Have you ever been enjoying a movie, game, or even just scrolling through Instagram videos, when all of a sudden, your enjoyment comes to a screeching halt thanks to a bunch of strobing lights on screen?
Whether it’s a club scene in the latest John Wick movie or some power-up scene in an anime, strobing lights can hurt a lot, and they may even run the risk of giving someone seizures if they’re bad enough. Thankfully, Samsung’s latest phones have a built-in feature that will dim the display when it detects strobing lights on screen.
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Stopping the strobe
Strobing lights can be wildly uncomfortable even if you aren’t prone to epileptic seizures. Samsung doesn’t mention this “dim strobing” feature as a way to prevent epilepsy, so this feature is mainly designed to offer comfort enhancements rather than a fix for a medical condition.
The “dim strobing” setting also doesn’t address the phone’s relatively low-frequency PWM dimming or alter it in any way. If you’re sensitive to PWM dimming or LED flicker, you’ll need to buy a phone with a higher PWM rate, like the OnePlus 15.
It’s also important to note that Samsung’s “dim strobing” feature only works in a select few apps. Samsung doesn’t provide a list of supported apps, and so far in my testing, only YouTube seems to dim when the phone detects strobing. Instagram and TikTok did not dim when I pulled up a strong strobing video, and I wasn’t able to find any movies with enough strobing to trigger the feature on Netflix, Peacock, or the Google TV app.
Even with the limited number of compatible apps, this feature can be immensely helpful in helping to alleviate discomfort that comes with strobing lights. Here’s how to enable it:
1. Open system settings by selecting settings from the app drawer, or pulling down on the right side of the status bar and tapping the gear icon on the top right.
2. Scroll down to and select Accessibility.
3. Select Vision Enhancements from the list.
4. Scroll about halfway down the list and tap the toggle slider next to Dim strobing.
Other accessibility options to consider
While you’re still in accessibility options, there are a few more settings that are worth enabling to make the display as comfortable as possible. If you’re like me and generally find the Galaxy S26 Ultra’s (or any of Samsung’s phones) display is too bright, enabling “Extra dim” can make a huge difference.
Extra dim was enhanced in Android 16 to include a customizable strength slider, so you can keep it at a brighter setting during the day and turn it way down at night for enhanced comfort. This lowers the peak brightness of the display without adjusting the pulse width of the dimming cycle, making it properly dimmer without making it strobe worse.
In my testing, enabling Extra Dim reduced the peak brightness by 80%, and enabling Privacy Display further reduced that by another 74%. These two features alone can make the phone infinitely more comfortable for anyone who finds them to be too bright, and they’re extremely easy to enable, too!
1. Open system settings by selecting settings from the app drawer, or pulling down on the right side of the status bar and tapping the gear icon on the top right.
2. Scroll down to and select Accessibility.
3. Select Vision Enhancements from the list.
4. Scroll about halfway down the list and tap the words Extra Dim.
5. Tap the toggle next to On, then adjust the slider to your liking.
6. Tap the toggle next to Extra Dim Shortcut to add the Extra Dim toggle to your quick settings.
Now that Extra Dim and the shortcut have both been enabled, it’s time to customize your quick settings toggles to make it easy to turn on and off.
1. Swipe down on the right side of your status bar to open the Quick Toggles menu. The status bar is at the top and includes icons and the clock.
2. Tap the pencil icon to edit the buttons.
3. Tap Add a control on the bottom of the screen.
4. Scroll down to display and ensure that the Privacy Display button is enabled.
5. Scroll all the way down to Accessibility and tap the Extra Dim icon to enable the button.
6. Navigate back and drag the Extra Dim and Privacy Display buttons where you want them on your quick toggles menu. You can do this by long-pressing on the icon and dragging it.
Now, when you want to enable (or disable) either of these features, just pull down on your status bar and tap the buttons. If you ever want to configure either of these features without sorting through settings again, you can simply long-press on the buttons, and it’ll take you to that settings section to configure either the Privacy Display or the Extra Dim option. Now you can enjoy your phone at night again!
See the Privacy Display in action on the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, the first phone that can protect your messages and other sensitive information the moment someone else looks at it.
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