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.

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.

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..?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This is why I want neutral mode.

The solarized theme went halfway there twice.

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.

That's great, but I prefer a darker room, personally.

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.

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.

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

I would buy a monitor that had a separate, physical dial, direct brightness control.

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.

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.

Focus on Eyesafe monitors, esp. with Innolux panels. (such as all 28 inch 4k monitros).

Do you have any recommendations or links? I don't see anything on the innolux site about regular old computer monitors. I guess they manufacture the panels?

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.

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.

i've been using ambient backlighting on my main monitors and it's helped immensely IMO.

how are you using ambient backlighting?

I just put some leds powered by usb behind it, then plugged them into the usb ports on my monitor. instantly turns on when I turn on the monitor.

This crude advice, which is not always effiecient. I have sensitive eyes, and many monitors cause issues even when they are set _at_ _zero_ brightness. The both feel too dim and too bright simultaneously. Even a single white letter on a black bacground would cause bad eyestrain on a "bad" monitor. Luckily I have found models which do not cause issues and am using them.