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waydabber / BetterDisplay

Unlock your displays on your Mac! Flexible HiDPI scaling, XDR/HDR extra brightness, virtual screens, DDC control, extra dimming, PIP/streaming, EDID override and lots more!
https://betterdisplay.pro
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XDR brightness upscale - does it affect monitor lifetime? #1052

Closed olipo186 closed 2 years ago

olipo186 commented 2 years ago

HI!

I love the "XDR brightness upscale" feature - I use it all the time.

However it worries me - will it affect the lifetime of the display?

Also, thank you for your work:

Skärmavbild 2022-10-07 kl 15 49 37
waydabber commented 2 years ago

Hi there - no, it should not affect the lifetime of the display much (at least considering a normal expected lifespan for a product like this, but in 15-20 years time LEDs normally loose a quarter of their brightness but at this point these products will long be vintage). The main reason the displays are limited at 600nits normally is not lifespan (or even heat - as the screen is designed to withstand direct sunlight without melting obviously) issues but the fact that the battery load grows exponentially as perceived brightness increases. If you run the display at full blast at 1600 nits, your macbook's battery will run out rather quickly and that's something Apple does not really want as it would generate complaints. Also, traditionally Apple's SDR displays (even the newer ones) were in the 400-600 nits category.

For the 32" Pro Display XDR because of the larger screen mini-LED heat production might be more of an issue + that display is not recommended for outdoors by Apple (also there is a recommended max ambient temperature where the display should be used). However as with all mini led displays, there are heat sensors built in and there is a hardware brightness limiter that takes effect if heat goes above a certain threshold. Most mini-led displays will simply slowly start dimming the display beyond a certain treshold (I have a Lenovo Creator Extreme, the working of the limiter is quite visible after doing a full 1200 nits blast - which is the max for that display - for while). The Pro Display XDR has a better ventilation than most and as an extra it will at least communicate the fact of limiter initiated dimming with the host machine (a warning will pop-up in macOS about it - for other displays you never know actually which might adversely affect professional work).