[HN Gopher] 18-year-old built a computer monitor that doesn't st...
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18-year-old built a computer monitor that doesn't strain your eyes
Author : danboarder
Score : 113 points
Date : 2023-10-27 15:54 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.fastcompany.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.fastcompany.com)
| CharlesW wrote:
| I lol'd at this line from the Indiegogo campaign video: "Eazeye
| has a built in LED strip so it can work in the dark."
|
| So, I guess all I need to do is mount aquarium lights directly
| above my monitor to get an extremely dim image during the day?
|
| https://images.fastcompany.net/image/upload/w_1200,c_limit,q...
| tokai wrote:
| An incredibly bad idea to me, but great if it works for some.
| Will definitely keep an eye on reviews for it.
|
| Also as it always is with these young-person-creates-a-company
| stories:
|
| <<Huang's parents, who run a metals recycling business near
| Shenzhen, China connected him with manufacturers in the region.>>
|
| I wonder who payed for the first production run.
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| > I wonder who payed for the first production run.
|
| Are you suggesting the kid pay for it himself?
| mjburgess wrote:
| He's suggesting that the reason we find child-inventions
| impressive is because they're children doing it. "Rich
| manufacturing-savvy parents fund child's idea" is far more
| par-for-the-course.
|
| I'd imagine it would be quite routine for children to
| "invent" things with such parents --- how many are tinkerers
| as children? A lot.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| I think the point is just that more often than not, the kid
| is only where they are because they happen to have someone
| else taking care of the bigger challenges that end up being
| the barriers for most other would-be young innovators.
|
| Kind of like how especially well done science fair projects
| or reports for very young kids are often the result of
| parents handling most of the intricate work or otherwise
| being engineers/scientists in the field themselves, thus
| being able to get them access to things typical kids don't
| have.
|
| Eg 12 year old me could only throw together a solar powered
| buzzer through trial and error with electronics as I had no
| one who could do anything beyond resistor networks, but my
| kids would be able to do much more advanced things because I
| would be able to handle/simplify the complex stuff for them.
|
| Another glaring example would probably be Sam-Bankman Fried.
| No way would any person without the connections offered by
| his parents have been able to get praised and handed billions
| of dollars by investors for playing video games while
| pitching to them.
| anon291 wrote:
| > I think the point is just that more often than not, the
| kid is only where they are because they happen to have
| someone else taking care of the bigger challenges that end
| up being the barriers for most other would-be young
| innovators.
|
| So what? If the child did nothing, nothing would have
| happened. He did something. It might be worthwhile. That
| should be celebrated.
|
| > Eg 12 year old me could only throw together a solar
| powered buzzer through trial and error with electronics as
| I had no one who could do anything beyond resistor
| networks, but my kids would be able to do much more
| advanced things because I would be able to handle/simplify
| the complex stuff for them.
|
| Which is why our emphasis on social mobility ought be at
| the family level. Families move socioeconomically.
| Individuals are just brownian motion.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _So what? If the child did nothing, nothing would have
| happened. He did something. It might be worthwhile. That
| should be celebrated._
|
| That's the thing though. The kid could've done anything
| between something and approximately nothing, and you
| wouldn't be able to tell. It's just like with the science
| fairs - the especially well done projects sometimes are
| just 100% done by parents.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| It just makes the "18 year old does X" thing a lot less
| impressive compared to how it's presented.
| tokai wrote:
| No. I am interested in if it is financed by investors that
| believes in him and the project, or his parents that might
| value supporting their child higher than putting money behind
| a good investment. In the end I don't know, I just couldn't
| help myself being a bit snarky cause these young entrepreneur
| stories always seem to come with some asterisk.
| watermelongunn wrote:
| It stirs great jealousy in me as well... but as they say, are
| we not all standing on the shoulders of giants? And if the new
| [whatever] is an improvement, does it matter if it came from a
| rich kid? Sorry, I'm not actually directing these questions at
| you, but rather myself as I try not to feel any resentment
| toward people who were born better off than me.
| AlanYx wrote:
| One thing I'm curious about... with the hinge closed, is this
| monitor functionally equivalent to an RLCD display (like
| SunVision's products or the Hisense Q5), or is there still a
| discrepancy in brightness versus an RLCD display in equivalent
| ambient light?
