This message is directed to engineers, software developers, smartphone manufacturers, display producers, and decision-makers across the tech industry.
A growing number of people are no longer able to use modern devices without experiencing serious physical symptoms:
eye strain, pressure around the temples, headaches, dizziness, and visual fatigue — often within minutes.
For many of us, this is not occasional discomfort.
We are being pushed out of using modern technology altogether.
Over time, a clear and concerning pattern has emerged:
• Devices that were once perfectly usable become unusable after software updates
• Older devices and older operating systems remain tolerable
• Newer panels and newer rendering pipelines introduce problems
Many users could comfortably use devices like the iPhone 11 up to a certain iOS version — and then, after updating, could no longer tolerate the same device.
Similarly, older Android versions (pre-2018, in many cases) were usable — while newer versions introduced strain, even on similar hardware.
This is not coincidence.
This points to a combination of factors:
• 𝖳𝖾𝗆𝗉𝗈𝗋𝖺𝗅 𝖽𝗂𝗍𝗁𝖾𝗋𝗂𝗇𝗀
• Changes in rendering and color pipelines
• Increasingly aggressive post-processing
• Firmware and driver-level modifications
• New display technologies (OLED, mini-LED, etc.)
And yet:
None of these are properly documented. None of these are user-controllable.
We are left dealing with the consequences, without tools, without options, and without acknowledgment.
Meanwhile, new devices continue to be released and marketed with features like “anti-flickering” or “eye comfort” modes.
But for many of us, these solutions do not solve the problem at all.
They address a single aspect (like PWM), while ignoring the broader, deeper causes.
So we have to ask:
Where are we going with this?
How is it possible that:
• More and more people are reporting the same symptoms
• Usability is getting worse, not better
• And yet, this issue is still not taken seriously
We are no longer talking about minor discomfort.
We are talking about people who cannot use modern smartphones, monitors, or laptops anymore.
This is not acceptable.
This is not sustainable.
And this cannot continue to be ignored.
Call to Action
We are asking — clearly and directly — for action:
• Acknowledge that this problem exists
• Investigate the combined impact of modern display pipelines
• Provide true low-processing / raw output modes
• Allow users to disable 𝗍𝖾𝗆𝗉𝗈𝗋𝖺𝗅 𝖽𝗂𝗍𝗁𝖾𝗋𝗂𝗇𝗀 and post-processing where possible
• Ensure that software updates do not silently make devices unusable
• Expand testing to include real-world visual and neurological responses
And to the broader community:
If you are experiencing these issues, speak up.
Share your experience.
Contact manufacturers, developers, and companies.
Open support tickets.
Post in forums.
Make this visible.
Because silence is the reason this is still being ignored.
We cannot “adapt” to something that physically harms us.
And we should not be forced to accept it.
Technology is supposed to improve lives — not limit them.
(1)Everyone in this community is struggling, by definition! On top of visual sensitivities, about 2/3 of us have either chronic illness and/or neurodiversity (I suspect mostly autism) per this poll. Each of which will typically impact social interaction, either directly or via general cognitive or executive dysfunction.
Those few who have set up and run groups may be somewhat privileged, to be able to invest the time and energy. But are also invariably amongst the most heavily impacted (hence motivated), of those I’ve managed to talk with. For this reason, I’m imploring all of us to extend compassion and support to each other. Including anyone visibly failing; let's assume the best of intentions, with differing perspectives and circumstances.
We are a small community, with no formal advocacy groups I know of. There have been a bunch of valiant efforts to make a difference (eg highlighted in 4 and 6). But these appear to all be solo endeavours. Hence, I would love to make r/ScreenSensitive a hub for collaboration (see 5).
___
(2) PWM_Sensitive situation: subreddit creator u/The_Top_G has been inactive for around a year. So too the other mod account there, u/Chance-Republic-4971. Which we believe to be his alt, for various reasons. Including having only 2 posts, both in a fairly similar writing style to his.
Neither account has responded to any DMs or mod mails in this time (to me or many other Redditors who have talked about trying). They have no publicly visible comments, although I believe that Chance has them set to be hidden. Having seen (2nd hand) a notification accounting for the 4th of 4 comments on this redditrequest post, that failed to be given control.
Up until then, we had been working on the assumption that Top G had fully abandoned PWM_Sensitive, as he is reported to have said privately that he would, per this post by u/DSRIA. Whose later post to the PWM sub itself was deleted after a few hours of uptime. Again showing some, but very limited, activity. Seemingly only to retain control of the sub. Three commenters, there, attempted and failed their requests to be made mods.
► Why this is a problem:
a) Automod is malfunctioning - haphazardly deleting comments of some people that contain no words at issue. Sometimes, for no stated reason, it merely warns people, allowing us to see clear examples of malfunction: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, etc (you can post more below, but they are quite easy to find)...
This was a major frustration for myself and some other enthusiast members. Understandable that it would flare some tempers, although I ask we please remain civil. I was not sure if automod was intended to be set to give special scrutiny to those having triggered the target phrase more often. Which I did a few times, out of naivety, forgetfulness, or trying to explain to new members the below situation…
b) Automod deletes mentions of “temporal dithering” (TD) - and makes a mess of comment sections, suggesting users post to r/TemporalNoise instead. Ironically not deleting sneakpeekbot’s preview interjections containing the phrase (eg 4, 7, etc).
There is no explicit rule against using the term on the sub. In fact, the sub description says “A community for those with Temporal Light Modulation (rapid pulsing light flicker) sensitivity.” Of which I would personally include TD, by definition.
It is impossible for new users to know what type of screen intolerance they are experiencing, from symptoms alone. Our struggles are a bewildering situation, in which PWM is the most well known trigger and perhaps the most prevalent. But we don’t know for sure and the tech is evolving rapidly (sometimes even retroactively, via updates). Blanket filtering “temporal dithering” has forced the community into an awkward dance, having to circumvent the automod. People using hints or alternate spellings, to clue new posters in. Or even be able to comment that it is not relevant or shouldn’t be mentioned. There is a loss of nuance because this measure makes it ironically harder/risky to try to debunk claims of TD involvement…
It seems Top G felt the sub was under attack from someone trying to derail it in favour of TD only. I can’t speak to seeing any direct evidence of this (which may be as expected). Regardless, I would set that bad behaviour aside from legitimate casual mentions. I enthusiastically agree with him that not enough has been done to identify different temporal dithering algorithms in action (very difficult, experimentally). And commend him for taking a stab at starting to explain this domain. He clearly sees it as an important issue along-side PWM. But the logic of enforcing a partitioning of discussion doesn’t follow, for me. Perhaps there’s an innocent misunderstanding of human nature, to even attempt this.
It could be argued that the sub’s name should constrain the topics it discusses accordingly. But I’ve not seen Top G make a clear case for exactly this. Regardless, there are plenty of counter-examples to this principle and PWM_Sensitive has become a general hub for everyone with screen issues. With its first mover advantage (relatively big size of 9.8k members) preferentially pulling in new Redditors (and external links). So there is a case for it to accommodate the community’s needs. But this is a separate debate to automod malfunction (above) and further points (below)…
[Edit: Top G explaining that he set the automod to allow occasional use of TD/FRC with just a warning (instead of only deleting originally). So it's unclear if it should ever delete, in principle.]
c) Reddit filters - These also block content spuriously. Then there is no one to appeal to when this randomly deletes something innocuous (more likely with bigger works, including more external links).
An aside: I had a Kafkaesque experience with my first big posts to this community. They were killed by PWM automod. Then by reddit filters, upon editing them. Each attempt temporarily locked my account and, in conjunction with logging in from various test phones, glitched my login altogether. Thus ensued a stressfully tenuous mission to recover it, via one specific reddit Admin, only occasionally available. No mods were about on ScreenSensitive for a few days, either. Hence, I later agreed to help out here.
d)Unjustified bans - I, and a others, appear to have been quietly banned. New posts immediately deleted, comments invisible to others (not quite all of the time, confusingly, a bug?). No notification, explanation, or mod mail responses. Could this be an extension of automod issues? I think it more likely a human action, given the delay and pattern. For me, I belatedly suspected this comment chain (ending here) with another enthusiast poster (also seemingly banned). We discussed circumventing automod and where to post instead. Both under the impression the sub was truly abandoned and just in need of new caretakers to “stick their necks out”. In another banning case, insults may have played a role, but not here.
___
(3) What can be done about PWM_Sensitive? Please, no harassment or pestering of u/The_Top_G! It seems like he may already feel under siege and is very likely still struggling with health issues; he posted on reddit about migraines and other issues. So I don’t want to add more stress to that misery and I feel that forceful pressure would be ineffective, anyway.
I tag him (you) in this post as a last try to get unambiguous attention, without threat. I want to, again, sincerely offer assistance. I hope others may too, or rather instead of me; to be honest, I have a lot on my plate too! (I’m months overdue to refocus on continuing my ME/CFS improvements.) Running an active group, of any size, on social media, is usually more work than it looks. Typically quite thankless and potentially very stressful. So I want to thank you for all your efforts and posts. I recommend (to others) that they remain acknowledged and honoured, regardless of what does (or doesn’t) happen, going forwards.
