored to be one of the three models)

 

[MICHAELSD]

I'm pretty much done hoping for a fix for the current X. All I want at this point is for some kind of solution in the next models, or at least SOME kind of hope that they'll address this someday. If not, those of us who are affected will be locked out of any new iPhones, and that would just suck.

That’s fair enough. I’ve been so persistent so that we (as in everyone suffering from these issues) won’t have to deal with not being able to use new iPhone models for the foreseeable future.
[doublepost=1522475034][/doublepost]I’ve been commiting my time to making sure that we can all continue happily using new iPhone models. This is bigger than just iPhone X, this is about the future of iPhone thus my unwavering persistence to resolve this issue.

(Until there’s news I won’t share specific details of what’s going on but I’m happy to report that this is not being ignored by .)

 

[TDDM]

Well maybe the IPS version? (This model is rumored to be one of the three models)

Yeah, I was hopeful about that model, but I've been seeing some odd rumors about it. Such as: worse screen resolution than an iPhone Plus, no 3D touch, worse battery than the X due to not using the L shaped battery, single lens camera etc). Hopefully these rumors are just false and they don't gimp it too hard.

I’ve been commiting my time to making sure that we can all continue happily using new iPhone models. This is bigger than just iPhone X, this is about the future of iPhone thus my unwavering persistence to resolve this issue.

I don't know how you've been able to get Apple's ear about this issue, but I think I can speak for all of us PWM-sensitive people here when I say we're thankful for you getting them to pay attention. Not sure how you did it, every rep I've tried to talk to either couldn't escalate the issue to anywhere important or didn't even know what OLED was in the first place lol. Either way, thanks dude.

(I’m happy to report that this is not being ignored by .)

That's great to hear, I've got my eye on that 6.5'' iPhone later this year

 

[newellj]

Its primary about oled and pwm - same tech used in tvs and phones... samsung is cheapo and apple as well. Saved few bucks thx to pwm and harmed small percentage of users... in cooks book, its probably all right.

Just about the only thing that your OLED TV and your iPhone X have in common is four letters. The design and electronic consideration for making an OLED display run on a TV are potentially completely different, if the engineers make those choices. This starts with the fact that TVs run on mains power, rather than small batteries.
[doublepost=1522495188][/doublepost]

The flicker is the intended operation of the display. If there is a fix on this model it would likely be via a software update. A replacement won’t be any better than the last two at this time.

Software changes can't change performance if the ICs aren't in the device in the first place.

 

[majkom]

Just about the only thing that your OLED TV and your iPhone X have in common is four letters. The design and electronic consideration for making an OLED display run on a TV are potentially completely different, if the engineers make those choices. This starts with the fact that TVs run on mains power, rather than small batteries.
[doublepost=1522495188][/doublepost]

Software changes can't change performance if the ICs aren't in the device in the first place.

In that case, I stand corrected. Thx.

 

[newellj]

In that case, I stand corrected. Thx.

First, my post was kind of harsh. I apologize for the tone.

To explain what I know about this, a leading reason for PWM is that it's very energy efficient. TV designers can be lazy about that - sure, at least here in the US (and probably in the EU?) there are energy efficiency requirements and stickers that show energy use...and those are important for things like refrigerator/freezers and dishwashers and the like, but I doubt very many people pay attention to the energy use of their TVs (at least now that plasma TVs are history).

Mobile is a whole different case. That's actually what's at the root of Apple's misguided "throttling." There's only so much energy available in a battery (and only so much peak capacity), and everyone wants longer battery life. Lithium battery chemistry has limits, so engineers need to be thrifty, not thirsty, when they design mobile devices.

I could be mis-appraising this. I'm not an EE, but I do have a lot of experience with mobile and stationary communications hardware (including building radios).

It would be interesting to know whether Apple focused on this in the design stage, and how seriously they factored it into the design process. Other OLED phones use PWM. Some implement PWM differently and don't seem to cause issues for users. Apple presumably had and still has those choices, though it's not clear they can do that with the existing circuitry in the iPhone X.

