Eye strain from LED backlighting in MacBook Pro

I think the monitor is already out in the market, but only in the US. Up to last week i could not find a store in the UK (or Europe) (in addition i would like the store to have a return policy).

According to AOC tech support the E2476VWM6 is true 8-but 16.7m colors. Good news. No dithering on the monitor side (hopefully, still uncertain if this is even possible with a TN display).

Actually, I don't think it's available yet in the US.

I will certainly be looking for it though..

Actually the AOC E2476VWM6 is available in the U.S. through a couple retailers. Google it. It rhymes with 'Test My'.

Oh, I see it now.

Thank you.

Is there a non-plasma TV that is low on blue-light that anyone here would recommend? I live @9500ft elevation so plasma won't work 😟

Had problems too until I read this article

http://www.allaboutvision.com/cvs/irritated.htm

Blinking more often (for me) was the answer. But I have to think about it. Otherwise I keep staring at the screen, whatever screen it is, and forget to blink. For one of my friends, who is r=wearing contacts, was the same problem. She now carries a small bottle of liquid to avoid this problem. In both our cases, problem solved! Good luck if you are interested to try this as well.

I have used all of these practices described in the article, and they didn't work for me. In my case, I suspect that the excessive blue light produced by LEDs is responsible for the eye strain and headaches. With the cfl displays, i had absolutely no problems no matter if i used or not all these ergonomics or if the display flickered or not.

Taking the opportunity, I wonder if someone has tried the Anti-Blue AOC model.

Hi guys,

I have tried the AOC E2476VWM6 monitor.

Unfortunately.. it did not work for me.

I could look at it for a few minutes longer than a regular LED monitor, but that was it.

My guess is that an LED screen emits so much blue light that even if you reduce it by 90%, it's still too much.

I guess I will have to stick with my old LCD monitor for the foreseeable future.

I've found that the only way I can look at an LED screen is by putting on amber colored anti-blue light glasses.

So, it's either that or a CCFL-backlit LCD monitor for me.

I had high hopes for this anti-blue light technology. But now I see there is no way to make an LED screen harmless..

So, if you're curious you may want to to try out this monitor yourself.

But I wouldn't expect miracles.

Cheers.

Dang, that is unfortunate. I'm really surprised, if PWM wasn't your problem, and blue light was eliminated by 90%, that this monitor was still problematic.

Perhaps there is some other quality of the LED light that is effecting people. I am curious how some other members of this thread would do with the new AOC.

In my case, I'm sure it has to do with the blue light.

I find LED monitors more comfortable to view when I make the colors more red. (by running flux for instance)

Also, if I put on amber colored glasses (which block out blue light), I can view LED monitors comfortably.

But since I don't want to wear those glasses all day long, I'm just going to keep using CCFL-backlit monitors.

I will wear those glasses when I'm using my smartphone though.

I don't know about others, but I for one am very sensitive to blue light, it seems.

So even with the new AOC monitor, people like me may be unable to tolerate it..

Just curious, which amber colored glasses are you using? Gunnars?

Hi,

I just bought these glasses from Amazon.

"Uvex S1933X Skyper Safety Eyewear, Black Frame, SCT-Orange UV Extreme Anti-Fog Lens"

I think these glasses block out all the blue light.

With these on, I can look at LED screens comfortably.

Though they do have a con: everything looks yellow-orange like the planet Mars. lol

I've also tried a pair of amber colored sunglasses, and they seem to work as well.

I haven't posted in sometime, but I will try to provide some of my recent experience. I went to a neuro-ophthalmologist, who found no problems with my eyes or visual system. I can't find the papers at the moment, but I recall there are some papers in the literature that suggested blue light can lead to stimulation of a particular type of cells in the retina that lead to contraction of pupillary muscles. I found that after my eyes were dilated and those muscles were paralyzed by the eye drops used in the exam that for a time my eyes were invulnerable to the eye strain from LEDs. Based on this my current theory is that in my case, a situation similar to an accommodation spasm was occurring.

The next part was hard. I used gunnar yellow lenses and also inexpensive Gamma Ray Flexlite glasses and tried to actively relax my eyes while using screens that bother me. This took three weeks of nearly constant eye pain and headaches, but the glasses helped me through it. The only way I had the idea/fortitude to power through this was that when I updated my iPhone 5 from iOS7 to iOS8 I had a week of new eye strain that then resolved, suggesting that I could adjust to new drivers/displays if I were forced to do so.

The results: I can now use an iPhone 6 and iPad Air 2 with minimal eye strain and my MacBook Air 2014 as well. There seems to be a halo effect, as other screens seem to bother me less as well (I can use the MBR retina, but its not as easy). PWM still remains a challenge and I can't seem to adjust to that.

