I hope something comes of this. Going to an optometrist felt like going to a car dealership the last time I went. Blue light filtering was that worthless upswell they wanted to push on everyone. This situation reminds of Cheerios claiming to lower cholesterol[0] and I hope it similarly gets FDA scrutiny - although my amateurish interpretation of the law is that blue light blocking claims are vague enough to not run afoul of regulations.
Overall this situation is just sad because I heard it first from ads, then vision professional, and now folks I know. It seems like it’s infected our collective consciousness without any serious questions of it’s true.
I got this same feeling a few trips ago to the vet. It was like all they cared about was trying to upsell me to put my dog out and clean her teeth. The nice assistant whispered to me “I wouldn’t do any of that to my shepherd” *wink.
Inevitably I had to go back since then and the next it seemed like they cut that crap as it wasn’t like that before and hasn’t been my last 2 trips. Still leaves bad taste in your mouth because you want to do the right thing but not get ripped off.
Anecdotally, every optometrist and ophthalmologist I met, who wasn't selling me something at the time of conversation, was pretty dismissive of the whole "blue light filtering" business.
The attempt to block blue light has been with us so long (like a decade or so), the blue-light-filtering products so well commercialized, and yet the underlying claim that blue light affects sleep remains to be inconclusive at best, which makes me doubly wary of its validity.
This. I went recently and something about my eye axis(?) or something was off a bit (which somehow most Americans have?) and mentioned how it’s causing eyestrain. There’s special lenses that correct for this that is… SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS more just for the lenses. Mind you, my glasses are usually really affordable because I have a weak prescription. I was dumbfounded when I heard the price.
I've had the opposite experience. Despite having a pair of "computer vision" glasses included as part of my plan, the optometrists I've been to have all pretty much dismissed tinted lenses as woo-woo. They did suggest a pair of lower-power lenses for computer use, but that was it.
I say to my optometrist that I cannot have any color filters on my glass because of work. You cannot do colour grading with random filters. No pushing nonsense bluefilter since then.
I guess I have to speak up as every one made their mind and knows how the blue-blocking glasses are useless placebo gimick made up to take your precious 20$ from you.
I developed an eye pain condition around 14 years ago in university years, my eye sight was not really degrading but I get physical tension turning into pain in the eyes if I look at the screen for about 3-4 hours. I know that I still have this condition because sometimes I forget my glasses to the office and I have to take breaks much more often than otherwise. With the glasses I can work all day, then play video games, watch movies etc without feeling anything.
One thing I want to add is that there are seems to be different types of these glasses as I bought about 10 pairs and 2 of them also didn't work for me. So when I need a new pair I just take the one I know is good and ask optician if they have exactly the same type of filter.
So if the research says there isn't enough evidence it's fine, do more researches and find out exactly what happens here, but don't go around and tell how it's all made up and not helping anyone.
I worked in a big box electronics retail store in the early 2010s. Most customers were reasonably trusting which as someone not looking to screw them over made for quite a pleasant job. Perhaps the worst type of customer, was the vaguely ‘informed’ know it all ‘nerd’. Around this time, the “don’t buy the expensive gold-plated HDMI cable” movement was in full swing, but it was also about this time that different types of HDMI cables were starting to matter for (higher-end) prosumer setups.
Trying to convince some abrasive knowitall that our $15 home brand HDMI cable is going to be the bottleneck in their setup, and that it was basically orthogonal to any ‘good plated’ BS, was almost always not worth it. Eventually I learned to just let them make their own mistakes, dooming them to slink off to Amazon or whatever when they weren’t getting the resolution or frame rate they were after and eventually happened upon the CNET article that made them see the light.
The fact that there is an objective functional difference between different types of HDMI cables, whereas the jury is still out on blue blocker glasses, is pretty much irrelevant to my point. Any ‘science says…’ rhetoric is almost always parroted by people that don’t know what they’re talking about. At the end of the day, self-described ‘informed consumers’ LOVE feeling like they’ve got The Knowledge that’s going to give them a leg up on the slimy salesperson. A fair bit of the time though, the fact that the majority of these people aren’t actually all that knowledgeable means that these pearls of wisdom get corrupted over time and end up being entirely untrue. I’ve got no doubt that plenty of Hacker News regulars are the sorts of people that were incredibly hard to work with back then.
