Other Eye-strain while using iPhone X and up

[tcellguy]

That's the thing though, it's not just about the X. IIRC, Most of the high end android phones use PWM as well.

And if you're locked into the Apple ecosystem (Like me), you're stuck with the 8/8+ until Apple figures out a way to use OLED without PWM. That could easily take a few years. Assuming they use OLED in all of their phones from now on, we're completely locked out of any new tech. It's really disappointing.

This is what happened to me with laptops for over 5 years. I had to keep using old CCFL displays until the manufacturers started using non PWM displays. No one I talked to believed that the flicker could be capable of causing eye strain.

However, I do believe the brain/optic system can adapt to some extent. I use Phillips Hue lights in my apartment, which also use PWM. It took me a year of slowly increasing the amount of time using the lights daily until I could tolerate them. Now I'm fine using them indefinitely.

There may be some biofeedback occurring whereby the eye stops trying to vary the size of the iris with each flicker (this is complete speculation on my part, I have no data to back this up).
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This may sound dumb but how do you know if the display is flickering? Is it seen to the eye? As an owner with slight headaches since 11/3 my only culprit is the phone but would want to confirm before I return it for the 8+. Since I only have 5 days left to do so too

It can easily be seen by taking a slow motion video. However, I can also see individual screen frames interspersed with black frames with the galaxy series of phones if I rapidly move my eyes back and forth in a left/right pattern. I can also see the flicker out of the corner of my eye when people move the phones near me.

The touchbar of the MacBook Pros also has a low refresh rate and has the same flickering appearance to me. However, I only look at it briefly so it doesn't bother me.

You can also see the refresh rate on the Apple Watch using slow motion video. I've had the watch for three years with no eye strain, but again my interactions with the screen are < 10 seconds in most cases.

 

[MacQork]

Migraine disorders are an interesting spectrum of neurological impairment that sometimes don’t involve any pain at all. It is actually rare for me to get the infamous migraine headache. Instead, I have symptoms that can range from seizures (typically longer in duration than an epileptic seizure) to loss of speech sometimes accompanied by loss of reading comprehension and/or ability to write or type. I can be debilitated for days at a time. Fortunately I’m a stay at home housewife with very supportive friends and family.

Triggers for me can include a severe allergic reaction to food additives and mold, and lasers. Lasers used in light shows on performances in shows like The Voice and American Idol flicker or have some sort of pulsation at a rate that can drop me with a seizure pretty fast even though I have not been diagnosed with actual epilepsy.

I’ve used my husband’s iPhone X while suffering from a sinus headache and it took a moment for my eyes to adjust but I actually ended up feeling a bit better reading this forum on it. I use a Galaxy S8+ quite comfortably.

I think different people are going to be triggered differently. What works for one person with a migraine disorder won’t work for another. It is very important to learn and avoid your individual triggers.

I do think the IR projector does something odd to my vision. But I can’t be sure because I only messed around with the animoji once. My vision got a bit wavery. Like I was looking at things through a heat shimmer. When it randomly beams at me a moment for face ID it’s not that bad. I just better not try to do any animoji karaoke!

I don’t have an iPhone X but am thinking of getting one eventually.

Obviously Migraine has a lot of sub types, I just kept it to the typical migraine.

Thank you for sharing your story. Do you suffer from Migraine sans migraine?

I was just trying to educate people about migraine, because a lot of people say they have migraine but they just have a bad headache. Migraine is much worse than a regular bad headache. A lot of people associate Migraine with "just a bad headache" but it's more than that and people need to become aware

Hopefully the X won't be a problem for you! Have a nice day

 

[5105973]

Obviously Migraine has a lot of sub types, I just kept it to the typical migraine.

Thank you for sharing your story. Do you suffer from Migraine sans migraine?

I was just trying to educate people about migraine, because a lot of people say they have migraine but they just have a bad headache. Migraine is much worse than a regular bad headache. A lot of people associate Migraine with "just a bad headache" but it's more than that and people need to become aware

Hopefully the X won't be a problem for you! Have a nice day

Thank you, if I do end up getting one I hope it won’t be a problem, either. That would be very disappointing.

