- Eye strain?
- Forehead pressure?
- Confusion?
- Migraines?
- Anxiety?
- Depersonalization?
- Vertigo?
It might be your screen. We have the answer.
Most screens flicker and shimmer too fast to see, but not too fast to feel. The Firelight is lit by sixteen incandescent bulbs on steady DC power: no flicker, no dithering, a fraction of the blue. Nothing for your eyes to fight.
The Firelight
The incandescent monitor.
Sixteen real incandescent bulbs light the screen from behind. Warm, steady light you can live with, for people who can feel their screens.
The panel
A true 8-bit LCD on a pane of glass.
A smooth 60 Hz refresh, up to 60 frames per second. No frame rate control, so no dithering: every pixel shows its color and holds it.
Incandescent light
Sixteen incandescent bulbs. A fraction of the blue.
Incandescent filaments in a sealed lightbox behind the panel. No LEDs and no blue spike: about 5% of the light is blue, versus roughly 30% from an LED screen. DC dimming keeps the glow perfectly steady.
The Firelight
The incandescent monitor.
DC dimming, low blue light, zero flicker. Ships within the United States.
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What makes it different
Lit by incandescent bulbs, not LEDs.
Almost every screen today is lit by LEDs. The Firelight is lit by sixteen incandescent bulbs: glowing tungsten filaments, the warm light people read by for over a century. Here’s what that changes.
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DC dimming
Dims without ever flickering.
The bulbs run on smooth direct current. Turning the brightness down lowers that current instead of pulsing the light, so it stays steady at every level, and it’s steadier than an ordinary bulb on wall power.
How DC dimming works -
Low blue light
A fraction of the blue.
A filament has no blue spike. About 5% of its visible light is blue, versus roughly 30% from a white LED screen, so it won’t tell your body it’s morning at midnight.
Compare the light -
No flicker · No PWM · True 8-bit
Nothing on screen flickers.
No PWM backlight and a true 8-bit panel with no FRC dithering. Every pixel holds its color, and the light behind it holds steady.
See the difference
DC dimming
Turn it down. It still never flickers.
Most screens dim with PWM: they switch the backlight on and off hundreds of times a second, and the dimmer you go, the longer the dark gaps. The Firelight uses DC dimming. Its bulbs run on smooth direct current, and turning the brightness down simply lowers that current. The light gets softer, never choppier.
- Zero flicker, full to faintNothing is ever switched on and off, at any brightness setting.
- Warmer as it dimsLess current means a cooler filament, so the light drifts toward amber, with even less blue. Just right for late nights.
- Kind to sensitive eyesNo flicker means one less trigger for headaches, eye strain and tension. Why flicker matters
Typical screen, PWM dimmingDark 60% of the time
Ordinary bulb, AC powerRipples 120× a second
The Firelight, DC dimmingPerfectly steady
Incandescent vs. LED
Same brightness. Different light.
Every light source has a fingerprint: how much of it is blue, how much is warmth you can't see, and whether it flickers. Pick one.
- Blue
- 5%of visible light
- Infrared
- 92%warmth you feel, not see
- Flicker
- NoneDC dimming
- Spike
- None
A glowing tungsten filament. No spike anywhere: most of its energy is amber, red and infrared.
What you feel
Some screens never sit still.
Most monitors pulse their backlight on and off (PWM) and make their pixels shimmer between shades (FRC dithering), too fast to see but not too fast to feel. Here are both, slowed right down.
Slowed down roughly tenfold, with the differences exaggerated so you can see them. On a real monitor, this happens dozens to thousands of times a second.
Why flicker matters
Flicker you can’t see. Strain you can feel.
Flicker doesn’t have to be visible to affect you. It reaches the nerves behind headaches and eye pain, keeps your body on alert and tightens the muscles of your face, jaw and neck. Here’s what the research shows.
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Unseen flicker
Your retina sees what you can’t.
Past roughly 60 to 90 flashes a second, flicker disappears from view. Your retina keeps responding anyway: researchers recorded it keeping time with a fluorescent light pulsing 145 times a second.
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Headaches & eye strain
Steadier light, fewer headaches.
In a double-blind office trial, replacing flickering fluorescent lights with nearly steady ones cut workers’ headaches and eye strain by more than half, even though the flicker was too fast to see.
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Pain & light sensitivity
Light can switch on pain pathways.
Light-sensing cells in your retina, the ones that read blue light as morning, also feed the brain’s pain pathways, including the trigeminal nerve behind head and face pain. It’s why bright or flickering light can bring on eye pain and headaches, and why light makes a migraine worse.