“It works for me” does not imply “it can’t possibly be a placebo”. Both could be true.
I’m not saying the blue light thing is or isn’t real, but I see this kind of argument made all the time, and I can’t tell if people just don’t understand what the placebo effect is or if everyone just thinks they’re special and the placebo effect doesn’t apply to them or what.
When something is identified as a placebo, that is not the same as saying it can't or won't help anyone. The placebo effect is a real, measurable phenomenon. As a non-scientist I'm probably going to grossly oversimplify this, but when testing the efficacy of a drug or medical device the whole reason you need to have a control group taking a placebo (sugar pills, for example) is because the placebo will actually cause some people in that group to have a real, measurable improvement in whatever it is being measured. The only way to know if the real drug or device you're testing actually works is if the improvements experienced by the test group is better than the improvements experienced by the control group.
Additionally, I think this research/review was focused only on whether blue light filters help reduce eyestrain in the general population. So saying it had no effect here doesn't necessarily rule out the possibility that they could help in individuals with specific medical conditions that weren't controlled for or factored in here, just that in the general case they seem to have no effect.
I'm totally with you. I always had eye strain when on the PC but since wearing cheap orange glasses (with no dioptrine) I don't have it anymore. I can take of my glasses and within 5 minutes on the PC I notice the eye strain. It definitely works (for me, with certain glasses). I only use these glasses when at a screen, so basically it would make no sense at all to use it if it weren't helping (though I do like the orange effect ;)).
btw. just because some people don't have this particular eye strain problem, doesn't mean it's all a giant hoax. Come on, people.
>If the eyestrain persists, see an eye-care health professional who can perform a thorough examination of your eye health, Downie said. “Sometimes eyestrain can be actually caused by an underlying eye health or vision problem,” she said.
Idk if you have already, but could be a good idea to visit a professional for an evaluation.
My friend was having eye sight issues and a bit of strain, turns out it was a brain injury.
But if researchers say there isn't enough evidence, where will the average consumer turn to to "do more research"? That's where the shady pseudoscience advertising articles come in, who will gladly make unfounded claims with absolute confidence.
Fair enough, but we should be aware that the placebo effect is real and it could easily explain what you feel.
> So if the research says there isn't enough evidence it's fine, do more researches and find out exactly what happens here, but don't go around and tell how it's all made up and not helping anyone.
people aren't doing this though... Equating "not enough evidence" with "it's false" is a straw man argument. And starting with accepting the need for more research but then chastising them for expressing skepticism is bad. The emotional appeal is also bad, we aren't causing harm by voicing our skepticism.
I'll start by saying I work in the industry and I have actually worked on making blue blocking coatings.
There are two ways these filters work.
The first and older method is to tint the lenses so that they absorb blue light. This will make the the lenses look yellow or orange. The wavelength that is normally targeted is 455nm. The more yellow or orange the lenses look the more blue light they are blocking. This tinting process works the same as it does in a normal sunglass lens (by dipping the lens in a hot water bath that has dyes dissolved in it; the dyes migrate to the porous lens material).
The second method is to put a blue reflective coating on the lenses using vacuum deposition. You can recognize these lenses because they have a strong blue reflection (not to be confused with a subtle blue reflection which can be seen in a normal anti-reflective layer). These lenses won't block as much blue light as the tinted lenses but they look nearly like normal glasses.
I suppose some manufactureres may try a hybrid approach although (both absorption and reflection). Anyway the general thing to think about is that the more "normal" the lenses appear the less blue light they will block.
I never understood their use as computer glasses because all computers and phones have low blue light modes now and these do what they say they do, and I've measured the output of screens with a spectrophotometer.
