Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
At the end of the story I returned my phone today and changed it for an 8 Plus cause the headache increased again and I couldn’t stand it anymore. I’ve been using my new phone for an hour without interruption and all the symptoms I had passed.
The sales assistants at the Apple Store said they never heard of anybody having these problems with a LED screen phone.
[automerge]1573505391[/automerge]
I’m quite sad though because I really liked that phone, but obviously I couldn’t use it.

I’m on my 8 plus contemplating on getting the 11 pro Max today and then selling my 8 plus BUT I fear the OLED strain too, that is why the X didn’t work for me, had the XR but I want the Pro Max size.

Anyways, how is it that no reps at Apple or at VZ hear about the eye strain. I know they need sales but this can’t be ignored.I will more than likely just stick with my 8 plus and if the Max didn’t work out, I couldn’t get my tax charge back, well it would be partial but still.
 
I’m on my 8 plus contemplating on getting the 11 pro Max today and then selling my 8 plus BUT I fear the OLED strain too, that is why the X didn’t work for me, had the XR but I want the Pro Max size.

Anyways, how is it that no reps at Apple or at VZ hear about the eye strain. I know they need sales but this can’t be ignored.I will more than likely just stick with my 8 plus and if the Max didn’t work out, I couldn’t get my tax charge back, well it would be partial but still.
You get the total purchase back if you return a phone to Apple within 14 days.
 
I also experience nausea instantly upon using the iPhone 11 Pro- previous models (6<) Didn’t give me any trouble. I disabled most possible causitive settings (Bluetooth, Public HotSpot, Location sharing, Truelight, FaceID) but it didn’t help. Then I put two stickers on the Infrared / FaceId pulse cameras ( next to the front camera). My symptoms seem less severe now- let’s see for a few days otherwise I will switch back to an older model.
 
No, I never had such problems
[automerge]1573484897[/automerge]
I am also curious if somebody who has these problems like me uses the phone with a glass protection

I do. I’ve read reports about the screen scratching super easily, so I’ve had a glass protector installed from the day I got the phone. Just today I swapped my SIM back to my Galaxy S10+ as I got fed up with the constant headaches. I’m baffled why I need to go from an LCD phone to a PWM phone to spare myself from constant headaches. Maybe it could have something to do with FaceID as when I tried Samsung’s iris scanner with the S8+, I got instant eye pain from it. That scanner usee more intensive and focused beam, but maybe my eyes don’t like FaceID either or there’s something else with the screen.
 
I just purchased an iPhone 11 max and want to throw up every time I used it. Any remedies or fixes for this? I’m going on 7 days of nausea due to the screen and it’s not fun. It goes away just about instantly when I stop looking. I’m 100% sure it’s due to the screen, just don’t know why. I’ve tried a screen protector to no avail. I had an iPhone X prior to this one and it was fine.
 
I just purchased an iPhone 11 max and want to throw up every time I used it. Any remedies or fixes for this? I’m going on 7 days of nausea due to the screen and it’s not fun. It goes away just about instantly when I stop looking. I’m 100% sure it’s due to the screen, just don’t know why. I’ve tried a screen protector to no avail. I had an iPhone X prior to this one and it was fine.

Probable reason is


I’m surprised that you didn’t have the problem with iPhone X but have it with the latest models. iPhone X used OLED panels as well. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

However, here are a few suggestions to deal with the issues to some extent.


 
Yes, I have been feeling odd too after switching to iPhone 11 from 7 (unusual eye strain and minor headaches). What fixed it for me was reducing the white point in Accessibility and also turning off the Attention feature in FaceID settings. No problems since then. 🤚
 
I just used an Iphone 11 (non Pro model) for the first time today. I was using a co workers ip11 for about 15 minutes and I got incredible eye pain/strain. I am really surprised since that is an LCD phone. Maybe I will fair better when I get the 11Pro with Oled.

I should ad, since it wasn't my phone I have no idea what settings she was using.
 
Last edited:
I had to use my co workers iphone today again for about 30 minutes. I experienced no eye strain/pain today so maybe it was something with me last week.

I got to check some of her settings and she has her phone setup completely different than I would have my own phone so I'm thinking that played a role in it (she was using Light mode instead of Dark Mode, Brightness was much higher than what I would use, Text size was set to the middle size which is waaaaay too small for me personally, and that sub 1080p display with fuzzy text sure didn't help and became very noticeable to me).
 
sorry for my bad english but I wanted to share my story with you:

I use iPhones since the 5s. Currently I’m on the 7 (4,7 inch). Since the x came out I was fascinating about the new design, so I decided to upgrade my 7 last December into an XS. From the first minute of using it I feel a bad eye strain. I tried to use it for three more days, but my eyes didn’t stop hurting. So I decided to give it back. I started to read about the pwm on OLED’s. I thought that i had found the problem, so I bought an 11 with an LCD in January.

