[HN Gopher] Transparent computer monitor designed to protect you...
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Transparent computer monitor designed to protect your vision
Author : plun9
Score : 37 points
Date : 2025-11-08 19:11 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.visualinstruments.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.visualinstruments.co)
| PaulHoule wrote:
| This is the best waiting list I've seen in a long time. I've seen
| that monitor so much in science fiction.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| Fascinating. By default, though, this seems like it would just
| result in low contrast and difficulty reading, unless turned to
| opaque mode.
|
| The thing I'd _love_ to see, which to the best of my knowledge
| isn 't possible with normal HDMI/DP/etc, is an opaque monitor
| that allows rendering an alpha channel as _actual transparency_.
| That would allow things like setting your desktop background to
| transparent, so that when you have one non-fullscreen window, the
| rest of the screen is transparent.
|
| Are there any display technologies or protocols for sending RGBA
| to a monitor, and letting the monitor handle the alpha?
| fleabitdev wrote:
| That could be made to work by stacking a transparent OLED panel
| in front of a transparent LCD panel. The LCD would absorb
| light, and the OLED would emit light.
|
| I just tried to search for some examples, but I can't find any.
| Maybe the displays can't be made thin enough to eliminate
| parallax between the two images?
| Neywiny wrote:
| I mean you could always tag transparency as extra bits.
| Presumably both sides of the link would need to understand
| this. So you'd send an 8bpc signal as idk 10, which gets you
| 6bpc of transparency. Or you run a faster framerate where 1 in
| every N frames is a transparency. It could work.
|
| For displayport you could use MST
| clort wrote:
| Not sure how it protects your vision. So, they say take an eye
| break to relieve the strain, presumably with focussing on a fixed
| point. These guys are saying that hey you can instantly focus on
| something far away and carry on working without even looking away
| from the screen! That doesn't sound like an eye break to me, and
| it doesn't sound like it protects your vision at all.
|
| I mean, it looks pretty cool but I think their marketing
| department is not aiming it at my cynical self
| plun9 wrote:
| I agree. There are other displays you can use with a greater
| focal distance: AR glasses, VR headsets, TVs, and projectors.
|
| But we haven't seen the actual product yet.
| knollimar wrote:
| Does eye strain even damage your vision long term?
| plun9 wrote:
| Your eyeballs elongate when you keep straining them to look
| at nearby objects for long periods of time.
| toast0 wrote:
| I feel like it's likely misleading, too. Eye breaks are about
| changing your focal plane, and if you're looking beyond the
| monitor to rest your eyes, you won't be seeing the screen.
|
| You can experience this with a window with dry erase markers.
| Focus at a far off point and the dry erase is illegible and may
| not even disturb your far vision. Focus at the glass and you
| can read whatever you wrote (subject to penmanship).
|
| Heads up displays often have optics to project onto a medium
| distance focal plane, otherwise your eyes have to work harder
| and you're not really able to see the scene and the display at
| the same time.
| binarymax wrote:
| "Unlike traditional monitors that force your eyes to focus at a
| near distance, Phantom allows you to look through the display and
| focus on objects at varying distances. This helps reduce eye
| fatigue during long work sessions by giving your eyes natural
| opportunities to relax and refocus."
|
| Is there any science behind this or is it just a "sounds about
| right" claim?
| evanjrowley wrote:
| See this article on the growing prevelance of myopia:
| https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/nov/14/eyeballs-scr...
|
| I intentionally arrange my desk so that I can look past my
| monitor. On days where I can't refocus my eyes on something
| long-distance, I have difficulty focusing my vision after
| spending 1/3 of the day looking at computer screens. On days
| where I can refocus my eyes, I can go up to 2/3 of the day
| without issue.
| Zak wrote:
| There seems to be real evidence[0] for the idea that focusing
| on nearby objects like computer screens for hours on end can
| contribute to the development of myopia. Breaks might help.
|
| I don't see any reason to believe that making the screen
| transparent rather than looking to the side of it is a better
| way to look out a window for a break.
|
| [0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34622560/
| jvanderbot wrote:
| I want some VR goggles that are light, only do text, and have
| focus at infinity or so. Not just 3D convergence at infinity
| but somehow manage to blur just right so my eyes can focus on
| it like it's across the street. I'm not an optometrist I'm
| just a consumer and programmer. A guy can wish.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Maybe the text editor could fly around occasionally. Might
| be a little annoying but kind of fun.
| yojo wrote:
| Having the whole desktop gradually change focal distance
| over ~an hour seems like it'd probably do the trick in a
| less distracting way.
| plun9 wrote:
| How about AR glasses? The focal distance on mine is roughly
| 4 meters.
| abcd_f wrote:
| There is an eye exercise for short-sighted people that involves
| painting a dot on a window glass and then repeatedly changing
| focus between the dot and the scenery behind the window.