It would also be interesting to know what Apple's awareness and sensitivity to this issue is now - are they really even aware at any meaningful corporate level? Apple is so - almost secretive. The house has to have pretty much burned to the ground before they'll make any kind of public acknowledgement that there's an issue.

 

[aljiussy]

No.
[doublepost=1522118245][/doublepost]Gotta say I’m becoming concerned about my long-term health. Hopefully all recovers and the fix works out. Even taking a second to turn off my iPhone X gave me eye pain and a persistent headache. For my health my iPhone X’s are powered off and I’m (unhappily, to be frank) using iPhone 8+ until there’s news.

My eye is still intermittently throbbing, by the way.

I have had similar problems, namely, instantaneous eyestrain and neck pain developing very soon upon using a Freetel Kiwami 2 which mounts a 5.7" OLED display. I decided to re-sell it because it would take me a few days with the phone off to recover. I wonder whether they use the same type of backlight dimming. Before that i had a Samsung Galaxy On5 i could even read Kindle books for hours with without any problem. After reselling the Freetel mobile I was planning on buying a better phone prior to reading these posts online, thinking top brand would make the eyestrain disappear, and i of course went to see the Iphone X. After 10 minutes at the store i got headache and eyestrain which lasted for days. I repeated the same action "after healing" and I felt again the same disturbs for the next couple of days. Honestly, once I also looked at the new Samsung top model, resulting in a similar ache. I didn't know all these screens were OLED. I used the words disturb and ache but it's more than that. It really compromises my efficiency at work and impact my daily life.

I know I already talked of other models than Apple and this is likely not the right spot for that, but I'd like to know how many of you suffer of eyestrain in front of flat monitors, and if you reckon PWM is the common culprit.

 

[travis64]

It’s not the screen it’s face id,mine has been off eyes feel great and no twitching

 

[MICHAELSD]

I have had similar problems, namely, instantaneous eyestrain and neck pain developing very soon upon using a Freetel Kiwami 2 which mounts a 5.7" OLED display. I decided to re-sell it because it would take me a few days with the phone off to recover. I wonder whether they use the same type of backlight dimming. Before that i had a Samsung Galaxy On5 i could even read Kindle books for hours with without any problem. After reselling the Freetel mobile I was planning on buying a better phone prior to reading these posts online, thinking top brand would make the eyestrain disappear, and i of course went to see the Iphone X. After 10 minutes at the store i got headache and eyestrain which lasted for days. I repeated the same action "after healing" and I felt again the same disturbs for the next couple of days. Honestly, once I also looked at the new Samsung top model, resulting in a similar ache. I didn't know all these screens were OLED. I used the words disturb and ache but it's more than that. It really compromises my efficiency at work and impact my daily life.

I know I already talked of other models than Apple and this is likely not the right spot for that, but I'd like to know how many of you suffer of eyestrain in front of flat monitors, and if you reckon PWM is the common culprit.

It is definitely PWM. It basically puts all the stress on your own eyes/head to present the image without visible flickering which results in symptoms like what you’ve described to those who are sensitive to it.
[doublepost=1522785935][/doublepost]

It’s not the screen it’s face id,mine has been off eyes feel great and no twitching

While it’s possible some people do have a sensitivity to infrared light and/or other FaceID sensors, for me personally and the majority of users experiencing eye strain it is definitely the PWM that’s causing the sensitivity and not FaceID.

 

[jtl_]

It is definitely PWM. It basically puts all the stress on your own eyes/head to present the image without visible flickering which results in symptoms like what you’ve described to those who are sensitive to it.
[doublepost=1522785935][/doublepost]

While it’s possible some people do have a sensitivity to infrared light and/or other FaceID sensors, for me personally and the majority of users experiencing eye strain it is definitely the PWM that’s causing the sensitivity and not FaceID.

I suspect the FaceID could be causing added eyestrain with the PWM. I read smoewhere that you can still see the FaceID pulsing with an infrared camera despite it being disabled?

I once looked into a 3310 sensor optical mouse when I flipped it over and it hurt my eyes for a few hours. Don't do that.