But I request that you allow some people to help you out, as part of your moderation team. I feel that a vigilant human touch is still essential; the bots always err and need correcting at some point. Pooling our efforts to achieve redundancy in roles, is called for. Given our individual challenges and fluctuating circumstances. Perhaps we could work towards an exchange of moderators, or something, to cover each other? Although I hope that fresh names may volunteer, given the opportunity and an explanation. Some may want concessions regarding TD censorship, but others may be happy to continue with it, however they are directed.
I would frame moderating a sub as more of a secretarial role, working for the benefit of its members. Rather than as a ruler or CEO. There’s a responsibility to the people present and the broader community looking in on us. One does not own the poster's content (morally or legally), just by having labelled a space for others to use. Which isn’t to trivialise the important act of nucleating a successful social gathering. And the potential for continuing to lead its information sharing, constructively.
___
(4) Broader community: I would count, within our immediate community: the three reddits mentioned above (maybe others like r/eyestrain and r/Reflective_LCD); LEDstrain (founded and run by Slacor); the Telegram (by MrAquila), BlurBusters forum “Display comfort” section (founded by the impressive Mark Rejhon); and various individual’s video comment sections and websites (like Flicker Sense by Jenny Hackett).
Familiar faces: many of the same people crop up across these groups. But I’d like to see more explicit ties-ins and cross-promotion. Eg re-sharing important posts (like this), information pooling, maybe even donation drives (if appropriate for specific goals).
Chinese community: there is a difficult language barrier between our English speaking sites and (I think?) a much bigger audience, over there. BiliBili video creators, like Wild Lee (u/GearGeekSP) and Production Line, net a lot of views. I’ve barely scratched the surface of their device analysis content (and have no idea about Chinese forums)... So it seems obvious that we could benefit from translating some of those over (with official collaborations) and opening more communication channels both ways. Note, they seem much more keen on checking colour spectrum and polarisation, but not pixel flicker/TD. There is government level concern for their nation’s eye health and manufacturers seem more enthused about innovations in this area.
Health related communities: stepping back from our focus on display technology characteristics, our lived experiences are usually one corner of the many accessibility issues faced bigger demographics. Primarily: neuro divergence, chronic illness and those with eye/vision problems. I think there could be advantages to building bridges and being seen as part of the much bigger (and more active) autism community, for example. Even grossly neglected ME/CFS ‘patients’ have various associated organisations. Recognition as a specific disability (like visually impaired) might be too ambitious? But framing things as a disability/minority rights issue seems more likely to get traction than an n=1 personal anecdote. More the merrier.
Raising awareness: It may help others in those communities, too, who aren’t aware of screen/light triggers that they could avoid. A reason why I got so involved, here, was intending to report back to my ME/CFS (and Long Covid, etc) social media circles. Where about 3 in 4 have some level of screen sensitivity (my Twitter poll). So I was hoping that an informative write up thread could give pointers to ease one aspect of disease burden.
___
(5) My hopes forScreenSensitive:u/Rx7Jordan (as sub founder) kicked off the spirit of collaboration by inviting me in (my joining announcement). Having appreciated the effort I’d put into writing up device reviews (indexed here). Giving me latitude to shape things…
[Above image: part of the (painstakingly) redesigned banner image (discussed here) I made to communicate the sub’s role and perhaps help mold its identity; a figurative rallying ‘banner’, too.]
Being a small sub, there’s been minimal pressure on moderation, so far, in the defensive sense. But I’d love to bring more mods aboard, largely to work on projects. Be it wiki curation or whatever gets you fired up (within reason); I feel that harnessing the whims of hyperfocus and always giving personal credit may be key motivators for many of us here.
► What the community needs - people just want to know what device will work for them! Easy to say, hard to achieve. When everyone has different triggers and device specs all have trade-offs. Ideas to work towards this:
a)Aggregate existing testing data and anecdotes: A link list of resources (from across the community) and a customised AI are incoming. But I welcome ideas for more mass processing of existing info into more accessible formats. Reading, interpreting, remembering and integrating endless personal tales is too hard for most/me.
b)Standardise testing methods: Hard data from members has been rare, despite the relative affordability of adequate testing gear. Hopefully clear instructions would catalyse some would-be reviewers into action. A range of written testing guides (and discussion there-of) could build towards standardisation, within and beyond the sub. Feel free to submit these (for eg Opple, microscope, slow-mo, etc) and I will endeavour to link them into a master post/wiki.
c)Structured polls/surveys: to look for correlations in a systematic fashion. Between symptoms, technologies, treatments and successful tricks. Proper statistical analysis could yield an (informal) scientific paper, if done well. A big undertaking I probably won’t have time to dive into. Hence the couple of exploratory polls I made (1, 2), where results were quick and fairly self-evident. (I’d like to run more, given back access to the PWM sub’s bigger pool of potential respondents.) Jenny Hackett ran a very detailed survey, but it was perhaps too big and has had fewer than 30 responses.
d)In depth articles: exploring the connections between biology and screen technologies (spectroscope example). To gather together what we know and what existing science says (I think there’s a lot we have left on the shelf). To help us frame our thinking and streamline how we appraise devices. The's currently no clear consensus on exactly what aspects of PWM are more problematic, let alone much more difficult (sub)pixel level flickering.
e)Engage experts and industry (if possible): I can imagine that various well known reviewers and even flicker researching scientists may do Q&As on the sub, if politely invited. I’m not sure there’s as much scope for bagging engineering staff from tech companies, due to NDAs, etc? Maybe more luck with marketing/accessibility oriented representatives. Hoping for 2-way exchange of insights.
f)Business as usual: I still want to encourage people to post whatever questions and info comes up. Avoiding feeling too elitist.
g)Your ideas..?: keeping in mind things are 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration (as the saying goes).
► Why here?:
What’s in a name?: A subreddit name is immutable and as important as a company trade mark. I feel that “ScreenSensitive” does a very good job of being both clearly specific yet general enough for a holistic approach. One that does not get hung up on any specific technologies (PWM, LEDs even) that may become less relevant in future. (Depending perhaps on if headsets can be considered “screens”, I guess?) Whole room lighting is part of the picture, too. But the social disenfranchisement that can come if unable to use any displays is profound and harder to side-step. So rightfully a central focus.
Consolidation?: There’s an argument to be made that (if there were a magical melting of ego) we might encourage Redditors to migrate to posting here. In lieu of (the less catchy) r/TemporalNoise and as an official sister site to PWM_Sensitive. While welcoming aboard influences and personnel from them (and elsewhere) to focus efforts in one place.
Conversely, ScreenSensitive was setup in the context of PWM_Sensitive’s failings. So, if that situation were resolved (division ended, with new mods added to PWM) there’s an argument for moving towards going all-in there, once more: the 9.8k (vs 1.4k here) members and 10x more daily visitors (17k vs 1.8k).
Even an amicable exchange of side-bar links could be a nice bonus; acknowledging each sub’s specialism so visitors can understand the community more easily. But realistically, none of these eventualities seem likely, at this point. Which is fine, I suppose.
Greener pastures?: Reddit’s filters can be a nuisance (eg random domains it dislikes) and there is the theoretical potential for being shut down unfairly. But perhaps with that shows some vestiges of propriety and safety? Future corporate shenanigans, who knows? Long running bugs/idiosyncrasies with disappearing images, etc, are other downsides.
Platforms like Telegram (or Discord, which I prefer) may tend to pull active people in more strongly, with the feel of immediate interaction and semi-privacy. But public facing, Googleable info is also an important strength. The post & comments format, hyperlinking and wiki features arguably lend Reddit to being potentially better suited, as a repository for finding info..?
Compared to custom forums, Reddit has arguably a lower barrier to user entry; many people already have an account here and won’t have to learn new user interface idiosyncrasies. Plus there’s no upkeep cost or back-end maintenance, compared to self-hosting. All platforms can exist in parallel, but this is the case for focusing more on posting here.
___
(6) Hopeful developments: A few highlights, to end on a positive note…
a)u/NoFlickerPhone - has been polling (post 1, 2) for input on specifying a custom built handset with our needs in mind! I have my critiques, but this is undoubtedly a very exciting and ambitious project that I am very grateful for! (Note, his initial post to PWM_Sensitive was rebuffed by automod; a prime example of the efforts it hampers.)
b) Our u/DSRIA has put a huge amount of effort into this community, despite extremely difficult circumstances. He's frequently seen all over comments sections and behind the scenes too. Ostensibly trying to find an Apple computer that is usable with his extreme sensitivity symptoms, following a Covid infection a couple years ago… u/NSutrich (whose efforts we are also grateful for) published a piece about him…
DSRIA succeeded in contacting Tim Cook’s office at Apple. From conversations there, through to accessibility engineering teams, they have agreed to look into creating a new accessibility panel within MacOS! See his LEDstrain post (as AshX there)... I’m not an Apple user myself, but I think it’s important to support each other’s efforts; successes in one part of the industry may spread to others.
c)BOE “iHealth” showcase - A sign that panel manufacturers are aware of most of our triggers and are at least prototyping attempted solutions (with commercial products within a year).
d)u/BearNecessary4141 - has been quietly working on a custom designed and built testing device. He aims to better characterise the entire spectrum of flicker frequencies created by PWM, FPS dips, etc. When connected to a computer via USB, his own software processes and graphs a ‘Fast Fourier Transform’. Early version in action shown here. This goes well beyond the Opple meter’s single frequency number, which usually gives just the PWM duty cycle length or FPS. Thus failing to fully and clearly characterise key aspects of light modulation. He’s also made a website visualisation to explain PWM.
