TDDM
macrumors 6502
Out of curiosity, I checked the phones he mentioned. They use the same frequency as the X, really weird.
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Other Eye-strain while using iPhone X and up
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Hi GrumpyMom,
I bought a Pixel 2 in February of this year (from IPhone 7) and wasn’t aware of this issue with OLED eye strain. A couple different times I experienced an issue where whatever I looked at looked like it was shaking. Is that similar to what you experinced? Each time it lasted for several seconds and then went away. I sold my Pixel 2 last week and went back to IPhone (8 Plus). Did this mainly after finding out more about pwm. Since switching back my eyes definitely don’t feel as strained.
If you’re referring to items on the display looking like they were shaking or slightly vibrating, yes that’s what I am talking about.
There was something else I experienced where I would be looking at just about anything NOT on the display and it’s like my own vision was shaking. The closest comparison I can make is that it’s like trying to look through a heat shimmer on a hot day.
Really dejected. I sold my 8 plus to a friend who desperately needed a phone. Now I have a max that gives me mild discomfort.
user1234
macrumors 6502a
After researching the preciously mentioned LG G7 ThinQ (what were they smoking when they came up with that name?) I’m slightly concerned about the XR having flicker.
Since the XR is supposed to use the same LCD technology as the G7 and the G7 flickers at 1174 Hz (and quite aggressively too) there’s a chance that it will have the same flicker. On the other hand I think Apple would pay attention to this, and hopefully make sure they are flicker free. I don’t see any technological limitation that would prevent making it flicker free. The 4th white subpixel works just like the other subpixels, just without the color filter.
It may simply be that LG doesn’t care enough to put in the effort, whereas Apple certainly do. The G5 and G6 both had flicker in their IPS-LCD displays as well (although interestingly around double the frequency at 2273 Hz and 2410 Hz respectively), while previous iPhones did not. I am thus hopefull that LG’s use of PWM is just a matter of priorities.
I hope I’m not boring all of you with this, I find it interesting how things work on a low level.
Since the XR is supposed to use the same LCD technology as the G7 and the G7 flickers at 1174 Hz (and quite aggressively too) there’s a chance that it will have the same flicker. On the other hand I think Apple would pay attention to this, and hopefully make sure they are flicker free. I don’t see any technological limitation that would prevent making it flicker free. The 4th white subpixel works just like the other subpixels, just without the color filter.
It may simply be that LG doesn’t care enough to put in the effort, whereas Apple certainly do. The G5 and G6 both had flicker in their IPS-LCD displays as well (although interestingly around double the frequency at 2273 Hz and 2410 Hz respectively), while previous iPhones did not. I am thus hopefull that LG’s use of PWM is just a matter of priorities.
I hope I’m not boring all of you with this, I find it interesting how things work on a low level.
The iPhone X(S) models are not flicker free, hence this entire thread, so I am not sure how you you can be confident that Apple will do the right thing and not use PWM for the XR.
As a reminder, the LCD technology that the XR will use is brand new, not used in prior iPhones. Even though I want to believe the Apple rep that TDDM talked to had the correct info, my money would be on the XR using PWM.
TDDM
macrumors 6502
Even if the XR did end up having the same PWM implementation as the G7, this quote from notebookcheck.com makes me very hopeful:
"The display backlight flickers at 1174 Hz (Likely utilizing PWM) Flickering detected at a brightness setting of 42 % and below. There should be no flickering or PWM above this brightness setting. The frequency of 1174 Hz is quite high, so most users sensitive to PWM should not notice any flickering."
First of all, 1174Hz is nearly 5 times as high as the XS. Second, if I'm understanding this correctly, if you use the G7 above 42% brightness, there would be no PWM whatsoever.
Anyway, worst case scenario seems to be 1174 Hz + no PWM above 42% brightness (Unless they somehow make things worse than the G7), I'm hopeful it'll be PWM-free though.
"The display backlight flickers at 1174 Hz (Likely utilizing PWM) Flickering detected at a brightness setting of 42 % and below. There should be no flickering or PWM above this brightness setting. The frequency of 1174 Hz is quite high, so most users sensitive to PWM should not notice any flickering."
First of all, 1174Hz is nearly 5 times as high as the XS. Second, if I'm understanding this correctly, if you use the G7 above 42% brightness, there would be no PWM whatsoever.
Not boring at all, it's good for us to learn as much as possible about PWM and the potential solutions. Thanks for sharing what you're learning about this stuff.
