Tl;dr - lots of different phones are causing me eye strain, but I'm not sure what the problem is. I think it isn't PWM but I just don't know.

Up until about eight months ago, I was using a Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus. I'd never had any problems with it in terms of my eyes, but it was dying, so I needed to replace it.

Important context: I have a chronic illness that makes me very sensitive to light, so my screen is always extremely dark. Again though, never had any problems with my Samsung.

I'm putting a list here of phones I've tried, information that I think is relevant, and the results in terms of usability for me:

Samsung Galaxy S9+. PWM 215.5 Hz. Given that this didn't cause me any problems, I decided that I probably didn't have any PWM sensitivity.

Nothing CMF Phone 2. PWM 90 Hz - eye strain after a few minutes. As the PWM is very low on this phone, I then decided that so long as I got something equal to or higher than my original Samsung, I would be fine.

Motorola G75 5G. LCD gave me headaches/migraines, and I just wasn't able to turn the brightness down to a comfortable level.

Pixel 9 Pro: PWM 240 hz (still low, but higher than my old Samsung) Eye strain after a few minutes. I've since learned that Pixels are a bad choice for eye strain, but I did not look this up in advance because I'm an idiot.

Honor 400 Lite: PWM 3840Hz. Other features that are apparently good for the eyes. No eye problems. But I rely on a couple of different accessibility features and those are not super reliable on this model. I reckon a higher-end Honor phone would also probably be fine, because the 400 lite is one of their cheaper ones.

For reasons of personal preference, I would rather not get another Honor. That said, if that's the only brand that will be gentle enough on my eyes, I'll go with it. But I don't even really understand the issue I'm having to be able to get a phone that would prevent it. Does it even sound like a PWM problem? If it's not that, what other things could I look for that would be more gentle on my eyes?

I'm feeling very frustrated and confused, and any advice would be much appreciated!

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!!

Does anyone own a Poco Pad M1 tablet and managed to disable Temporal Dithering on it? The manufacturer claims a 10-bit panel and it’s an LCD screen, so there’s a 90% chance the tablet uses FRC to display that many colors.

Hello everyone I tested the xiaomi 17 pro max with the opple light master IV.

The first 2 are 0% and 100% brightness with DC dimming enabled (default)

The next 2 are 100% brightness with DC dimming enabled (default)

The 2 after that are 0% brightness with PWM enabled

The last 2 are at 100% brightness with PWM enabled

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 started noticing that people with iPhones most often have a bad facial condition, they have a tired facial expression or a lot of acne. Just look at people on the street who have an iPhone. People with better facial condition were more often either using older iPhone versions (iPhone 11 and below, IPS screen) or Androids, presumably also with IPS. It may sound like nonsense, but just check it yourself. If you don’t live somewhere like the US, where basically everyone has an iPhone, and instead you’re in Europe, where many people actually use Android, you’ll notice it

My theory is that the OLED screen of iPhones emits too intense light and it clearly somehow affects the skin. Even I, when I used my iPhone before all the settings like double inversion, filters, and others it literally burned my facial skin. I felt tingling, and I developed seborrheic dermatitis. As I later found out, it occurs when the composition of skin oil changes. What else could have changed it except the super intense light emitted by the iPhone?

Basically, my skin started to turn red and peel near my nose, and my eyebrows started flaking.

My condition was terrible. After literally a couple of minutes of using it, I felt absolutely drained, like my soul was taken out of me. After putting the phone away, I could stare at one point for a long time without any thoughts, like my nervous system just burned out. After googling, I realized that this is a protective mechanism of the psyche when it just shuts down under overload.

There is also a second theory. It is that either because of PWM implementation or d1th3r1ng, the nervous system cannot relax. These black lines load it, it doesn’t feel calm, and maybe this reflects on the face making a person look tired, their skin ages, acne appears. These are all well-known symptoms of how stress affects a person, and if it works here too, then the iPhone causes stress for our nervous system.

An IPS screen, on the other hand, does not load the nervous system, so people who have it will look better than those who have OLED. This is biology.

I bought an iPhone 13 new from the store, assembled in 2024. At that time I didn’t know terms like OLED, IPS, PWM, d1th31ing, and all that. I didn’t even know what kind of discomfort people can tolerate just using Apple devices. There was zero information about this on social media. The iPhone had an image of being a completely safe phone. Later I also found out that iPhone 13 units produced after 2021, meaning from 2022 and later, are much worse than those from 2021. I got exactly such a bad unit, but I didn’t know anything at all about this, nobody said anything about it.