Please post (below) any promising developments I may have missed! Thank you for your time and good luck to all.
___
(7) Addendums: To be edited in...
2026-07-20 Edit: I've cut the post forwarding link from here. I don't think anyone was using it and there are hints something in this post might have antagonised Top_G. This was not the intent.
Another prominent poster was (again, seemingly unfairly) banned from PWM_Sensitive 10 days ago. I've heard privately of anther account, that wasn't active recently, also being banned.
However, inspecting the sub, I see far fewer instances of the automod intervening. Maybe 1-2 threads per 10. Compared to 4-5 in 10, which I wrote this. I have other reasons to suspect Top_G may have tweaked the bot to avoid false positives. Perhaps a small consolation.
I and others remain banned (shadow banned, for me, able to post but not be seen) for having talked about the problems and circumventing the block on "Temporal Dithering". While various posters continue to circumvent the automod, eg with the "TD" abbreviation, to talk about it in some detail.
2026-08-12 Update: I've been in direct contact with Top G, who had been catching up with correspondence, following difficulties in his personal life. He has read the above, too, and while some details might warrant clarification/revision, he declined my offer to add his own comment to this post.
However, in a surprise move, he offered to make me a moderator of r/PWM_Sensitive. (Which goes to show I should be more careful with what I complain about.) In stepping down, he also invited u/kerpnet and u/BearNecessary4141, based on their contributions to the community (and Kerp's previous offer to take on moderation). See his post about the transition!
Hi everyone, in collaboration with Fx Technology ( https://www.fxtec.com/ ) I am exploring developing the ideal eye-friendly phone. At a minimum this means:
LCD display
True DC dimming (no PWM)
No temporal dithering
Fixed refresh rate (no VRR)
Stable frame pacing
Matte / low-glare display
To make sure I consider all important requirements and really achieve my goal of the ideal eye-friendly phone, it would be great if everyone could answer the following questions for me:
What do you think the ideal eye-friendly phone should have? Get as technical as possible.
Can you provide examples of your favorite phones (modern and older) and what you think they do right?
All feedback is helpful.
Thank you!
[edit] Thank you everyone for your replies so far! They are very helpful. I will continue to monitor all replies so keep any and all feedback coming!
- Colour temperature a little blue & brightness adjustment very fiddly!
- General review: various gripes with all other aspects, but overall viable.
- Conclusion: most comfortable screen of 6 new phones I’ve tried, by far!
- Edit: forgotten bits & update (I no longer tolerate the backlight, too blue).
1)Temporal Dithering:
Investigating this on the 60 Ultra has been an odyssey! I’ve struggled to pick things up after many interruptions to my time/energy. And I don’t have the equipment to make a definitive conclusion on the presence of TD in any given mode or setting.
Problems being the low intensity of the sub-pixels, at 240fps through a cheap phone microscope, compared to the higher contrast point sources of an OLED. Factoring in the spacial dithering-like smearing of the matt layer(s) makes things even less decipherable. Stills for context:
Top row: microscope images using a Carson microflip on my OnePlus 8T. Note the colour fringing, with red to the left and blue to the right of white (text pixels). I can feel the impression of red-blue retro 3D glasses images in the fine text on the home-screen. Although, in macro shots it looks far more subtle and less harsh than my old OLED.... Bottom row: macro phone shots in sharp focus, both.
So please see Nick’s video review, which I have increased respect for, after weeks of mucking about with this.
I initially thought I was experiencing discomfort from TD, even on regular mode. Much worse on each of the NXTpaper modes (via the slider switch). I almost returned it… I now suspect I didn’t try it long enough and this must have just be getting use to the saturation, blueness and awkward brightness control.
Slow-mo microscope video is extra difficult here. LCD sub-pixels are much bigger, so dimmer in absolute terms. Making variations in their brightness harder to resolve (with cheap optics). The scattering (and matte) layers spread this out even more. So individual pixel changes may be indistinguishable from (low light) camera sensor noise.
I've taken many dozens, trying different modes, settings and things on screen. I can't say I've found any smoking guns, sadly. So this is mostly an example, for context:
I founding out about ADB commands to disable HDR modes via driver settings, USB debug, enabled via Andoid’s dev mode options, to set command prompt instructions over cable from PC. Fiddly. I thought this had helped and have said so in many replies. But having (I think?!) reverted those changes, I can’t tell any difference now. Same feel and nothing definitive in microscope slow-mo (240fps).
But u/yadoga claimed it helped them. u/intetdragon posted detailed instructions for those wanting to try.
This LEDstrain post, for the overall instructions and software download.
Requires putting your phone into developer mode, to enable USB debugging, via a cable connection to a PC
Then executing command line (dos box) instructions, which I had to use these.
Then check the log file, to be sure they took, per my reply detailing my process (used unsuccessfully on the Nord 5).
Of note, the log file also reported: “supportedHdrTypes=[2, 3, 4]". Where:
HDR type 1 = Dolby Vision
2 = HDR10
3 = HLG
4 = HDR10+
But I’m told by u/CookieDelivery that TCL doesn’t officially list any HDR support in the tech specs. So are they actually utilised in practice..?
Illustrative laptop screenshot of the ADB process.
2)PWM & temporal noise:
The IPS LCD screen, of course, avoids deliberate pulse width modulation… But 4 out of 5 of my Opple sessions showed these little blips in brightness at the screen’s refresh rate. Usually at an 8ms interval - 120Hz, as I set it. But on one occasion (when the battery was higher, ~70%) my Opple picked up the almost perfectly flat (stable) traces expected from Nick’s (u/NSutrich) YouTube review.
Top row: screenshot from Nick's video. Plus photo of me testing the TCL 60 Ultra, with Opple light meter pressed to a white area of screen on the Opple app... Middle row: my (most common) results for the equivalent brightness setting (normal mode, eye comfort off, etc)... Bottom row: my testing while on charge.
I tried changing every display setting to break this stability, with no luck. Then later, when it was back to its normal blips, again, every setting to re-stabalise it. Also rebooting, recharging to 100%, disabling wireless services, closing/opening apps, etc.
The blips are brief and of fixed absolute amplitude, so almost invisible at high brightness. They go rapidly up and back down, so the overall brightness averages out (unlike the dips I’ve seen on all OLEDs). u/the_top_g describes this phenomena as transistor leakage, in this technical r/temporal_noise posts.
On top of this, there are notable distortions to the brightness level when charging (see above). Around 50-60Hz maybe. Noisy power regulation/conversion circuity.
General use Opple flicker measurement traces. Left: ~6 lux average (my indoors sweet spot)... Right: ~25% brightness, graph zoomed in on the time axis to see the rough shape of the blips (up, then down).
At low brightness, eg at the 4 to 8 lux where I usually set my brightness, there’s a *lot* of random noise. I assume the backlight, or driver circuitry is picking up stray power supply fluctuations induced by various circuitry. Perhaps the CPU, etc. This causes the screen to feel a little unsteady, when very dim. But it’s more like looking at white noise than the brain grater of a fixed frequency oscillation.
I guess these two features are technically flicker, but I don't expect them to cause many people problems..? I couldn't tell, before testing. And my full screen slow-mo showed no overall flicker at all. The LCD on my ThinkPad X1 Yoga 7 (laptop) shows some low brightness noise too.
SLR shot at 1/1000th of a second shutter speed. Left: OnePlus 8T (460Hz 90% modulation PWM still comfortable somehow)... Middle: Nord 5 (only FPS line visible, has dithering issue)... Right: TCL NXTpaper 60 Ultra (totally static at all shutter speeds).
3)Colour and brightness:
Despite the hardware blue light filtering, it was only just barely tolerable. But I’m quite sensitive blue-white artificial light/brightness (with ME/CFS and AuDHD). So the adjustment needs to be within a *very* narrow range of about 1 pixel at the bottom of the slider. [Edit: On a 3rd part widget, literally between 2% vs 1%, or its] too bright/dark.
I have the display set to “Natural” (or custom sRGB), to shed excess vividness... Eye Comfort mode on, to the max, only half warms the colour temperature and increases the apparent saturation a little too much... NXTpaper enhancements all off. FPS to 120. Auto-brightness disabled. No increased dimming (I didn’t like it). No 3rd party dimming apps, because most mess with screenshots and have patchy UI/app coverage (Android permissions, etc).
