Gentle-to-the-eyes monitor

[Val.J]

Hello to all :)

I do a lot of work on my pc (oddly enough..) but I don`t play any games. I want to find out what is the type of monitor that is most suited for long exposures and doesn`t hurt your eyes or give you headaches. I`m using two Acer V223W LCD monitors (at least 2-3 years old by now) and despite all the tweaking with the colors, brightness, contrast, focus, clock, surrounding lighting conditions and everything, I still get headaches and my eyes kinda hurt after sessions lasting 6-7 hours. I am a composer and I do most of my work starring at the screens for long periods of time.

I don`t care about color depth, viewing angles, refresh rates or any of that stuff. Is there a specific type of monitor that you can recommend that will be most 'gentle' to work on, or is my problem completely unrelated to the monitors to begin with?

Any thoughts on this will be greatly appreciated! Thank you in advance for any input on this!!!

[CaptainSi]

Smaller monitors generally give you less eye strain. A good way I found to prevent strain is to keep room lights on as well, so the screen isn't so violently bright. I've also heard lots of good news about gaming glasses. I understand they work as a filter for the light. I'm probably completely wrong about how they work, however I know they do work. Check them out. http://shop.gunnars.com/featured-style/l/106

[lutzee]

I've been looking at purchasing a pair of Gunnars glasses, even though I don't get headaches I do believe its good to protect my vision

[Val.J]

@CaptainSi You`re absolutely right about keeping the room lights on. I also have a light behind the monitors that illuminates the wall behind them - so that`s taken care of. I`m researching the issue with the glasses as well, however, it`ll be even better if I buy monitors that are also suited for these requirements.

[Musguelha17]

There are no such things as easy-on-the-eyes monitors. They are a bright light source on wich you tend to fixate your eyes on for a long period of time so of course they'll do damage to eyes. You should keep the brightness down on them and maybe increase the PPI on windows's settings. By that I mean physically increase the size of the fonts so you don't have to squint to see letters. You can also try Flux, it's a program that can adjust the colors on the screen so they're not so agressive on the eyes. You can choose the type of lights in your room (i.e. incandescent) and it will compensate colors automatically for a image that's easy on the eyes. You can also set it so the colors change trough the day as the hours go by.

[GoodBytes]

I agree. Lowering the monitor brightness, and getting a non glossy monitor is an excellent good step. You can try setting the monitor to cold color profile or warm one, and see which one is better for you. But, the rest comes down at you blinking your eyes when you use your computer, if you have dry eyes, you probably don't drink much water, drink more water. When I use my computer, I blink my eyes as I would in looking something else, and look at my keyboard (I know where the keys are, it's just to move my eyes somewhere else for a sec). Of course also, frequent breaks.

I do not believe a computer monitor damages your eyes. CRT.. maybe.. but LCD? i guess if you have those budget white LED backlight monitors where you can see the backlight flicker as cheap white LEDs are used. But, in general, should not be a problem.

I doubt that your eyes can't notice the flickering of a 6-bit panel trying to show 8-bit colors, by taking 2 colors it can produce and switch between them at rapid speed. I am not going to suggest to purchase a 500$+ monitor 24inch, just for a maybe, which I doubt.

[mgsstar]

Did you try f.lux? It changes your colour according to the time of the day to reduce eye strain: http://stereopsis.com/flux/

[GoodBytes]

f.lux is crap... is add a full screen semi black window over everything that is click-through.

So the backlight level of the monitor stays the same... defeating the purpose of the program.

If the program communicated with the monitor (some monitors (mostly high end consumer grade monitors and up)) to adjust the monitor brightness, than it would be a different story. But it's not. Ideally it should use your webcam as an ambient light sensor and communicate with the monitor to adjust the monitor brightness level.