You did a great job, I just wanted to supplement and expand on how varied the symptoms of migraine disorder are. I did not know, myself, why I was suffering so much and went misdiagnosed by doctors for a long time.

A friend who was a psychologist actually was the first to suggest I was suffering from optical migraines many years ago, when I described to her the difficulty I had staying in the correct lane when making turns at intersections. It was such an odd issue to have and she somehow seized on optical migraine as a possible explanation.

But it was not until I started suffering from severe seizures that I was sent to undergo many tests to determine what I in fact had. Meanwhile, I had it suggested my symptoms were a mental disorder by a couple of doctors who wanted to treat me with SSRIs without sending me out for any testing or even really having any sense of my personality or mental state. (How ironic that a friend who was a psychologist never once considered I was suffering from a mental problem but suggested a neurological problem instead). Frankly, to me, doctors who jump to such conclusions without investigation are not different from the clergy of primitive times who declared people suffering from seizures were possessed by demons. I can not roll my eyes hard enough at the modern scientific form this sort of ignorance takes.

 

[MacQork]

Thank you, if I do end up getting one I hope it won’t be a problem, either. That would be very disappointing.

You did a great job, I just wanted to supplement and expand on how varied the symptoms of migraine disorder are. I did not know, myself, why I was suffering so much and went misdiagnosed by doctors for a long time.

A friend who was a psychologist actually was the first to suggest I was suffering from optical migraines many years ago, when I described to her the difficulty I had staying in the correct lane when making turns at intersections. It was such an odd issue to have and she somehow seized on optical migraine as a possible explanation.

But it was not until I started suffering from severe seizures that I was sent to undergo many tests to determine what I in fact had. Meanwhile, I had it suggested my symptoms were a mental disorder by a couple of doctors who wanted to treat me with SSRIs without sending me out for any testing or even really having any sense of my personality or mental state. (How ironic that a friend who was a psychologist never once considered I was suffering from a mental problem but suggested a neurological problem instead). Frankly, to me, doctors who jump to such conclusions without investigation are not different from the clergy of primitive times who declared people suffering from seizures were possessed by demons. I can not roll my eyes hard enough at the modern scientific form this sort of ignorance takes.

Interesting as psychologists don't get taught medicine like doctors (where im from at least), good catch by her!
It sucks that the doctors you visited jumped to conclusions! It appears what you are suffering from is not a typical migraine, were you referred to neurologists? I don't think neurologists would prescribe SSRI's instead of a thorough check up where im studying medicine at least (academic centre).

It must be so frustrating to have doctors say your problems are caused mentally while you yourself pretty much knew it was a physical problem. How often do you have the attacks? Do you take beta-blockers to reduce the number of attacks per month/time period?

 

[5105973]

Interesting as psychologists don't get taught medicine like doctors (where im from at least), good catch by her!
It sucks that the doctors you visited jumped to conclusions! It appears what you are suffering from is not a typical migraine, were you referred to neurologists? I don't think neurologists would prescribe SSRI's instead of a thorough check up where im studying medicine at least (academic centre).

It must be so frustrating to have doctors say your problems are caused mentally while you yourself pretty much knew it was a physical problem. How often do you have the attacks? Do you take beta-blockers to reduce the number of attacks per month/time period?

I forget how my friend arrived at her conclusion. It was almost 20 years ago and she passed away just a couple of years after we spoke about my odd symptoms, which at the time were mild and I would never think to associate with migraine, since I was ignorant and thought migraine meant a bad headache and I rarely got those.

When I first started getting seizures, it was a general family doctor who suggested it was a mental problem, because the kind of seizures I was having did not match a typical epilepsy seizure in duration and they appeared during onset of menopause, so she thought I was having psychological difficulties related to the stress of the change of life. Apparently there is some sort of mental illness that has seizure as a symptom. Since I did not fit what she knew of epilepsy, then of course it must be mental. Sigh. I had encountered that approach to diagnosis before.

