﻿Now, virtual reality has been around for a good few years now,
and what is still a relatively niche product, devices like the Oculus quest
by Facebook are fast making many people take a second look at VR.
Now, with increased adoption inevitably comes the question of, what are these
headsets and these devices doing to our eyes?
I mean, it's bad enough when we think
about mobile phones and monitors that we use at about arm's length.
And what harm could these headsets
that sit right in front of our eyes be doing on a long term basis?
Well, in this video, we will be getting to the bottom of that.
We'll also be deciding whether blue light blindness is even a genuine threat.
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Now Facebook have their way,
then in just a few short years, we could all be trading in our regular
morning commute into the office for putting on our VR headsets and working
virtually from home while wearing our boxer shorts and vest.
Now, if you're anything like me, then you too probably would have been
sceptical about the value of VR over the years.
However, in search of a more entertaining way to keep fit,
I turned to the Oculus quest and I have
to say it's proved to be mightily impressive for fitness and entertainment,
but surprisingly also for some productivity use cases as well.
Now, one of my concerns with VR that I'm sure many people share is the risk that it
might pose to your sight, having such a bright monitor so close
to your eyes and for potentially hours per session.
I mean, when we think about all the headlines that we've all heard over
the years about blue light potentially causing damage to your vision and possibly
affecting your sleep patterns, it's only logical to conclude, I think,
that these concerns will be even more relevant when we look at VR headsets.
Well, straight off the bat, I'm going to let you know that on the face
of it, my research into the topic does suggest that when it comes to VR
headsets causing damage to your eyes and possible sight loss.
There's no obvious danger to worry about,
so you might well be breathing a sigh of relief at this point, but not so fast.
I do think there are cautions that we all
need to consider in some situations, and I'll cover that later on.
Now, as far as I'm aware, there is no specific where that I can refer
you to on the safety of your headsets for the eyes.
So I've had to look at some of the available thinking on LED displays
for mobile phones and PC screens and extrapolate that to VR headsets.
So let's take a look at how we can arrive
at our conclusion. Now we go to Organisation for Research
and Safety, to do with the radiation that you and I may come in contact with is
the International Commission on Non-ionizing Radiation Protection.
It's a mouthful, I know,
and you'll be glad to also know that they
usually just referred to by the acronym, which is the ICNIRP,
so I'm going to leave a link
to their website on in the description box below.
So do check that out.
There's a wealth of information there that you can look to for reference.
ICNIRP
have looked at the possible harm that blue light emitted from LED
displays can cause and made their thoughts and conclusions available.
So let's have a look at some of their thoughts and also their conclusions.
So here's the website now,
there's a lot to check out here,
but I'm going to focus specifically on a document that you can find here
on the safety implications of light emitting diodes, also known as LEDs.
I leave you a direct link to this document
from the website in the description box as well
so definitely check that out.
And there's a lot of things that are way
beyond the scope of what we are interested in for this video.
But I've highlighted 10 points to touch on
and so we'll look through those in this video.
And then for the rest of the video,
I'll give you my conclusions and how this is all relevant to VR
and there's some tips to protect your eyes when using your VR headset.
So let's get straight into point 1.
So point 1 talks about the fact
that it's a well known fact that some related retinal burns is a possibility
but interestingly, they do highlight the fact that the human
eye is very well adapted for protection against normal bright sunlight conditions.
Point 2, is the fact that we have natural protection reflex that makes us
want to look away from dangerously bright lights.
So it's important to pay attention to kind
of your feelings of discomfort around lights, because it's really your kind
of body really telling you that, you know, this is getting too much for me.
So in point 3, the authors state that it used to be
thought that retinal burns or sun related retinal damage only happened because
of heat generated from higher wavelengths in the spectrum.
But the work of Ham and others in 1976
showed that you can get damage at the back of your eyes, not just because of the heat
that you might feel, but blue light may not generate any heat,
but it can cause up to a thousand times more damage than, you know,
some of the wavelengths that we previously thought and linked with heat
could cause. Now the research also found that by filtering out the short
wavelengths or the blue light, the damage can be reduced.
So blue blocking lenses and things like that could be beneficial.
In point 5 here, the site, Professor O'Hagan and his team,
and they measured the amount of blue light emitted from LED devices such as
smartphones, tablets and computers with traditional incandescent light bulbs
and then they also compare that to the sky as well.
And they found that these devices admitted
up to two to three times more blue light than the incandescent light bulb.
But surprisingly, they found that these
devices are released 25 to 200 times less blue light than you
find and you can experience on a clear blue summer sky in the UK.