>So if the research says there isn't enough evidence it's fine, do more researches and find out exactly what happens here, but don't go around and tell how it's all made up and not helping anyone.
I think most of the backlash is against the the claims that blue light is damaging and that these filters will protect your eyes. I think in these cases the evidence has to come first.
Obviously if someone suffers from eyestrain it's great that there are products out there that you can try (on a personal scale it doesn't matter if the solution is placebo or a not yet clearly understood therapy) but this is different from saying that everyone should have these to protect their eyes from the danger of blue light. Personally I use the night mode feature on my devices but I wouldn't bother with the glasses because to me they seem redundant.
Another thing I would like to add is that I've never met anyone technical working in the industry that actually believes these filters work and everyone considers them a marketing led exercise.
Exactly, I have some of the kind that actually have a visible yellow tint and blue reflect -- I get eyestrain after a long time, but without them on the crappy monitors at my old job I got eyestrain within one hour, and my phone was unusable at the end of the day.
Weren't blue-light glasses originally marketed as a solution to aid sleep by blocking out the sleep-disrupting effects of blue light emitted from screens in bed?
Seems like they're debunking a claim that's not actually their selling point.
If you've ever tried a pair of Gunnar ambers you'd know what real blue light filtering is. With them on, it's not a subtle effect. You see with an amber tint. The monitor just appears less noisy. I've worked 12 hours straight in them in the past after which I'm physically and mentally tired but my eyes aren't. Without them I can't work, which is exactly how you know they're working.
If you're a programmer just looking at text all day, they are worth every penny. If you're a designer and color perception is important to you, you're out of luck.
Not affiliated to Gunnar in any way. Just a happy customer of 6 years.
I don’t have this specific brand of glasses, but mines are yellow tinted and although it makes me see the world with a different hue, I notice that when working, my eye is way less strained with them on. I have astigmatism so maybe there’s some correlation there with the dimmed brightness.
I used green CRTs (Apple II), orange CRTs, B&W CRTs, CGA, EGA, VGA, SuperVGA CRTs at least 12hr/day since the early 80s, then I started hearing people afraid of radiation and moving to LCDs in the 90s which I also used again at least 12hr daily, and I still keep using my laptop and reading my phone. From the Apple II manuals I have always remembered the technique of focusing on objects at different distances for several minutes to rest. But I also developed my own technique of closing the eye in pain and placing my fingertips around the cornea and applying little pressure until colored spots appear in the vision, there will be more pain than the one caused by eyestrain, but after a while it will go, and when releasing the fingers the eye will feel refreshed. I have good sight after all these years.
Neither staring at monitors nor print is actually expected to actually cause worsening eyesight. The idea that nerds need glasses because they stare at small print is a myth. On the other hand poking yourself in the eye and ignoring discomfort caused by the pressure could easily see you do some local damage. I would not advise anyone to actually follow your eye care regimen.
Hey, dont do that. Thats damaging your eye. It may not affect your vision, but your eyes are super soft and squishy, you can do damage if you rub or press on them to the point of color visualizations. Yes, even the amazing deep knuckle rubbing eye scrub, is bad for you. Still happens, but yeah, dont do that.
You should go see a doctor if you have that much pain or strain. Your vision likely isnt as good as you think.
Thanks for sharing your facinating approach. By good eyesight do you mean 20/20?
How old were you when you started using computers?
Do you know of anyone else using your technique, if so what are their results?
there was on brand of missproduced (I think TVs) which did actually had radiation issues ;=)
through the whole bad eyesight from sitting to close to a TV things was basically nonsense
they main issue which can cause strain and long term eyesight issues is from blinking to little and in turn getting to dry eyes which could lead to microscopic damage which can accumulate over the years AFIK
This is probably why your method works => you close the eye and force production of some tears .
Through eyeballs are sensitive and anything involving "spots appear in the vision" tends to be a bad idea, so I would personally refrain from doing so. Just "strongly" closing the eyes without involving your hands tend to be good enough for facilitating some tear production.