| tokai wrote:
| Seems like there is discrepancy; "But even with the LED on, the
| screen is noticeably less bright than the conventional monitor
| I regularly use.".
| AlanYx wrote:
| That's not a surprise. But I'm specifically asking about a
| comparison with RLCD, which has no backlight.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Not to crap on an inventive kid, but I don't get this.
|
| A normal LCD screen works by shooting a backlight (usually LEDs)
| through an LCD panel. All this project does is replace the
| backlight with either a reflective backlight, or ambient light if
| it's bright enough.
|
| So how could this be any improvement beyond just turning down the
| brightness on a plain old LCD screen?
| jfim wrote:
| It automatically adjusts to ambient light, which isn't common
| on desktop monitors afaik. I wonder if one could just replace
| the backlight by a mirror though.
| neogodless wrote:
| I think it would make sense if screens detected ambient light
| and adjusted brightness to match (like smart phones do....) so
| this is just a clever way to do just that with low tech. But a
| high price. So yeah, I think it might just be better to take
| the existing technology in smart phones and apply it to laptop
| and desktop screens.
| lupire wrote:
| Monitor screens do this, if you don't get a cheap one.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| I have a cheap monitor with this feature and I think it
| sucks. It never manages to set the exact brightness I would
| consider right for me.
| hex4def6 wrote:
| There is no improvement. There are a lot of negatives though.
| For starters:
|
| * transmissivity of an LCD panel is pretty bad (10%-25%
| transmissivity?). So this is always going to be extremely dim,
| unless you stick a really bright lamp right up close to it.
| Thus, this isn't "matching" ambient light in any way.
|
| * Brightness uniformity is going to be terrible unless you use
| a photography softbox lamp.
|
| * Color accuracy is going to be terrible. Monitors use LEDs
| that are extremely cold / blue (~6500K if I remember) to get
| good color reproduction over the entire range of possible
| colors. Unless you want your house to look like an operating
| room you probably won't use a lamp that comes close to
| reproducing that.
|
| This is a solved problem in cellphones. Put a $0.25 ALS in the
| front bezel, enable DDC/CI, and call it a day.
|
| Here's a product idea that actually solves the issue: make a
| little USB dongle that has an ALS in it, make it in a
| formfactor that allows you to clip it to the top of any
| monitor, and use that to control the brightness. For DDC/CI
| monitors, you can directly control the backlight, and for other
| monitors you can just fake it by reducing the brightness of the
| image.
| nomel wrote:
| I actually did this exact thing, 20 years ago, with a monitor
| that had a dead backlight. I took it apart and tried angling
| a mirror with a diffuser on it (similar to what's shown), but
| ended up using white paper on the back, and a light/window
| behind, normal backlight style.
|
| Why? Because, all your points are correct (although the lack
| of uniformity was pretty ok/analog). And, as the images in
| the article show, you can't get reasonable brightness without
| a high powered light behind it. Oddly enough, the images in
| the article, with the light above and a poor angled reflector
| in the back, show _maximum possible_ blinding glare, with the
| bulb shining right in your face.
|
| It was temporary, fairly terrible, experience. A high quality
| monitor, with auto brightness and ambient color matching
| (like anything from Apple) would be my preference (and
| current use).
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| The day before the 2005 robo games in san francisco my
| laptop's backlight went out. In order to operate my robot I
| had to disassemble the screen and use a flashlight to light
| it up!
| metabagel wrote:
| ALS? DDC? CI?
| NoImmatureAdHom wrote:
| ALS: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease)
|
| DDC: Detroit Diesel Corporation
|
| CI: Confidence interval
| lupire wrote:
| I don't know what it's like in China, but in USA this would be
| a "college application project" to get him into Harvard and
| then close down the nonstarter company.
| jedberg wrote:
| I appreciate this guy trying to solve his problem, but it sounds
| like what he really needs is blue shifter like flux or the built
| in systems of the OS to set the color temperature lower.
|
| I just have flux running all day cutting the temp to 5900K. Never
| had eye strain after that (and slept better too because I cut
| down to 1900K at night (ie. very yellow).
|
| If he has to use other people's devices all day, like school
| devices, he can always wear blue-blocking glasses.