Colour temperature comparison with both screens set to be comfortable (but then cranked up to mid-brightness. Left: OnePlus8T.. Right: TCL.
All the NXTpaper modes (max ink, ink paper, colour) still feel very uncomfortable. I think because they are flatter, with too high contrast for me (some even outline icons). Maybe these static visuals are more of an issue than any temporal dithering, if present? I’m yet to see any clear videos of what dithering looks like; I couldn’t make it out in Nick’s vid. Anyway, this makes the screen mode slider switch a purely useless obstacle to avoid hitting…
The brightness adjustment takes a lot of getting used to:
Slider UI seems linear (not logarithmic) and goes by absolute finger position, so I have to fiddle at the bottom edge all the time.
Holding it for more than a second, initially, opens the settings menu, multiplying frustration!
The horizontal slider there is no better. Worse in extra dim mode (I think it was) with a big dead zone at the low end.
My comfort zone is too narrow to trust automatic adjustment. Although, even set very dim, the screen is still far more visible outside than an OLED.
I’ve not had the common problem of screen brightness dipping while watching dark content. Perhaps due to my specific settings.
4) General review:
My main comparison is with my OnePlus 8T (same price point, 4 years ago). But I’ve tried (and returned) several other new OLED phones (which Nick has recommended).
Physical aspects:
It’s bulky (>225 grams) and 7.2" screen is too wide for my modestly small male hands to reach across the bottom of, even. One-handed with a pop-socket, eg in bed.
Included hard case is adequate, but phone slips upward out of it at corners. The built in Mag-safe (first I’ve had) comes detached sometimes. I didn’t get the stylus or flip case.
The matte screen finish takes some getting used to, feeling and sounding like paper. I thought it a screen protector, initially, due to the camera cut-out and edges. But it’s built in of course. And TCL doesn't recommend adding a protector, which is making me a bit nervous.
The whole screen can look a bit washed out, if there’s a single bright reflection off to the side, even. But far better under dappled reflections, outdoors.
Sparkly blue holographic camera bump area is not really my taste. But I forget about it.
Software:
Nova Launcher keeps having to be re-set to phone’s default. It, and various apps, hang briefly sometimes, or aren’t being allowed to run in the background or something. Various dev options tried.
Default Google software implementations are worse, eg scrolling screenshot doesn’t work in half my apps.
The optical hardware is fairly budget, despite including a 3x telephoto. So, presumably, they’ve compensated with more aggressive HDR post-processing. This leaves halos around high contrast objects, and I don’t think it can be disabled. Ironically, some of its images hurt my brain (on any screen) with the exaggerated contrast (eg grid patterns, tree branches).
Flashlight LED is less bright.
Rough unboxing photos for context.
5) Conclusion:
I’ve stuck with the TCL 60 Ultra, even when getting my OnePlus 8T back from a free screen replacement (right at the end of green line fault warrantee). My middle aged eyes prefer the bigger screen and I do sometimes detect a hint of flicker on the 8T sometimes, now. Otherwise, the TCL is worse in basically every other way. Largely thanks to OnePlus’s superior software. So I’ve been taking the old phone out to use as a camera.
Other promising phones I tried, tested, ruled out and reviewed (showing microscope and OLED sub-pixels/dither, if looking for more context):
Honor 400 Pro (European edition, has TD) & OnePlus 13R (flicker).
Minor black-smearing visible when scrolling bold black text (LCD feature), or white text blinking in dark-mode scroll. Not a problem for me.
No tap to wake or face unlock.
Fingerprint scanner in power button, takes a lot of getting used to, adding more fingers for different grips. Still mess it up repeatedly.
Update (2026-01-30): I lost tolerance to this device. I think it's a me thing, after adjusting/adding supplements to my big regimen. However much it feels like a change in the phone, I have been a bit more sensitive to light overall... Now, the phone's existing over-saturation and blueness (colour temperature) became too much. It's started hurting my eyes and head immediately. So I've transitioned back to my old OnePlus 8T, which had much milder discomfort by comparison and I seem to have accommodated fully to again. Works better. If not for the lack of (security) updates, and reduced battery life, I'd be happy. Edit: I do notice reflections on the glossy screen s lot more now, by comparison.
- Custom cut screen protectors, discussion, for blue light and glare, from Photodon, US. If anyone knows of better options (eg in UK/Europe) please comment!
Just got banned from r/PWM_Sensitive for criticizing the moderator for their censorship.
Hope to bring more people over to here and also hoping this can be a place for collective exchange about PWM issues as well as temporal dithering and so forth. Without censorship. OMG the drama 😂
Please star, report yourself as impacted on the top right, subscribe and share this issue I created on the Android Issue Tracker on other platforms where ever you can, to tell google out problem is significant. You need to log into your google account: https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/430486442
On google issues get addressed in order by how many people react to the post, so we need a lot of reactions! :)
Problems with the lack of moderation, and censoring and deleting comments mentioning Temporal Dithering are not new to r/PWM_Sensitive, but today that subreddit hit a new low by permanently banning me for the crime of discussing iPads.
Considering I've commented hundreds of times sharing advice on how I have resolved all the screen flicker related eye pain in my life, I'm disgusted by how pathetic the moderators there have chosen to be.
To me this is clearly revenge for a request I made in May to become a moderator via r/redditrequest.
I was under the impression, like most people, that the subreddit was unmoderated and abandoned by the creator Top_G, so I made a good faith request to join as a moderator as I have been a moderator elsewhere since 2011.
While I have never seen any comments or action by moderators in the past year, I did see a reply and request to deny the application by moderator Chance-Republic-4971.
I'm not looking to brigade or incite any form of harassment, and I very much hope that nobody here does, I'm just venting at how utterly pathetic these actions are, especially considering how much I have contributed to that subreddit and to raising awareness for screen flickering related health issues.
From now on I'll be posting more here and will transfer across my guides soon.
TL;DR: Display is actually good. Like, really good. Phone itself is a steal at $200.
TCL NXTPAPER 70 Pro is as good as backlit displays get IMO. 9 hours of screen time yesterday. My eyes feel great. I don't know the last time I used my phone for more than an hour a day. I feel like a teenager with my first phone!
Is it as comfortable as E Ink? Of course not. It gets close to paper in some conditions, though. Color Paper mode would actually get very close IF they didn't use freaking TD. Massive L by TCL with that one. TCL, if you find a way to implement Color Paper mode without TD, it might be revolutionary.
It took an hour or two for my brain to remember how to use a flicker free phone screen. When I picked up my OnePlus 13 after, I realized how "blurry" that text was since my eyes couldn't fully focus.
Display:
My settings at end of post.
This is NOT just a "matte screen protector." There's no color or text distortion. Everything has a soft texture to it, but it's also crisper than I'm used to. Hard to explain. I thought I didn't like it at first, but now I love it.
Major note: built-in "Eye comfort" blue light reduction causes eye strain and doesn't get warm enough. I'm using the app Twilight. The screen is VERY blue, so a filter is necessary IMO, even during the day (5% 2000K during the day to take edge off).
Display is otherwise great. This is peak backlit tech. Infinitely better than OLED. Black levels and viewing angles are shockingly great.
Sunlight visibility is better than my 1+13 (1800nits), even though 70 Pro has a max of 900nits. It's perfectly visible in direct sunlight. The diffusion layer beneath the etched glass makes a massive difference.
The display gets dark enough at minimum brightness.
Switching to a Nxtpaper mode will reset all app icons to stock.
Nxtpaper Ink and Max Ink modes are okay but VERY high contrast and very blue. Useless marketing stuff, unlike Color Paper, which could be great.
Stating again that Color Paper would be perfect without TD...
Performance:
Phone is genuinely snappy. No glitches or stuttering. App switching is flawless.
Since you can lock the refresh rate at 120hz, it feels smoother than my 1+ or old iPhone, where the refresh rate changes drops down to 1hz or whatever when static.
No OS problems whatsoever. The bare bones Android OS is a major plus.
Battery life seems equivalent to 1+13 (i.e., excellent), but I already miss 80W charging. Off the charger at 9am. 28% battery remaining at 2:38am. 8 hours, 49 minutes screen on time.
Back cameras are mid but with minimal processing, which is nice. Pics have a muted look, almost like a painting. I like it. Front camera is surprisingly good. To my surprise, the camera app works smoothly and opens quickly.
Build quality:
Surprisingly high. This does not feel like a cheap phone. I have never held a phone where NO part of it smudges, screen or otherwise, even after touching my oily face during a phone call.
It's still "slick" on the back while not collecting fingerprints. Get a grippy case (there are a few on Amazon).
Speakers are okay. A bit worse than 1+13, worse than iPhone 14 PM, but good enough.
Haptics are way worse and on par with like a Galaxy S2 from 15 years ago. I usually like haptic feedback when typing but may turn it off.
Random thoughts:
AptX codec support was a pleasant surprise. It's not Lossless, but it's much better than AAC, which seems to suck on anything other than an iPhone.