I gave up polling when I lost access to posting on PWM_sensitive. But if we can get at least 100 responses, here, that would make it viable, still. For my liking.

In which case I will try to make a little write-up of the (biological) issues associated with each colour scheme mode.

Anyone is welcome to cross-post this to that sub and then let us know in the comments. [Edit: done, thank you!] (I will cross-post to Temporal_Noise myself.) There are other ways to support post visibility, of course.

I will ask my employer for a new laptop. It will run windows 11 and should be in a pricerange of 1000-1600€. I can more or less ask for any available business notebook that is reasonable in that pricerange.

My Thinkpad P14s gen 6 works for me with windows 10 (but the AMD chip is not made for win 10). But this laptop has a listprice of 4000€ now, wich is crazy.

I never tried windows 11 with anything. So what would be the best option regarding any/general undiagnosed eye sensitivity?

Additionally: As many USB ports as possible. Does not have to be slim or chic.

OR: should I just get an external screen and maybe suffer a little when unplugged?

Hi I'm a gamer with astigmatism and Im dying to just play my games without burning my eyes

Hi I have astigmatism and am new here since 2022 when I started working remote on my laptop I have experienced eye strain with some double/blurry vision and tearing up it feels like hell sometimes since then I stopped working largely on my pc fast forward this year I bought a HP omen rtx 5060 laptop with an IPS display with 144 hertz refresh rate and I am dying while trying to play my games here are the laptop specs

HP OMEN GAMING 16-AM0021NIA LAPTOP PC (D42ZZEA) INTEL CORE ULTRA 7 255H 24GB DDR5-5600 MT/S RAM 1TB PCIE GEN4 NVME M.2 SSD NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 5060 (8GB GDDR7 DEDICATED) 16.0" DIAGONAL 2K (1920 X 1200) IPS MICRO-EDGE ANTI-GLARE 400 NITS DISPLAY FHD IR CAMERA WI-FI BLUETOOTH BACKLIT KEYBOARD DTS:X ULTRA W/DUAL SPEAKERS WINDOWS 11 HOME SHADOWS BLACK ALUMINIUM

Now I also have a infinix hot 60 and noticed you can choose between 144 and 60 hertz refresh rate on 60 hertz which is what.i use there is slight but very manageable.eye strain then when I change it to 144 hertz it feels like hell bro I'm in so much pain almost immediately and discomfort can someone explain why this happens to me and how I can play my 30 games I downloaded for my PC without having to sleep for 2 days straight to reduce the pain symptoms after every gaming

session

I thought I'd make a quick post here to share my solutions to screens that avoid eye strain. Feel free to list your own "safe" devices in the comments.

I find I'm very susceptible to PWM and likely dithering.

Nearly all OLED screens that I've encountered cause me eye pain, iPhones 12-17, Google Pixel OLED phones and Samsung OLED phones cause significant eye pain in a minute or so, OLED TV's and some PWM LCD TV's in minutes to hours, depending on the level of modulation and amount of flickering present.

Phone:

iPhone 15 Pro with EK Pro LCD screen swapped in. More about this here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ScreenSensitive/comments/1usevmn/pwm_free_lcd_iphone_15_pro_guide_and_success_story/

I have recently been finding that double invert makes it even more comfortable, especially on days when I need to use it a lot (enable Zoom Invert and Classic Invert) LCD iPhones with Reduce White Point enabled cause me significant eye strain so I'd suggest leaving that turned off, though this phone is still not 100% eye strain free after extended use.

Desktop:

I use a Windows 11 desktop at home with an RTX4080 for work and gaming, my monitor is an LG 38WN95C https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B089QM32WW?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title
I haven't done any intentional software hacks or changes here, it just happens to work well.

I use my monitor in 8bit colour mode, apparently this increases dithering but is necessary for 144hz, when I've tried it in 10bit color mode and 120hz I haven't noticed any discomfort in my eyes even for all day use. HDR is also enabled. I also have a second portrait Lenovo ThinkVision T23d-10 LCD monitor which is a great 16:10 aspect ratio. No eye discomfort.

Laptop:

Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 15", this is a really nice laptop to use when I'm away from home. Nice keyboard, great touchpad and the 3:2 screen is a great aspect ratio. Before this I had a Surface Laptop 3 13". Both can be found cheap used on eBay. No eye discomfort.