| progne wrote:
| I wish the article explained why redesigning the monitor to use
| ambient light is better than turning down the "brightness"
| setting. Anyone know?
| CommieBobDole wrote:
| Because "hey, turn down your brightness a little, dude" is not
| a product you can sell for money.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| How about, turn the brightness up to match the suns? Can't do
| that very easily either.
|
| If anything, I think this screen should have the option of
| collecting ambient light from an even larger area.
|
| It's actually somewhat genius. It's also interesting with
| color temperature. I guess it's a CRI of 100 in day light?
| hu3 wrote:
| > How about, turn the brightness up to match the suns?
| Can't do that very easily either.
|
| My phone has a setting for that.
|
| And it's possible to do with a webcam + monitor:
| https://askubuntu.com/questions/23593/use-webcam-to-sense-
| li...
|
| There's probably some software for that.
| fwmcbumcrumble wrote:
| I don't understand why more device don't have ambient
| light sensors built into them. Phones have been doing
| this amazingly for 15+ years but almost no displays do.
|
| I think I saw a TV a while back that did, but that's 1
| out of the 10 billion models out there.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| My cheap Benq monitor has a ambient light sensor, and I
| disabled it because it sucks. It never manages to set the
| exact brightness I would consider right for me in every
| scenario.
|
| Instead I much prefer to control it manually via the
| mouse scroll wheel and DDCI, that way I can adjusted
| exactly to my liking every moment of the day.
|
| On phones this feature makes sense because as you walk
| and move around the ambient brightness shining on the
| screen changes rapidly but on a indoor PC monitor in a
| room/office, the ambient light is relatively stable
| because you can control it via light switches or window
| blinds, so manual control is fine.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| IMO, phones have been doing this horribly for 15+ years,
| with no signal that it will ever be good enough.
|
| I would never buy a TV with that.
| olyjohn wrote:
| We had a Sony Trinitron CRT TV that had a brightness
| sensor on it like 35 years ago. It also worked horribly.
| mat_epice wrote:
| My Dell laptop had one, which was very poorly done.
| Sitting in a dimly lit room, I would catch it self
| adjusting every several seconds. I ended up disabling it.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Your phone is hardly as bright as the sun though.
| layer8 wrote:
| Turning brightness too low also reduces contrast (e.g. for
| text). There's a middle ground with adequate ambient lighting
| and moderate brightness setting.
| zwieback wrote:
| Different but worse by almost every metric, what don't I get?
| rom16384 wrote:
| Some people get eyestrain from regular monitors,
| https://ledstrain.org/
| amluto wrote:
| Wait, so instead of a regular screen, you get an unevenly lit
| screen and a very bright and glary light source that's visible
| right above the screen? Those sample pictures look miserable to
| work near.
|
| How about a conventional display with an ambient light sensor
| that can adjust brightness to match the ambient conditions? Bonus
| points for optional automatic white point adjustment. (Many
| mobile devices have these features.)
| boplicity wrote:
| One of the things I really hate about reviews of laptops,
| screens, etc, is the focus on how bright the screens are _as
| though it 's a good thing._
|
| Who really wants to be staring at 1,600 nits of brightness all
| day? Certainly not me.
|
| A much better screen, in my opinion, would have super high
| contrast with _low_ brightness. Yet, this isn 't something that
| gets measured by reviewers. Coincidentally, that's also why I
| like using OLED screens. At least with true black, much of the
| light can get turned off completely.
| post_break wrote:
| What? That's like complaining your car reviews talk about how
| it has 300hp, why would you be at full throttle every time you
| drive? High brightness is a good thing because it's used for
| HDR, areas where there is a lot of sunlight, etc. Something
| OLED struggles with as well. My wifes laptop with OLED only
| does like 600 nits.
| dijit wrote:
| I think the parent has a point.
|
| We talk a lot about peak brightness, which is useful in some
| scenarios like you mentioned.
|
| But you know whats _more_ interesting?
|
| Brightness stepping, min brightness and ambient light
| sensors; which are never talked about by reviewers, which is
| then a weird cycle because manufacturers seem to care a lot
| about what reviewers focus on.
| 1270018080 wrote:
| A car having unnecessary hp is a great example against your
| point.
