The 3 Biggest Health Benefits of True Daylight in Your Computer Screen

1) Light is not just for vision

Every frequency of light has physiological effects, impacting not just the eyes but the whole body.

Research on this topic has greatly accelerated in the past years, and the more we learn about it, the more it becomes clear that there is no part of the spectrum that we can eliminate without some negative consequence.

Can a regular computer screen replicate all of the colors of the rainbow?

Yes: our vision is very easy to trick into perceiving the whole rainbow, when actually all that we see is combinations of red, green, and blue.

No: our tissues (in the eyes and in the whole body) do not perceive this (fake) rainbow. They are impacted by each frequency of light in a specific way, and the natural balance between this myriad of interactions is greatly upset by the unnatural spectrum of computer screens (and most electric light sources).

2) Vision beyond simple colors is also affected

While we can see only a limited set of possible colors (and displays are very good at eliciting these percepts), many processes in vision rely on a more complete spectrum and are tricked by the incomplete spectra of displays. In fact, some of the physiological effects of various light frequencies in the above list are also mediated by vision, even if they are not linked to color perception!

Therefore, several components of digital eye strain and long-term negative effects of display use can be eliminated by using a full-spectrum source instead of narrow-band RGB.

This affects:

• Unintended Colors (Observer Metameric Mismatch)

People differ in their color vision. With natural colors, this is rarely a problem, but when a narrow-band RGB spectrum is used to represent a real-life color, color appearance will show a much greater variance. Essentially, we are trying to trick people into seeing one color or another — and different people will be tricked differently.

• Color Vision in the Real World

As wide-gamut displays create super vibrant colors, they also shift our baseline in color perception — so the real world will appear more washed out as a consequence. Such effects can be long lasting, and when we spend the majority of our time in front of screens, this is certainly a concern.

• Development of Good Vision

Through the first two decades of life, our vision changes hugely — and the light spectrum provides many vital cues that govern these changes. That's why, when either the blue or the red ends of the spectrum are missing, the development of clear focus (called emmetropization) is disrupted.

Regular RGB computer screens are abundant in one kind of blue light, while their red is closer to orange. The very ends of the spectrum are not represented fully and the two sides are also out of balance, thereby not providing some necessary cues for proper emmetropization.

Which of these does your computer screen resemble more?

3) No flicker means better performance and less strain

Flicker disrupts the planning and execution of eye movements, even at frequencies that are not perceivable (up to the kilohertz range). It can also have neurological effects that are independent of vision, where cells resonate with the presented flicker frequency.

Many companies call displays and lamps that flicker at imperceptibly high frequencies "flicker-free," but this can be misleading.

While LEDs and OLEDs technically could emit light without flicker, in most display applications, flicker is used for various purposes:

• when the original source of electricity is alternating current (like with lamps operating on mains power), it is much cheaper and simpler to let some of this vibration translate to the emitted light

• when dimming is applied, the most efficient method is to apply flicker with different parameters (called pulse width modulation)

• flicker is often used to enhance visual properties of the display (like reducing motion blur) or the range of presented colors (through temporal dithering).

OLEDs also blink between screen refreshes (and this generally happens at lower frequencies than backlight dimming).

Pixun channels daylight into the display in completely analog ways (and also doesn't use any of the above tricks for image enhancement through flicker). As a result, it is truly free of flicker and offers the most natural light properties.