Other Eye-strain while using iPhone X and up

[MICHAELSD]

40% brightness - RWP 25% - not bad.

Text can be exhausting to read, but otherwise the display looks quite amazing.

 

[john g.]

40% brightness - RWP 25% - not bad.

Text can be exhausting to read, but otherwise the display looks quite amazing.

Are you trying a new phone?

 

[MICHAELSD]

Are you trying a new phone?

Still on iPhone 14 Pro Max.

I figure as long as I have it I’ll continue testing different settings. I left RWP at 25% and turned Auto-Brightness back on. Apparently RWP in itself can change the PWM and amplitudes, so I’ll see if this has a noticeable effect.

It’s surprisingly usable at higher brightness levels, not without any headaches but without the constant throbbing I’m used to which is an improvement, but too bright even with RWP at 90%. Maybe the frequency does double to 480Hz between 40%-100%. The PWM lines are quite visible at 100%-200% on videos though.

 

[john g.]

Still on iPhone 14 Pro Max.

I figure as long as I have it I’ll continue testing different settings. I left RWP at 25% and turned Auto-Brightness back on. Apparently RWP in itself can change the PWM and amplitudes, so I’ll see if this has a noticeable effect.

It’s surprisingly usable at higher brightness levels, not without any headaches but without the constant throbbing I’m used to which is an improvement, but too bright even with RWP at 90%. Maybe the frequency does double to 480Hz between 40%-100%. The PWM lines are quite visible at 100%-200% on videos though.

Is your return window closing soon?

I have RWP at 25%as well, but I haven't messed with auto brightness. I guess that's one more thing to mess with. I'm in about 50% brightness these days indoors

 

[happy orchard]

Waveform Lighting sells bulbs that aren't stupid expensive that I can confirm are flicker free. Be careful tho, not all of them can be dimmed. They also sell everything you could want to go wild with LED strips, but that starts getting spendy. I can confirm their flicker free dimmer does work if you do already have some strips installed with a cheap dimmer.

I have a few of my lamps on Philips Hue smart plugs simply because those work flawlessly with HomeKit thanks to the Hue Hub. The Hue bulbs flicker (newer ones at a higher frequency so harder to pick up on video), so I just use the hub for the smart plugs now. I also have a few Lutron Caseta smart dimmer switches, and those also use a hub that works perfectly with HomeKit. They sell a wireless smart lighting dimmer plug that works with the Caseta hub specifically for controlling and dimming lamps. It's a lot of workarounds to avoid "smart bulbs" but hey, this solution allows me to use whatever bulbs I want and still control them with HomeKit. The LED strips were the last to be changed out to flicker free and I'm happy to have that done now as well!

Wow that sounds like you've done a lot.

I tried the hub thing, and long story short, doesn't work well with my system. I have Meross, eFamily Cloud, and some Kasa stuff that works well. Not sure I want to check all of their flickers just yet because if I can't change them right away, it might just make me feel worse knowing more.

I'll see if I can check out Waveform, thanks.

 

[happy orchard]

Thank you for that! That gives me hope! Were the 13PM and the 14PM the same for you or was one better than the other? No symptoms at all?

Can't speak much to the 13PM. I was a couple months out from a concussion and didn't want to stress my brain more than it already was. Kept the phone probably less than a week. I just remember thinking this doesn't seem to bother me, that can't be right.

Now that the 14PM has been a similar more positive experience, that gives me a bit of reassurance something is improving.

I don't know if I'd say that I have no symptoms. My/our eyes are dealing with some flickering after not dealing with any on an LCD screen in the 11/8/SE. And OLEDs seem to 'glow' a bit more than LCD. My eyes just don't like that as well, but maybe I'm learning to tolerate it? I don't think I'd ever recommend an OLED screen to anyone, but I would say if you've had issues in the past, feel encouraged to try again because some things do seem to be improving.

Also, I'd say that I would absolutely change this screen to an LCD in a moment if I could figure out how.

 

[happy orchard]

40% brightness - RWP 25% - not bad.

Text can be exhausting to read, but otherwise the display looks quite amazing.