The first minutes I used it I don’t had any complains. It was a little big and heavy compared to my 7 but it worked for me. But after playing around with the phone I started to felt little eye strain and discomfort. It’s hard to explain, but I felt a little nausea. The crazy thing is, in the moment I stop to use the 11 and look at my 7 all problems are gone. So the Problem ist the Phone. I’m 100% sure about this. I tried out a little with different settings, but i was so depressed about the fact that I can’t use my new phone without health problems that I also gave it back after 3 days.

Now I’m back on my 7, but still want to upgrade. I thought about other brands, bot they all use OLED and if I’m honest I don’t want to go away from iOS.

Do you guys think I should give the 11 another try? The Problems i had with the 11 wasn’t as bad as with the XS. Maybe I have to deactivate the attention feature from the Face ID?
 
sorry for my bad english but I wanted to share my story with you:

I use iPhones since the 5s. Currently I’m on the 7 (4,7 inch). Since the x came out I was fascinating about the new design, so I decided to upgrade my 7 last December into an XS. From the first minute of using it I feel a bad eye strain. I tried to use it for three more days, but my eyes didn’t stop hurting. So I decided to give it back. I started to read about the pwm on OLED’s. I thought that i had found the problem, so I bought an 11 with an LCD in January.

The first minutes I used it I don’t had any complains. It was a little big and heavy compared to my 7 but it worked for me. But after playing around with the phone I started to felt little eye strain and discomfort. It’s hard to explain, but I felt a little nausea. The crazy thing is, in the moment I stop to use the 11 and look at my 7 all problems are gone. So the Problem ist the Phone. I’m 100% sure about this. I tried out a little with different settings, but i was so depressed about the fact that I can’t use my new phone without health problems that I also gave it back after 3 days.

Now I’m back on my 7, but still want to upgrade. I thought about other brands, bot they all use OLED and if I’m honest I don’t want to go away from iOS.

Do you guys think I should give the 11 another try? The Problems i had with the 11 wasn’t as bad as with the XS. Maybe I have to deactivate the attention feature from the Face ID?

I also had issues with the 11 when I had it for a while. Deactivating the need for attention made things a little bit better, but still I was getting eye strain and headaches with prolonged use, so I got rid of it. There's a chance that it was FaceID that was triggering the issues for me but it's hard to know for sure. However, when I tried the Iris scanner I had on a Galaxy S8+, I got instant eye pain from it, so maybe my eyes are somewhat more sensitive to IR than average.

What comes to other brands, I'm currently using a Galaxy S10+ with an OLED without any major issues, so issues that people have with iPhone OLEDs might be due to Apple's implementation as we have also other people on this forum that experience problems with Apple OLEDs but use Samsung's versions just fine.

However, if I were you I'd at least wait for the rumored iPhone 9 or whatever it ends up being called. You'd get fresh internals, iOS, and also TouchID instead of FaceID just in case it FaceID that triggered your eye strain.
 
The 11 only bothers me if I look at it too long, which I don’t need to do anyway. I had immediate issues with the XS Max when I bought it, and haven’t tried OLED again since, but have had no issues with XR or 11 other than with overuse.
 
Hi guys! I’m really sad knowing that also other people had the same problems with iphone 11. I hope Apple will do something about it with its next phones and it’s really weird that no official sources talk about this issue. When I went to the Apple store to give the phone back and complained about these problems, they looked at me like if I was an alien. Since then I’ve been using IPhone 8 Plus and have been having no issues with this phone.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Rollomat93
Hi guys! I’m really sad knowing that also other people had the same problems with iphone 11. I hope Apple will do something about it with its next phones and it’s really weird that no official sources talk about this issue. When I went to the Apple store to give the phone back and complained about these problems, they looked at me like if I was an alien. Since then I’ve been using IPhone 8 Plus and have been having no issues with this phone.

I just got my Iphone 11 non pro today and immediately started having eye strain and major league headaches. Granted I have been having what I think are migraines for the past few days before I had the phone.I went to sleep for a few hours and woke up with my head feeling fine, used the phone to watch a youtube vid and now the b=pain is back and still hurting an hours later. I currently have an LG Q7 which also has an LCD but causes no issues for me at all.

I'm most likely returning it and just getting an I phone 8, maybe even 6. It did everything I needed when I got it a few years ago and I'd still have it if it's charging port didn't break.
 