So that's just some powerful insight into just how small the amount of blue
light that is emitted from our devices are really.
Now, the work of Professor John O'Hagan
is often cited in many press and media articles on blue light.
So one of Professor O'Hagan's roles is as head of laser and optical radiation
dosimetry group of the government organisation that we
know as Public Health England in the UK.
Now for more details about how he does his measurements and his
experiments on kind of the impact of devices on vision and the blue light
emission, then do check out this link to a presentation that he did.
I'll leave that in the description box
for you to check out. In point 6
they compare LEDs to lasers, and the conclusion is that from a safety
point of view, LEDs are much safer under normal use case conditions
and this is unlike the UV range
of spectrum of LEDs that could be bit more harmful.
Point 7, does make a point here that animal
studies can be found that show the blue light emitted from LEDs can be dangerous.
However, conditions that these animals in the studies were put
through are considered extreme in the human context
and those scenarios just wouldn't be typical of how humans get exposed.
So in point 8 here highlights the fact that newborn babies and young children
from age two or less, as well as elderly people,
are more at risk of biological effects of blue light LEDs. Point 9
here is an important point that raises awareness of the fact that very bright
screens will expose your retina to higher levels of short wavelength blue light,
so you should really pay attention to your own comfort levels.
And if it seems uncomfortable to your
eyes, this is probably a good indication
that there is more risk of harm to your eyes.
Point 10, Is that white LEDs don't emit much UV
compared to fluorescent lamps, for example.
So this can be taken as a good indication
and a good positive health indication of these LEDs compared to other light
sources that release a lot more UV, which is also harmful.
So what does all this mean for you,
budding VR fans out there that want to make use of this information?
What firstly, it must be said that this
work really does relate mainly to the impact of smartphone screens are
worked on at about 30 centimetres from you
and VR screens, in contrast,
are usually about about 5 centimetres away from your eyes. VR screens all
tend to use the same form of LED or organic LED or led technology.
So it's relevant from that point of view.
Now, the ICNIRP have set limits for safe blue light emissions for devices
and Professor O'Hagan explains in this
lecture that smartphones being used at 30 centimetres would only reach about
a maximum of 4.0% of the maximum recommended safe level by the ICNIRP.
So taking this figure and extrapolating it, we might be able to deduce that since
30 centimetres divided by 5 is 6, then for VR screen that is 5
centimetres away, we can expect that blue light emission experience will be 6
times greater than from a smartphone that's 30 centimetres away.
And that will make the blue light exposure experience 24.48%
of the maximum ICNIRP recommended level.
So even with that being considered,
it's well within the safe limits, especially when we think about the fact
that most people won't always be using the maximum brightness on their VR
headsets and most people won't be looking at constant white screen or even
a really bright environment within VR, which are all the kind of conditions
that Professor O'Hagan and his team kind of conducted the experiments in.
So before you all switch me off and start
playing on your I mean, working on your VR headsets.
Here are some tips to keep you extra safe and protected from blue light damage while
using your VR headsets. Number 1,
keep brightness down as much as you can.
Probably 75% would be sufficient.
Number 2, keep your maximum daily sessions to about 3 hours
and that's because Professor O'Hagan and his
team based a lot of their work on a 3 hour daily sessions or 10000 seconds.
And the Oculus quest too has I know a battery life run about two hours.
So personally, I try and keep your sessions in daily
sessions to about the lifespan of the battery.
Number 3, avoid long periods of white screen viewing.
This might include things like word
processing, looking at a word document or even websites that just have a lot
of white or even background environments where it's very
white and you spend a long period of time in those environments.
Number 4, VR for young children should be a no no
and seniors, while they should freely enjoy VR,
they should also be careful to perhaps reduce their session times down and keep
the brightness of the display down as well.
This is particularly important if they
have a history themselves or a family history of macular degeneration.
Number 5, use the night shift mode on your headset if it has one
and you know this is particularly important working during Night-Time
sessions so that it doesn't disrupt your sleep patterns
and also, if you're planning on doing kind
of a word document for a stretch of time or anything like that, then
using my shift mode helps to filter out the blue light and which is healthy
for your eyes and also helps visual comfort as well.
Number 6, don't overly be worried.
Remember that your eyes have natural protection built in that allows it
to absorb normal levels of blue light safely.
And remember also that there's always a way more blue light and even UV
when you're out and about on a beautiful,
clear day, then what you'll ever find in your VR headset.
Let me know in the comments section below
if you love yourself a bit of VR and if you've had any concerns about your eyes
while using your VR headsets, remember to like this video,
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