Exhausting how? Like you've been up reading too later and your eyes want to close for sleep? Like someone's been strobing a light in your eyes for too long and you just can't take it anymore?

 

[happy orchard]

40% brightness - RWP 25% - not bad.

I have RWP at 25%as well, but I haven't messed with auto brightness. I guess that's one more thing to mess with. I'm in about 50% brightness these days indoors

I'm kinda amazed that you can have the RWP that low. It's evening here, and I have:
- RWP at 86%
- Brightness maybe 60-70%
- Auto Brightness ON
- Night Shift ON

Have you found an issue with having your RWP higher or is that just the level you seem to like? @MICHAELSD you mention that RWP affects the PWM and amplitude: what kind of data do we have on that? I'd like to do some experiments.

 

[MICHAELSD]

Exhausting how? Like you've been up reading too later and your eyes want to close for sleep? Like someone's been strobing a light in your eyes for too long and you just can't take it anymore?

The latter. Text is too bright, especially white text. It’s definitely not a joy reading on PWM flickering displays regardless. I can barely stand my 14” MacBook Pro anymore, and I don’t know that I can bring myself to sell it.

However, I did just enable RWP full-time and let Auto-Brightness control the brightness. Keeping the display too bright at night is straining, even 40% brightness with 90% RWP.

 

[MICHAELSD]

I'm kinda amazed that you can have the RWP that low. It's evening here, and I have:
- RWP at 86%
- Brightness maybe 60-70%
- Auto Brightness ON
- Night Shift ON

Have you found an issue with having your RWP higher or is that just the level you seem to like? @MICHAELSD you mention that RWP affects the PWM and amplitude: what kind of data do we have on that? I'd like to do some experiments.

Another user mentioned that they found the frequency to change and the amplitudes get deeper as it’s technically dimming the display. I have no concrete data beyond going above 80% RWP drastically increasing the amplitude. A device like a Radex could technically measure this.

I don’t think you necessarily have to keep the brightness that high, but I of course welcome experiments.

 

[mabaker]

Here are 2 videos from Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro, that Pro looks better:
View attachment 2092627
View attachment 2092629

This hurts watching.

 

[happy orchard]

This hurts watching.

Apparently I'm masochistic enough to watch these clips--or maybe I was just curious enough to know if you meant the screens literally hurt you or knowing that Pixels were better screens was psychologically hurting you. For me, it was the former.

 

[MICHAELSD]

Apparently I'm masochistic enough to watch these clips--or maybe I was just curious enough to know if you meant the screens literally hurt you or knowing that Pixels were better screens was psychologically hurting you. For me, it was definitely the former.

This may help.

PWM frequency 0-38%: 240Hz
PWM frequency 39%-100%: 480Hz

Personally I start at 40% for 480Hz, although I’m still convinced this might be inaccurate.

These are amplitudes posted from a video by another user.

 

[MICHAELSD]

Is your return window closing soon?

I have RWP at 25%as well, but I haven't messed with auto brightness. I guess that's one more thing to mess with. I'm in about 50% brightness these days indoors

I have about a week to send it back.

Are you still on iPhone 14 Pro Max?

 

[dimitricook]

How are you Pixel 7pro users doing? Very curious how you feel with using the phone? I am not sure how to feel, its somehow better than the 14pro but not perfect.

I ordered the 14 pro max, what do you guys think?

 

[Heman87]

So I went to the store and tried the new iPhone 14 series out. On the iPhone 14 the flicker is noticeable. The iPhone 14 plus is very bad. The iPhone 14 Pro looks good to me. I watched a movie on the iPhone 14 pro for like 12-14 min long.

I turned down the brightness to like 10%. I didn't feel anything. So i'm going to buy the 14 pro, I hope it will stay like that 🙂

With the iPhone X till the 12 series i get immediately headeche. Also iPhone 13 pro max with 10% brightness i feel eye strain and a headache after 10 min.

 

[john g.]

I have about a week to send it back.

Are you still on iPhone 14 Pro Max?

I have four days left 🙂

I’m on the regular pro, not the max.

I really haven’t been able to find a max to try regardless.

