? Do you look at the Xs through a video camera at apple store ? That is why you see the PWM affects.
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Other Eye-strain while using iPhone X and up
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? Do you look at the Xs through a video camera at apple store ? That is why you see the PWM affects.
No I didn't, Should I try to record it with my iphone SE? I did move the brightness down
Yea also with brightness max there is usually no modulation noticeable. Many LCD computer monitors have PWM and affects can be minimized by raising monitor brightness to max and lowering brightness using computer settings in software.
I'll have to try record the XS moving the brightness down next time I go to the apple store
I know when I start at it for 5-10 minutes my eyes feel weird
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Should I have specific recording settings on my SE when I go do it?
Why bother. The X Series iPhones have PWM, this is a known fact. If your eyes are sore or tired from using these iPhones then it's very likely your sensitive to the PWM and not likely to adjust.
What I've read: due to the blinking of the screen backlight at a low enough frequency to be noticeable, causes multiple contractions and expansions of the pupils. This would explain sore eyes and/or headaches.
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Hi folks,
Just wanted you let you know there's a whole community of us over at ledstrain.org. You are not alone in having this strain -- many of us suffer from severe eyestrain, headaches, migraines, and even epilepsy.
I personally cannot find a usable modern smartphone since the Samsung Galaxy S5. I've tried a whole host of devices including iPhone 7,8,XR, Google Pixel 3, LG G7.
Just wanted you let you know there's a whole community of us over at ledstrain.org. You are not alone in having this strain -- many of us suffer from severe eyestrain, headaches, migraines, and even epilepsy.
I personally cannot find a usable modern smartphone since the Samsung Galaxy S5. I've tried a whole host of devices including iPhone 7,8,XR, Google Pixel 3, LG G7.
The caveat to that is that with OLED there would still be flicker att full brightness when displaying dark content, as the pixels themselves will have to individually lower their brightness. This is unlike LCD where the crystals just block more of the full brightness backlight.
Got an XR on black friday 2018 and no eye strain issues at all. It's a great phone but took me about a week to get over the size. Now I'm loving it. Wife got an XS Max and I get immediate eye strain looking at it. She has no issues with it even though I warned her.
The original quote was from last year when I had an X for two weeks but returned it due to eye strain and got a regular 8.
What do you think of this excerpt from the notebook check iPhone XS review: "The XS uses pulse-width modulation (PWM) to regulate brightness control, which is common for OLED displays. We measured the PWM frequency at 240 Hz, which is relatively low. Equally, the amplitude curve is so shallow that it should not cause problems for even those who are PWM sensitive."
So maybe pwm doesn’t affect people if the amplitude curve is too shallow?
I want to add here that incandescent bulbs in homes flicker too. They run on AC power (50/60 Hz), and will flicker at twice that frequency. The amplitude of the flicker is low, because they have thermal inertia, and the curve is a smooth sine wave (well, more or less). The flicker percent of an incandescent bulb is said to be at around 10% for 50 Hz and 14% for 60 Hz. Now, the amplitude and shape of the curve certainly matters, but so does the frequency.
LED’s will turn on and off much faster than incandescent bulbs since they have more or less no thermal inertia keeping them glowing. The circuitry regulating LED’s can smooth the curve out, as it seems to do on the XS. The thing is that it’s a combination of several factors that determine the effects on a sensitive person. Factors like how sensitive the person is, and what frequencies and flicker percentages they are sensitive to. I don’t think it’s as easy as saying that the curve is shallow and thus should not be a problem.
A side note: LED bulbs for home lighting can actually be made with way less flicker than incandescent bulbs. By using circuitry too smooth out the curve they can get practically flicker free, aside from some ripple that will get through. This costs money though, and if people aren’t complaining enough about the cheaper flickering lights there’s little reason to make more expensive lights that won’t sell as well because people are happy to buy the cheaper option. There are flicker free lights on the market, but they are hard to find. The other problem is blue light, and LED bulbs that filter out most blue light can also be found, but they are aimed at workplaces and other business locations, and are expensive.
Just though I would mention that frequency and amplitude both matter, as well as the characteristic of the flicker. Even though LED bulbs may be off topic, the same principle applies to LED-based display arrays, OLED/MicroLED doesn’t really matter even though the latter isn’t in production yet.
Also, you don't normally stare directly at the LED or incandescent bulbs, what you see is diffused light, so even though it flickers, it may not affect you as much as LED display.
If mixed with other light sources that don't flicker or are at acceptable levels I agree, but if it's the single light source lighting up a room, I still find that the flicker is a problem for me. The worst for me has been OLED viewfinders on cameras. 100% of the light hitting one eye is flickering, the other eye is closed.
I would like manufacturers of displays and light sources to state flicker percentage and frequency in the specs. It would make it a lot easier.
Why is it that you see the flicker on some YouTube vids of the XS yet you don’t see it when you go to Best Buy and the Apple store even with lowering the brightness?
That's because of the difference in refresh rates... just like if you look at the TV through a camera, it shows flicker but to human eye it's unnoticeable.
Even mixed, oh my goodness. I haven’t been to this thread in a while because I’m settled in nicely on my Xr. I use a flickery Pixel 2 part-time which would fatigue my eyes if I were staring at it, but I don’t look at it for long periods of time.
A few weeks ago my husband replaced a burned out bulb in our recessed light fixture in the kitchen. I didn’t realize he had gotten an LED based bulb instead of fluorescent like our others.