In the blue light filter setting on iOS Apple already uses wording like "some people think it reduces eye strain" or some such non-committent language that makes clear people ask for this, but Apple knows it doesn't actually work.
I have found that a monitor light bar is excellent for reducing eye-strain in a dark room where the monitor is the only light source. BenQ makes the OG [1] but there are knockoffs available on Amazon that are decent.
For daytime, facing a window while using a monitor is a major source of strain. This, of course, is a common post-pandemic arrangement as Team/Zoom calls look best with natural light on your face, but it's not doing your eyes any favours. The reason being that natural light intensity changes by multiple orders of magnitude, between sunny and overcast. Since the monitor stays at a constant brightness, your eyes have to work hard to keep the monitor at a constant perceptive brightness against a widely varying background, invariably causing strain over the course of the day.
If anyone has issues with headaches or eye strain, try lowering the brightness of your device, like to the lowest you can bear. In conjunction with that, use flux or night shift or set your monitor to a warm white. No one needs to buy glasses for this. For TVs, HDR usually requires max brightness for the best colors.
This is really bad and dated advice and I would encourage everyone to not listen to it.
The lowest brightness levels often have very poor contrast levels and will cause more eye strain as your eye will have a harder time discerning what’s on screen.
Additionally at lower brightness levels you may have higher flicker on displays due to PWM.
It makes sense to work at a brightness level that is appropriate for your environment. If your screen supports ambient light detection, enable it. Ideally you don’t want your eyes to constantly be shifting between brightness levels of your screen and the world around it.
If you do have eye strain, make sure to take regular breaks and excercise your eye by focusing on things at different depths. That has been shown to help push presbyopia to later years (but nothing really prevents it)
Also HDR colors are NOT best at maximum brightness. It’s a common misconception because humans react better to brightness. It wholly depends on your display technology , but color accuracy and depth are not linearly related to brightness and often have a falloff when you get to higher brightness unless you’re using an OLED display.
In color accurate fields, monitors aren’t set to highest brightness. Colors are calibrated against a standard Nit value which may be lower than what the monitor displays. Above and below those values, your colours are often going to be wrong compared to the intended content.
Colors are not the problem, the brightness is. When I passed coworkers' computers, their screens were always at 100%. That's like listening to music with 1000 Watt speaker right next to your ear. No wonder people keep complaining about headaches and tired eyes and whatnot. TVs are not as bad due to the distance one is watching them but still falls into the same issue.
When I tell people to halve their brightness and contrast they never do it because when you go from 100% to 50% it looks so dark you cannot see anything. If they would give it 5 minutes for their eyes to adjust, they'd have no more headaches.
> Future high-quality randomised trials are required to define more clearly the effects of blue-light filtering lenses on visual performance, macular health and sleep, in adult populations.
Interesting finding. A tangent: even if this study is correct, there still may be value in certain nonprescription lenses for long computer use.
I have glasses my optometrist suggested for long computer use, and they do block blue light, but she seemed more concerned with focal distance. She says that our eyes more naturally focus on things further away, but that lenses can adjust the focal point to be closer in, reducing eye strain.
I have adjusted to them, and now prefer using them. When I don't have them, it feels like things take more energy/focus to read on the screen, and if I leave my desk without taking them off, it feels like it's harder to focus on things at longer distances. I'm already nearsighted and wearing them in addition to contacts.
This is very interesting as I'm also nearsighted and wear contacts most of the time, and I've noticed a bit of eye strain lately as I get older. I know you're wearing them in addition to your RX contacts but are the glasses themselves prescription or OTC?
I skipped the option the last time I bought new glasses because they had jacked the price up considerably, and have discovered experienced absolutely zero impact.
I grabbed the full 17 page review but couldn’t grep “migraine”.
I hope one of the many studies mentioned migraine. I got some benefit from wearing Axon brand who holds a patent on blue/amber blocking if it matters or not(0). The effect changed to worsening when my eyes changed and the glasses harm more than help. I may consider getting a set of lenses without a prescription.
