i'm starting to hear a news story about a study which showed blindness from exposure to LED screens, high energy blue light the cause. seems that reticare is the only company that makes a filter for phone, desktop monitors, tablets based on science. convenient for them that there's only one solution based on science.
Hi,
Sounds mostly like marketing nonsense, unless we are talking about
excessive amounts of UV and Blue light (like in Snow-covered surroundings or on water). While Blue light has a higher energy than longer wavelengths (and shorter wavelengths like UV and X-rays have a higher energy), there is nothing special about the level of Blue light in 'White' LEDs that are used for backlighting or for RGB displays. Most systems use Red Green and Blue emitting diodes, and/or White diodes that generate near UV that excites a yellow/white phosphor.
LCD panels absorb parts of the backlighting.
that aside, i've also seen and read about apps for tablets and phones that knock out (blue i'm guessing) for free. another story that ties into this are studies that talk about trouble sleeping due to looking at devices just before bedtime.
we all stare at our monitors 10 hours or more per day, so i'm wondering if a calibrated monitor is a defense against these problems. for example a monitor calibrated to 5500k or 6500k and brightness of 80-120cd?
The native color of most displays can be a bit bluish, but after calibration or using a preset, that will be gone and look more like outdoor light. Blue wavelengths negatively affect the production of hormones that are used to sleep (it helps us to stay awake during the day), but Blue and near-UV light can also be used positively in light therapy.
So avoiding
excessive amounts (by wearing UV absorbing sunglasses during the sunny days) is good for our eyes, but the hourly outdoor levels are perhaps 30x higher than an hour of looking at our dim displays. Not really something to worry about with regular use of our displays/phones/tablets. Companies like Zeiss do offer optional Blue absorbing coatings, but in practice these actually do affect accurate colorvision.
Cheers,
Bart
P.S. I'm wearing selfcoloring PhotoFusion glasses by Zeiss, and they do not darken when I'm looking at my display or when I shine my
very bright 1600 Lumen LED torch on them, but they do darken when in outdoors and especially in sunshine. So I guess I'm okay when looking at my computer display ...