| jerlam wrote:
| Most mainstream computer monitors, designed for use indoors,
| are not going to be anywhere near 1600 nits. The monitor I
| bought last year for $400 tops out at 400 nits.
|
| Laptops, phones, and smart watches are designed to be used in
| varying conditions like outdoors, where the sun can easily
| overpower a 400 nit monitor. Also in low light conditions,
| which is why they mostly have ambient light sensors.
|
| There's always some user out there who wants to watch HDR
| videos in the middle of the Sahara desert at solar noon, which
| would actually be an interesting use case for the monitor in
| the article.
| adfgiopjionio wrote:
| A bright panel can be turned down.
| theGeatZhopa wrote:
| Nice one if you working monochromatic. Bad one, of you want to
| see colors.
|
| Nice one if you want it to be cheap. Bad one, if you have to use
| light sources, that use up more energy than the trad. Backlight.
|
| Nice one, if ... Game. What do you think of other pro and contra
| arguments?
| DistractionRect wrote:
| > Nice one if you want it to be cheap.
|
| Suggested retail price $1099. At that point, I'll just buy an
| OLED and just turn down the brightness.
| izzydata wrote:
| I'd like to see a high refresh rate color e-ink display as a
| computer monitor.
| leafmeal wrote:
| No comment on this actual product, but I found that turning the
| brightness as low as I can tolerate on my monitor significantly
| reduced my eye strain and discomfort. It takes a little getting
| used to, but I highly recommend giving it a try.
| leafmeal wrote:
| Also using light mode instead of dark mode helps with
| visibility on a dim screen
| IYasha wrote:
| But only as long as it's not a freakin' PWM. I have this
| problem on my laptop and TV and anything lower than 100% hurts
| as hell. (
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| You don't need a fancy monitor to not strain your eyes. You know
| you need? _Lower brightness_ or _more ambient light_.
|
| This is something I've been saying for ages. Some time in the
| last 10 years or so, it seems we decided as a collective that
| screens should be SUPER BRIGHT, and now half the tech crowded
| uses dark mode.
|
| If you "just like dark mode", that's fine. But if you avoid light
| mode because it hurts your eyes, then your brightness is too high
| or you don't have enough ambient light.
|
| I sit at my computer 12-16 hours a day. Yes, I know, it's pretty
| unhealthy. But I have _never_ felt eye strain. Even after getting
| LASIK and my eyes were a little more sensitive to light, I could
| stare at my screen all day after the first day.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| I get eyestrain with lower brightness, but I typically don't
| use my computer in the dark. On the occasion that I do, I do
| lower the brightness. I also loathe dark mode in general, but I
| do enjoy a darker background with colorful fonts while
| programming (Dracula theme for Sublime). All in all, I rarely
| get eye strain with my habits.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| Are you experiencing the inverse problem? If your screen is
| darker than your surroundings, then it will likely strain
| your eyes.
|
| The goal here is to match your display's brightness (the
| content you see, not just the backlight intensity) to your
| room's ambient lighting.
| seemaze wrote:
| Exactly this, you should be viewing a monitor in the same
| lighting environment that you would read a book or magazine.
| The catch is physical media forces you to address a deficiency
| by changing your environment, where an illuminated screen
| allows you to adjust the media.
|
| Maybe I should wire the monitor controls on my computer to
| adjust the lights in my room..?
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| This is why I want _neutral_ mode.
|
| The solarized theme went halfway there twice.
| demondemidi wrote:
| solarized-light plus 2700K LEDs in the room are a perfect
| match.
|
| and only one monitor. having to turn your head to view a
| screen is bad for your neck muscles. only eyes move, not
| neck: keep head in a stabilized position always.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| That's great, but I prefer a darker room, personally.
| demondemidi wrote:
| i think a lot of people prefer to sit on a couch in a
| dark room, and then complain their back, neck, wrists and
| eyes hurt and wonder why... but hey you do you.
| demondemidi wrote:
| i've been sitting at a computer for 40+ years. never had eye
| strain. although proper ergo was drilled into me at intel and
| microsoft, and i continue those practices. someone needs to
| teach the next generation of programmers about ergonomics
| because clearly they aren't getting it from work or school. if
| you're going to lock your body into a seated position for 10+
| hours a day for decades, you need to do it responsibly and not
| just grind through if you feel pain. it only gets worse.
