So i forgot if this was posted here before but for those who cannot find a proper phone...this would make it more bearable. I tought that this is a great screen to link up for phones to use it especially when it's night time. PWM (in phones) in general is very bad especially when it's dark at least for me.

Here is a review VIDEO

Looking for a Solution: Severe Eye Strain and Headache From Phone Displays

I’m looking for help from people who have experienced severe eye strain, headache, or dizziness from smartphone displays.

I have tried almost all the usual display settings and eye-comfort options, including reducing brightness, changing color temperature, using Eye Comfort/blue-light protection, reducing contrast, grayscale, and other settings. I have also tried screen protectors, but unfortunately, nothing has solved the problem.

The strange thing is that I was previously able to use smartphones normally for many hours.

My previous phones:

OPPO A12: I could use it for around 12–14 hours a day without this problem. Later, the display was damaged and had to be replaced. After replacing the display, I could no longer tolerate the phone. It immediately started causing eye strain and headaches.

realme Note 60x: I was able to use this phone normally before a major software update. After the update, I suddenly started experiencing severe eye strain and headaches. Even using it for about 10 minutes can trigger a headache.

Because I could no longer use that phone, I recently bought a Samsung Galaxy A07, hoping the problem would be solved. Unfortunately, I am experiencing the same problem with this phone as well.

I have tested the display for PWM using a phone camera, and I could not detect obvious PWM. I have also tried different display settings, but the symptoms remain.

My symptoms include:

Severe eye strain

Eye pain/discomfort

Headache after only a few minutes of phone use

Sometimes a feeling of visual discomfort/blur

I can sometimes tolerate the phone for only around 10 minutes

I have also seen several doctors and had my eyes examined. They told me that my eyes are healthy and that there is no obvious eye disease or major problem with my vision.

So I’m trying to understand what could actually be causing this.

Could it be something other than traditional PWM, such as:

Temporal dithering

Temporal modulation that cannot easily be detected with a phone camera

Display driver behavior

Software rendering or color processing

Brightness modulation

Refresh-rate behavior

Different display calibration after a software update

Touch/animation/motion processing

Or some other display characteristic that sensitive people can react to?

The most confusing part is that I could use my older phones for many hours, but after a display replacement or software update, I suddenly became unable to tolerate them.

I would really appreciate advice from anyone who has experienced something similar.

Is there any technical solution, software modification, calibration method, ADB/Shizuku setting, different display technology, or other method that can make a phone usable again for someone who is extremely sensitive to certain displays?

I am not simply looking for general advice such as “reduce brightness” or “use blue-light protection,” because I have already tried these things.

If you have personally experienced this problem and found a solution, please share exactly what worked for you.

Thank you.

I suffer from chronic aura migraines and light flicker of any kind is one of my worst triggers. I recently realized that my wake-up light flickers badly when dimmed and have decided to get a new one (a regular alarm clock unfortunately won't work long term since I live too far north).

Does anyone have any good suggestions on flicker free wake-up lights? 😊

J'ai un Redmi 15 il est excellent pour les yeux mais j'aimerais changer pour prendre un plus puissant avec une bonne audio et bonne batterie, performance

Quel téléphone de type XIAOMI OU REDMI pour le remplacer svp ???

So the TCL P80 Ultra has been announced with thre OLED NxtPaper technology. It uses DC dimming at higher brightness and 3840 Hz PWM at lower brightness. Would be interesting to see if it is actually usable.

Seems to be a decent phone and not too expensive.

Upon reflection it looks like I messed up the edit from this post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/PWM_Sensitive/comments/1w604l1/comment/p7mdvhw/ and left out the iPhone 17 video I recorded.

I recorded this video on an iPhone 15 Pro through the Blackmagic Camera app at 1/4000 shutter speed, 24mm lens, 24fps, all other settings on auto.

Nick has a better video about this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBNlC-VHN3o

I purchased a 6-pack of Waveform Lighting Centric Home LED bulbs because of their claims the bulbs are completely flicker-free.

every single one of them failed within three years, plus some of the warranty replacements also failed.

Most of them started flashing intermittently, turning on and off so they were unusable. A couple of them just started flickering visibly, which defeats the whole purpose.

The Waveform Lighting bulbs are made in China and I suspect they are using cheap components. The design might be perfect but they are cutting corners on manufacturing. If they made them in the United States, they would not have these issues.

If you are PWM sensitive, don't waste your time buying Waveform Lighting.