I definitely see where you're coming from, but I'd be really surprised if the person I talked to was wrong. They gave me a clear answer when I asked, no hesitation or anything. Of course it's still possible that the XR has PWM, but like I said, I'd be really surprised.
Anyway, worst case scenario seems to be 1174 Hz + no PWM above 42% brightness (Unless they somehow make things worse than the G7), I'm hopeful it'll be PWM-free though.
Exactly the same here. I thought I had eye issues all year until I discovered this thread. Checked out an 8+ in store today and I was fine. Got home and ordered an 8+ straight away. Goodbye iPhone X unfortunately
Just curious, what kind of rep did you talk to who told you this? Do you know their title at Apple?
Personally, I would be highly suspect of the phone even if it is said to only use PWM below a certain brightness level. Usually that means PWM is still being used at higher brightnesses, it's just that their equipment can't measure it or it is a very high frequency. If we get the 1174 Hz PWM display, I think I'll go with the iPhone 8 Plus and hope for 100% PWM-free phones in 2019.
TDDM
macrumors 6502
I don't know her title. I called the generic Apple support line last year, explained my issue to the rep, and was then forwarded somewhere up the ladder to her. I know she's decently high up, since she mentioned she'd be in a meeting with the engineers and would bring up the PWM issue (That was back in early 2018).
Like I said, I called last week, and she said that the XS screen (PWM-wise) was unchanged, and the XR would not have PWM. I've talked to her several times at this point, and I have no reason to doubt what she's saying. I kinda think that she would've said something less committal if she wasn't 100% sure, but she flat out said no to the XR having PWM.
I'm assuming it's alright to share all of this, since I was never told to keep what she said to myself or anything, and none of what she told me is supposed to be a secret or anything.
So is this harmful for our vision, or just a minor headache in use? I can try to get over it, but it’s not worth it if it’ll do lasting damage to my vision.
My wife has struggled with migraines here whole life, yet her x doesn’t bug her. I never ever get headaches, but my max bothers me. Apple must do something odd, because I was a power user on multiple galaxy s phones and a one plus 3 and never noticed this.
My wife has struggled with migraines here whole life, yet her x doesn’t bug her. I never ever get headaches, but my max bothers me. Apple must do something odd, because I was a power user on multiple galaxy s phones and a one plus 3 and never noticed this.
Yes I was referring to shaky vision while not looking at the display. Like I said it happened twice but kinda scary (can’t imaging
This seems to have helped a lot! My phone was at around 25% brightness and I had strain. At 50% it isn’t nearly as bad!
Have you tried using your wife’s X? I don’t mean to make a pest of myself but so far I’ve seen two iPhone OLED screens that hurt my eyes and now have one that doesn’t seem to be causing me any problems so far. I have regular migraines, optical migraines and seizure migraines that mess up my speech (look up footage of newscasters who suddenly start babbling in gibberish—that’s what happens to me). I’ve been on my Max all day watching a movie, reading this forum, reading emails, making videos, taking pictures, making a Memoji, etc.
It could be your wife got lucky in the display lottery like I did and got one that doesn’t trigger her.
I’m a little worried that my husband might start having problems with his display. But so far he says he’s fine. He also gets optical migraines and regular ones. But he says he’s not had any problems with these OLED displays.
It’s tricky because this isn’t just an eye problem. It’s a nervous system issue.
I’ll look at hers. The link I quoted above showed me how to get rid of it. I moved the brightness from 25 to 50%. It helps, but I still have a very minor headache and a sinus feeling on the top of my nose between my eyes. Crazy to me that no Samsung galaxy ever did this to me.
Ouch. Yeah that was what my X did to me. If you moved the brightness to combat glare you may want to tinker with the white point under the accessibility settings if you haven’t already.
Oh on second thought maybe not...I just turned white point down on mine and immediately my eyes didn’t take to that. Hmm. I’ll just leave my settings as they were. Yikes.
More precisely what it’s doing is making the text look really blurry like it’s beinf smeared a bit. 😕
Just wanted to say thanks to everyone who has shared their experiences, knowledge, and any other type of contribution to this thread. I guarantee this thread has helped many people. I know it’s helped me quite a bit.
So will using this phone lead to long term issues do you guys think? Wish I knew. Can you get used to it like new glasses?
