[Samsung Galaxy Watch] scaredy-cat:
Note: made some big edits to my post, sorry to those quoting

Does camera exaggerate the effect? Are you talking about

flicker

reminiscent of

CRT

displays, that unpleasant shimmer you got when setting display lower than 85 Hz? Because I always was very sensitive to low refresh rates.

(Here are a few simple tests to all the skeptics who think that OLED screens don't flicker:

● Test #1 - on your watch, disable auto brightness, set brightness to max, pull quick settings drawer and enable Flashlight (if the button is not there, long press the screen, then scroll all the way to the right, hit plus symbol and add flashlight), play with all the brightness modes that flashlight app has to offer by simply tapping the screen, and look at screen closely, you'll see it flicker, or if you're not sensitive to flicker, you'll probably see it shimmer.

● Test #2 - if you have a phone (or a camera) capable of shooting in super slow motion, such as S20, open up that mode in your camera app, and point camera at your watche's screen, when it's displaying blank screen, or when it's in Always-On-Display mode, even before hitting record, through your phone's screen you'll see horizontal lines scrolling across watche's screen, which indicates that display is indeed flickering, and after you review recorded footage, flicker will become as apparent as it can be, you'll even be able to see some pixels glitching out.

● Test #3 - put your watch on, make sure Always-On-Display is on, go to a dark room, and try moving rapidly/waving/or simply moving your hand back and forth (also try moving your eyes rapidly), you'll see a trail of watch faces in the air, and when opening flashlight app, rapid watch movement will result in big light trail, kinda fun to play in all honesty, but annoying and disorienting in real life scenarios.)

To me, Watch Active 2 display always looks like it's flickering some, it's not unpleasant, but when watch automatically goes into those power saving modes, such as Always-On-Display for example, and sometimes for a short time after waking up watch from AOD mode, I think watch downclocks refresh rate of a display even further, to save battery, so the flickering becomes even more pronounced.

This AOD flicker reminds me also not just of old CRTs, but of some modern cars and their tail lights, and also of DLP projector rainbow effect, but more of tail lights. When I move my eyes rapidly looking at some cars, I can see trails coming from tail lights, but only when I move my eyes, watching dead-on looks normal, just slightly shimmery, which indicates LEDs are running at lower refresh rates, presumably to prolong lifespan, maybe even some trickery to drive those LEDs harder with short bursts to appear brighter or something. That is not the end of the world, but is quite unpleasant.

I experienced this with my watch as well, and it's just as unpleasant, even more I think, since it's always on my wrist, seeing trails of watch faces in the dark (AOD mode), when moving hand rapidly, to open door for example, is quite disorienting.

I wish there was option, and maybe smart folks at XDA can figure it out, to make display always run at higher refresh rates, or set custom refresh rate profiles for different modes, I'll be happy to get rid of

flicker

even if I'll have to charge my watch every day.

A little bit off-topic, but I am a little disappointed with Watch Active 2 44mm display. Switching from my watch to my S20 phone, shows it's inferiority (the only thing that's better about watche's display is its max brightness) . S20 display looks crisp, no blurriness even at HD+, high pixel density, not checkered, smooth, no flicker, and then I look at my watch - slightly blurry (weirdly it sometimes appears more blurry, because looking at it right now it looks fine, maybe it's a software issue after all, because sleeping shoe icon sometimes appeared smeared as well, other times just fine), flickering/shimmering (especially testing in darkness, low light conditions), low pixel density, some color smearing.

Have you noticed, when Shoe appears at the bottom of the watche's screen, with Zzz, indicating it's time to go for a walk, when you click on it and try scrolling, greenish yellow colored boxes around text make display struggle at drawing them while scrolling, making it appear as if colors are smearing a bit, not to mention watch being a little bit laggy on it's own, which worsens experience even further.

But it's a tool of course, I'm not using it to watch movies, and it serves me well, but I wish this watch was a little bit more polished and had better internals (better display,

faster processor, of course, power consumption is an issue, I do understand), after all, it's not a cheap piece of tech, costing nearly 300 dollars..

* sigh *