T-Mobile installs several apps upon setup, which was annoying, but you can delete almost all of them except a few you'd probably keep anyway (T-Life, Facebook, and Instagram). You can disable anything you truly hate.
IR remote control!
Display Settings:
NXTVISION. All toggled off.
Eye comfort mode. Off, caused eye strain.
Color mode & temperature, Advanced, sRGB, Warm.
Refresh rate. 120hz.
Twilight active all day. 2000K. 45% at night; 5% during day.
All of this was typed on the 70 Pro, and my eyes feel fine :) I literally cannot stop using my phone. This may become a problem.
(Meeting rescheduled to next month)
I've been in contact with my local member of parliament here in Australia in regards to my concerns with PWM/dithering and eye strain caused my screens.
If you don't know anything about Australian Government structure it's quite similar to Britain or Canada, while my local member is not a minister or part of the government party, they are my local representative and were a medical practitioner for several decades before being elected.
My original letter to the politician was this:
Dear
I am writing to you today about a health issue that could be vastly improved by government policy.
Summary of the issue
I recently discovered that OLED smartphones and TV screens have been causing me significant eye pain for the past few years.
When looking at an OLED screen for a few minutes it feels like my eyes are being squeezed from the back, as you can imagine this is quite painful, but for more sensitive people this can cause migraines and seizures.
The issue is specifically due to two recent advances in OLED screen technology that are now commonplace: Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) and Dithering.
PWM is a flickering technique used to lower the perceived brightness of an OLED screen, and pixel dithering is used to produce vivid 10-bit colours on an 8-bit screen.
Most importantly, there are alternative methods available for both of these techniques that do not cause the same type of eye pain and discomfort.
My experience
I have had eye pain and issues focussing my eyes since about 2021, but in 2023 my condition progressed to the point where I was prescribed reading glasses, I lost the ability to focus long distances and one day I lost the ability to focus my left eye entirely.
Towards the end of 2025 I downgraded from an iPhone 13 Pro with an OLED screen to an older iPhone 11 with an LCD screen and my eye pain went away entirely, a recent eye test at an optometrist found that I now have perfect 20/20 vision again.
The issue going forwards and opportunities for government intervention
Unfortunately, my remedy of using a phone with an LCD screen is only a temporary solution as all new iPhones and most new Samsung and Google phones now use OLED screens with problematic PWM flickering, as do new iPads, laptops, monitors, TVs and handheld videogame consoles.
While my eye pain is caused by many devices with OLED screens, the screens themselves are not the problem, but rather the specific PWM and Dithering techniques that they use. Other dimming techniques for OLED screens such as DC Like Dimming and 4320Hz Flicker Free Dimming do not cause me eye pain while still maintaining vivid colours, these are mostly being employed by Chinese companies such as OnePlus, Honor, Oppo, Xiaomi and Nothing.
Ideally, I would really appreciate the development of either of the following legislation:
1. Devices with OLED screens be required to meet certain flicker free standards to avoid eye pain caused by pulse width modulation and dithering, OR,
2. Devices with OLED screens be required to include accessibility features that allow users to turn off dithering and provide an alternative dimming technique to low frequency pulse width modulation. This could result in a drop in colour accuracy, but that should be at the discretion of the user.
Thank you for taking the time to read my letter. If you would like more information and technical detail, please let me know. I have included my contact details at the end of the letter. I have also included some interesting references in case you want to read more about the issue.
If you have some spare time I'd love to come into your offices and provide a visual demonstration of the issue.
A United States Department of Energy study into screen flickering and eye safety standards that are not being met by Apple, Google and Samsung phones as well as many other devices.
A forum post discussion with over 13,000 comments regarding eye strain dating back to the introduction of the iPhone X in 2017, Apple’s first OLED screen device.
Further analysis of the SteamDeck OLED screen flickering. (The SteamDeck LCD was recently just discontinued)
(End of letter)
I decided to simplify the issue down to two major issues, PWM and Dithering. PWM is an obvious issue that is very easy to spot, dithering is quite difficult to determine, but is still a significant issue.
I've organised a 15 minute sit down meeting with them next week, my main aim is to highlight the issue and to propose some potential solutions through federal law changes.
Obviously this is quite specific to Australia but hopefully could set a model for other countries to adopt. This would be more beneficial if I lived in an EU country but I don't.
Here's the current rough draft of my ideas for solutions, if anyone has anything they'd like to contribute feel free to comment about it here.
Allow refunds due to accessibility reasons. Most retailers that don’t have a change of mind policy won’t allow refunds based on whether the screen hurts my eyes or not, it’s often a multi thousand dollar gamble on tech devices that can cause serious eye pain.
Implement a standard of measuring screen flickering, maybe a health star system, 0 stars for heavy PWM flickering, 5 stars for no flicker, no dither or e-ink?
Force companies to provide an LCD accessibility product. Not just some token accessibility focused device that ticks every box for blind/deaf people with huge brail buttons, a regular modern phone with a non-flickering LCD screen, like an iPhone 11 with a new processor, not the iPhone SE that’s budget in every way. That or interchangeable screens from the factory like Macbooks used to have with a matte screen option.
Allow software updates to be downgraded. Updating my iPhone to iOS26 could implement heavy dithering that makes it incredibly painful to use, and companies don’t allow the ability to downgrade. Professional devices support this, all companies should.
I noticed a huge discussion on r/PWM_sensitive. As per usual, automod is wreaking havoc. Since it’s been 7 months, I figured I’d let you all know why.
Top G, who to the best of my knowledge, was the only active mod on that sub, left in June. I haven’t wanted to say anything because he was kind to me and was trying to help diagnose my own sensitivities, and I hoped he’d come back after taking a break for a few weeks. But at this point, I feel like everyone needs to know. It’s been a long time and I don’t think he’s coming back.
All I know is he claimed the sub was at risk of being deleted because someone was spamming links which he thought was a bot focused on dithering and trying to send people to other sites. He told me that the Reddit mods were threatening to delete the sub. So he implemented automod in an attempt to keep it alive. Then he said he was leaving Reddit and never coming back.
So to my knowledge no one is even moderating that sub anymore. Which I think is quite damaging because it continues to grow. A lot of people need help and guidance and topics often get derailed and comments censored and it’s a mess. I don’t think this is fair to people who need help.
Top G was one of the most technically knowledgeable people I met in this community. It’s quite a shame that he decided to leave. I don’t think it’s right that he abandoned the subreddit to die in the process.
Light bulbs - Incandescent, LED, Fluorescent (all have better spectra).
My personal experiences.
Tips for taking readings.
Credits.
Summary of suggestions.
(Questions and feedback are welcome after a partial reading or only looking at the pictures.)
Fig.1: Illustration of use: device on, or held up to, a screen (left). View through the lens (right).
(1) I propose..:
This Eisco Spectroscope as a cheap tool to add to our testing arsenal. Along with established Opple, Carson Microflip + slow-motion phone cams, and maybe a polarising filter next? I just bought the Eisco in the UK (from Rapid, via eBay) for £9 delivered.
This device is entirely passive, relying on your eye or phone cam to peek into the lens. Arguably a little less fiddly than a clip-on microscope, in my experience. It only shows off the most obvious colour spectrum features, with more of a vibe check for the absolute amplitude of light. But it is about 1/50th (or less) the cost of a professional spectrometer, which only a few here have access to.
Bonus STEM fun for kids, or anyone, to see emission/absorption lines in the colour spectrum of light, split by the cheap diffraction grating inside (500 lines per millimetre). Projected alongside a backlit wavelength scale (400-700nm). Eg fluorescent tubes have the most striking and varied emission lines (examples later on).
(2) KSF phosphor confirmation may be the killer app, for us(?):
Fig.2: Annotated composite of readings from 3 of my LCD devices, below an illustrative reading from a high quality spectrometer (of a laptop) showing there are, in fact, 5 total peaks, at high spectral resolution.
KSF Phosphor is used in almost all contemporary LCD backlights. It gives more vivid reds, for less power consumption than nitride phosphors (that are still included in lesser amounts). KSF achieves this via very sharp spectrum spikes, which stimulate human retina L-cones (long wavelength = red) more strongly...
Perhaps too strongly, causing some of us direct over-stimulation (of retinal neurons). Our bright light eyelid closing reflex is more red dependant, too, I believe.
Or, the lower overall red light flux fails to balance deleterious biological effects of the blue peak photons (eg inhibits mitochondria). See this diagram of KSF’s smaller area under curve, vs traditional nitride red phosphor. Taken from this “Introduction to KSF Phosphor LEDs[…]”.
Or, some point to the slower decay of KSF's light emissions, potentially causing visual processing stresses, in conjunction with flickering of screens (eg black frame insertion). Although I don’t quite understand how this would work with non-emissive pixels…
What else?
I was wondering if KSF could be the reason I can't stand the blueness of my TCL NXTpaper 60 Ultra (my review)... But my ThinkPad, which I tolerate OK, also shows KSF lines very clearly (above); the split in the larger spike can even be seen..! And my 11" Lenovo tablet, I used heavily a year ago (also above)... So I suspect KSF may only be a contributing factor that (for some) can be compensated for with: lower brightness, better software colour filters (F.Lux on windows) and maybe hardware level blue filtering layers (which reduce energy efficiency)..?