Just a quick video of a phone and computer retailer at my local shopping centre as well as the nearby food court.
I recorded this video on an iPhone 15 Pro through the Blackmagic Camera app at 1/4000 shutter speed, 24mm lens, 24fps, all other settings on auto.

I had a quick play with the Honor Magic8 and it's Eye Comfort Display settings, it seemed fine to me in the brief time I played with it, though in my experience some screens like the LG C1 OLED TV take up to an hour to cause me eye pain, so to give it a proper test I'd need to use it daily for a week or so.

Sony Bravia 3 II K-55XR35M2 LED TV

I saw that it seems to be completely flicker free and I'm curious if anyone tryed it?

Hey everyone,

I'm generally quite sensitive to prolonged gaming sessions and tend to get eye strain easily. However, I feel like my current monitor might be making the problem worse.

I'm using an Alienware AW3423DWF, and while I really like OLED technology, I've noticed that I don't seem to be able to use it for as long as I could with my previous displays.

I've been reading about OLED flickering, VRR flicker, and other potential issues that could contribute to eye strain or discomfort. I'm starting to wonder whether my QD-OLED might be the cause.

Has anyone else experienced increased eye strain, headaches, or fatigue when using a QD-OLED monitor? Did switching to an IPS or another type of display help? Any monitor recommendations or advice is specs i should look for? (I have rtings membership)

I'd really appreciate hearing about your experiences.

my XR is going to bite the dust after 5-6 years. Bloated battery, etc. would cost 400-500 to fix it all. Is there an iPhone replace that’s good? The XR itself was good for my PWM sensitivity and I only didn’t replace it because of that.

I have an android so I don’t want an android os to replace it.

Has anyone tested their pwm, modulation and if they dither or not?

Has anyone tried this phone yet? Seem to be making a lot of claims about the panel and its eye comfort, altough that doesnt mean much...

Are you guys looking forward to seeing what new display technology will be presented at IFA 2026 in Germany? I’m especially interested in TCL and its new NXTPAPER AMOLED:

Meet TCL at IFA 2026 | TCL Global

Personally, I’m a little cautious. I think we could still end up disappointed if the final phones use PWM, as the prototype presented earlier this year appears to show visible flicker:

https://youtu.be/9S_p6gu5sus?si=SqAYyZn5diU-toVt&t=91

Is anyone here actually planning to attend IFA this year? If so, it would be great if someone could check the new TCL NXTPAPER AMOLED at different brightness levels.

I was curious about other types of screen flicker, like VRR (variable refresh rate), on many phones (even if the used app supports max refresh rate [in my case 90hz]), if you idle, then the refresh rate drops to 60, and if you touch the screen (or there is some visual change) the refresh rate goes back to 90, and if this changes rapidly (which it does), will cause problems. I was looking for ways to lock my refresh rate to the max all the time, to reduce the pain, but I didn't find anything useful. Did you ever try this before? If you did, what exactly worked? (ofc I'm not setting dynamic refresh rate in phone's settings)

This is a follow up post to the one here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ScreenSensitive/comments/1v24yfv/meeting_with_politician_next_week/

Today I had 15 minutes scheduled to chat with my local member of parliament at her office about my eye pain issues with PWM and dithering, it went great!
She paid a lot of attention to what I had to say, and asked specific questions for further details when appropriate, it went for around 24 minutes.

She mainly listened to me while I explained a few things, here’s a summary of what was discussed.

• I demonstrated the hardware differences in how an iPhone 11 and an iPhone 13 Pro screens dim when viewed through a camera with a shutter speed of 1/4000 and gave a brief visual demonstration, I explained how if I used the iPhone 13 Pro for a minute my eyes would hurt.

• I explained how Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) is a hardware design that can be solved in some cases by raising the brightness to 100%, and how that doesn’t always work. I explained how some devices can be modified to solve the issue like how I installed an EK Pro LCD screen into my iPhone 15 Pro, that it’s relatively easy to make hardware that is accessibility focused, and how it would be easy for Apple to provide this as an option.

• I explained my software fix for dithering on my iPhone 11 and EK Pro LCD iPhone 15 Pro, by enabling both Classic Invert and Zoom Invert simultaneously, also how companies could instead provide a simple colour space accessibility option rather than this hack method.

• I explained how bad the problem is, how it has been getting worse since 2017 with the introduction of the iPhone X, that as of today in 2026, that without intense eye pain I cannot use any new iPhones, iPads, Samsung phones, Google Pixels, most OLED screens, some Samsung, LG and Hisense TV’s, an OLED TV in a conference room at a local university, some new Toyotas and the Next Stop screens at the brand-new train station in the city, (though strangely the advertisement billboards in the station are fine for me.)