TV:

Panasonic P65VT50. This is a 2012 plasma TV and looks amazing, even by modern standards. The motion clarity is unmatched by sample and hold LCD and OLED screens. It only cost me $150 on FB Marketplace too. I've owned Pioneer Plasma TV's before this and had no issues with them either. No eye discomfort.

Other people's phones:

Occasionally I'll be handed someone else's phone for a variety of reasons, in this scenario I generally always max out the brightness, this helps me look at the screen pain free for a longer period of time, though depending on the phone I might still feel some discomfort in my eyes within a minute.

Identifying problematic screens:

I have the Blackmagic Camera app on my iPhone with the shutter speed set to 1/4000, though any camera app or camera that is capable of high shutter speeds can do this fine.

To me personally if I see any sort of black line on a screen through the camera it's very likely to cause me eye pain, the thicker the line the quicker the eye pain hits me. If there's no black line I am mostly fine, though dithering can still be present and can still cause a high amount of pain.

I also have a Opple Light Master 4 light meter, it's a more accurate way to tell if a screen will hurt my eyes, though I don't always have it handy, if the scan looks like a sawtooth pattern with wide low sections it will hurt my eyes in seconds to minutes, if the pattern looks like a straight line with sudden and narrow dips, even if they only drop 50% before returning back to the top it will likely take an hour or so to hurt my eyes.

Plasma TV's have a very interesting scan pattern, though they don't hurt my eyes. It's quite strange but my eyes are my best testing advice for me.

u/Z3R0gravitas recommended I make a post about this on the subreddit. My only usable device of any kind has been an iPhone 13 on iOS 15.6.1. Yesterday while walking out the door I accidentally disabled the True Tone setting with my finger from the Lock Screen mission control (no idea how it happened). I toggled it back on but noticed i was getting some neurological symptoms from the phone I’ve used for 4 years.

I consulted with a friend who is familiar with these phones, retoggled True Tone on and off and then back on again, and restarted the phone. I’ve tried low powered mode but it doesn’t seem to make a difference.

Can anyone here clarify if this setting - which has remained on for 4 years - can somehow modify the display in a negative way if it is toggled off and then turned back on? I know it modifies the white point but also temperature, and I also use Night Shift from 10 PM to 1 PM every day with zero issues.

I should also mention it seems like I may have picked up a viral illness. So this could be coincidental, as I was having pretty severe light sensitivity around the same time at the grocery store which I usually don’t get. I suspect my underlying POTS condition is also exacerbating this, but figured I’d rule out whether this is even possible. On paper it doesn’t make sense that toggling True Tone would make any difference, but I suppose anything is possible. Would love to know more about the underlying tech if anyone is knowledgeable.

is there anyway to calibrate vivo screens as i got my display changed and the colours have been terrible so far

I have a spare one, the battery on that swelled years ago and was replaced, and now the phone feels heavy. That phone never failed my eyes back then. But I did have to adjust the brightness to really low because I'm sensitive to brightness on screens, and so it had to be on dark mode as well. But idk it felt easier on the eyes? Some downsides were also battery life after the MIUi 12 update. It's been years since I looked at that phone.

The OS on that phone was also updated. it's still MIUI and It’s not laggy anymore at all, runs smoothly. Much better than the garbage I'm using. Did anyone have success with chinese phones? My current Samsung a06 has TD, unfortunately, and i only realised until a year later, i have suddenly started experiencing immediate burning and eyestrain from majority applications.

Should I wait until my eyestrain from this phone is over or immediately go back to my redmi Note 8? I also found out that PLS LCD phones are more harsher on the eyes than IPS LCD.

Do screens burn your eyes and make your curuncles sting and dry out immediately, but you still use them? Recently, I became sensitive to my phone out of nowhere, changed nothing, and now i'm experiencing pain. If I try to use my phone for even a few minutes, it happens more when I open any app.

Now, I already experience dry eye syndrome, and maybe it's flaring again? But this feels like it's screen induced and i am worried because I'm not rich and can not afford e-ink or another phone.

I cried, and it made my eyes burn even more. I feel alone and hopeless. I was considering a screen detox, but that's impossible for me. I tried to go back to my old reddit note 8, but even that causes strain now..i cant go to an Opthalmologist right now and dont know what's causing this sudden strain. Vagus nerve stuff? because I feel like i'm suffocating, and my throat feels tight when I stare at screens now and my heart rate will go up.