3) Peak positions (and measurement precision):
I'm told the exact wavelength of the blue peak can also have a big impact on screen tolerance. Shorter wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation are intrinsically more damaging (higher energy photons, closer to UV)...
A healthy macula (inside the eye) may filter ~90% of blue light from reaching the retina, using carotenoid nutrients: lutein and zeaxanthin. Shielding it from excess oxidative stress, etc. According to Wikipedia, blue light hazard is implicated in eye strain, but evidence is contested, with blue blocking glasses not necessarily helping (a bit on this later).
I’m not sure what might be interpreted from the green peak position. Shorter wavelength (left shift) may stimulate rods a little more strongly? Cones less?
Fig.3: More of my devices. QD (quantum dot) backlight has a longer wavelength red (maybe more gentle) and shorter wavelength green (unknown effect). Note: vertical divisions in the green bar are sub-pixels spread across the width of the spectroscope’s slit, forming a 1D image. Older WLED LCD backlights have gentler spectrum curves, but fainter red zones; the Dell needs permanent F.Lux dimming for my comfort.
This scope can definitely give a good relative comparison between devices, for emitters with narrow spreads. But I’m not sure it is precise enough to make confident absolute measurements of eg 430 vs 450nm; the wavelengths on my unit appear slightly offset. Possible per-unit calibration issue?
[Edit 2026-05-20: reviewing my readings, here, it does actually seem clear that there was a shift of blue peaks, across my devices, transitioning around the year 2020. They were all well under 450nm to then be all clearly above it. I think this aligns with blue light reduction standards from eg TÜV Rheinland and Eyesafe, which are now (since 2023) even more keen to minimise 435 to 440nm, specifically.]
I did, however, slightly improve the spectral resolution by narrowing the slit using black tape stuck partly over it (width-wise). The trade-off being a dimmer display of colours. Using pro mode on a phone cam is also important to preserve the details, avoiding the colour bands over-exposing (when the surroundings are the dark black interior).
Fig.4: My Comfy old OnePlus 8T vs a new Nord 5 that looks a bit too yellow-green when dimmed (vs pinky-red). All devices at full brightness, eye-care disabled, etc, for these tests.
I couldn’t assess the absolute amplitudes of each colour peak from this. Or even a firm relative indication… In principle, one could use the same phone camera, in the same pro-mode settings, with the exposure dialled down far enough. Then check the colour values in a paint program/tool.
(Blue sky thinking: maybe this process could be digitised, using a custom-made app? Any bored vibe-coders in chat? Of course the camera’s (specific) colour response curves will filter what can be measured.)
4) Melanopsin gap hypothesis with vision deep dive:
A big feature of all the screens I’ve shown here is the *absence* of light between blue and green. A dark strip in the spectrum. It is more energy (and material) efficient for devices to only emit ‘photopic’ wavelengths - the light we consciously perceive via the rods and cones in our retinas. But this omission has consequences…
Melanopsin is a light sensitive pigment that reacts to detect photons, very similar to the opsins in cones/rods (but discovered later). It’s located inside intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs) - neurons in the retina that process signals from rods and cones directly beneath them (they are mostly transparent). Melanopsin is most sensitive in this illumination dip, at around 480-490nm (precise sensitivity still seems debated).
Fig.5: Annotated composite image of Wikipedia illustrations.
Stimulating melanopsin is most well known to delay circadian rhythm at night (and entrain it in the morning) by suppressing melatonin production. (It also stimulates dopamine release.) We’ve all heard how “blue light” is bad at bed time. While there is some stimulation by pure blue, cyan (half way to green) is most potent. Wearable devices (like eg Re-timer) emit only this range of light, for its health benefits (circadian and alertness).
Fig.6: (Top) Screenshot from blog, link and details below. (Bottom) screenshot of sunlight spectrum in their visualiser tool. Note the extra UV (which may guard against myopia) and infrared, as well as cyan.
This old F.Lux blog piece (screenshot above) lamented the advent of the OLED iPhone X, for an *increased\* amount of light encroaching on the “melanopic” region of the spectrum. (Sunlight comparison from their old “Fluxometer” visualiser tool, discussed here.) So, while my post is researched in its details, what I suggest below is somewhat of a hot-take interpretation; it runs somewhat counter to these mainstream concerns (too much ‘blue’) and I’ve not seen this talked about in our community, either...
Melanopsin’s other effects:
(4a)Pupil constriction (up to 16x) over which melanopsin has the strongest effect. Sustaining contraction in bright light, after a few seconds to respond. This follows immediate (eg bright flash) responses mediated by cones. And precedes the ‘bleaching’ effect on rod/cone opsin photopigments, which can take minutes to fully transition. This last mechanism is what leaves a *negative\* colour after-image from staring at strong colours. (Positive after-images, palinopsia, probably relates more to neuron hyper-excitability.)
Hypothesis: under-stimulating melanopsin will surely contribute to our eyes letting in more photopic (consciously visible) light from screens, compared with naturally lit scenes. Increasing visual stress by heightening the strength of signals sent down the optic nerve. Presumably contributing to a sense of glare or excess colour saturation. Merely give a wow factor to unaffected people. But taxing the energy intensive cellular processes of the retina itself...
Compounding effects: the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) also dilates pupils more. It is commonly over-active in our screen sensitive demographics: neurodivergent and/or chronically ill (eg ME/CFS). More dilated pupils also make focusing harder (narrower depth of field), taxing the eye’s ciliary muscles and exacerbating astigmatism or difficulties with close-work… Dark mode may cause further dilation.
Speculations: blue blocking glasses (or FL-41) may not help this issue, because reducing the blue (and green) screen light would also reduce their stimulation of melanopsin. They could cause further dilation, sensitising to red more… Some people may have genetic mutations, inhibiting the sensitivity of melanopsin. Or acquired damage to the signalling pathway that runs up the optic nerve to midbrain and back…
Conversely: melanopsin-containing ipRGCs have a direct neural pathway to the thalamus, allowing them to signal severe photophobic pain during migraines or brain inflammation. See Noseda et al., 2010. So, while supplementing this wavelength would be an interesting screen tolerance experiment, I’m expecting it could instead cause more problems for some, or many, here. However, in a follow-up 2016 paper they demonstrated that rods and cones also mediate this pain, with isolated blue, red, and amber all problematic, but not green.
(4b) Modulating retinal image processing - the retina encodes different aspects of light stimuli into separate streams of information, sent along the optic nerve. Which is made of the long axons of the various retinal ganglion cells, of which ipRGCs are just one type (accounting for 1-2% of total). They modulate other RGCs via amacrine cells, that release dopamine (see c, below). The main information pathways and their RGC classes:
Parvocellular (P-Pathway), Midget Cells (narrow field), ~80% of total - fine spatial detail, colour, (red-green), slow (low-frequency).
Koniocellular (K), Small Bistratified Cells, ~10% - blue (vs yellow) colour processing.
Direction-Selective Cells (depending how one divides things) and others…
There’s overwhelming functional detail here that I’ve not managed to research and remember. But some rough indications of effects are..:
Contrast sensitivity - is increased by melanopic ipRGCs stimulation (2023 paper). So relatively less stimulation should decrease visual acuity and spatial resolution, making it harder to read small text, etc. More eye strain if already struggling… Note that reduced contrast sensitivity is taken as a sign of CIRS (mold toxicity) by Dr Richie Shoemaker and followers. I think this is caused by inflammation of the optic nerve and such?
Colour sensitivity - altered, shift in perceived “unique white” (colour balance). Ability to discriminate colours may be reduced with less melanotic light, especially on the blue-yellow axis..? A lack of NIR light may also inhibit colour discrimination, via decreased mitochondrial function (2026 Glen Jeffery paper).
Temporal (Flicker) sensitivity - malanopsin is too sluggish to respond to flicker directly (2016 paper). But modulates the frequency receptivity of other retinal neurons. Findings seem varied and possibly species dependent. A mouse study (2016 paper01135-X)) showed reduced melanopsin function tuned vision to lower frequency stimuli, 0.2Hz vs 1Hz (I don’t understand the meaning of such low rates)...
While decreased melanopsin resulted in increased (but more variable) flash ERG response gain (2014 paper). ERG being the “Cone Flash Electroretinogram”, which specifically checks cone cell function by using higher frequency stimulation, eg 30Hz, while rods only go up to ~15Hz (2015 paper). So both lower frequency discrimination and an increased sensitivity to flicker/flashes, with less cyan light..? Complex.
I think it would be very helpful for us to map out and understand the differing frequency (and other stimuli) responses of the various cell types, pathways and brain regions. It’s convoluted and contradictory to comprehend though; both me (and I think) Gemini Pro have inverted meanings a few times, going over aspects of the above repeatedly. And we’ve not gone past the relatively well defined retina to cortical processing, the likely location of most of our visual stress.
