LED light bulbs are the future. They're better for the environment and the pocket book. But for some people, certain LEDs lights — particularly holiday lights—are also a problem. They flicker in a way that causes headaches, nausea and other discomfort. Today, we visit the "Flicker Queen" to learn why LEDs flicker — and what you can do about it.Wondering about other quirks of lighting and engineering? Email us at shortwave@npr.org – we might cover it on a future episode!
OLED pixels are self emissive, which means each pixel emits its own light. Normal LED screens need a backlight (usually coming in from the edges) so you get light bleeding into what should be black pixels. OLEDs just turn off the pixel entirely. Some new LED screens are starting to be fully backlit which eliminates the light bleed problem but they are not widespread yet.