| zeusk wrote:
| I hated the wellnomics software at Intel, but it was annoying
| enough for me to just disable it instead of tinkering with
| settings to make it bearable.
| demondemidi wrote:
| I have no idea what that is. I'm talking about setting up a
| desk properly to minimize strain of the back, hips, neck,
| and eyes.
| ok_computer wrote:
| I agreed with you but a true low brightness setting while
| maintaining contrast is hard to dial in.
|
| Also, due to either the driving electronics or LED diode
| physics sometimes the back pane initial brightness at 0br+1*dbr
| is too bright (lol or lumens instead of br), for instance on my
| macbook pro at night lights out darkness.
|
| For instance with OLEDs there is a turn on voltage, where
| either the pixel is Off or On at this initial brightness. That
| goes sufficiently dim on my phone with an OLED screen. I
| suspect the back pane LEDs have this same minimum brightness at
| minimum voltage.
|
| An OLED laptop or desk monitor would be nice but I don't have
| that money.
| cfn wrote:
| Current OLED desk monitors are terrible in the eye strain
| department. I got one thinking it would help and it is now
| relegated to YouTube detail.
|
| Nice image but it self dims after a few minutes when the
| image is static. Usually, I don't notice it is dimming and
| only when I am straining my eyes to see I remember why, shake
| a window and boom sudenly it is very bright (relatively).
| Very annoying and the only way to fix it kills the warranty.
| Aardwolf wrote:
| But at least the brightness setting should be easy to reach
| then (preferably analog dial). In my current monitor, the only
| way to adjust it requires multiple tiny 4 way joystick button
| presses to reach the correct space in the menu. No direct
| controls. The only direct control is for volume, while one
| would never want to use this monitor for sound (super tinny
| hdmi speakers). No option to even assign this control to
| brightness.
| JacobThreeThree wrote:
| I would buy a monitor that had a separate, physical dial,
| direct brightness control.
| fwmcbumcrumble wrote:
| Most modern displays support DDC/CI or whatever it is that
| lets your PC talk to the monitor and adjust brightness (and
| other settings).
|
| Monitorian and other apps let you adjust those settings from
| your PC.
|
| https://github.com/emoacht/Monitorian
| 4c144847 wrote:
| This is definitely helpful, but it's dismissive to say that
| this is _all_ that it comes down to. I have to keep my monitors
| on their lowest brightness, and use them in well-lit rooms.
| Even then, I start getting strain after a couple hours
| depending on the type of work I'm doing.
|
| There's studies indicating the polarization of the light of
| different monitors can increase strain:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9010255/
|
| There are other issues like astigmatism or chronic dry eye that
| can make people more susceptible to eye strain.
|
| Just because lower brightness works for you, it doesn't mean it
| will work for everyone.
| tmikaeld wrote:
| I too have astigmatism and i run my monitors on low
| brightness, but ever since i switched to ips with yellow non
| blue tint I've had no issues.
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| I usually run all my screens at or below the 25% mark. I see
| some of my colleagues with theirs cranked up and I don't get
| it. maybe for doing some UI work due to colors, but man that
| just hurts my eyes.
| qiine wrote:
| you are forgetting an important aspect, refresh rate and the
| fact that certain screens insert black frames to reduce
| ghosting which produce blinking effect that is not good for the
| eye/brain.
| Spastche wrote:
| i've been using ambient backlighting on my main monitors and
| it's helped immensely IMO.
| barrysteve wrote:
| how are you using ambient backlighting?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| If nothing else, this monitor is a good way to counteract the
| problems that come from working in otherwise-underlit workspaces,
| since it simply won't work there.
| bjnewman85 wrote:
| This is a nice idea. But it appears the trend of "Look at this
| astonishing youth!", then in paragraph 8, "whose parents own a
| recycling company near Shenzen...and connected him with
| manufacturers" so this is a joint venture between his parents
| company and some of their friends to back their son's business
| idea. Very newsworthy.
| tobyjsullivan wrote:
| Not sure how relevant that is. Anyone who does anything
| impressive will always be dependent on their support network.