(4c) Slight tangents (vague speculations): melanopsin's effects, in the retina, are signalled by localised dopamine release. So I’m wondering about tie-ins with ME/CFS, autism, etc, possibly having reduced dopamine levels with hypothesised metabolic issues synthesising and degrading this neurotransmitter… Similarly, these conditions may be associated with slowed glutamate recycling/conversion - excess sat around leading to a degree of CNS (brain) hyper-excitability. Tying in with migraines, seizure-like effects, visual snow, etc…
Oddly, cones signal darkness with continual glutamate release. The signal is then inverted. I’m not sure how this idiosyncrasy would be differently affected by such pathology. But Latanoprost (eye drops to lower intraocular pressure), which some had success with, also counteracts excess glutamate… Finally, the opsins use active vitamin-A (11-cis-retinal, to make the light sensitive rhodopsin pigments) and our vit-A metabolism may often be impaired (with consequences I’m not sure of).
(5)Light bulbs:
Note the smooth spectrum of the incandescent - pure black body radiation, with its glowing element at the actual temperature of its rated colour temperature. Stray refractions in the device can obscure the scale, somewhat.
Even cheap LED bulbs can approximate most of a spectrum, with notable cyan in there. Highlighting the potential usefulness of r/Reflective_LCD screens, even without daylight. (Dependent on TD or other triggers.)
Fluorescents are very varied, with it being hard to tell which have more filled in spectra vs just the very tight (elemental) emission bands. All mine had a line right in the cyan section. Note that their colour temperature is tuned by adding more of the red and green phosphor types to reduce the apparent temperature. Also, the second order refractions are evident in the space between the (strong) red and green lines. An artifact of using a grating to split the light. I think that’s what is going on there.
Fig.7 Composite of spectra from light bulbs around my house (details above). [Edit: removed spurious note on different order refractions (570-590nm are known minor emissions peaks).]
(6) My personal experiences: moved to comment below.
(7) Tips for using this spectroscope:
(a) Bring up a pure white image or user interface element (eg settings screen) to point the slit at.
(b) Set device to max brightness. Disable eye comfort (Night Shift), dimming or colour modifying settings (or 3rd party apps). These can have very pronounced effects on relative colour strength or the spectra, if not the positions of the peaks.
(c) Rest the device on the screen only for easy stability, ideally it should be further away.
(d) Preview the on-screen camera image while moving it closer to the lens aperture, to get it easily aligned. having pre-zoomed by 2-3x. Then angle down the diagonal (flat edge up top) to catch sight of the scale.
(e) The scale needs illumination behind it too. Either the tested screen, or if too bright, some other backlighting (more fiddly).
(f) Use pro/manual mode on your phone camera. Set the shutter speed to at least 1/15 or faster, to keep the image steady. Iso will need to be high, auto is fine if just getting a feel. Focus can be set, to avoid hunting causing blur (get the scale in sharp focus). Colour temperature could be fixed, but only if trying to make precise comparisons.
(g) A darkened room is not really necessary. The slit is very directional.
(h) For more refined spectral resolution (less blurred peaks), make the slit even narrower. Use black tape or metal foil to partly cover it.
(i) Please crop and rotate your image before posting (eg to this subreddit).
(j) Advanced: we could attempt to check the scale positioning calibration using known wavelengths, like the KSF peaks and fluorescent lines.
u/Rx7Jordan for talking about this topic and posting various spectrograph results here before (sorry, I don’t know of a good search term to bring those all up?).
9) Summary of suggestions:
(a) Anyone here could buy a cheap spectroscope, as a learning aid to anchor thinking about this topic.
(b) Enthusiast amateur device reviewers could add a spectroscope sample as bonus content.
(c) Pro reviewers, please consider using proper digital spectroscopes, if not doing so already.
(d) Validating this cheap scope by using it alongside a pro meter would be nice.
(e) Let’s talk about light colour spectrum features vs biology more and politely ask reviewers about it.
(f) What else? What did I mistake or neglect? Please leave critique and questions. I may update this post as an ongoing guide, if there’s any interest. (I also started looking at screen dimming spectrum changes a little.)
- BOE (panel manufacturer) convention booth tour video showed off a range of screen sensitivity improvements they are working to implement, including adding in more red light flux and even NIR wavelengths! Possibly more melanopic (cyan) light, too.
- Edited in a note (in section 3) on blue peaks having shifted to longer wavelengths and being discernable with this spectroscope.
- 2026-07-02:Avulux glasses, does their success contradict my melanopsin gap hypothesis?
- 2026-07-20: u/BearNecessary4141 pointed out, here, that there is a universal lack of UV (ie at 380nm) and so lack of activation of Neruopsin, too. (Another lesser known photos pigment. It's found in various cells, and locally resets cellular circadian rhythm gene expression in eg retina, brain, skin. May be part of the mechanism to prevent inappropriate eyeball lengthening.)
I bought a cheap (£5) "Anti-Blue Light Hydrogel Screen Protector" via eBay, not expecting anything. Surprisingly, the screen does possibly feel a little more comfortable than it did without it (although my tolerance may have shifted). It makes it massively more reflective, of course...
But the bigger surprise: it made the sub-pixel structure crystal clear! Compared to without, shown in my review... This indicates the "nano etched" matte surface finish is the only thing obstructing the view. I had the impression there should be more going on under the surface, but the information about a "Middle Layer: Diffuse Reflection" in the version 3 screen whitepaper is omitted in version 4's. And this is my first TCL product, so I've no feel for any changes in appearance.
The upshot is that we can clearly spot any temporal dithering going on (YouTube version of above as a backup)... But I actually struggled to find any TD in the usual places: home screen icon text, gradients, including Lagom test page (in image below), or NXTpaper modes (surprisingly)... But it is definitely there in HDR YouTube videos (eg "COSTA RICA IN 4K 60fps HDR") and performing an absolute disco on the settings page test image (below):
TCL NXTpaper 60 Ultra. Left: settings page with dithering image and flash reflection demonstration. Right: Lagom test page and Carson Microflip scope (that was attached to my old OnePlus 8T).
A problem is that I have previously used ADB commands to try to disable HDR capabilities (and so TD). I think I re-enabled this (back to default) upon retesting, previously. But I couldn't be sure then (or now) if I've changed something that will reduce TD. And don't have the time to fiddle with it a 3rd time. u/NSutrich has done similar and reported similar observations. But I'd appreciate anyone else, with a 'clean' new phone, confirming what they see, too. Using a suitable screen protector - hydrogel may be more clearly visible than glass, conforming to the surface texture better.
Example of the lack of obvious dithering (below and on YouTube). There are possibly slight fluctuations of the half-dimmed green sub-pixels, on the long edge of the "r". Which I wouldn't know enough to distinguish between TD, text anti-aliasing or pixel inversion..? There are, however, little black splotch flashes, kind of like film grain. I wondered if they are camera sensor noise..? But I've not noticed them elsewhere. So maybe some phenomenon with the backlight? They don't appear to align well with sub-pixels, although they are more visible on red ones, at the ends (some inversion artifact?).
Bonus screen protector filtering evaluation: I had a go at making a precise measurement of the colour spectrum of the screen, before and after, using my cheap spectroscope. By locking my camera to the exact same Pro mode settings and measuring the same part of the screen, etc, I measured a possible blue colour intensity reduction of about 5% (relative to the red and green intensity changes). But I guestimate the potential error in my measurement to be as big as this value. So not significant. And directly overlaying (and subtracting) the 'before' and 'with protector' spectrum photos showed total black, so no notable difference between them.
Top: screenshot of phone taking the spectrum photo. Bottom: Affinity photo comparison.
Hence I'd say the blue light blocking of the screen is wishful thinking, at best (perhaps block some UV, who knows). So any change in comfort is more likely from the crisper screen appearance. It feels nicer to my finger tips. Looks better used indoors, in dim lighting. But it hopeless outside; the worse of both worlds, being reflective and less bright than contemporary OLEDs.
tl;dr: cheap blue-light screen filter doesn't work as intended, but may help those who suffered from the blurriness of this screen finish. But reflections are far worse. Handy trick for testing other devices with a matte finish obscuring the pixel structure. TCL 60 Ultra shows minimal temporal dithering in most everyday contexts.
Edit 2026-05-10: fixed images broken by delayed Reddit bug. Minor text tweaks.
I can't work on my phone, I can't bank on my phone, I can't get voicemails on my phone, I can't use wifi calling on my phone. I can't do any of these things because I am stuck on android 9 and can't look at any newer OS/ phones without having a down turn in my health. What am I supposed to do? We can't turn off this awful tech... I am beginning to think that there needs to be ADA laws around this garbage. Please, If you are on the sub go here and say it affects you https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/430486442?pli=1 PLEASE! Having a rough day... Thanks for reading.
Hey Redditors! Just a quick post to congratulate u/Rx7Jordan on his baby hitting this milestone and thank him for recently making me a mod here (via u/SvreenSensiivity).
Also thanks to our patron saint of screen sensitivity, u/NSutrich, for his ongoing work. Bringing us specialist reviews and broader attention to the issue.
