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submitted 11 months ago by andrewta@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

That story explains why I dislike led lights

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[-] guyrocket@kbin.social 83 points 11 months ago

Technology Connections fanbois in 3...2...1...

[-] littlewonder@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago

I love that I get this reference.

I also love that last year he found a company manufacturing strings of white LEDs with colored tips (which is his ideal setup) and said he probably wouldn't need to make any more annual videos about it anymore.

Cue this year's video about it lol

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[-] macaro 52 points 11 months ago

But did you read the story? It doesn’t discourage use of LED products. The issue is specific LEDs that are manufactured with sub par components that contribute to flicker. Unfortunately it’s the only thing regulation will solve. Personally I’m waiting for headlights to be regulated for glare, position, and color temperature.

[-] andrewta@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago

Did I read the story?

Yes I know it doesn’t discourage the use of them.

[-] toast@retrolemmy.com 46 points 11 months ago

You can too often see the same thing in LED car headlights and tail lights. The most obnoxious of these flicker noticeably all the time. Not much better are the ones that seem to be on continuously when viewed in the center of your vision, but flicker in your peripheral vision. The later I find really distracting

[-] Zanz@lemmy.world 10 points 11 months ago

I can't recall seeing any legal head or tail lights that have flickering issues. We will hopefully see this issue less and less as people are no longer allowed to buy the illegal retrofit kits from places that sell headlights. We've seen a lot less people running the Sylvania super bright off-road lights now that you're not allowed to buy them from the headlight section of an auto parts store and online stores are not allowed to sell them without off-road use popup warnings.

I really wish that instead of useless trash like drunk driver checkpoints midweek we would start seeing headlight inspection points or other vehicle inspection points to check for safety issues like these; if we're going to keep having these checkpoints for no reason.

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[-] fsr1967@lemmy.world 41 points 11 months ago

Thank, NPR, for mentioning migraines as one of the problems.

Now do an article on flickering, eye-piercing, migraine-inducing LED lights on emergency vehicles and crosswalks.

[-] RGB3x3@lemmy.world 35 points 11 months ago

If there are any lights that are understandably bright, it's those on emergency vehicles.

The bright-ass LED lights on liften trucks though are entirely infuriating.

[-] fsr1967@lemmy.world 16 points 11 months ago

It's not the brightness that's the problem. It's the sharpness and the strobe. Back in the old days, when they were spinning lights, they were nice and bright and got the job done just fine without those two aspects.

[-] boeman@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago

Hell, even as annoying as the xenon strobes were, they were never anywhere near as disorienting as the LED strobes on the emergency vehicles now. That and the low sound range sirens... They make me nauseous when they pass close by.

[-] BigTrout75@lemmy.world 31 points 11 months ago
[-] Nightsoul@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago

Lol was wondering if someone would post his video

[-] Boozilla@lemmy.zip 7 points 11 months ago

I came here for Technology Comnections, and found it.

[-] geogle@lemmy.world 30 points 11 months ago

Thanks. I was just reading about the flicker of different LEDs this morning due to my similar distaste for the lack of warmth with current Christmas lights.

Oh, and direct link to article here. https://www.npr.org/2023/12/22/1198908957/led-lights-flicker-headache

[-] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 14 points 11 months ago

The lack of warmth is the color of LEDs, they are based on blues and no reds because of cost and efficiency. In places where you get a lot of sun in the US (Arizona, Southern Cali, etc.), I bet the blues are loved.

[-] AnneBonny@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 11 months ago

Yeah, but you can buy LEDs with different temperatures.

[-] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 5 points 11 months ago

I don't think you understand the basics of lighting fabrication from that statement and those color temperatures are misleading.

[-] AnneBonny@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 11 months ago

I don’t think you understand the basics of lighting fabrication

probably

[-] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 11 points 11 months ago

There are a lot of good articles about it. Explained in a rudimentary way, it's super hard to make good reds for LED and has been a problem since its inception. OLEDs use little organic red pixels and the blacks turn off all light instead of replicating a black. It's super interesting. When I was in school, they brought a major LED inventor to show us what they had, it wasn't good quality light at the time and for a long time afterwards. OLED was the first time I saw good reds. If you go to a costco, look at the difference between the reds on the same pic, can you tell there is a difference or does it all look sort of magenta? That's how you can tell if it's a good OLED or not. To be fair though, you can mess with the settings to make it look shitty which some stores do to sell more of a certain type of tv.

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[-] macaro 10 points 11 months ago

Most LEDs are based on a “blue pump”, which means the chip produces a lot of intensity in the blue wavelength range. Color temperatures are produced by adding more phosphor to the chip surface. The phosphor only allows certain wavelengths of color through, and the more phosphor added means the LED will appear warmer in color. More phosphor means more expensive though, which is why lots of LEDs are produced in the 7 to 5k range. Even when adding more phosphor to the chip and having a warmer color temperature, there is still blue light being produced and that can impact your sensitivity. Companies such as BIOS Lighting produce chips that don’t use a blue pump. Long story short, it’s a really complicated field that is long overdue for multiple layers of government regulation.

[-] geogle@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago

My reds on my Christmas lights are not comforting either.. Oh, and I live in the South with plenty of sunlight...

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[-] Synthead@lemmy.world 20 points 11 months ago

Newer LED lights often flicker.

Saved you a click.

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[-] psycotica0@lemmy.ca 17 points 11 months ago

Has anyone here tried https://tru-tone.com/

The ads make them look like the colours of my youth, but ads can make anything look like anything...

