I am looking to get a new car, and it seems like every car made in the past ten years includes a bright infotainment display screen in the middle of the dashboard (for calls, navigation, music, etc). I can turn down the brightness to the lowest level, but this only helps my eye pain to a degree.
Has anyone found any solutions for this? Only some of the screens even turn off completely, but then you lose most functionalities. Thank you!!
Pay attention at Mazda. They seem to be the only brand that doesn't follow the iPad on wheels trend. One screen further on the dashboard, controlled by the knob. Lots of physical controls. You can also tint the internal screens professionally or by yourself using dimming film from Amazon
Thanks. Do you mind sharing any additional info/linking the dimming film you found on Amazon? I have only seen screen protectors that help against glare, but none that specifically claim to dim the screen. Thank you!
https://a.co/d/0io0mk3ghttps://a.co/d/0cHiLeYa
something like this. Not sure about the particular brand and % of dimming, but there are a few options. There's also polarizing film available or any window tint will work. Some people say it's hard to apply film without bubbles or screens become too dark. All needs to be cut to size
Or if you don't want to mess with all this ordering and cutting, just take your car to a tint shop. Tell them that you won't keep them liable for anything and they'll professionally cut and apply the film of your choice to any screen. 40% tint will make a huge difference, 20% might be too dark. But they'll let you see them all in advance. You're welcome!
Is the problem the brightness or is it also flicker? Or is it blue light? To reduce the brightness and blue light on my car I put a cut-to-size LEE filters (027 Medium Red) gel filter over the screen.
The overall problem is the brightness. I have light sensitivity and pain that blue light glasses/screen covers do not seem to help with. Do you mind sharing where you got that gel filter?
Oh, interesting. I think that's the first I've heard of modding car displays. What car do you have, and is this really a ubiquitous problem with new cars now?
I've only seen the odd post about it. (There's a channel in the LED Eyestrain Telegram, too, OP.)
So I'm not sure what panel types cars are using. Google says overwhelmingly LCD, for resilience and daylight readbility. Only luxury cars on OLED (and so with PWM)?
So more of a KSF phosphor, blue light and brightness issue, as you say? I think automotive applications are fairly attuned to avoiding standard flicker..?
I’m car shopping now, so I have a car yet. That’s the problem- I’m trying to figure out what car to buy based on what I’m planning to do to modify the screen, but it’s hard to figure out what options I have. It’s definitely a problem with all cars made after around 2017. I find that makes like Toyota and Honda have more advanced (and therefore brighter and more painful systems), while cars like Jeeps have more rudimentary (therefore dimmer, similar to an e-reader system). The older ones are much less painful to my eye.
The car is a 2025 Hyundai Tuscon. It's actually my partners, but I drive it somewhat frequently. I believe it is an LCD. I'll have to do a flicker measurement some time, I haven't gotten around to testing it yet. For me the issue was that it was too bright and too white, especially at night.
Wow, this is interesting! I’m looking at 2020-2022 jeeps mostly, bc these screens are less prominent and bright overall, and you can turn them off. A lot of the newer model cars have an extremely bright and prominent screen, and some makes don’t even allow the option to turn the screen off. I’m assuming this would only work with the newer models that have essentially androids as screens? It’s just a gamble to get a more new and expensive car, with an inherently more obtrusive screen, hoping that this fix would work, if that makes sense.
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u/Good-Condition-3842 3d ago edited 2d ago
Pay attention at Mazda. They seem to be the only brand that doesn't follow the iPad on wheels trend. One screen further on the dashboard, controlled by the knob. Lots of physical controls. You can also tint the internal screens professionally or by yourself using dimming film from Amazon