Specialists do not usually, in my experience, do this sort of thing, but the gatekeepers to the specialists, the family doctors or general practitioners, have exhibited this tendency to shrug everything off as mental and write a prescription for antidepressants. Even my husband had that problem when he was first diagnosed with high blood pressure. My husband and my parents and in-laws have all learned to never see a doctor alone but to go in with a spouse or adult child to avoid being railroaded into an inadequate diagnosis without even so much as a cursory exam. Going in, answering five questions, having your vitals taken, and being sent off to the pharmacist with a prescription for antidepressants is entirely too common and entirely inadequate. I have nearly missed a heart defect diagnosis from this practice.

The neurologist was efficient and ordered many tests that ruled out brain tumor and helped her hone in on the migraine diagnosis. She has not prescribed anything to me because we chose an approach to first identify and eliminate exposure to triggers that has been extremely successful. It is a bit like finding you have a nut allergy and learning to find and avoid all the different kinds of tree nuts and pine nuts and peanuts hiding in processed food that make you sick.

Aging has helped, too. The hormonal fluctuations that occur during perimenopause exacerbate ordinary migraines. So of course they also inflame atypical migraine as well. Now that I’m past that, I am not as easy to trigger. I’ve been well for many months.

 

[tcellguy]

I gave the X a try tonight. It's not as bad as I had worried. I can't visibly see the screen flicker without taking a video of it. However, I still ended up getting left eye pain and had a lot of trouble focusing on the text. The text definitely ghosts while scrolling and I got mild motion sickness reading text.

I looked at the iPhone 8 and was surprised by how great the new LED displays look on them even coming from the iPhone 7. The wide color gamut is really noticeable. I expected the display on the X to be dramatically better than the 8, but the pentile display on the X has a mildly grainy appearance close up.

So I'm not sure what I'm going to get. I'll probably go with the 8, but I'm going to give the X a few more tries. I did like the larger screen and the dual camera.

 

[5105973]

I messed around a little bit with animoji again this evening. My eyes definitely feel a tiny bit strange while my face is being scanned to make the animoji. I can’t say that it hurts, so far it does not, but I do feel something. This time I did not notice anything unusual with my vision afterwards. One thing I did notice from driving around in the cold weather, I am definitely suffering from dry eyes. My left eye aches now, too, but because of the weather and dry eyes. I have to remember to blink a lot and keep my eyes moist.

 

[wassup121]

I gave the X a try tonight. It's not as bad as I had worried. I can't visibly see the screen flicker without taking a video of it. However, I still ended up getting left eye pain and had a lot of trouble focusing on the text. The text definitely ghosts while scrolling and I got mild motion sickness reading text.

I looked at the iPhone 8 and was surprised by how great the new LED displays look on them even coming from the iPhone 7. The wide color gamut is really noticeable. I expected the display on the X to be dramatically better than the 8, but the pentile display on the X has a mildly grainy appearance close up.

So I'm not sure what I'm going to get. I'll probably go with the 8, but I'm going to give the X a few more tries. I did like the larger screen and the dual camera.

Left eye pain, me too. Well by the eyebrow but same thing. Also I noticed as well that when scrolling the text was blurry and never felt that way on the 7+

Is there anyway to test the phone is the cause? My friend suggested I go the day without using the phone. We both laughed a second later. :/

 

[gold///]

Is there anyway to test the phone is the cause? My friend suggested I go the day without using the phone. We both laughed a second later. :/

If you're having the same experience as the rest of us, it's most likely the PWM flicker. You could also try using the X at maximum brightness, that would reduce the flicker. That would let you know for sure if that's the issue.

 

[wassup121]

If you're having the same experience as the rest of us, it's most likely the PWM flicker. You could also try using the X at maximum brightness, that would reduce the flicker. That would let you know for sure if that's the issue.

Cool thank you. Will try.

 

[Kitkad]

That's the thing though, it's not just about the X. IIRC, Most of the high end android phones use PWM as well.

And if you're locked into the Apple ecosystem (Like me), you're stuck with the 8/8+ until Apple figures out a way to use OLED without PWM. That could easily take a few years. Assuming they use OLED in all of their phones from now on, we're completely locked out of any new tech. It's really disappointing.

Funny thing is, I'm using my S7 edge right now but I'm not having the same problems that I have with the X.

 

[gold///]

Funny thing is, I'm using my S7 edge right now but I'm not having the same problems that I have with the X.