Noseda et al. · Nature Neuroscience · 2010Okamoto et al. · Pain · 2010
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Stress
Flicker puts your body on alert.
Flicker is a sensory stressor that can nudge your nervous system toward fight-or-flight. In a lab study, people most sensitive to flicker showed higher brain arousal under fluorescent light that flickered too fast to see. That stress shows up as a clenched jaw, raised shoulders and a guarded neck.
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Neck, jaw & shoulders
Strained eyes, tight neck.
Strained eyes make you squint and lean in, so neck muscles like the sternocleidomastoid (SCM) work overtime to steady your head. The tension spreads through your forehead, face and neck. In one study, glare alone tipped people’s heads forward and raised blood flow in their shoulder muscles.
Mork et al. · Int. Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health · 2018
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Sensitive nervous systems
Some people feel it more.
In a lab test, people with migraine grew more sensitive to flicker with repeated exposure, while others adapted to it. Bright light is a common trigger for the eyelid spasms of blepharospasm. And slow, bright flicker can bring on dizziness and nausea, known as flicker vertigo.
The Firelight · DC dimming
Zero flicker. At every brightness.
Its bulbs run on smooth DC power and dim by lowering the current, never by switching it on and off. That makes it steadier than even an ordinary incandescent bulb, whose light ripples 120 times a second on AC wall power.
No flicker means one less thing straining your eyes, head, jaw and neck, all day long.
The Firelight isn’t a medical device, and we can’t promise it will treat any condition. What we can promise: your screen will never be what’s flickering.
Why it matters at night
Blue light tells your body it's morning.
Your eyes contain light sensors that have nothing to do with seeing. Their job is telling your body clock what time it is, and they respond most strongly to blue.
Late at night, a white LED screen hits them with exactly that, and your brain reacts the way it does to daylight: it holds back melatonin, the hormone that makes you sleepy. Filament light carries a fraction of the blue, with no spike at all.
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Brainard et al. · Journal of Neuroscience · 2001
Mapped which colors of light suppress melatonin in people. The most powerful were blue, roughly 446–477 nm, right where white LEDs peak.
Read the study -
Chang et al. · PNAS · 2015
People who read on a light-emitting screen before bed had lower melatonin, took longer to fall asleep and were less alert the next morning than when they read a printed book.
Read the study
Red and near-infrared
The light LED screens leave out.
A glowing filament gives off most of its energy as deep red and near-infrared: the same wavelengths studied in red light therapy. A white LED screen emits almost none of it.
Researchers are still learning what these wavelengths do in the body. Here is what studies of red light therapy report so far.
To be clear, those studies use dedicated therapy lamps held close to the skin at high intensity. A monitor at arm’s length gives off far less, so The Firelight is not a red light therapy device and we don’t claim these effects. What it does give you is warm, full-spectrum filament light instead of LED blue.
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Cellular energy
Red and near-infrared light is absorbed by mitochondria, the “power plants” of your cells, where it’s thought to help them make ATP, the fuel cells use for repair and renewal.
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Circulation
It’s linked to better blood flow in the treated tissue. Researchers credit this partly to nitric oxide, which relaxes small blood vessels.
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Inflammation
Studies report that it can help reduce inflammation in cells.
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Source · Cleveland Clinic
Researchers say the results look promising, but more high-quality studies with larger groups of people are needed.
Read the article
Who it’s for
Made for people who feel their screens.
Headaches, sleepless nights, eyes that never settle: screens affect some people far more than others. Find your situation and see what the research says.
- ADHDLight sensitivity, flicker and a late body clock
- Migraines & headachesWhy light and flicker make them worse
- Neck, jaw & shoulder tensionWhy screens tighten your neck and jaw
- Digital eye strainWhat actually causes it
- PWM sensitivityWhen dimmed screens hurt
- Dithering sensitivityPixels that never sit still
- Light sensitivityPhotophobia and screens
- SleepBlue light and your body clock
- ConcussionGetting back to screens
- AutismSensory-friendly screens
Specifications
The Firelight
- Panel
- Bare LCD on a glass pane, true 8-bit per channel (16.7 million colors)
- Refresh rate
- 60 Hz (up to 60 fps)
- Dithering
- None. No FRC
- Backlight
- Sealed white metal lightbox, 16 incandescent bulbs (4 × 4)
- Dimming
- DC dimming. The bulbs run on smooth direct current and dim by lowering it: no PWM, and no AC ripple
- Flicker
- None, at any brightness
- Blue spike
- None. Continuous incandescent spectrum
- Stand
- Wooden base with brass brackets; the glass slides in from above
- Shipping
- Within the United States