My monitor sometimes starts clicking. It holds a charge for some time when unplugged, so it sometimes wakes me with clicking at night. It may need replacement.
Any ideas how to find a good monitor?
I’m sensitive to bright light. I can’t see some monitors because the minimum brightness is too bright to look at. Let alone the maximum brightness. I have trouble with some electronics because even if the screens aren’t too bright to look at, power lights and other lights may be too bright to look within 90˚ of. I often cover these lights with stickers, but that has its own issues.
I’m sensitive to flashing lights. Which includes flickering flourescent lights, old crt monitors, and probably pulse-width modulation on led monitors, as well as software issues such as blinking cursors and some other animations.
I don’t know if I’m sensitive to high contrast, but I get a degree of relief from moderate contrast.
I’m not sensitive to magic eye books. I get headaches from the dots, not the intended 3-d images.
I currently have to increase minimum font sizes for email and web sites. I have also experimented with reduced screen resolution and with zoom to increase font sizes system-wide. I don’t want an ultra-high-resolution monitor with ultra-small text.
I’m also somewhat sensitive to blue and red light. And there’s evidence that red light is more likely to cause seizures, so f.lux is a bad idea.
I’m also sensitive to noise, up to low ultrasonic. I actually had to return one computer due to a bright monitor and a noisy chipset, even before my chronic illness amplified my sensory issues.
I’m having trouble wth glare/reflected images. It’s possible that some matte screen filters might reduce brightness and reduce glare/reflection on an old Лос monitor I haven’t been able to use due to excessive burning brightness.
Reflections are an issue. The standard advice is to turn the monitor to full brightness. You can’t see any reflections if you burn out your eyes! I can’t withstand full brightness. I will need to look for a matte coating or an extra filter.
Motion blur may be an issue. Intuitively, I’d expect more blur to mean less painful motion, but some people report that more blur gives them motion sickness. Odd.
Unfortunately some screens strobe to reduce blur, which is definitely an issue, because older flourescent lights at 120 Hz are an issue and older ones which are burning out at 60 Hz are blinding and painful.
Pulse-width modulation is probably an issue, since older flourescent bulbs at 120 Hz are an issue.
My monitor has stopped clicking, but the reflections are still an issue.
Standard advice is full brightness and maximum contrast. I can’t withstand full brightness. I doubt it would ignite the atmosphere, but still, I would rather avoid anything above minimum brightness, and I avoid Kde. I an’t withstand high contrast either, since more contrast means more motion sensitivity.
This looks interesting, but still requires another set of software hacks on top of my existing hacks, so worse bugs:
Also this recommends fullscreen mode. I need to avoid fullscreen mode because it makes it harder to check one document and enter the appropriate info into another.
I can’t check my current monitor for flicker. Some sources claim it’s flicker free, but I operate it at minimum brightness, and most measurements are at maximum.
P.S. Manual does not say if it’s pwm-- attack-brain modulation-- but does say that it’s “edgelight” and apparently their other “edgelights” often have pwm.
PWM shouldn’t matter - LED lighting pretty much always uses it (you can’t really “dim” an LED without it) - it’s the frequency of the modulation that makes all the difference (sorry if I’m just repeating what you already know).
A gaming-centric monitor that runs at 120 Hz or higher should eliminate any perecptible flicker.
While the video card may make a difference the refresh rate is fixed (unless you have a super fancy multi-sync monitor). The monitor will handle inserting missing frames.
OLED is definitely worth checking out. Completely different technology.
Having read some older posts above, it sounds like some of the problematic monitors have had cold cathode backlighting. I’d wager a 120hz LED backlit monitor would make a marked difference.
And OLED is very pretty stuff- my new phone has an OLED screen, and it’s very impressive.
I also have a lot of trouble with window light and other reflections. Mounting the computer facing the window poses problems due to turn signals and hazard lights firing outside.
It doesn’t show up on the list, but I’m thinking of a Benq GW2270. It’s supposed to be flicker-free. It’s smaller than my current monitor, but with reflections, glasses, etc., I have trouble seeing the edges of my current monitor anyway. I think I would need to pick up a dvi cable for it, if I can’t use the dvi from my old monitor.
It should be possible to scale the entire UI(not just fonts) to accommodate your preferences. This should give you the benefit of high resolution without the downside of everything being tiny.
Has anyone tried the ViewSonic VA1901? It’s smaller, and has lower resolution. I think lower resolution would let me use less aggressive font settings, and avoid some browser trouble. I can’t find any reviews for migraine prevention.
A 1366x768 resolution for a 19" monitor is probably really pushing it for a resolution floor. I can’t say I’d recommend anything less than 1920x1080ish for something that size. I’m also not sure what it’s actual refresh rate is (probably 60Hz).
I’ve looked everywhere, but can’t find basic safety information. Such as:
If I pick a flicker-free monitor, do I need a higher refresh rate too?
What are the minimum brightness levels? how do they compare with other devices?
Do I need to worry about temporal dithering?
Does any of this actually help with a flash/blink sensitivity? or motion sensitivity?
P.S. Benq seems to run similar resolution and refresh rate for their low-end (GW) and high-end (Zowie RL) models at a given size. Differences include auto brightness adjust, ports, speakers, and some kind of color enhancement.
Try to watch youtube review to see if monitor is safe…
Find that review is not safe: starts with rapid stop-motion unboxing sequence, zooming title sequence with high volume, discussion with game animation at low volume…