I have found the same with monitors that have poor color reproduction, low contrast or low brightness. Also when the image refresh cycle is slow.
Seems like the eyes will have more strain on them when looking at low quality screens. I’m sure there is a science behind that.
I had a cheaper FHD 15.6” laptop with an barely ok screen and would get eye strain after a couple hours.
Now I use a smaller 14” 2.5K OLED laptop and can work on it all day without any discomfort.
What are you doing while looking at the monitor? There are things reported to make you blind if you’re doing it to excess.
Just saying
I still haven’t quite put my finger on exactly what the problem is. I do intend to try a fast refresh monitor. All the monitors I’ve ever had before were just 60hz. I have not tried blue light glasses specifically, but I did try a pair of orange, pair of yellow (laser glasses) and a pair of welding goggles.
This is a case where old tech was truly truly the better stuff. Especially in the case of TVs. Never in my life had a problem with the old “flat screens” that had those RGB projector lenses inside. Same thing with older monitors. Here is a picture of one of the best monitors ever made.
Also this is probly not normal, but I actually find fluorescent light in the cooler spectrum to be the most refreshing light there is, aside from sunlight itself. Brown colored lights just look dingy to me and make me feel depressed and like its harder to see.
This is likely due to low environmental contrast causing additional eyestrain.
I would look into getting bias lighting.
That’s not normal. What do you mean by “Brown”? I’ve never seen anybody refer to warmer lights as brown. Are you partially color blind? As to the floaters, I can’t believe that you don’t have some floaters. Lay down on your back with your eyes lightly closed with light overhead. A flashlight at arms length set at 20 or so lumens would work good pointed directly at your closed eyes. What color do you see looking through your eyelids? Same position with eyes lightly closed, move your eyes side to side a little bit stopping for two or three seconds after each side movement. Do you see any thing slowly moving under your eyelids?
Also, don’t sit too close to the screen. And tilt the screen either up or down as much as you can stand it away from 90° from your eyeballs.
After trying both the “HexArmor VS250 with CBR65 lens” and the cheaper MCR VL210MB safety glasses, the HexArmor are superior in every way. They seem to have significantly reduced my eye strain. I’ll be using these in the shop too from now on. The VL210MB did not help me much with my particular CCFL backlit monitors.
I’ve installed a timer on my PC which reminds me to take a 5 minute break every 30 minutes. (the intervals can be adjusted)
For a few years now I have been using a browser add-on called “Dark Reader” which inverts webpage colors selectively. It works well. My operating system theme is dark as well. Additionally I keep the monitor brightness at its lowest setting which is still bright enough. White text on black background may actually introduce eye strain, but it’s easier to look at otherwise.
Is there any kind of OEM display driver control software available? Or perhaps try lowering the refresh rate and/or resolution in your OS control panel option for display? Experiment and try every possible setting, within acceptable limits.
Another thing to try—glasses that filter out blue light. See if that might be the problem. Because if it’s the blue light component, then there’s no setting you can make to alter this. You MIGHT be able to find some sort of screen overlay that could cut down on it.
I have the same condition with floaters and foggy hazy appearance around light sources. driving at night has become dreadful, no thanks to new car manufactures and the unnesccary light pollution. On windows I’ve been using an older version of Sunset Screen v1.22 on all my computers for a number of years. (don’t go beyond version 1.28)
With that software I can reduce the brightness and adjust the tint to 4500k during the day and 2900k during the night. I find it more configurable than Flux and the windows 10 builtin one. I also have Dark Reader installed on every single browser I use. It works flawlessly for the most part. And I set dark mode on everything. For me these are essential. I also upgraded to a 144hz monitor, but I don’t know if it helps but it looks significantly better. Zenni is an inexpensive way to add blue light blocking to existing prescriptions.
I’ve been looking into safety glasses… even more.
For night driving and low light conditions you can use amber tinted lenses.
Examples:
Encon Veratti 429 Amber
KleenGuard Nemesis Amber
“Amber: For low light applications (indoors, at dawn/dusk, foggy days) Reduces blue
light and ultraviolet light, increases contrast, brightens and enhances details
improving visual acuity Ideal for quality control inspections. 90% Visible Light Transmission.”
For a greater reduction in visible light transmission than amber there are “Indoor / Outdoor” tinted lenses:
“For use when moving to or from indoor and outdoor environments. Allows
user to wear one pair of glasses in both situations. 50% Visible Light Transmission.”
I/O lenses may work well for computer use, if you need greater overall light reduction.
I’ve got some more glasses heading my way to try out because it’s about time I searched for a new favorite pair of safety glasses. My go-to pair for the last 12 years have been KleenGuard Nemesis. They are comfortable and fairly inexpensive but do not feature an anti-scratch coating and the nose piece tends to deform over time. Maybe I can find something even better. If not, I’ll probably end up using amber tinted Nemesis in the shop. The “Hexarmor VS250 CBR65” I mentioned in prior posts are not quite as comfortable as the Nemesis over long periods, and three times the price, although I do really like the lens. It’s basically an I/O lens but with more transmission of the upper wavelengths.
In the visible spectrum, short-wave blue light with wavelength between 415 nm and 455 nm is closely related to eye light damage. This high energy blue light passes through the cornea and lens to the retina causing diseases such as dry eye, cataract, age-related macular degeneration, even stimulating the brain, inhibiting melatonin secretion, and enhancing adrenocortical hormone production, which will destroy the hormonal balance and directly affect sleep quality. High energy short wave blue light between 415 and 455 nm is the most harmful. Direct penetration of crystals into the retina causes irreversible photochemical retinal damage. [ 1 ]
Here is an interesting document which shows wavelength transmission curves for various lens tints:
Amber and orange are probably the most relevant in regards to blue light blocking.
(The graphs go far beyond the visible spectrum)
For the mammalian central nervous system, light absorption is carried out by a unique interface, the retina. [ 2 ]
The human circadian system is maximally sensitive to short-wavelength (blue) light. [ 3 ]
Light suppresses melatonin in humans, with the strongest response occurring in the short-wavelength portion of the spectrum between 446 and 477 nm that appears blue. [ 4 ]
Shorter wavelength light has been shown to be more effective than longer wavelengths in suppressing nocturnal melatonin and phase delaying the melatonin rhythm. [ 5 ]
ORANGE lenses block the light which most affects our sleep cycle, which is why they are recommended to be worn in the hours before bedtime.
The only help I can add in this thing, is to always put your monitor to 100% brightness if it's led backlit (so almost every monitor), and lower the brightness, by lowering contrast.
That way, you don't get the PWM, from the led backlit (as usual anything below 100% brightness is PWM driven), and you see more contrast (as lowering the contrast actually helps in seeing the difference in shades of colors).
The other thing I remember, is some professional color accurate screens have full led backlight, not just edge one. From what I read, some people, may experience fatigue looking at this type of screen, and the inner pressure in the eyeball, can raise, so it's not recommended if you have problems like that. The thing is, your eye focuses on the panel, and backlight, forward and back, and that's strains the eye.