|
| It is unfortunate that the most driven, intelligent person
| won't accomplish much if they don't have the network. But I
| don't see why that diminishes this person's accomplishments.
| utopcell wrote:
| It is quite relevant if the focal point is the person's age
| and not the product by itself.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| "No man is an island."
|
| Also, "If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must
| first invent the universe" -Carl Sagan
|
| Nobody accomplishes anything of note alone.
| _trampeltier wrote:
| Very nice. Recently we spoke about monitors. Why don't office
| monitors adjust the brightness. I often just make light in the
| office, because it is simpler than adjust the brightness from the
| monitor. I know thats sick, bad, expensive, whatever solution.
| ecshafer wrote:
| It sounds like the issue is that there are too many Computers /
| TVs and screens in schools. For something that has no evidence
| its better for learning (And actually evidence its worse for
| learning). Perhaps schools should rethink things.
| criddell wrote:
| What exactly is eye strain?
| hk__2 wrote:
| > What exactly is eye strain?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_strain
| Justsignedup wrote:
| So what he's saying is a monitor that adjusts brightness to
| ambient light like a cellphone screen solves the problem?
| ghostpepper wrote:
| Apple laptops do this too. Probably possible to rig up on Linux
| jcuenod wrote:
| I'm pretty sure my laptop is doing this through something
| between Gnome + Arch without me configuring it (Precision
| 5560)
| PaulKeeble wrote:
| What we really need is desktop monitors to have similar light
| following properties as tablets and phones and if that can be
| calibrated a bit they will follow the lighting of the room as it
| changes through the day. We don't need completely new monitors we
| just need desktop computers to copy something phones and tablets
| have been doing for 15 years now and all for the cost of a simple
| light sensor.
|
| Desktop monitors have not made it possible to adjust their
| brightness from the PC and that is a big problem in all this or
| we would have solved this years ago.
| withinrafael wrote:
| Actually, most monitors support the DDC/CI protocol [1]. But I
| think implementations tend to be spotty hence Windows (for
| example) doesn't show a brightness slider in some
| configurations. Third party apps exist though (e.g.,
| TwinkleTray [2]).
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_Data_Channel
|
| [2] https://twinkletray.com/
| IYasha wrote:
| FINALLY! Someone remembers! There even was a monitor remote
| control panel in NVIDIA Display CP in Windows 98 or 2000. It
| was awesome!
| jon-wood wrote:
| Most monitors do in fact support this via DDC, but in general
| the OS doesn't expose that to the user.
| eternityforest wrote:
| Why can't we software emulate this? We have webcams, we know
| roughly where light comes from and how much. We should be able to
| turn those sources into 3D model lights and illuminate a virtuall
| screen, perhaps even with onscreen objects having some texture,
| like raised. Button in browsers.
|
| Better yet, how can we get just away from screens more without
| getting bored? I love screens but there's a limit. Gaming and
| online content are pretty much the ,ain leisure activities that
| don't involve food or alcohol (and all the health issues of
| overeating and drinking).
|
| Seems like we used to do more other stuff.
| bobsmith432 wrote:
| Did CRTs cause more or less eye strain than LCDs?
| IYasha wrote:
| There were a lot of varieties of those. Some were better.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| Eye strain seems like the wrong thing to focus on here. I'm much
| more interested in the efficiency of this design.
|
| Most of the energy drawn by an LCD goes into its backlight. If
| you are trying to use one outside, then you are fighting the
| brightness of the sun by matching its intensity with a backlight.
| Why not just use the sun _as_ a backlight instead?
|
| Of course, this is a very simple and clunky version of that. I do
| wonder how much could be optimized.
| UtopiaPunk wrote:
| I personally would like to see a resurgence and expansion of
| Reflective LCD screens, and this seems sort of similar. I mostly
| associate Reflective LCD screens with Gameboys.
|
| Remember how helpful it was to go outside to see the Gameboy
| screen? There was a reflective material on the back side of the
| screen, which "lit" up the screen. As an aside, there was even a
| cool Gameboy Advance game with a solar sensor that encouraged the
| player to go outside to charge up the protagonist's "solar gun":
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boktai:_The_Sun_Is_in_Your_Han....