Are you using your S7 at max brightness? I was reading about that phone and saw that any brightness above 94% on the slider has 0 flicker whatsoever. Whereas the X has flicker no matter what. I think the X may be more aggressive in how often it utilizes the PWM.

 

[Kitkad]

Are you using your S7 at max brightness? I was reading about that phone and saw that any brightness above 94% on the slider has 0 flicker whatsoever. Whereas the X has flicker no matter what. I think the X may be more aggressive in how often it utilizes the PWM.

Nope, brightness is at around 60%.

 

[gold///]

Nope, brightness is at around 60%.

That's weird, I wonder why the flicker doesn't bother you at that level. If anything, that's good news, since it means there ARE pwm displays that don't cause headaches like the X does for us.

Anyway, how are you PWM-sensitive people doing with the X now that a couple more days have passed? I've been trying to get used to the screen, and I think it's getting better. Still getting eye strain, but I'm hoping my eyes will fully adjust before the return window is up. If not, I guess I'll just grab an 8 and give up until next year's model.

 

[vannix]

That's weird, I wonder why the flicker doesn't bother you at that level. If anything, that's good news, since it means there ARE pwm displays that don't cause headaches like the X does for us.

Anyway, how are you PWM-sensitive people doing with the X now that a couple more days have passed? I've been trying to get used to the screen, and I think it's getting better. Still getting eye strain, but I'm hoping my eyes will fully adjust before the return window is up. If not, I guess I'll just grab an 8 and give up until next year's model.

It's been a week that I still have pain and light sensitivity, I want to specify that I left my iPhone X on the table and used only sparingly when at home to check if the iCloud backup was good. Every single time that I click the power button I feel like an arrow in my eyes when looking at the screen, even if angled and not pointing directly at my face. So I left it on to use handoff through my Mac and I do everything with it, but still had to take some drugs to control the headache, It is strange that it takes so much days to fully recover.

The incredible thing is that I shoot music videos, and I always use new LED Lights (with PWM dimming) and never experienced anything like this.

Tomorrow the courier will pick it up and I will get an 8+ 256gb with the lovely IPS LCD screen.
When Apple will swap this awful samsung PWM OLED screen I'll buy the next model.

 

[5105973]

It's been a week that I still have pain and light sensitivity, I want to specify that I left my iPhone X on the table and used only sparingly when at home to check if the iCloud backup was good. Every single time that I click the power button I feel like an arrow in my eyes when looking at the screen, even if angled and not pointing directly at my face. So I left it on to use handoff through my Mac and I do everything with it, but still had to take some drugs to control the headache, It is strange that it takes so much days to fully recover.

The incredible thing is that I shoot music videos, and I always use new LED Lights (with PWM dimming) and never experienced anything like this.

Tomorrow the courier will pick it up and I will get an 8+ 256gb with the lovely IPS LCD screen.
When Apple will swap this awful samsung PWM OLED screen I'll buy the next model.

One of my previous OLED phones gave me a bit of eye strain so that I didn’t want to read on it, but even with my sensitivity to flickering fluorescent lights and lasers, I never got the kind of suffering you’re describing until I tried using Samsung’s iris scanner. Are you sure it’s the display and not the Face detection technology that’s causing your pain? Because the Apple face detector does make my eyes feel funny in the way the Samsung iris scanner did when I first started using it. It took many uses to get to the level of lingering nasty pain that caused me to stop using the IR scanner, but I did get there eventually and so did my husband.

I don’t own an iPhone X for myself, I’m just using one intermittently so I’m not using it nearly enough yet to get to a pain point, if I’m going to get to one at all with Apple’s implementation of IR scanning tech.

You folks experiencing pain need to notify Apple about this and possibly the Consumer Product Safety Commision. People let their kids play around with these phones and IF there’s a possibility people’s eyes are being damaged or the device is triggering migraines, Apple and the industry needs to know.

I never made any kind of report about Samsung or to Samsung because I thought I was an isolated case and maybe there was something wrong with my eyes, not the product because everyone kept ridiculing the possibility of IR scanners causing these problems, since IR light is all around us. But as I see other people complaining Samsung IR hurt their eyes, too, it makes me think there could be an issue. Also it is but one easily ignored feature on a Samsung, so I can still use my phones without it. But for Apple, whether it’s the display or the authentication system, something about either is keeping you from using your device entirely and that is unacceptable.

