[Feature Request] PWM display options to reduce screen flickering

Sindbad The fix is a single line of code for Pixel 8 Pro.

Despite the article headline, whatever is being done is not "a single line of code", because one of the previous steps is installing a custom kernel!

It might be productive to experiment with that setup. For example, aside from the green tint, are there battery-life implications? System crashes? Premature screen aging? RF emissions out of range?

As described this does not sound line something I would expect the GrapheneOS project to ship in the near future. However, interested parties might cooperate to hire an Android developer to make a custom build of GrapheneOS including the relevant code so people could try it.

Please note that I do not speak for the GrapheneOS project.

Sindbad The relevant code is a single line of code, with adjustable values to change the PWM rate.

That is not the "relevant code", if it absolutely requires an unknown amount of code being present in the kernel, which it does. Repeating the click-bait claim that the echo command that configures the code is the code seems unlikely to convince anybody in a decision-making role to invest time looking into this.

Sindbad Applying the method right now requires root and a custom kernel, but this would not be the case anymore if GrapheneOS would be able to integrate the function as a native software feature.

Correct. And it is possible that a GrapheneOS developer would decide to spend time on that based on this forum thread. It is also possible that would not happen. Something that could increase the likelihood of it happening would be a community contribution, such as an Android developer who isn't a member of the GrapheneOS developer team reading the code, porting it to GrapheneOS, and trying it.

To be clear, I am absolutely not telling anybody what to do. That said, I would advise staying away from the "one line of code" framing, because the people who would need to evaluate and support the actual code will know better.

Do you have a link to the relevant kernel patch?

aw22 The XDA article linked above by Sindbad contains a GitHub link to a branch with 8 commits at present. That may or may not apply cleanly to a GrapheneOS tree.

In addition to caveats about color infidelity and potential lockups, note the disclaimer about possible hardware damage. Personally I have no idea how likely that might be, but I could imagine longevity issues.

https://github.com/GrapheneOS/os-issue-tracker/issues/3850

Came across this ticket on the GrapheneOS issue tracker. Extremely disappointed by the response. It is ok to stare at a screen with aggressive flickering even when it triggers a physical manifestation of medical symptoms? And it can not be solved by any current medical treatment!

The display industry is rather secretive. As far as I am aware no one from Samsung or other company has joined in to either justify the decision or work towards a solution.

Elephant

For me it's like erasing flash memory with zeros for privacy - it would also affect the chip's lifespan and failure rate, and I believe it's up to the user to accept the risk, if any.

I do not think using flawed analogies is productive towards this cause either. Wear leveling going to get ya ;-)

I also would greatly appreciate improved PWM if in any way it was a simple addition to the (already heavily modified custom) grapheneos kernel.

The kernel changes (as used in the proof-of-concept) are published here: https://github.com/elephant-43/kernel_devices_google_shusky

pwmsensitive See also: the display module repository. These do not function in isolation as they just expose certain display parameters in sysfs.

Certainly I believe a solution for integration into GrapheneOS requires additional work.