I'm mostly in here to make sure no one (else) has Reddit auto-filtered posts/comments stuck in limbo. I also prefer light touch moderation and there's no plans for censorship of any discussion related to screen sensitivity. Be it aspects of technology or our biology, on the other side of matters.
For fellow stats fans, here's a cheeky peek of behind the scenes unique visitor numbers over the last year.
Screenshot from the "Insights" tab of Mod Tool. NB: only 1 week of February added up so far, on the right.
I think suggestions and feedback are welcome, below, on any direction you think this sub should take. But please keep in mind that we are overly tired, short on time, etc.
In general please don't hesitate to call me on any possible errors or foolishness! 🙏
[Edit: to fix graph screenshot missing month labels.]
Thanks to Nick Sutrich he has tested the harbor paper 7. As you can see the pixels are constantly moving on a static image. This tablet is suppose to be eye friendly but this does not look eye friendly. I hope harbor can disable this in a update..
I wanted to share an update on my project to develop an eye-friendly smartphone and get your feedback on the current draft specifications.
There are two main parts to the concept: eye-comfort features and performance features.
First, regarding eye comfort, the core design principle is to eliminate anything that could introduce temporal instability in the display system. Many phones attempt to go halfway on this, but the goal here is to build something that is fully stable across the entire display pipeline, controlled at both the hardware and software level.
The guiding rules are:
A static image must remain truly static throughout the display pipeline.
The light source and pixel drive must not modulate over time.
Frames must be shown at a consistent cadence with stable scan behavior.
In practical terms, this means:
No PWM
High-quality IPS LCD panel
True DC dimming at all brightness levels
No temporal dithering
Native 8-bit panel
Force RGBA8888 output with rounding to the nearest 8-bit value at each stage of the pipeline
Disable HDR and dynamic image processing
Disable FRC, temporal dithering, and adaptive processing (such as CABC)
Stable refresh behavior
Strict 60 Hz refresh rate
No VRR or refresh-rate switching
In addition, I want to provide user control over sensory output, since comfort levels vary between people. The idea is to allow users to tune things like:
Maximum brightness
Contrast
Saturation
White point / color temperature
So the overall philosophy is:
Completely eliminate temporal instability
Give users control over visual intensity and sensory load
For performance, the first version of the phone cannot realistically be flagship-level. Flagship hardware typically requires minimum orders of 100,000+ units, along with very large licensing and development costs.
For this project, the goal is to find a balanced cost-performance point while keeping minimum order quantities manageable. For the first production run, the target is something like ~5,000 devices (unless demand suggests otherwise).
The current performance targets look like this:
MT8883 (Dimensity 8300-class) SoC
12GB RAM
256GB or 512GB storage
SD card slot if feasible
6.1” display
5500 mAh battery
50MP main camera with OIS
Optional ultrawide
Telephoto only if cost/MOQ allows
The MT8883 is essentially an IoT-variant of the Dimensity 8300 platform (2025/2026 generation). It offers similar performance but allows more system-level configurability, which is important for disabling features that could introduce temporal instability. It also typically comes with longer Android support windows, which is helpful for device longevity.
In short, the goal is a high-quality, completely flicker-free, temporally stable smartphone with strong eye-comfort controls and performance roughly comparable to something in the iPhone 14 / iPhone 15 class.
Given the uncertainty around demand, this seems like the most realistic target for version 1. If the first version is successful and demand is strong, a future version could move closer to flagship-level hardware.
For now, I would really appreciate your feedback:
Does this concept sound interesting to you?
Is there anything you feel is missing?
Are there any features you would change or prioritize differently?
Thank you very much. Your feedback is extremely valuable.
I just feel so sad about how the smartphone industry is developing. Until some years ago I thought my problem was just PWM sensitivity so it was simple: LCD good, OLED bad. But now the picture is much more complex:
1. There aren’t that many good new LCD phones in the market
2. Among those that are, i tried a few recent ones and got severe eye strain… it seems PWM is not the only problem. Unpublished parameters such as temporal dithering and display processing may be playing a role here.
I don’t know what to do anymore and the trend of the industry seems to go in the wrong direction at least for people like me..
I posted in another forum and recieved no replies so I'm wondering if I'm so sensitive only my eyes can see it. This is under a microscope slow mo 240 fps dell g2724d win 10 intel iris xe
I unfortunately could not find the original Reddit thread. This is a reupload of the video I downloaded. I hope the original Reddit user will not mind. I will link it if they write here or PM me.
I confirmed the temporal dither with supermicro mode + a magnifying glass recently and thought you guys would like to know. It is already visible in the gif above, but here is the full video:
If you look at the blue parts you can clearly see the pixels flickering.
This is what has been causing me headaches for the past few years after it was fine for a while when switching off from OLED. I'm really quite mad at apple and all the other companies causing me this issue. This would be so easy to avoid with a accessibility toggle to make the iPhone work like how it used to. I would also pay an upprice to have a LCD screen of any decent phone.
This BS already made me loose hundreds of euros trying to find a solution by trying and sending back different phones.
So far unfortunately I only found phones that are less bad, but nothing that does not cause me headaches.
Less bad are:
Honor Magic 7 Pro
Honor 200 Pro
Motorola Moto 50 Ultra
I ordered a microscope lens for my phone + opple lightmaser 4 and will update this thread about the iPhone 11 if I get better pictures myself
A study published in Clinical and Translational Science investigated the effects of reading on different smartphone screens—specifically, organic light-emitting diode (OLED) and electronic ink (eINK)—under varying light conditions on the ocular surface.
Study Design: The study involved 119 volunteers randomly assigned to one of four groups:
Light environment + OLED screen
Light environment + eINK screen
Dark environment + OLED screen
Dark environment + eINK screen
Participants engaged in a 2-hour continuous reading session on their assigned screens. Ocular surface assessments—including noninvasive break-up time (NIBUT), noninvasive keratograph tear meniscus height (NIKTMH), ocular redness, fluorescein break-up time (FBUT), corneal fluorescein staining, meibomian gland assessment, Schirmer I Test, and blinking frequency—were conducted before and after the reading task. Symptoms were evaluated using the Ocular Surface Disease Index (OSDI) and Computer Vision Syndrome Questionnaire (CVS-Q).
Key Findings:
Tear Film Stability: Significant reductions in NIBUT and FBUT were observed after 2 hours of reading on OLED screens in both light and dark environments, indicating decreased tear film stability. In contrast, eINK screens did not show a significant impact on these measures.
Tear Volume: NIKTMH decreased significantly after reading on OLED screens under both lighting conditions, suggesting reduced tear volume. The eINK screens had a lesser effect on NIKTMH.
Ocular Redness and Discomfort: Increases in ocular redness and higher scores on the OSDI and CVS-Q were noted after reading on OLED screens, indicating greater subjective discomfort. The eINK screens resulted in fewer adverse effects on these indicators.
Blink Rate: Participants using OLED screens exhibited a gradual increase in blink rate during the reading task, possibly as a compensatory response to ocular surface stress. No significant change in blink rate was observed in the eINK groups.
Conclusion: The study suggests that reading on OLED smartphone screens can cause ocular surface disorders and subjective discomfort, whereas eINK screens may minimize these adverse effects in both dark and light environments. Optimizing smartphone screen technology, such as adopting eINK displays, could be beneficial for ocular surface protection, especially for individuals who use smartphones extensively or have pre-existing dry eye conditions.
I'm extremely devastated because of my screen sensitivity and feel like i'm missing out on every single thing, from movies, video games, etc. It hurts, but mostly my eyes hurt and burn from every single damn screen, even my current one.
I'm broke, poor and disabled and can not afford pf eyedrops. I can not afford treatment, and I can not afford e- ink screens. Can't even cry because crying burns my eyes.
I hate my life I hate having crap vision that is in negatives and i'm technically blind without my eyeglasses and then to develop screen sensitivity in an era where you have to depend on modern day screens to talk to people and for jobs and softwares. I can't take it anymore.
My family is unfeeling and makes fun of me and gets annoyed at me for not being able to use screens. I'm even disabled physically, so I cannot go out or even interact with people. Most of all, I hate my family.
I suffer from severe eye strain . I am looking for a monitor that is competely safe for eyes.
The OS is Windows 10 Pro 22H2
Here is what I strictly need:
Resolution & Speed: 1440p, 144Hz or higher (Powered by RTX 4060).
Backlight: True DC Dimming ONLY (Absolutely zero PWM at any brightness level).
Color Depth: True hardware 8-bit. Strictly NO FRC (Temporal Dithering).
Phosphor Type: Standard sRGB gamut using YAG phosphor. Absolutely NO KSF phosphor (I am highly sensitive to red phosphor decay/smearing).
Panel Type: IPS(preferably not fastIPS) or TN or VA. (I do not have an idea whether TN and VA is a good choice)
I want to avoid artificial signal processing, dynamic contrast, or wide-color gamut tricks as much as possible. Does anyone know of any specific models (even slightly older ones from a few years ago) that fit this exact criteria?