There’s another thread on the subject of XR eye strain where we’ve pretty much discussed this to death (Unfortunately, with no solution). The main points are:

1. If you get eye strain only from XR/11/iPad Pro 2018 and no other LCD, there doesn’t seem any kind of fix. We’ve tried literally every possible display setting, nothing fully alleviates the strain.
2. Face ID does not seem to be the issue.
3. If you have eye strain on the XR/11, you’ll most likely also have the same issue with the 3rd gen iPad Pros (4th gen is untested). This leads into the next theory:
4. The issue seems to be most likely caused by the Liquid Retina display. Apple changed something from the 8+ LCD to the XR Liquid Retina, and that’s why we’re having problems. This theory is also supported by the fact that we’re fine with most other displays, including the 8/8+. My personal theory is that has something to do with dithering.
 
There’s another thread on the subject of XR eye strain where we’ve pretty much discussed this to death (Unfortunately, with no solution). The main points are:

1. If you get eye strain only from XR/11/iPad Pro 2018 and no other LCD, there doesn’t seem any kind of fix. We’ve tried literally every possible display setting, nothing fully alleviates the strain.
2. Face ID does not seem to be the issue.
3. If you have eye strain on the XR/11, you’ll most likely also have the same issue with the 3rd gen iPad Pros (4th gen is untested). This leads into the next theory:
4. The issue seems to be most likely caused by the Liquid Retina display. Apple changed something from the 8+ LCD to the XR Liquid Retina, and that’s why we’re having problems. This theory is also supported by the fact that we’re fine with most other displays, including the 8/8+. My personal theory is that has something to do with dithering.
Noted, thanks for the theory.
 
I'm most likely returning it and just getting an I phone 8, maybe even 6. It did everything I needed when I got it a few years ago and I'd still have it if it's charging port didn't break.

Rather get the new SE instead of iPhone 8. For after all, the display is the same but the internals are improved and thanks to a much newer (the same that's in 11) CPU, it will be supported for years.
 
I check some headaches when use high brightness.. Respectively I used high brightness last few weeks and got a often headches. Can be caused only by higher brightness ?
 
Cool to know i'm not the only one getting severe nausea and disorientation looking at the iPhone 11 screen.

I never had any troubles with led/lcd screens so I wasn't pre-emptive about the 11's screen. I felt immediate nausea/disorientation just from setting up the phone and looking at it.

I understand one of the characteristics of LCD's is uneven brightness but I never got sick from using older iPhones. The 11 was different, the brightness (even when lowered) felt very intense and warped - the light hit both my eyes differently like a broken holographic effect. The effect was compounded if there was any movement from my head or hand.

I took out my iPhone 8 and I didn't experience any nausea at all. The brightness falls off gently and evenly to my eyes.

So I came to the conclusion it's the 11's front glass. The 2.5D curvature and also the way it's laminated probably alters how the LCD backlight shines through - imagine shining an un-precise light through an empty glass bottle and reading the printed expiry date. It'll looked warped and disorientating. The light messes with your spatial perception despite the printed text being crisp and clear. On the other hand OLED's are self-emitting diodes and they can retain a lot of precision when pressed up against a curved glass surface.

Are there any other brand of phones in the market that have 2.5D or curved screens but are LCD? Maybe those will have the same problem?
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: cgolca
There’s another thread on the subject of XR eye strain where we’ve pretty much discussed this to death (Unfortunately, with no solution). The main points are:

1. If you get eye strain only from XR/11/iPad Pro 2018 and no other LCD, there doesn’t seem any kind of fix. We’ve tried literally every possible display setting, nothing fully alleviates the strain.
2. Face ID does not seem to be the issue.
3. If you have eye strain on the XR/11, you’ll most likely also have the same issue with the 3rd gen iPad Pros (4th gen is untested). This leads into the next theory:
4. The issue seems to be most likely caused by the Liquid Retina display. Apple changed something from the 8+ LCD to the XR Liquid Retina, and that’s why we’re having problems. This theory is also supported by the fact that we’re fine with most other displays, including the 8/8+. My personal theory is that has something to do with dithering.

This theory seems right to me. I got headaches from the iPhone 11 Pro and from the regular iPhone 11 but the 8 Plus and the new 2020 SE are fine. Where can I learn more about dithering?
 
  • Like
Reactions: tonybarnaby
I ended up deciding to buy the regular 6.1" Iphone 11 last week. So the first day I was using it within two hours I had a terrible headache, eye strain, and by the end of the third hour I was feeling nauseous. I was not happy to say the least as I was worried that I wasn't going to be able to keep my new phone because other than feeling physically horrible I really enjoy using my new phone (not counting the gestures as my right wrist and forearm are still constantly aching from all the swiping involved which I hope to find a solution for that).

I originally left all settings at default on my phone. Out of desperation I decided to turn True Tone off. First of all I thought it made the screen look like crap since the whites looked yellow-ish but I wanted to give it a try. As soon as a turned True Tone off, not only did my display look normal color wise, but I started feeling better. Been using the phone roughly 7 hours a day since then and I feel fine now so for me it was True Tone that was causing the headaches/eye Strain/nausea.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.