Since marketing considerations require aggressive promotion of its products, LG has stated that OLED displays emit 50% less blue light than traditional displays. This claim, published on the LG Display website, naturally raises the question: do OLED screens really produce less blue light, and if so, why is this considered an advantage?
Blue light has a short wavelength and high energy, making it one of the colors that contributes most to eye strain. Because the human eye perceives blue light less efficiently, it can be particularly tiring during prolonged viewing.
For this reason, blue light is often minimized in certain applications. For example, car dashboard backlighting typically uses warmer tones rather than blue light, since warm illumination is easier on the eyes, especially during long drives or nighttime use.
The color blue in OLED displays
In OLED TVs, each pixel typically consists of red, green, and blue subpixels, and LG displays also feature a white subpixel. White subpixels help increase the overall brightness of the screen, while the three RGB colors (red, green, and blue) create the full color palette. If the intensity of the blue color is reduced by 50%, the white point shifts toward a warmer hue—such as beige or light yellow—instead of pure neutral white, and this is where human physiology comes into play. People find images with a slight yellowish tint, like the pages of a book, more pleasing; such an image is easier on the eyes, and shifting the color spectrum toward pastel tones does not alter the viewing experience. Moreover, many viewers find such an image perfectly acceptable.
Reducing blue light in OLED and LED TVs
Now let’s address the main question: is reduced blue light really an advantage unique to OLED, or can it also be found in LED TVs? The answer is quite simple—this feature is not exclusive to OLED. Similar blue-light reduction settings have long been available in LED TVs and computer monitors. In monitors, this option is often very easy to enable, sometimes with just a single button press.
However, on televisions this mode is rarely used in practice. The reason is straightforward: monitors are typically used for reading text and working with information, where reducing blue light can make viewing more comfortable over long periods. Televisions, on the other hand, are primarily used for watching video, and video content generally does not contain large amounts of intense blue light that would require such adjustments.
As a result, the emphasis on reduced blue light in OLED TVs is largely a marketing point, and for most users it is not a feature that significantly affects everyday TV viewing.