| Even the GBA SP, which had a light you could turn on and off, lit
| the screen up from the front.
|
| I'm definitely not an expert in the area. My impression is that
| after the Gameboy, there wasn't much demand for these types of
| screen. I also suspect something about them doesn't scale to
| larger sizes as cost effectively as other screens, and there's
| been little interest from corporations in improving the
| technology :(
| layer8 wrote:
| Reflective LCD monitors exist:
| https://www.sunvisiondisplay.com/ However, resolution is
| relatively low (FHD at 32"), contrast is quite low (25:1), as
| is color gamut (15% of NTSC). Still, some may prefer them over
| emissive displays.
| utopcell wrote:
| Not to mention, quite expensive for the specs.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > I personally would like to see a resurgence and expansion of
| Reflective LCD screens, and this seems sort of similar.
|
| However, this monitor is _not at all_ a reflective LCD screen.
| It 's just a normal emissive LCD, but which for some reason
| uses a Rube Goldberg machine as the backlight.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| https://play.date
|
| I have one, it's kinda fun, but it's annoying to "find a light"
| to play near.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Something that drives me absolutely bonkers is how laptops,
| phones, tablets, all treat brightness as a first class feature.
| But if you want to quickly adjust brightness on your desktop
| monitors, it's intensely tedious or requires you to be tech savvy
| and install software.
|
| Why oh why can't I just Fn + Fkeys to adjust brightness on the
| fly?!
| Archelaos wrote:
| > Why oh why can't I just Fn + Fkeys to adjust brightness on
| the fly?!
|
| On my Thinkpad T550 I can use Fn + F5/F6 to adjust the
| brightness.
| timerol wrote:
| Your parent was complaining about desktops, not laptops. They
| specifically called out that laptops do this correctly (along
| with most other devices)
| Archelaos wrote:
| Oh. You are right. I did not properly grasp the post.
| NooneAtAll3 wrote:
| probably because software side still wishes for the buttons on
| the side of the screen (anyone remembers degaussing?)
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I loved how the longer you waited, the more wacky the
| degaussing would be.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| I use "MonitorControl" on my Mac Studio to control the
| brightness of my Dell monitor:
|
| https://github.com/MonitorControl/MonitorControl
| bobthepanda wrote:
| there used to be buttons for that but then they figured out
| providing less buttons and instead horrible menus for button
| things was cheaper.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I vaguely remember analog wheels on some of the really old
| monitors. Maybe the Apple IIgs or LC3 had that? Would kill
| for that today.
| jhallenworld wrote:
| If you really want to help with eye strain, make a monitor with
| some kind of pancake optics so that the screen appears to be at
| infinity. Having to focus at something right in front of you all
| day strains the focus muscles in your eyes.
|
| Older people will know what I'm talking about here..
| winrid wrote:
| Switching from OLED to IPS screens that have no flicker helps a
| lot too.
|
| Very hard to find an OLED monitor that doesn't have flicker (this
| is not refresh rate - this is brightness modulating from 0 - 100%
| hundreds of times a second - hard on eye muscles). Old CRT
| monitors were even better than current OLED displays because the
| flicker modulation was a curve and not a digital hard/on-off type
| flicker.
| RadixDLT wrote:
| he didn't really build anything, he just took out the back light
| LouisSayers wrote:
| I always have brightness on as low as possible and have noticed
| people in the office often have theirs up quite a lot.
|
| Never suffered from dry eyes, at 36 still have 20/20 vision, and
| haven't felt a need to do anything about my monitors.
|
| The biggest issue I've faced is actually environmental glare
| (light from windows / bouncing off walls) - but nothing some
| curtains couldn't fix.
| mandeepj wrote:
| My almost 15 year old anti-glare dell monitor has worked great
| over the years <knock on the wood>
|
| https://www.ebay.com/itm/266257015988
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| Is it just a matte finish on the screen, or is there something
| else that is unique to this monitor?
| adfgiopjionio wrote:
| A dim, unevenly lit panel with awful color rendering is supposed
| to _reduce_ eyestrain?
|
| This is good for winning first prize at a high school science
| fair. It makes no sense for any other purpose. And even at a
| science fair, the ability to build this is somewhat impressive
| but the inability to recognize it as a bad idea is not.
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