Apple is going to want to know. They’re not out to drive away their customers and will respond at the very least by changing the displays for next year to not flicker like this. And there may be ways to adjust their dot projector to be even safer IF it turns out to be the cause of people’s discomfort.

 

[Fernandez21]

One of my previous OLED phones gave me a bit of eye strain so that I didn’t want to read on it, but even with my sensitivity to flickering fluorescent lights and lasers, I never got the kind of suffering you’re describing until I tried using Samsung’s iris scanner. Are you sure it’s the display and not the Face detection technology that’s causing your pain? Because the Apple face detector does make my eyes feel funny in the way the Samsung iris scanner did when I first started using it. It took many uses to get to the level of lingering nasty pain that caused me to stop using the IR scanner, but I did get there eventually and so did my husband.

I don’t own an iPhone X for myself, I’m just using one intermittently so I’m not using it nearly enough yet to get to a pain point, if I’m going to get to one at all with Apple’s implementation of IR scanning tech.

You folks experiencing pain need to notify Apple about this and possibly the Consumer Product Safety Commision. People let their kids play around with these phones and IF there’s a possibility people’s eyes are being damaged or the device is triggering migraines, Apple and the industry needs to know.

I never made any kind of report about Samsung or to Samsung because I thought I was an isolated case and maybe there was something wrong with my eyes, not the product because everyone kept ridiculing the possibility of IR scanners causing these problems, since IR light is all around us. But as I see other people complaining Samsung IR hurt their eyes, too, it makes me think there could be an issue. Also it is but one easily ignored feature on a Samsung, so I can still use my phones without it. But for Apple, whether it’s the display or the authentication system, something about either is keeping you from using your device entirely and that is unacceptable.

Apple is going to want to know. They’re not out to drive away their customers and will respond at the very least by changing the displays for next year to not flicker like this. And there may be ways to adjust their dot projector to be even safer IF it turns out to be the cause of people’s discomfort.

Yeah, I was having similar is the iris scanner on my Samsung devices, that’s why I stopped using that feature even though it was kind of cool.

Haven’t had any issues so far with Face ID or the screen, I did turn off the always on face detection though and also turned off the option where you have to be looking right at it for it to unlock.

But yeah, the people in this thread who are having issues and haven’t been able to remedy it should let Apple know a what’s going on when they return their devices, only way things get better is when people voice their displeasure.

 

[vannix]

One of my previous OLED phones gave me a bit of eye strain so that I didn’t want to read on it, but even with my sensitivity to flickering fluorescent lights and lasers, I never got the kind of suffering you’re describing until I tried using Samsung’s iris scanner. Are you sure it’s the display and not the Face detection technology that’s causing your pain? Because the Apple face detector does make my eyes feel funny in the way the Samsung iris scanner did when I first started using it. It took many uses to get to the level of lingering nasty pain that caused me to stop using the IR scanner, but I did get there eventually and so did my husband.

I don’t own an iPhone X for myself, I’m just using one intermittently so I’m not using it nearly enough yet to get to a pain point, if I’m going to get to one at all with Apple’s implementation of IR scanning tech.

You folks experiencing pain need to notify Apple about this and possibly the Consumer Product Safety Commision. People let their kids play around with these phones and IF there’s a possibility people’s eyes are being damaged or the device is triggering migraines, Apple and the industry needs to know.

I never made any kind of report about Samsung or to Samsung because I thought I was an isolated case and maybe there was something wrong with my eyes, not the product because everyone kept ridiculing the possibility of IR scanners causing these problems, since IR light is all around us. But as I see other people complaining Samsung IR hurt their eyes, too, it makes me think there could be an issue. Also it is but one easily ignored feature on a Samsung, so I can still use my phones without it. But for Apple, whether it’s the display or the authentication system, something about either is keeping you from using your device entirely and that is unacceptable.