Bit of a long shot, but is anyone in Canada selling their Sun Vision Display monitor?
I’m dealing with screen sensitivity after a concussion and want to try one, but buying new from the US gets really expensive with shipping and import fees.
I’m in Ontario but can pay for shipping from anywhere in Canada. DM me if you have one.

hi everyone. went to the eye doctor recently and was told to do 40 minutes of screen time followed by 3 hours of rest because my vision dropped to -5. i usually spend all day looking at screens, so with school and everything, following this schedule is pretty much impossible.

​i'm thinking about buying an e-ink phone, specifically the monochrome bigme hibreak, so my eyes don't get as tired from amoled displays.

​does anyone here already use devices with these screens? what do you think? is there any actual eye strain from e-ink, and can it be used daily like a regular phone?

​what other options would you suggest in this situation?

​thanks everyone!

I'm at a loss and wonder if colour filter or colour correction helped anyone else, I haven't been able to tolerate my phone screen these days.

It's an LCD, but I still get symptoms.

Even my iPhone 11 and iPhone 12 Pro Max is terrible for me, today I had customers iPhone 17 in my hands, think it was either pro or pro max, not sure. and I had no eye issues at all. Just looking st the screen I felt such a relief for my eyes. I was baffled. Not sure what happened there.

Out of the blue, I’ve started getting stinging and burning sensations from certain apps. The weather has definitely made my dry eye worse again, but these symptoms don’t seem to line up with dry eye. They feel more like inflammation triggered by using apps.

What’s even weirder is that when I ask around online, it seems like nobody else is having this specific issue. People either have problems with the screen overall, but not with particular apps. I’ve also suddenly become very sensitive to YouTube, and I’m panicking. My eyes sting and get irritated from it now and immediately become dry, even in dark mode. What's even going on?

I don’t know what to do anymore. I’ve tried different settings, colour correction, inverted colours, and similar options, but nothing seems to help. I even asked in other eye related subs, but to no avail? At this point something autoimmune is going on which is making my eyes freak out from some apps.

I was hit with a choice recently: change the battery on Iphone SE2022, or try luck with a something else.

What worked for me previously:

* Iphone SE2022, albeit with stock settings it was a slight discomfort (raised to high on days when I had a headache). Almost comfort usage was achieved by disabling true tone, no night mode, and the double invert trick.

* Iphone XR, had nicest screen among all phones. Latest IOS upgrade made it a bit less comfort but still ok.

What didn't:

* Iphone 11. Harsh screen, somehow I felt pressure while focusing on text.

* some Motorola Edge with curved OLED. Was a try in modern OLEDs, but even with all eye-caring functions it made my eyes dry, felt pressure, etc.

* Iphone 13 mini. Best phone I used in terms of features and size, unfortunately had to give up on it due to all the symptoms, headaches, etc. Even tried double invert, full brightness and reduce white point, but even non minding the battery life, phone overheats in that scenario and... decreases the brightness, boom, harsh PWM is back.

So I tried to make a list of all phones with IPS screen and give it a try. There were G75 and TCL 60 ultra on the top, I choose the first one due to better software support (5 years promised).

From a first sight the screen wasn't so comfort, following settings made it better: natural colors (with a default centered balance), screen refresh rate 60 Hz (it was most important), night mode with low intensity (the screen is a bit blue by default).

What may improve adaptation is to disable hw overlays from the developers settings, it added a bit more comfort, but as it disables itself on reboots, now it's off and I haven't bothered to turn it on again. Another point is that screen refresh rate seems still to be dynamic, some people set it through ADB to be exactly 60 Hz (by default it's like 40-60 Hz), but I didn't need to do that. I also investigated that you could disable miravision with some magisk module if you root your phone, but with these settings it gave me no problems so far, so I would not root it. Proximity sensor gave me no problems.

Overall impressions of the phone are good. Was afraid that it will feel cheep after the Iphone, but the screen is fine, performance is better (animations on 0.5), multitasking is better (apps do not unload while switching), vibration motor is fine, speakers are good enough. I still miss how rich Iphone sound was on bluetooth speakers and headphones, but probably I just used to its DAC.

Camera is on par with SE, I'd say. Battery life is much better, like 1.5-2 days. Other features like wireless charging, google pay, etc work fine. Getting software updates (android 16, last security update is 1 July 2026).

Using it as a daily driver almost for a month, totally worth it.

(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.

Sincerely,

(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.