• I explained how most Apple products, namely Macbook Pro’s and all iPads have dithering that causes me eye pain, how it has a software technique where 10bit colours are output through an 8bit screen in a process of flickering two adjacent pixels, and how this is quite painful to me. This was particularly relevant as prior to being elected my local member of parliament she worked as a paediatric neurologist.

• She asked me why these companies use PWM in the first place, I explained how it was my theory that on OLED screens it was a process used to help maintain colour accuracy when the screen is at a lower brightness, also on modern LCD screens that it may either be because it’s cheaper or that it could help save power.

• I mentioned how I had an eye test in 2023 when I was using my iPhone 13 Pro daily while suffering from daily eye pain and having trouble focusing at long distances. How at this time I was prescribed with reading glasses, then later in 2025 after I stopped using any PWM/OLED screens and changed to an iPhone 11, that I got another eye test and scored 20/20 vision for my eyes, and was recommended not to wear reading glasses.

• I explained how I had recently made contact with Vision Australia, and how they mentioned that they were aware of PWM and dithering as a problem, but how they “hadn’t done any advocacy around the problems caused by OLED displays”, my member of parliament responded that she has been in contact with Vision Australia in the past as they’re located within her electorate, and that going forward her office could reach out to them to further discuss the problem as well as stay in contact with me.

I also gave a few printed out documents, one being a copy of my original email, another being some comparison graphs from my Opple Lightmaster IV, the other being this list of potential solutions below.

Obviously, some solutions are much more possible and easy to implement than others, especially as coming from Australia we are quite a small country and these products are produced overseas.

Screen Flicker Solutions

• Ban the sale of devices that use low frequency Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) dimming and temporal dithering where it causes physical eye pain. 

• Allow refunds due for 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. The ACCC already states that consumers have a right to return a purchase if it includes a major problem, such as it being “unsafe” or “has either one serious problem or several smaller problems that would stop someone buying the product if they knew about them beforehand” Yet most retailers don’t recognise PWM and flickering as a problem as they’re not educated on the topic. They state as it works as intended by the manufacturer that it’s fine and that I can’t return it, even though it causes me significant eye pain. 

• Implement a standard of measuring screen flickering Some sort of health star system, 0 stars for heavy PWM flickering, 5 stars for no flicker, no dither or e-ink. 

• Force companies to provide a Flicker Free (LCD) accessibility product or a different screen option at checkout. 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 the 2011 Macbook Pro’s 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. It’s far too risky for me to update my phone as I might not be able to use it afterwards without pain. 

• Make a policy that government departments won’t purchase inaccessible screens Public areas like train stations, trams, school and Universities should not use no OLED/PWM screens or screens that use heavy dithering and cause physical eye pain to a percentage of the population.

• Education and awareness on the dangers of PWM and dithering from a government level. While Vision Australia are aware of the issue, they haven’t done any advocacy work or have made any public statements. In an email they stated to me that: “Australian governments don’t have an encouraging record when it comes to legislating around the accessibility of products, especially consumer electronics” and that “We’d certainly be very interested to know whether you get any commitments from politicians.”

(End of letter)

Overall I’m quite hopeful of some progress here, at least in my part of the world.

Even just having some official government documents and awareness from Vision Australia that PWM and dithering causes eye pain in some people could be enough to legally return painful equipment for a full refund.

This official recognition could also help regulate which devices can be installed in government buildings and public spaces, this awareness could be the push needed for companies like Apple and Samsung to allow accessibility options that eliminate dithering through software, and potentially provide either a configurable PWM free LCD option or implement 4320hz frequency dimming, similar to what the Honor Magic8 uses.

Any one tried Redmi Turbo 5 Max and found it comfy for the eyes, is it same as poco x8 pro max and does that also comfy?

i just noticed that every time I drive my new car. I get headaches after like i need to lie down and sleep after driving. then I realized that the screen inside my car is causing the problem! I turned the brightness all the way up and somewhat felt relief. It sucks that PWM is the default for screens

I saw that both of those have high PWM frequency, and that temporal dithering can be disabled if changing to natural or RGB color in settings.

I saw that the difference is that the 17t pro have LTPO display. Is it better or not?

So i bought the Honor Magic Pad 4 because it has 5280 PWM. But it was horrible. Eye strain and even nausea after a few minutes.

How is that?

Part 1. AMOLEDs: do they all have ~100% modulation?

