Is your Galaxy S26 Ultra causing eye strain? Here are 4 ways to fix it

The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra has been making headlines this week, and not in a good way. As more people get their hands on the phone, numerous reports have emerged about it causing eye strain.

What’s causing the Galaxy S26 Ultra’s eye strain? We don’t know for sure. It may relate to the S26 Ultra’s low PWM dimming rate, how the screen looks when using the new Privacy Display feature, or other general smartphone eye comfort issues. What we do know for sure is that a lot of people are complaining.

If you have an S26 Ultra and are also experiencing eye strain, here are a few tips to help fix it.

Turn off Privacy Display

My first recommendation is to disable Privacy Display if you’re currently using it. The feature works by controlling the brightness of specific pixels on the screen, which makes the S26 Ultra’s display appear dim or blacked out when viewed from an angle.

To find the Privacy Display settings, open the main Settings app, tap Display, and then tap Privacy display.

If you have Maximum privacy protection enabled, it’s worth toggling that off and seeing if you still have eye strain while using the standard Privacy Display. If so, try disabling the feature altogether to see if that helps. Turning off the S26 Ultra’s hallmark feature isn’t ideal, but it’s worth a shot to see if it improves your eye comfort.

Set up Eye Comfort Shield

Speaking of eye comfort, you should enable the S26 Ultra’s Eye Comfort Shield if you haven’t already. This is a feature Samsung has included on its phones for years, and it might just be what you need to give your eyes a break.

Once again, open the Settings app and tap Display. This time, tap Eye comfort shield (below the Privacy display button).

After toggling Eye Comfort Shield on, it’s set to Adaptive mode, which adjusts your screen’s color temperature based on the time of day — including a much warmer temperature at night (helpful for reducing harsh blue light). You can also switch to Custom mode, which lets you manually select the schedule and color temperature for Eye Comfort Shield. And if that’s not enough, enabling Enhanced Comfort at the bottom of the screen will make even greater adjustments to your screen’s contrast and colors.

Reduce animations and transparency/blur

If you turn off Privacy Display, set up Eye Comfort Shield, and are still experiencing eye strain, another good tip is to reduce your phone’s animations, transparency, and blur. To do so, open the Settings app, scroll to the bottom of the page, tap Accessibility, and tap Vision enhancements.

You’ll need to scroll down a little bit to find these settings, but this is where you’ll find the toggles for Reduce animations and Reduce transparency and blur. The former disables some animations and screen effects (reducing overall screen movement), while the latter reduces the intensity of other visual effects throughout the UI.

These are more granular settings that may not have an impact for everyone, but they’re certainly still worth trying.

Use the Extra Dim setting

From that same Vision Enhancements page, there’s also an option for Extra dim. Turning this on dims the screen beyond the normal minimum brightness level, which can be particularly helpful if your eyes are sensitive to bright light or screens.

You can turn on a shortcut for the Extra Dim feature for easy access, and adjust the intensity to set how dim you want your S26 Ultra’s display.

What to do if your S26 Ultra is still causing eye strain

For some Galaxy S26 Ultra users, some or all of these tips might be the solution to squashing eye strain. But what if none of these things help? Unfortunately, you may need a different phone.

One of the biggest limitations of the S26 Ultra’s display is its PWM dimming rate. At just 480Hz, this is a low frequency that can easily cause eye strain and nausea in people who are PWM-sensitive. And because this is a hardware issue, no number of software settings/changes can properly address it.

If you know PWM dimming is something you struggle with, and the Galaxy S26 Ultra is wreaking havoc on your eyes, the only real solution is to return it and buy a phone with a higher PWM dimming rate.