Now I don't need to use the glasses unless I'm doing a > 4 hour session.

I'm not sure what this all means, but I think that in some cases it is possible to retrain the visual system. Another poster had this experience as well. In general I don't think that LEDs are intrinsically harmful to the eyes. I think some people are just very sensitive to PWM and blue light (as I am). But using biofeedback and blue light blockers may help some.

Good luck everyone.

I believe I have found the root cause of this issue that I have been affected by for over 2 years now. I have read this thread and all 2,156 replies over the past few years, and once I found a lasting solution for my issue, I felt it was my moral obligation to return and reveal what I had discovered.

First of all, one takeaway from this thread was that the discussion eventually broke up into two "camps" of what was causing everybody's discomfort:

1) Pulse-width modulation (PWM) of LED backlights causing subliminal flicker and discomfort to those sensitive to it

2) Excessive blue light of the visible spectrum emitted by LED devices (380 - 450 nm)

The answer in my case was most definitely #2. I will explain how I reached that conclusion, as well as my methods. I will also explain my full story, and you can decide whether my experience matches yours. It's a bit long, so brace yourself! Grab a coffee or something =p

I am so confident that sensitivity to blue-light is what is bothering most people here that I would suggest exploring it first, even if you still believe it is PWM that is causing your issues. It is possible that both PWM and sensitivity to blue light is what ails you. I believe blue light is the more contributory factor for most people, which is why I bolded it above.

My primary symptoms hit suddenly on Saturday, August 25th, 2012 after an extended computer session. I had no previous history of any of these symptoms despite being an excessive computer user my entire life. I wasn't even using any LEDs at this time, but instead I had LCD monitors both at work and at home. My symptoms consisted of the following:

- Aching eyes that felt like they were "pulling"

- Photophobia

- Nausea

- Feeling "mentally drained"

- Headache

- Dry & red eyes

The experience reminded me of a time exactly 3 years ago from today when I had bought a brand new top of the line Samsung Syncmaster S24A850DW 24" PLS LED monitor after building a brand new computer that I am still using now. After turning that monitor on, my eyes ached and I felt nauseous within 5 minutes... actually more like a few seconds. My eyes/brain hated it! It was so discomfortable to use that I landed up throwing my old Samsung LCD monitor back on, and when the issue magically went away, I sold the LED monitor nearly brand new for a firesale price. 8 months later, the symptoms above hit hard on my LCD monitors. I think late 2011 was the early warning signs of trouble brewing. It was as far back as then that I remember hearing about PWM, and the harshness of LED light. I simply found LCDs more comfortable to use.

Over the 2+ years since these symptoms started, I was diagnosed with "convergence insufficiency + accommodative spasm" by my optometrist after a binocular vision assessment. I did a year and a half of binocular vision therapy that consisted of bi-weekly office visits for new eye exercises, and 30 minutes of eye exercises done 5 times a week. The out-of-pocket cost for this was likely around the $3,000 - $4,000 range. Knowing what I know now, this all may have been a "red herring", or a contributory factor, but not the root cause. I eventually found out what ultimately caused symptom relief on my own. Despite this, I still feel the therapy was useful in strengthening my eye muscles and improving eye coordination.

I had several "Eureka!" moments within the last calendar year which eventually made me feel that I had cracked the case. The first major breakthrough was purchasing a "flicker free" LED monitor (BenQ BL2411PT) for testing on Boxing Day 2013. I confirmed it flicker-free at every brightness setting with the pencil test. I even had my workplace purchase this monitor for me, as I was so confident that it would solve all my issues. I work as a server administrator for at least 40 hours a week each week, so a lot of my VDU exposure comes from looking at server logs and code all day long.

To my dismay, this monitor was even worse than the monitor I was using up to that point at work (Dell UltraSharp U2410). Even at 0% brightness, my eyes had a very distinct sharp ache to them, and they almost felt as if they were pulling apart. This was enough proof for me that PWM was not causing my issues at all, and instead, it was the wavelength of light being emitted by the device that was bothering me.

Another breakthrough was visiting an ophthalmologist exactly 1 year ago today. These are some of the most highly-trained medical professionals there is. After hearing my case, he suggested I take a look at something called "Irlen Syndrome" or "Scotopic sensitivity syndrome (SSS)". This is a rather controversial syndrome, but it described at least some of the issues I was experiencing. I went for an "Irlen Screening" around March of 2014, and tested positive for it after about 4 hours of testing. I remain a bit of a healthy skeptic about it, because it's seemingly of one of those "every symptom under the sun" style diseases, and I questioned a few of the testing methods. I even went for an "Irlen Lens Assessment" afterwards, and was unable to come up with any conclusive results of any lens that would lessen symptoms. Either way, I used the "sensitivity to certain wavelengths" idea from it to form the basis of my next experiment.