I’ll let whoever reads their page make their own judgements but as they say, different techniques for blue blocking vary wildly so it would seem you need to identify what technology/brand and it’s effects versus others. The graphs show the differences and some don’t even block blue light very well or amber at all from screens or overhead lighting causing light sensitivity -> migraines.
Yes, we know. I had a pair, I didn't think they had any effect whatsoever, I said that when it came time to get a new pair of glasses and the optician shrugged and said yeah if they do anything it's really minor, but some people like them. And this wouldn't be the first study to support that.
Also tried the slightly yellow "drive safe" ones but they didn't help with night driving like they were meant to either. Turns out what's really helpful there is giving the inside of my windscreen a really good clean. What a shame it's the hardest bit of glass in the car to do!
Anyway I've gone back to standard ultrathin lenses with protective and anti-reflective coatings and I'm really happy with them. Which is great, because my lenses are hideously expensive as it is due to my ridiculous prescription.
I thought the point of reducing blue light was long term eye health, like less long term "degeneration" type problems down the road like cataracts and macular degeneration and such.
I'm a software manager and used to be a developer. I used to get crushing headaches pretty often when I was working, typically at least once or twice per week. They would always start around lunchtime with mild eye pain and a dull headache, progressing to migraine-like stabbing pains by 3-4PM. I'd have to take ibuprofen and lay down in a dark room for at least an hour with a washcloth over my face to make them go away. This went on for years.
Early last year I got blue-light coating added to my new prescription glasses. This wasn't deliberate; the glasses place had just upgraded their standard lenses with the coating so I figured why not? The headaches went away almost immediately and I maybe got one or two in the entire following YEAR (as opposed to at least 3-4/month before). I still wasn't convinced though so when it came time for new glasses this year I got them without the coating. In the next two weeks I got multiple severe headaches, so I went back and exchanged them for new glasses with the coating. This was in April and I haven't had a single bad headache since.
Maybe this is all placebo but since I wasn't particularly expecting them to help much initially I doubt it.
Lots angry deniers here, however there is a good deal of research that short-wave blue light <=450 nm is more harmful to retina than long wave blue light >450nm, and there is good amount of monitors nowadays which have blue light peak shifted to 460nm (without any noticeable difference in colors), without any price difference, this is a yet another point to pay attention for while buying a new screen.
Right, so I developed eye pain in my univercity years and since them I'm wearing blue light filter glasses for 14 yeas spending 6+ hours at screen every day without any problems. Is this insecure part or gimick one?
That's a pretty narrow niche. No matter how much you don't want them, there's only a few years or so when you can mostly get by without them, once the amblyopia has begun.
My reading glasses have blue light blocking, though it wasn't a feature I was looking for and I buy them in packs of six for about $25.
Or, and I will admit it, people with healthy eyes that like the look of glasses and finally found an excuse to buy them. I never used them though. Also it really did feel like a marketing gimmick, holding it in front of a pure blue picture, I couldn't see much difference between it with or without glasses.
The biggest problem is levels of brightness on screens. Most people don't change it, and by the time they've realised it's affecting their eyes, it's too late. And i think mobile adaptive brightness does not account for how we must always use lesser on-light screens.
[+] [-] harles|2 years ago|reply
Overall this situation is just sad because I heard it first from ads, then vision professional, and now folks I know. It seems like it’s infected our collective consciousness without any serious questions of it’s true.
Edit: [0]: https://abcnews.go.com/Business/Cholesterol/story?id=7574156
[+] [-] nyjah|2 years ago|reply
Inevitably I had to go back since then and the next it seemed like they cut that crap as it wasn’t like that before and hasn’t been my last 2 trips. Still leaves bad taste in your mouth because you want to do the right thing but not get ripped off.
[+] [-] powersnail|2 years ago|reply
The attempt to block blue light has been with us so long (like a decade or so), the blue-light-filtering products so well commercialized, and yet the underlying claim that blue light affects sleep remains to be inconclusive at best, which makes me doubly wary of its validity.