|
| Basically, focus on the dot for 10 seconds, then on the back.
| Rinse and repeat several times, 2-3 times a day.
|
| I was given this exercise over 30 years ago and its goal was to
| stop the worsening of the eyesight. Fwiw, in my case, it seemed
| to have worked.
| shreddit wrote:
| For what it's worth, i didn't know about this and in the last
| 7 years my eyesight didn't get any worse. I have -1/-1.5
|
| And i work 8 hours in front of a computer
| WithinReason wrote:
| so you need to put it right in front of a window?
| plun9 wrote:
| I guess you could arrange your room so that when you're looking
| through the monitor you're looking across the room.
| TheCraiggers wrote:
| Finally, I can be one of those "hackers" that I constantly see
| stock photos of!
| seiferteric wrote:
| While I am not particularly interested in the design, I am
| intrigued by the idea of making your own monitor. I have had some
| ideas about features I would like in a monitor before. Are there
| some boards out there that are easy to hack on to add firmware
| features etc?
| formerly_proven wrote:
| (Monitor-sized HUD, the image is at some not-that-close-distance
| [I assume]. There is probably a relatively restrictive eyebox to
| be able to see the image.)
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Looks like it's just a HUD married to electro-chromatic glass.
| Nothing novel here.
| thechao wrote:
| Why does it need to be novel? It's (in theory!) a product you
| can buy. There's a bunch of different car companies & phone
| companies & writers & stuff, right?
| nosrepa wrote:
| What's going on in that second image?
| jsheard wrote:
| Looks like it functions like a teleprompter. The actual display
| is flat on the desk facing up, and reflected at you through a
| piece of glass set at 45 degrees, with a second piece of
| switchable "privacy glass" behind it to provide an opaque
| backdrop when desired. Since you're looking at a reflection of
| the display, viewing it from the side as in that image breaks
| the alignment and cuts it off.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Feels like a problem you could solve more completely by switching
| to a projector. Or some other really large screen--but you need
| something big enough to fill your field of view from many feet
| away.
| plun9 wrote:
| True. It requires more space, but it's been done:
| https://sofiapandelea.medium.com/monitor-replacement-using-a...
|
| http://nixon-development.com/fp/nearsightedness.htm
| wiz21c wrote:
| the thing is so big I dunno where I can put my keyboard...
| ranger_danger wrote:
| How many people are going to want this at only 24 inches?
| boothby wrote:
| As I write this, 7 / 10 "founder" models are available. So,
| three. Perhaps this is more in line with the nautical use of
| that word.
| albumen wrote:
| wouldn't a smart sales strategy be to always show that some
| of the available items have sold, even if they haven't?
| user982 wrote:
| In the pilot episode of Banshee (2013), a character has
| transparent monitors
| (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PiIhMs4k88) which never showed
| up again. They seemed higher tech than anything else in the
| series and I was never able to find information on them.
| Ekaros wrote:
| I am not sure if this really does more than maybe helps you take
| more breaks. You still need to focus your vision on the screen
| and that is the issue. Just take some transparent object with
| text or something else on it and try to read. You focus on it.
| And then try to look through, reading is much harder if even
| possible at all.
| geor9e wrote:
| Calling it a transparent computer monitor makes it sound like
| it's new technology, when in reality it just a run of the mill
| teleprompter half-mirror above a run of the mill computer
| monitor.
| pashariger wrote:
| Amazing packaging for what is effectively a teleprompter.
| tcdent wrote:
| s/packaging/branding/
|
| The product packaging itself doesn't look that great IMO.
| seemaze wrote:
| No thanks. I have a HUD in my car that I can hardly read.
|
| Want to protect your eyesight when viewing a computer monitor?
| Increase your ambient lighting levels, sit farther back, and
| _take frequent breaks_.
| pferdone wrote:
| I also have a HUD in my car and I can read it just fine, even
| in bright sunlight.
| plun9 wrote:
| It's quite difficult to take a lot of breaks when you're
| focused on work.
| molticrystal wrote:
| I wonder if this would actually make vision worse, increasing
| nearsightedness or causing the condition. It seems that dark
| words on light backgrounds can cause your eyes to elongate over
| time[0] or other conditions to form, and it seems it is no
| coincidence that many readers require glasses.
|
| Would the same occur with dark mode on a transparent background?
| While I am not saying that it would negatively effect the eyes, I
| am skeptical of this claim of letting the eyes relax, it seems
| like marketing.
|
| [0] Wagner, S., Strasser, T. Impact of text contrast polarity on
| the retinal activity in myopes and emmetropes using modified
| pattern ERG. Sci Rep 13, 11101 (2023).
| https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-38192-9
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(page generated 2025-11-08 23:00 UTC)