Check out this long thread on Reddit.
https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comm...odulation_which_is_a/?st=JMFN7G09&sh=8a92ddef
I just spent the last hour reading up on this, thanks to the notebook check.net link that was posted above. All of my previous phones have about the same point where pwm occurs, but the graph is a lot flatter on them. Samsung phones especially. At this point I’m 99% sure it’s not so much pwm, but the way it’s implemented on the iPhone X series. Check the link above for anyone who has used multiple OLED android phones. Really bummed out. I’ve been very tired since I got the phone, so I’m going to get a full night of sleep tonight. If it turns out I get a headache tomorrow, I’ll return my max and then who knows. I sold my 8+ and don’t know if I want to buy another. I might use my v20 and see if the XR has pwm. If it does, I’ll sell my Apple Watch and buy an lg v30. The v30 is one of the only known OLED phones where pwm is nearly non existent. My wife swears this is all in my head, but I really don’t think so. I wasn’t using my max for hours and just typing this short reply is bothering me.
Fact is people who uses galaxys and notes dont have this problem myself including.
The thing that really confuses me is that Apple knows this and yet does it again with the xs series
Cause its not just a few people it are quite a lot of people who are affected by it
The thing that really confuses me is that Apple knows this and yet does it again with the xs series
Cause its not just a few people it are quite a lot of people who are affected by it
AdamA9
macrumors 65816
Thanks. I've just switched this on. I'm hoping it is a huge coincidence that on Saturday the front of my head and around my eyes were pounding. A headache I've never experienced before.
I've been fine since, so chalking it up to a one off, and nothing to do with the phone, but will keep an eye on this, literally...
i actually dont mind having this feature turned on. its definitely easier on the eyes whether it was straining my eyes or not. default was just too white.
user1234
macrumors 6502a
I just read through a document from the IEEE named ”IEEE Recommended Practices for Modulating Current in High-Brightness LEDs for Mitigating Health Risks to Viewers”.
It has some interesting data from studies on flicker, both visible and invisible. It’s not specifically about the frequencies used in OLED displays, but they do have recommendations for the frequency ranges found in the displays of phones and other electronic devices. I’ll leave the link here for anyone that’s interested to learn more.
The link will take you to page 28 (PDF page 40) where you will find a risk assesment chart (figure 17). The following page has a graphical chart of recommended modulation percentages for different frequencies (figure 18). The whole thing was a good read though.
http://www.bio-licht.org/02_resources/info_ieee_2015_standards-1789.pdf#page40
The TLDR version:
At 240 Hz (used in the iPhone X/Xs) the acceptable safe modulation depth (flicker percentage) is about 8%. If the iPhone XR uses the same PWM as the LG G7 ThinQ (which I hope it doesn’t) somewhere around 80-90% flicker would be acceptable.
But this is based on data from studies with a limited selection of participants (obviosly they couldn’t study 100% of the population), and there are likely to be people for whom these values would not be acceptable from a health perspective.
Here’s another interesting document that’s a bit easier to digest: https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2015/05/f22/miller+lehman_flicker_lightfair2015.pdf
Both documents contain charts and data on flicker percentage for some common light sources. It’s especially interesting to look at page 10 of the second document, then move to page 11... Incandescent light bulbs are measured below 7%, halogen below 5% percent flicker. I haven’t found flicker percent data for the iPhone X anywhere, but it’s signifcantly higher depending on the brightness.
It has some interesting data from studies on flicker, both visible and invisible. It’s not specifically about the frequencies used in OLED displays, but they do have recommendations for the frequency ranges found in the displays of phones and other electronic devices. I’ll leave the link here for anyone that’s interested to learn more.
The link will take you to page 28 (PDF page 40) where you will find a risk assesment chart (figure 17). The following page has a graphical chart of recommended modulation percentages for different frequencies (figure 18). The whole thing was a good read though.
http://www.bio-licht.org/02_resources/info_ieee_2015_standards-1789.pdf#page40
The TLDR version:
At 240 Hz (used in the iPhone X/Xs) the acceptable safe modulation depth (flicker percentage) is about 8%. If the iPhone XR uses the same PWM as the LG G7 ThinQ (which I hope it doesn’t) somewhere around 80-90% flicker would be acceptable.
But this is based on data from studies with a limited selection of participants (obviosly they couldn’t study 100% of the population), and there are likely to be people for whom these values would not be acceptable from a health perspective.
Here’s another interesting document that’s a bit easier to digest: https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2015/05/f22/miller+lehman_flicker_lightfair2015.pdf
Both documents contain charts and data on flicker percentage for some common light sources. It’s especially interesting to look at page 10 of the second document, then move to page 11... Incandescent light bulbs are measured below 7%, halogen below 5% percent flicker. I haven’t found flicker percent data for the iPhone X anywhere, but it’s signifcantly higher depending on the brightness.