[+] [-] syntaxing|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] viknesh|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] t0bia_s|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mapcars|2 years ago|reply
I developed an eye pain condition around 14 years ago in university years, my eye sight was not really degrading but I get physical tension turning into pain in the eyes if I look at the screen for about 3-4 hours. I know that I still have this condition because sometimes I forget my glasses to the office and I have to take breaks much more often than otherwise. With the glasses I can work all day, then play video games, watch movies etc without feeling anything.
One thing I want to add is that there are seems to be different types of these glasses as I bought about 10 pairs and 2 of them also didn't work for me. So when I need a new pair I just take the one I know is good and ask optician if they have exactly the same type of filter.
So if the research says there isn't enough evidence it's fine, do more researches and find out exactly what happens here, but don't go around and tell how it's all made up and not helping anyone.
[+] [-] tmpX7dMeXU|2 years ago|reply
Trying to convince some abrasive knowitall that our $15 home brand HDMI cable is going to be the bottleneck in their setup, and that it was basically orthogonal to any ‘good plated’ BS, was almost always not worth it. Eventually I learned to just let them make their own mistakes, dooming them to slink off to Amazon or whatever when they weren’t getting the resolution or frame rate they were after and eventually happened upon the CNET article that made them see the light.
The fact that there is an objective functional difference between different types of HDMI cables, whereas the jury is still out on blue blocker glasses, is pretty much irrelevant to my point. Any ‘science says…’ rhetoric is almost always parroted by people that don’t know what they’re talking about. At the end of the day, self-described ‘informed consumers’ LOVE feeling like they’ve got The Knowledge that’s going to give them a leg up on the slimy salesperson. A fair bit of the time though, the fact that the majority of these people aren’t actually all that knowledgeable means that these pearls of wisdom get corrupted over time and end up being entirely untrue. I’ve got no doubt that plenty of Hacker News regulars are the sorts of people that were incredibly hard to work with back then.
[+] [-] NickM|2 years ago|reply
I’m not saying the blue light thing is or isn’t real, but I see this kind of argument made all the time, and I can’t tell if people just don’t understand what the placebo effect is or if everyone just thinks they’re special and the placebo effect doesn’t apply to them or what.
[+] [-] Rudism|2 years ago|reply
Additionally, I think this research/review was focused only on whether blue light filters help reduce eyestrain in the general population. So saying it had no effect here doesn't necessarily rule out the possibility that they could help in individuals with specific medical conditions that weren't controlled for or factored in here, just that in the general case they seem to have no effect.
[+] [-] Tarsul|2 years ago|reply
btw. just because some people don't have this particular eye strain problem, doesn't mean it's all a giant hoax. Come on, people.
[+] [-] btreecat|2 years ago|reply
Idk if you have already, but could be a good idea to visit a professional for an evaluation.
My friend was having eye sight issues and a bit of strain, turns out it was a brain injury.
[+] [-] BananaaRepublik|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] google234123|2 years ago|reply
> So if the research says there isn't enough evidence it's fine, do more researches and find out exactly what happens here, but don't go around and tell how it's all made up and not helping anyone.
people aren't doing this though... Equating "not enough evidence" with "it's false" is a straw man argument. And starting with accepting the need for more research but then chastising them for expressing skepticism is bad. The emotional appeal is also bad, we aren't causing harm by voicing our skepticism.
skepticism != dismissal BTW
[+] [-] speccythrowaway|2 years ago|reply
There are two ways these filters work.
The first and older method is to tint the lenses so that they absorb blue light. This will make the the lenses look yellow or orange. The wavelength that is normally targeted is 455nm. The more yellow or orange the lenses look the more blue light they are blocking. This tinting process works the same as it does in a normal sunglass lens (by dipping the lens in a hot water bath that has dyes dissolved in it; the dyes migrate to the porous lens material).
The second method is to put a blue reflective coating on the lenses using vacuum deposition. You can recognize these lenses because they have a strong blue reflection (not to be confused with a subtle blue reflection which can be seen in a normal anti-reflective layer). These lenses won't block as much blue light as the tinted lenses but they look nearly like normal glasses.
