LED VS LCD for eye health?

[kaddle]

some of you may remember my old post about my monitor shitting out. it's a monitor that i had for roughly 6 years and about half a year ago it started getting a green tint. more recently the green tint mostly went away, but when i first power it on after a while it blasts a bunch of purple shit, and eventually it shows the screen properly with a green tint, and then the green tint mostly goes away soon after.

 

well i'm getting a new monitor, hopefully tomorrow, and i'm pretty much set on getting an LED monitor, but i want more details about eye strain between these two types of monitors. i did some googling over the years, and even yesterday and based on that it seems like LED monitors are better for eyes, but why? how much more eye strain does LCD monitors cause and why?

 

so all of these years, the text on the front part of my monitor's frame says "LED Technology", but yesterday i noticed that on the back of the monitor it has a tag stating that it is an LCD monitor. so i guess when it says LED technology it means that it is slightly hybrid, but mostly LCD. this could explain why i've been having a lot of eye strain over the years.

if you are wondering, i do things like reduce the brightness of the monitor, and reduce the blue light using f.lux. i also have a custom dark theme on two of my browsers that allows me to make every website have a dark theme. i mostly make it completely black background with a dim grey text color. of course i also make notepad++ a dark theme and my IDE.

[KarathKasun]

LED and LCD are the same thing. Unless you are talking about OLED, which is not used in monitors because of burn in problems.

 

LCD is the glass part that you look at.  LED is the lighting behind the screen.  Very old LCD screens used to use fluorescent tubes behind the display and new ones use LED lights.  The display itself is the exact same between the two though.

[Glenwing]

 

 

[Turtle Rig]

2 minutes ago, KarathKasun said:

LED and LCD are the same thing. Unless you are talking about OLED, which is not used in monitors because of burn in problems.

 

LCD is the glass part that you look at.  LED is the lighting behind the screen.  Very old LCD screens used to use fluorescent tubes behind the display and new ones use LED lights.  The display itself is the exact same between the two though.

Yes yes, good post KarathKasun...  But ya LED will give less eye strain.  LED is like LCD 2.0

[KarathKasun]

3 minutes ago, Turtle Rig said:

Yes yes, good post KarathKasun...  But ya LED will give less eye strain.  LED is like LCD 2.0

LED gives more eye strain due to it producing a more "blue" light.  Older LCD's produced a very neutral white color temperature in comparison.  Newer LED tech allows for better color temperatures, but the light emitted is much more "peaky" than older CCFL backlights in most cases.

[Turtle Rig]

1 minute ago, KarathKasun said:

LED gives more eye strain due to it producing a more "blue" light.  Older LCD's produced a very neutral white color temperature in comparison.  Newer LED tech allows for better color temperatures, but the light emitted is much more "peaky" than older CCFL backlights in most cases.

I did not know this.. No kidding!!!  I know about the blue light.. My monjitor has option to turn down the blue light to weak or strong to medium, etc..  But it botches the picture.. It is like wearing those computer glasses which block the blue light.

[KarathKasun]

Just now, Turtle Rig said:

I did not know this.. No kidding!!!  I know about the blue light.. My monjitor has option to turn down the blue light to weak or strong to medium, etc..  But it botches the picture.. It is like wearing those computer glasses which block the blue light.

Yep, you cant really fix colors on a screen to compensate for the backlight.  You can kinda sorta fix backlight tint, but it will never look "right".

 

This was also a problem with old CCFL lit displays.  The color of the backlight would shift to a redish tinge over time as the bulbs wore/burned out slowly.  LEDs just seem to get more and more dim with the same color profile as you put hours on them.

[KarathKasun]

34 minutes ago, Turtle Rig said:

Yes yes, good post KarathKasun...  But ya LED will give less eye strain.  LED is like LCD 2.0

Derp, its the CCFL that is more "peaky".  The reason they can look better in monitors is that the peaks correspond almost exclusively with Red Green and Blue wavelengths.  Probably got this wrong because of being surrounded by cheap LED lit monitors with their horrible blue/off white backlight color.

 

In general white LED's are weak in the aqua and red parts of the spectrum. Newer phosphor materials can make up for this mostly.

 

Flicker is a problem with both, due to LED brightness being PWM controlled in most screens.  Resistive brightness control is possible, and eliminates this problem.  If you have a LED lit monitor, try bringing brightness up to reduce flicker induced eye strain.  The lower the brightness, the more pronounced the flicker will be if it is PWM controlled.

[geo3]

31 minutes ago, KarathKasun said:

Derp, its the CCFL that is more "peaky".  The reason they can look better in monitors is that the peaks correspond almost exclusively with Red Green and Blue wavelengths.  Probably got this wrong because of being surrounded by cheap LED lit monitors with their horrible blue/off white backlight color.

 

In general white LED's are weak in the aqua and red parts of the spectrum. Newer phosphor materials can make up for this mostly.

 

Flicker is a problem with both, due to LED brightness being PWM controlled in most screens.  Resistive brightness control is possible, and eliminates this problem.  If you have a LED lit monitor, try bringing brightness up to reduce flicker induced eye strain.  The lower the brightness, the more pronounced the flicker will be if it is PWM controlled.

PWM should never ever be  used to dim a light source of any kind anywhere ever. God it's F'ing awful.

[Untitled]

If your eye health is priority. then pick any monitor that has low blue light mode. many of modern monitor has it.

https://www.asus.com/Microsite/display/eye_care_technology/

 

Color will be yellowish when turn it on, but it's really good for your eye. strongly recommended if u use monitor 10h+ / day

[kaddle]

i ended up buying the: https://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=22_1195_700_1104&item_id=110653

 

i've been using it for 4 days and there is an entire world of difference between the way my eyes feel using this monitor, and my old monitor. for some background, most of the time i was using my old monitor it was at max brightness without any reduction in blue light or any dark themes. it reached the point where every day my eyes were burning like crazy before going to bed.

 

i eventually learned about dimming the brightness, reducing blue light and using dark themes on dim text. my eyes went from burning, to straining. it was a big improvement.

 

this monitor takes it to a new level. my eyes feel very relaxed through most of the day, and by the time i am ready to go to bed, my eyes feel fine. i'm pretty much doing what i did with my old monitor. i have the brightness very low and i'm using f.lux to reduce the blue light. also a lot of dark themes. i'm guessing that the vast reduction in eye strain is because there is no flicker on this monitor.

 

i don't know what all of this pwm stuff is, and i didn't bother using the low blue light features that the monitor has. when i use f.lux there is a noticeable reduction in blue light that i can control, and when i get used to that reduction the colors on the screen seem incredibly natural.