Although I'm not a medical doctor or scientist by any means, I try to follow the scientific method as much as possible when doing any sort of testing or experimentation. The most tolerable monitor I had come across was the Dell UltraSharp U2410, which is an LCD. I still to this day continue using it at both work and home.

This was a pretty critical juncture when it came to the issue. I was seriously considering changing careers after more than 10 years in the IT industry. My chronically aching eyes made my quality of life suck, and I was light-sensitive to all sources of light (photophobia). The next test is where I reached my breakthrough.

With eyes still very strained every day around the April/May timeframe, I decided to go against the advice of the early pages of this thread, and turn my monitor brightness DOWN... way down in fact (0% - 15% range)! Doing the pencil test, I would see soooo many pencils with my brightness set so low. PWM was definitely at play here with a very short duty cycle, but I had already proven that PWM was not my issue, so I was no longer afraid of it.

Even further, I installed f.lux, and reduced the color temperature of the monitor from 6500K --> 5000K. I even went through my monitor's OSD and set the "Color Temperature" to warm as well. This made my monitor appear more red or salmon-coloured. It was a bit hard to get used to, along with my much darker screen. I changed these settings, then used my screen as normal.

To my frustration, nothing really felt different for the first 1-2 weeks! My eyes were really strained to begin with, so there was still a lot of "residual strain" to get rid of through weekends and weeknights (rest). Before switching these settings, I would rest my eyes on the weekend, then mostly make it through Mon, Tue, Wed, before really struggling to make it through Thu and Fri (aching eyes, nausea, etc), before resting up on the weekend again and repeating all the insanity again!

It took me a while to notice - perhaps even as much as a month - but I was starting to notice that I was getting through work weeks easier... a lot easier in fact. I was even able to work longer hours, and do longer sessions. To prove it wasn't some flash-in-the-pan fluke, I kept the settings and environment consistent, and continued using my computer at work as normal. I wanted to test for months to make sure.

These settings seemed to be holding up! I was able to get through 40-hour work weeks now with minimal difficulty. Being the computer junkie that I am, I also use a computer at home excessively. Remember, I use the exact same monitor at home as I do work.

To stagger the tests, I reset my monitor at home to its default settings ("Normal" color temperature, 50% brightness, 50% contrast, no f.lux installed). A second reason I wanted to do this is for color accuracy. I'm a web designer, and the Dell U2410 is actually a graphics artist calibre monitor, so color reproduction is very accurate at its default settings. It didn't take long when I used it at the default settings to have all my issues come back.

I now have my home monitor set to 0% brightness, 50% contrast, and color temperature "Warm" on the OSD display. I did not install f.lux, as I don't use my home PC as much as I do my work PC. These settings have been holding up for months at both work and home. I had a "To Do" list item to take this one step further and order myself a pair of Gunnar Optiks glasses for computer use. I had that list item written down in May and I still have not gotten around to doing it. I can admit I can chalk that up to laziness, but the other reason is that suddenly this problem that I dealt with for so long I now consider a near non-issue! Pain/discomfort is a great motivator after all, and since I have not experienced it as much lately, I wasn't that motivated!

I still have eye aching issues from time to time. I did a lot of online shopping a couple of weeks ago, staring at a lot of white backgrounds on webpages, and I had strained eyes afterwards for a few days (despite being on an LCD with these settings). I have an iPhone 5 with the brightness set really low, and this is the device that gives me the familiar eye ache the quickest. I am able to use it for the few minutes in which I need it without much issue though (thankfully!)

Hopefully my experience and discovery can offer some hope to a lot of you posters and lurkers out there. I will still order a pair of Gunnar Optiks this week and report back on my experience with those. I know this sounds a bit odd to say but, perhaps be glad your body experiences this type of pain with blue light. I remember reading an article over the last year with a study from Spain theorizing that the blue light from LEDs may be causing retinal damage. Just Google "LED study Spain" or something to that effect to see what I mean. Perhaps the discomfort our bodies are feeling is its way of telling us we are doing something unhealthy, and everybody else is not getting similar messages.

Now this post is long enough as it is, but I could tell "the full story" if anyone cares to hear more. It's been a very long journey with lots of twists, turns, ups, and downs. Hopefully this is a chapter of the past that I can soon close for myself, and hopefully for others as well.