I suppose some manufactureres may try a hybrid approach although (both absorption and reflection). Anyway the general thing to think about is that the more "normal" the lenses appear the less blue light they will block.
I never understood their use as computer glasses because all computers and phones have low blue light modes now and these do what they say they do, and I've measured the output of screens with a spectrophotometer.
>So if the research says there isn't enough evidence it's fine, do more researches and find out exactly what happens here, but don't go around and tell how it's all made up and not helping anyone.
I think most of the backlash is against the the claims that blue light is damaging and that these filters will protect your eyes. I think in these cases the evidence has to come first.
https://www.aop.org.uk/ot/industry/high-street/2017/05/26/bo...
Obviously if someone suffers from eyestrain it's great that there are products out there that you can try (on a personal scale it doesn't matter if the solution is placebo or a not yet clearly understood therapy) but this is different from saying that everyone should have these to protect their eyes from the danger of blue light. Personally I use the night mode feature on my devices but I wouldn't bother with the glasses because to me they seem redundant.
Another thing I would like to add is that I've never met anyone technical working in the industry that actually believes these filters work and everyone considers them a marketing led exercise.
[+] [-] joker_minmax|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Accacin|2 years ago|reply
If something is causing some physical pain in your eyes, why wouldn't your solution be to get off the computer and give your eyes a rest?
[+] [-] hotdogscout|2 years ago|reply
Seems like they're debunking a claim that's not actually their selling point.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/blue-light-ha...
[+] [-] iknownothow|2 years ago|reply
If you're a programmer just looking at text all day, they are worth every penny. If you're a designer and color perception is important to you, you're out of luck.
Not affiliated to Gunnar in any way. Just a happy customer of 6 years.
[+] [-] slekker|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] readyplayernull|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] michaelmrose|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CableNinja|2 years ago|reply
You should go see a doctor if you have that much pain or strain. Your vision likely isnt as good as you think.
[+] [-] j-bos|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dathinab|2 years ago|reply
there was on brand of missproduced (I think TVs) which did actually had radiation issues ;=)
through the whole bad eyesight from sitting to close to a TV things was basically nonsense
they main issue which can cause strain and long term eyesight issues is from blinking to little and in turn getting to dry eyes which could lead to microscopic damage which can accumulate over the years AFIK
This is probably why your method works => you close the eye and force production of some tears .
Through eyeballs are sensitive and anything involving "spots appear in the vision" tends to be a bad idea, so I would personally refrain from doing so. Just "strongly" closing the eyes without involving your hands tend to be good enough for facilitating some tear production.
[+] [-] Sakos|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] janandonly|2 years ago|reply
In the blue light filter setting on iOS Apple already uses wording like "some people think it reduces eye strain" or some such non-committent language that makes clear people ask for this, but Apple knows it doesn't actually work.
[+] [-] pm3003|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] glitchc|2 years ago|reply
For daytime, facing a window while using a monitor is a major source of strain. This, of course, is a common post-pandemic arrangement as Team/Zoom calls look best with natural light on your face, but it's not doing your eyes any favours. The reason being that natural light intensity changes by multiple orders of magnitude, between sunny and overcast. Since the monitor stays at a constant brightness, your eyes have to work hard to keep the monitor at a constant perceptive brightness against a widely varying background, invariably causing strain over the course of the day.
[1] https://www.benq.com/en-ca/lighting/monitor-light.html
[+] [-] xirtaivi|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dagmx|2 years ago|reply
The lowest brightness levels often have very poor contrast levels and will cause more eye strain as your eye will have a harder time discerning what’s on screen.
Additionally at lower brightness levels you may have higher flicker on displays due to PWM.
It makes sense to work at a brightness level that is appropriate for your environment. If your screen supports ambient light detection, enable it. Ideally you don’t want your eyes to constantly be shifting between brightness levels of your screen and the world around it.