 

[Chrispy]

I used the 14 Plus a lot last night reading, watching some videos and playing a few games. Then I got up this morning and did some more reading and gaming for about 40 mins. I'm really pushing it to see if I trigger anything. So far, so good! No headaches or dizzy feeling yesterday and none when I woke up this morning, so that's promising. My eyes did start to feel tired by the end of the day yesterday, but that's typical by Friday night after a week in front of screens all day. Now that it has passed the initial endurance test, I'm going to use it normally for a few days to see if anything develops over time. I ended up setting RWP to 25% to take some of the OLED bite out of the bright colors. It also makes the brightness setting align more closely with what I'm used to on the XR. Not sure that's helping anything as much as just making it more familiar.

 

[john g.]

So I went to the store and tried the new iPhone 14 series out. On the iPhone 14 the flicker is noticeable. The iPhone 14 plus is very bad. The iPhone 14 Pro looks good to me. I watched a movie on the iPhone 14 pro for like 12-14 min long.

I turned down the brightness to like 10%. I didn't feel anything. So i'm going to buy the 14 pro, I hope it will stay like that 🙂

With the iPhone X till the 12 series i get immediately headeche. Also iPhone 13 pro max with 10% brightness i feel eye strain and a headache after 10 min.

i’m one of the rare people on this forum that found the 14 pro easier on the eyes than the regular 14 as well

 

[john g.]

I used the 14 Plus a lot last night reading, watching some videos and playing a few games. Then I got up this morning and did some more reading and gaming for about 40 mins. I'm really pushing it to see if I trigger anything. So far, so good! No headaches or dizzy feeling yesterday and none when I woke up this morning, so that's promising. My eyes did start to feel tired by the end of the day yesterday, but that's typical by Friday night after a week in front of screens all day. Now that it has passed the initial endurance test, I'm going to use it normally for a few days to see if anything develops over time. I ended up setting RWP to 25% to take some of the OLED bite out of the bright colors. It also makes the brightness setting align more closely with what I'm used to on the XR. Not sure that's helping anything as much as just making it more familiar.

that’s great. Good luck and keep us posted please.

 

[john g.]

Like some of you, I am running RWP at 25%. I really like using the accessibility shortcut of the triple tap on the side button to toggle that on or off. Sometimes when you’re looking at photos or other situations it’s nice to have a very quick way to turn off RWP quickly.

 

[happy orchard]

This may help.

PWM frequency 0-38%: 240Hz
PWM frequency 39%-100%: 480Hz

Personally I start at 40% for 480Hz, although I’m still convinced this might be inaccurate.

These are amplitudes posted from a video by another user.

View attachment 2099540

I get the frequency measured in Hertz, but I’m unclear on the percent: Is that percent brightness? Is that percent RWP? Is that some strange way to measure amplitude?

 

[happy orchard]

i’m one of the rare people on this forum that found the 14 pro easier on the eyes than the regular 14 as well

I’m another. The regular and Plus hurt me in the store. Any issues with the Pro and PM have only been felt after I’ve used it at home. Living life, feeling my chest feel stressed, like a heaviness, almost a vibration. Little tension in the head. Eyes, I don’t exactly know. Inside, these screens just don’t feel nearly as good/neutral as the LCD. Outside, they’re brilliant.

 

[happy orchard]

Like some of you, I am running RWP at 25%. I really like using the accessibility shortcut of the triple tap on the side button to toggle that on or off. Sometimes when you’re looking at photos or other situations it’s nice to have a very quick way to turn off RWP quickly.

I have accessibility shortcut on my control center. It obviously takes an extra step or two to get there, but I know exactly where it is, so there’s a rhythm. But yes, it’s nice to be able to change quickly.

I’ve also set up yhr back tap to work for this. It’s , inconsistent for me, and I often forget to use it, but it’s great when it works. 🙂

 

[MICHAELSD]

I get the frequency measured in Hertz, but I’m unclear on the percent: Is that percent brightness? Is that percent RWP? Is that some strange way to measure amplitude?

Amplitudes on right at corresponding brightness levels.