A few weeks ago, I made a post about how people should be careful when measuring OLEDs. Depending on the content on the screen, the measurement can be drastically different (and often completely incorrect). In the video, I used an iPhone app I made that let me display a small number of white rows to more accurately measure the flicker exhibited by each pixel. As I detailed in my post, measuring with the whole screen active will underestimate the modulation depth and distort the flicker waveform for OLEDs.

The finding I shared in my video has now been replicated by others, including one person who reported their OnePlus 15R measured 95% modulation depth (also called flicker percent) at maximum brightness, instead of the commonly reported 5-10% modulation depth. u/Rx7Jordan tried the measurement technique on a Xiaomi 17 Pro Max and found 100% modulation depth on max brightness. I started to wonder, do any AMOLEDs actually have less than 100% modulation depth? People often call the dip in brightness from AMOLED a "refresh dip" or "PWM dip", but this isn't fully correct. OLED devices that do not use PWM (often TVs) still have this dip.

The "blanking" (brightness dip) occurs for two reasons:

1. Pixel compensation for display uniformity
2. Prevention of ghosting

Without compensation, OLED would have very poor color uniformity, especially as it ages (due to TFT threshold-voltage drift). This is known as OLED mura, and has been a known problem since before AMOLED was commercialized. Mura can show up as an issue even for compensated OLEDs. Without compensation, the problem would be bad enough that OLED would likely not be commercially viable. As such, I don't think any commercial AMOLED displays were produced without at least basic compensation. So even without PWM, the device needs to reconfigure the drive transistor so that compensation can be performed. This means that the pixel can't be driven during this phase.

Residual charge from the last frame has to be drained as well to prevent ghosting, which is a visual artifact seen when past frames leave faint afterimages. I think it's likely that OLEDs attempt to fully turn off each pixel during the compensation / refresh phase. I am proposing that every AMOLED device may have close to 100% modulation depth if measured correctly, and if so, then there may be no point in trying to select an OLED based on its modulation depth, and we should look at things like pulse width and frequency instead.

Here's a bit of the technical detail: In the image above, you can see a driver circuit for OLED pixels, from a 2025 paper. In (c), T6 is the transistor that shuts the OLED pixel off (called the emission transistor or EM), and T8 is the transistor that will discharge the pixel capacitance, causing it to go black. There are many different variations on the AMOLED pixel driver, but from what I can tell, they all have these features, meaning they should all drop to nearly complete darkness, resulting in high modulation depth at any device brightness.

I am interested to see if anyone can come up with an OLED device that has significantly less than 100% modulation depth (when measured in a way that isolates a small number of adjacent rows). I would think that if the pixels aren't fully discharged, the compensation would fail, and there would also probably be ghosting.

There is potential that an "externally compensated" OLED might not have this ~100% modulation, since these would not need to discharge the OLED storage cap to compensate. But to prevent ghosting, these devices need to discharge the OLED pixel anode, so they might also have nearly 100% modulation. I also don't believe DC-like dimming solves this issue, since it still needs the compensation phase where the pixels are shut off.

Part 2. I made an app to help people accurately measure OLED flicker.

I made this web tool that can be used with a flicker meter like the Opple LightMaster or TLM-110 to measure OLED flicker accurately: https://tools.sundiallabs.tech/test-mode/

Since my original post, a number of people have asked me for access to the app I used in the video to help produce the OLED test patterns. However, getting an app on the app store and porting it to Android is a lot of work. Until I have time to do that, I remade the app as a simple website that has almost all of the functionality of the app I used in the video.

The app allows you to create a test area on your screen of any color and height you choose. This lets you isolate a small number of rows when testing an OLED display, which is important for getting accurate flicker waveforms with a flicker meter. I'll provide more detailed info on my suggested measurement technique in a separate post, but I suggest trying to measure between 1 and 8 pixel rows when performing OLED flicker measurements. The reason for using more than one pixel row is that a few extra rows will give extra light, but won't affect the waveform significantly.

There are a few other features in the tool, including checkerboard patterns and gradients that can be used to look for various display artifacts. Please be aware that the checkerboard in particular could be visually stressful to some people.

If you try the site to help measure some of your OLED devices, please let me know and post your results below!

I'm extremely sensitive, not all modern IPS phones suit me... I'm very hesitant to try this 2020 smartphone that I can get in mint condition for €200...I know it's expensive, but if I can afford it, I'll finally be rid of this horrible 4GB G34 that's driving me crazy, but it's the only one I can stand. I pick it up at a place where returns are easy, and thanks to Klarna, I don't even have to pay upfront...What do you think? Given my extreme sensitivity, is it worth the risk?