If you do have eye strain, make sure to take regular breaks and excercise your eye by focusing on things at different depths. That has been shown to help push presbyopia to later years (but nothing really prevents it)
Also HDR colors are NOT best at maximum brightness. It’s a common misconception because humans react better to brightness. It wholly depends on your display technology , but color accuracy and depth are not linearly related to brightness and often have a falloff when you get to higher brightness unless you’re using an OLED display.
In color accurate fields, monitors aren’t set to highest brightness. Colors are calibrated against a standard Nit value which may be lower than what the monitor displays. Above and below those values, your colours are often going to be wrong compared to the intended content.
[+] [-] throw9away6|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Exuma|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hknmtt|2 years ago|reply
When I tell people to halve their brightness and contrast they never do it because when you go from 100% to 50% it looks so dark you cannot see anything. If they would give it 5 minutes for their eyes to adjust, they'd have no more headaches.
[+] [-] pasc1878|2 years ago|reply
I get eyesight issues straining to tell colours apart or read text. Turning brightness and contrast up makes for much less strain.
[+] [-] thenerdhead|2 years ago|reply
> Future high-quality randomised trials are required to define more clearly the effects of blue-light filtering lenses on visual performance, macular health and sleep, in adult populations.
[+] [-] mrled|2 years ago|reply
I have glasses my optometrist suggested for long computer use, and they do block blue light, but she seemed more concerned with focal distance. She says that our eyes more naturally focus on things further away, but that lenses can adjust the focal point to be closer in, reducing eye strain.
I have adjusted to them, and now prefer using them. When I don't have them, it feels like things take more energy/focus to read on the screen, and if I leave my desk without taking them off, it feels like it's harder to focus on things at longer distances. I'm already nearsighted and wearing them in addition to contacts.
[+] [-] pc86|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anigbrowl|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] instagib|2 years ago|reply
I hope one of the many studies mentioned migraine. I got some benefit from wearing Axon brand who holds a patent on blue/amber blocking if it matters or not(0). The effect changed to worsening when my eyes changed and the glasses harm more than help. I may consider getting a set of lenses without a prescription.
I’ll let whoever reads their page make their own judgements but as they say, different techniques for blue blocking vary wildly so it would seem you need to identify what technology/brand and it’s effects versus others. The graphs show the differences and some don’t even block blue light very well or amber at all from screens or overhead lighting causing light sensitivity -> migraines.
0 https://axonoptics.com/pages/axon-optics-vs-blue-blocking-gl...
[+] [-] mathw|2 years ago|reply
Also tried the slightly yellow "drive safe" ones but they didn't help with night driving like they were meant to either. Turns out what's really helpful there is giving the inside of my windscreen a really good clean. What a shame it's the hardest bit of glass in the car to do!
Anyway I've gone back to standard ultrathin lenses with protective and anti-reflective coatings and I'm really happy with them. Which is great, because my lenses are hideously expensive as it is due to my ridiculous prescription.
[+] [-] SirMaster|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ike2792|2 years ago|reply
Early last year I got blue-light coating added to my new prescription glasses. This wasn't deliberate; the glasses place had just upgraded their standard lenses with the coating so I figured why not? The headaches went away almost immediately and I maybe got one or two in the entire following YEAR (as opposed to at least 3-4/month before). I still wasn't convinced though so when it came time for new glasses this year I got them without the coating. In the next two weeks I got multiple severe headaches, so I went back and exchanged them for new glasses with the coating. This was in April and I haven't had a single bad headache since.
Maybe this is all placebo but since I wasn't particularly expecting them to help much initially I doubt it.
[+] [-] SomeoneFromCA|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bradgranath|2 years ago|reply
'Blue light' glasses are a marketing gimick to sell reading glasses to insecure people who don't want to need reading glasses.
[+] [-] mapcars|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rootusrootus|2 years ago|reply
My reading glasses have blue light blocking, though it wasn't a feature I was looking for and I buy them in packs of six for about $25.
[+] [-] pluijzer|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bookofjoe|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trojanalert|2 years ago|reply