Apple is going to want to know. They’re not out to drive away their customers and will respond at the very least by changing the displays for next year to not flicker like this. And there may be ways to adjust their dot projector to be even safer IF it turns out to be the cause of people’s discomfort.

Now that I relaxed my eyes for a few days, if I set the brightness to an acceptable level I can look at the screen for some minutes, but the first symptom I feel is my vision becoming a little blurred, if I keep on using it I can feel the pain coming back. I had this horrible situation since the first day (3 nov) because I had problems with the icloud backup not accepting the fact that I swapped my old Apple ID alias with the iCloud (I was already really hungry with Apple for this! they finally introduced this after years and it doesn't work when restoring an iCloud backup!!!!), so I starred at the phone for some hours... The fact is that you may not notice immediately the pain, because you aren't over using it, but this tech is proven to harm the eyes and the vision, and I usually work with my rMBP and the old iPhone a lot through the day, the only thing I was getting was a little eyestrain at night and stop! So you may "adapt" to this, but is it really the right thing to do? Do you guys care for the quality of your life or for a piece of steel with an Apple logo on it? People is complaining a lot by effects caused by PWM, even with Philips and their LED lights!

Please give apple a feedback here:
http://feedback.apple.com

 

[techtechtech]

Now that I relaxed my eyes for a few days, if I set the brightness to an acceptable level I can look at the screen for some minutes, but the first symptom I feel is my vision becoming a little blurred, if I keep on using it I can feel the pain coming back. I had this horrible situation since the first day (3 nov) because I had problems with the icloud backup not accepting the fact that I swapped my old Apple ID alias with the iCloud (I was already really hungry with Apple for this! they finally introduced this after years and it doesn't work when restoring an iCloud backup!!!!), so I starred at the phone for some hours... The fact is that you may not notice immediately the pain, because you aren't over using it, but this tech is proven to harm the eyes and the vision, and I usually work with my rMBP and the old iPhone a lot through the day, the only thing I was getting was a little eyestrain at night and stop! So you may "adapt" to this, but is it really the right thing to do? Do you guys care for the quality of your life or for a piece of steel with an Apple logo on it? People is complaining a lot by effects caused by PWM, even with Philips and their LED lights!

Please give apple a feedback here:
http://feedback.apple.com

Having experienced a similar reaction with other OLED screens including dizziness I would suggest that anyone in a similar position stops using the device and switches back to an IPS style screen like iPhone 5/6/7/8 which doesn't affect them. Simply isn't worth chancing your health where something like this is concerned. It may be a minority that are experiencing a negative reaction to this screen technology but Apple still need to be made aware of the situation.

 

[wassup121]

Cool thank you. Will try.

Yup I see the flickering on full brightness and slo-mo.
The strain is a less on my head on max brightness. But I can’t live like that! The battery would last. 2 hours
Guess I’ll have to return.
I sent an email to Apple feedbac

 

[vannix]

Yup I see the flickering on full brightness and slo-mo.
The strain is a less on my head on max brightness. But I can’t live like that! The battery would last. 2 hours
Guess I’ll have to return.
I sent an email to Apple feedbac

Good (not for your health of course), please everyone send a feedback through that link! It would be cool being able to buy a new Apple device in the future.....

 

[Lucifer666]

It's way to early folks, for this. There are always these types of threads at first: alarmist.

Just a heads up.

 

[vannix]

It's way to early folks, for this. There are always these types of threads at first: alarmist.

Just a heads up.

I don't get your point

 

[Lucifer666]

I don't get your point

Just trying to warn people who may come here and become afraid. Nothing wrong with that. It's always the same here, with a few people who are very vocal.

You never read posts from unaffected people. Why would they post?. So you have these threads, which is fine. But then I come here and post these warning. It's like the circle of life

 

[gold///]

Just trying to warn people who may come here and become afraid. Nothing wrong with that. It's always the same here, with a few people who are very vocal.

You never read posts from unaffected people. Why would they post?. So you have these threads, which is fine. But then I come here and post these warning. It's like the circle of life

Nothing about this is "alarmist" though, PWM-sensitivity is a real issue that affects certain people. It's a 100% fact that the X uses PWM, so anyone with flicker sensitivity should be wary before they buy it.