Even though it’s one of many recessed lights in the kitchen it’s caused me to fall very ill. I didn’t make the connection at first. I thought perhaps it was time to get checked out for Multiple Sclerosis. A friend has MS and her symptoms at one stage of her disease were uncomfortably similar to what I was experiencing.
I would be working in the kitchen as usual and after about an hour, I’d feel immense fatigue. Aphasia weakened my speech. I found it difficult to control my arms and legs. My cognitive abilities went down the toilet, which is why I’ve been more quiet than usual on this forum. It’s been very debilitating. I’d become so uncoordinated, I even had a nasty fall elsewhere in the house after working in the kitchen and am covered in bruises.
I finally made the connection that it was to do with the kitchen lights and that’s when I remembered the bulb had been changed and questioned my husband as to what type he had gotten. Unfortunately we no longer have the box nor the receipt, so I don’t know precisely what kind of LED bulb he got.
I’ve started working using just the halogen lighting under the cabinets for now and am slowly starting to regain my health.
The crazy thing about sensitivity to pwm is that I don’t present with the same set of symptoms to all forms of pwm. I have a computer monitor that gives me blurred vision from the flicker but no other problems, though watery eyes and blurred vision aren’t anything to shrug off, either. But it’s far less horrible than symptoms that mimic a neuro degenerative disease.
At least I’m a stay-at-home mom and can control the appects of my environment that make me ill. I am heartsick at the thought of people going out into the work world where incompatible lighting could end their jobs and they would not necessarily figure out why or be able to do anything about it if they did know.
This is all still so new and as with all conditions that are not well understood, there are going to be the unafflicted who say it’s all hysteria. I went through that with some friends and family not understanding about autoimmune disease.
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Thank you for that link. I’m going to show it to my family.
This new problem is something none of us understand, least of all me, and it helps to see this is a real problem and not some new neurosis people can hang on me.
It’s surreal.
I was looking forward to 5G, but a friend sent me a bunch of links to the articles discussing what people are afraid will be the negative health effects to that technology. I decided I have enough on my plate and opted to not read any of the links. I can’t stop 5G from being implemented, not if municipalities who are actively against it can’t seem to stop it. So I’m going to bury my head like an ostrich and just focus on the things I have right in front of me making me sick right now.
But I wonder if we are rushing headlong into technologies that will produce a permanent underclass for whom these marvels cause chronic illness and disease that keep us from participating fully in modern life.
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I really think a concerted effort needs to be made to make Apple aware of this issue. I’ve been a power user of Apple products for 15 years and I am unable to purchase their flagship products because of PWM. This is a serious problem and I’m really afraid they are not going to fix, acknowledge or change course on it.
I’m sorry that you had to experience that. Was it a relatively strong light in an area that you were close to a lot of the time? I can get symptoms from a weak LED light in an otherwise dim room primarily lit by halogen light sources, but nothing this bad. What I agreed to in my previous post is that a single light source mixed may work better, but it’s not by any means a guaranteed working solution.
I have had tunnel vision and confusion walking in stores lit by LED and even flourescent tubes. The thing you mentioned about workplaces is a big concern for me, but at least I know what to suspect and how to explain the problem technically to an employer. Not everyone knows why they are affected. The industry as a whole need to take responsibility for this. Get rid of PWM in LED based light sources including displays. That PWM is problematic is not news. This has been known for a long time, and that’s why there are computer monitors marketed as flicker free. Unfortunately light sources like bulbs and light fixtures are treated separately. Fortunately the new LED street lights in my city appear to be PWM free, otherwise I would’t be able to drive in the dark (and we have a lot of that in Sweden this time of year).
I think it’s time for everyone affected to sign a petition that we could send to phone manufacturers and light source/fixture manufacturers. This has to stop before the problem grows even bigger. At least awareness is needed.
Why would they change for us pwm sufferers? We are a TINY fraction of their consumer base. I went back to my 8+ and will use it until it is too slow. Oddly enough, I use a few amoled android phones with pwm every day and have zero issues. I couldn’t use my xs max for more than 10 minutes without feeling like crap. It’s not just the pwm, it’s how apple implements it.
I've been using iPhone XR for a while now and it's fine, but it's a little bit too heavy and a little bit too large. iPhone XS is a perfect size, and I really want it... but... PWM. I refuse to sacrifice my health for a phone. Apple has put us all in a bad position. If they don't stop using PWM for their 2019 iPhone lineup, that means they are not going to fix the issue and that's where I still thinking about other options.
The thing is that this probably affects more or less everyone, but not giving any obvious symptoms for most. Maybe it's small things like being a little bit more tired, or getting headaches a little bit easier. Things that are really difficult to connect to anything in particular because it could be anything, and it could be hardly noticeable. The question is what kind of long term effects it may have. There are recommended practices by the IEEE for example (IEEE 1789-2015). It may only be us extra sensitive that are known to be affected now, but I suspect awareness will eventually rise as more LED lights are installed in public spaces. Maybe a petition could accelerate awareness and save us all time and money.
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I don't believe that is necessarily true. They are likely going to keep using OLED displays, and for now there are no good options for PWM free OLED displays. Sure, some phones and TV's allegedly have them, but they suffer from color accuracy issues at low brightness and other kinds of problems. Hopefully they will still make an iPhone XR successor with an LCD display while waiting for OLED technology to mature, but as far as I'm concerned they could just go back to LCD across the board.