[-] Corgana@startrek.website 5 points 11 months ago

Actually yes! I got some this year and they're fantastic. Aside from the fact that they don't get hot, they are indistinguishable to my eye from incandescent C7s.

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[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 15 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

As a Jew (and an atheist) who never grew up celebrating Christmas but having it forced down my throat for two months of the year anyway, they've always given me a headache.

I don't mind that people celebrate Christmas in general, it's just that it's so overboard.

EDIT: I knew a bunch of people would downvote me for finding the two months of the year they shove their religion's holiday down other people's throats going overboard.

[-] 1stTime4MeInMCU@mander.xyz 25 points 11 months ago

I mean, Christmas is borderline secular at this point. I’m an atheist but I’m not that triggered by it.

[-] Wahots@pawb.social 9 points 11 months ago

Unless I'm gravely mistaken, I think Christmas and the winter holiday it's centered on is actually pagan and has been celebrated for a staggering length of time. The whole tree thing and yule log and all that. I think religions just kinda co-opted it since it was already being celebrated and nobody was quite sure when Jesus was born exactly. I've noticed that a lot of Irish music and ancient tunes were later transferred into church music with some tweaked lyrics too. But the underlying music can be quite a bit older.

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[-] originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)
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[-] sbv@sh.itjust.works 6 points 11 months ago

In grade two, one of my kids was laughing about a kid in his class who said Christmas was about Jesus, not Santa.

We had a conversation about tolerance and not making a big deal about other's beliefs. And the history of Christmas.

But I think Christmas will be fully secular (in Canada) within a generation.

Assuming we survive the coming Water Wars. (mostly /s)

[-] originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com 10 points 11 months ago

funny, i kinda dont give 2 shits about the holiday, but i love the reason to go overboard. sudden tourist monstrosity; take that hoa!

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[-] elbarto777@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago

It's not that you're jew, atheist, scientologist or furry. It's that your comment has nothing do to with the topic being discussed.

[-] sbv@sh.itjust.works 8 points 11 months ago

I'm in a similar boat, but I appreciate anyone trying to make pretty public displays. I might not agree on the definition of pretty, but they're trying, and that's pretty great.

[-] speck@kbin.social 5 points 11 months ago

We need more of you in our society

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[-] unreasonabro@lemmy.world 15 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

what a fucking boring world we've made. Flashing lights give people seizures and shit, but sure, we can just pretend that's not a problem and make all the lights flicker instead of learning how to make an LED dimmer. Fuck it! Obviously nothing matters anyway. That's what we as a society are apparently saying. Woo, capitalism.

[-] Alexstarfire@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago

You know incandescent bulbs flicker, right? Same with CRTs. The bulbs flicker at ~60Hz. CRTs at ~30 fps.

I'm not saying flickering isn't a problem but don't act like things didn't flicker before.

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[-] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

This article seems sus to me. It describes a bunch of ways to observe high-frequency flicker that, IME, just aren't a problem. Personally I find flicker stops being a problem above about 60 Hz. I'm sure the threshold varies for different people, but I can't fathom how anyone could be bothered by a 2000 Hz flicker as the article seems to suggest.

Also, for reference, back before first screen TVs, TVs all flickered at 50 or 60 Hz depending on what country you were in.

[-] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 39 points 11 months ago

I love how you decided it doesn't exist because you personally don't notice. Lighting design is a thing.

[-] SnotFlickerman 30 points 11 months ago

This is like those people who don't get headaches and nausea when they watch 3D movies telling people who do get headaches and nausea from watching 3D movies that "it's not that bad!"

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[-] MagicShel@programming.dev 16 points 11 months ago

You could hear a 2kHz flicker. It would hurt my head for that reason. I also have certain monitors and earbuds that I can hear the power led and hate it.

[-] cybervseas@lemmy.world 10 points 11 months ago

Even a 2kHz rate can be a problem when the implementation is cheap and you get weird harmonics that distort the PWM and might create lower frequency flicker. I'm thinking interactions between cheap power supply voltage/current ripple and LED PWM. I personally don't know enough about this kind of LED implementation to say what could or couldn't be happening.

[-] ElderWendigo@sh.itjust.works 4 points 11 months ago

Personally I find flicker stops being a problem above about 60 Hz.

The standard AC frequency in the U.S. is 60 Hz, so...

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[-] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 10 points 11 months ago

LEDs in general aren't good for your mental health either. Unless it's an organic screen (OLED), you're getting too much blues in your lighting and it will make you crave sunlight. They've known this for decades. In the winter, get outside more, not less, you need the full spectrum of the sun.

[-] originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com 7 points 11 months ago

i thought i read something about a new blue oled (pholed) that was supposed to bring it into some parity with the other 2 in the oled space.. so that may not be a source of 'less blue' in the future

[-] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 4 points 11 months ago

I looked into it, thanks for the heads up. https://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/what-is-pholed/

My guess is that companies want to call themselves OLED and charge those prices while giving an inferior light source. People will spend the money and not get the value from it, the gorgeous colors they can't get to.

[-] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago

OLED is for better contrast and refresh rate than LCD . There is nothing about the technology that makes its blues "better" than a blue LCD filter.

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[-] Billy_Gnosis@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago

I still use the old school ceramic C9 bulbs. So much better. They give off a warm colorful feeling. Led lights just feel cold to me.

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this post was submitted on 23 Dec 2023
234 points (100.0% liked)

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