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OLED, burn-in and uniformity

Burn-in fixer

A timed full-screen cycle of colours and noise, for clearing a temporary retained image.

Flashing content ahead

This tool uses full-screen colour cycling with periodic noise. Rapidly changing images can trigger seizures in people with photosensitive epilepsy, and can cause discomfort, nausea or migraine in others.

  • Do not run this if you have photosensitive epilepsy.
  • Stop at any time with the stop button, or by pressing Esc.
  • Sit at a normal distance and turn the brightness down if it is uncomfortable.

How to run this test

  1. Check what you are dealing with first on the burn-in test, and note where the ghost sits.
  2. Read the flashing-content warning and choose to continue.
  3. Pick a duration. Ten minutes is enough for most fresh retention; an hour is worth it for a ghost that has been there for days.
  4. Press Start. The screen goes full screen and cycles through full-field colours with occasional noise, keeping the display awake where your browser allows it.
  5. Leave it alone. Press Esc or Stop whenever you want to end it early.
  6. Go back to the burn-in test afterwards and compare. What cleared was retention. What remains is burn-in.

What a problem looks like

The ghost has gone
It was image retention, which is temporary by definition. Nothing was damaged. If it keeps coming back in the same place, change what is sitting there: hide a taskbar, shorten a screen timeout, or turn on your device pixel-shift feature.
The ghost is fainter but still there
Often a mix of the two. Another run, or simply leaving the screen off overnight, will clear whatever remains of the retention. Whatever is still visible after that is worn pixels.
Nothing changed
Most likely permanent burn-in. No software can reverse differential pixel wear, including this and including the pixel refresher built into televisions. Repeating the cycle many times will not change that and adds pointless wear.
It got slightly worse
Unusual, and normally a sign that you are looking at uniformity variation rather than retention, which the eye judges differently after staring at bright fields. Let your eyes rest for a few minutes and look again in ordinary content.

What to do next

If something looks wrong, check it again in a normally lit room and from straight on, then check whether it appears on a second device. If it only happens on this screen and you are still inside the return window, that is the time to contact the retailer.

Questions people actually ask

Can this fix permanent OLED burn-in?

No. Nothing can. Burn-in is uneven physical ageing of the emissive material, so the affected pixels are simply less bright than their neighbours from then on. What this clears is image retention, which is a temporary charge effect and a completely different thing.

How long should I run it?

Ten minutes usually clears fresh retention. Thirty to sixty minutes is reasonable for a ghost that has been sitting there for days. There is no benefit to running it for many hours, and a television pixel refresher run overnight is a better use of the time for a TV.

Should I use my television built-in pixel refresher as well?

Yes, if it has one. Most OLED televisions run a short compensation cycle automatically after a few hours of use, and offer a longer manual one. Use that in addition to this; the two do related but not identical things.

Is it safe for an LCD?

Yes, though LCDs rarely need it. Image retention does occur on LCD panels, usually more faintly and more briefly, and a colour cycle clears it the same way. LCDs cannot get true burn-in in the OLED sense.

Will it keep running if my device tries to sleep?

The tool requests a screen wake lock, which most current browsers honour over HTTPS. If yours does not, the page says so and you should adjust your sleep settings before starting a long run.