The motion-sickness cure hidden in iPhone settings | Hacker News Reader

The motion-sickness cure hidden in iPhone settings

bbc.com

56 pointssaikatsg32 comments

- yesterday, 110 comments - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49077999

- 43 days ago, 272 comments - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48557530

Learned about this last month from HN [0].

Subsequently took a 10 hour car trip where my wife and daughter both reported this feature allowed them both to read their books and articles while I was driving, which was definitely not the case on any prior road trip. So, add +2 to whatever Ns you're tracking.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48557530

Told my spouse about this feature when I learned about this a while back too. They have terrible motion sickness to the point that just shooting a quick text was a gamble.

Since they put this setting on, they can happily use their phone with no motion sickness. So +1 to that N.

I’ve been using this for weeks, and it’s pretty incredible. I used to get motion sick especially quickly when I looked at my phone in a moving car. Now it’s the opposite, if I’m sick in a moving car, I try to look at my phone, which magically fixes it.

It’s amazing how that sick feeling in your stomach can be fixed by looking at some purely visual moving dots.

Also, if you have trouble with your phone displaying too much movement when you aren't moving, use the "Reduce Motion" settings in iOS, or in Adnroid enable developer options and set all animation scales to off.

This not only prevents vertigo-inducing animations, it also makes the phone much more responsive, as it doesn't have to wait for the animations.

If you don't think it affects you, still give it a try. Chances are you will find the phone more usable, even if you didn't initially notice it as a problem.

Seeing lots of glowing reviews of this feature. Unfortunately it does not work for me. If anything, the dots just distract me or make it worse.

Glad it works for some people though! Weird how our brains work. Surprising to me that some small dots can be so helpful.

If they made glasses that did this I might buy them. I don’t need to look at my phone to get motion sickness, but if I do it’s almost guaranteed. It really depends on the driver, though.

motion sickness glasses https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BVYQCHJ7

My solution for that is to always be the driver because as a passenger I get sick within few minutes. Fortunately I love driving.

This has been available on Android for years as various apps, but their limitation is that certain buttons become unavailable. Apparently, Android blocks certain "secure" buttons from being pressed when there is another app overlaying the screen.

Does anyone know if Apple's version has a similar limitation? I would presume not since it seems to be implemented at the OS level or at least closer to it.

Your suspicion is correct, it does not.

That limitation can be bypassed through the Accessibility API on Android. KineStop supports this, but for some reason does not advertise it particularly widely. You want KineStop → Settings → Fix blocked buttons.

There's an open source app: https://f-droid.org/packages/dev.davidv.motionsickness

The first time I saw this I just took it as a given it would be a placebo, and I was rather astonished to find it actually helps quite a bit, my phone-induced motion sickness is reduced significantly with it on. If you're suspicious I'd encourage you to give it a try.

Doesn’t work for me. I used to be able to read in cars but over the years I’ve reached a point where I last maybe two minutes, except if I’m on a straight road where it takes longer. I was really hopeful this would work but clearly it doesn’t .

Any ideas why I cannot find the settings on my wife's iPhone 12 mini? She has iOS 26. I wanted her to try it last week when we drove a lot to our vacation but did not find it anywhere in the Accessibility -> Motion settings.

Strange, I have a iPhone 12 Mini and can definitely see a "Vehicle Motion Cues" setting under the "Vision > Motion" part of Settings. Maybe it depends on the Region? I'm in Europe if that matters.

I turned this off because it engages when you're on a flight and in that context it feels kind of nonsensical and just annoying. I don't think the people who made this thought about flights.

This works really well for me but, when I get out of the car or off the subway, then I get a bit of vertigo. I’m really afraid that using the feature too much would make the vertigo worse so I stopped.

I've been using this for a while now. It works very well while being a passenger in a car. Highly recommend enabling it if you experience car sickness.

I have been using the feature for ages, and it really does work, but it is by no means 'hidden'. It's just an iOS feature.

>but it is by no means 'hidden'

To the average user, any feature that is not enabled by default is effectively hidden. Most people do not dig deeply into the settings of their tech devices beyond aesthetic customization.

This is why defaults matter, a lot. Settings are for power users, defaults are for everyone else.

pretty sure it was on by default for me

On iOS, it's off by default (like many settings under "accessibility").

I m on Iphone 13, and disabling animations really gave a second life to my iphone which was really struggling

It didn’t work for my wife, so good to see she is the exception rather than the rule

Make that N=2, the one person I know who suffers from phone-induced motion sickness says that having this feature on makes the sickness worse.

Did I miss the part where you must be looking at your iPhone for it to work?

> If looking at screens makes you car sick, you might want to try the iPhone dots. Or – stop me if this sounds crazy – you could just put your phone down and enjoy the ride.

Final paragraph of the article :)

It's difficult to enjoy the ride with motion sickness. So yes, it does sound crazy, most likely written by someone who isn't affected by motion sickness.

It's not for general motion sickness. Most people only experience motion sickness when they're moving but their eyes aren't seeing any movement, such as looking down at a something. That type can be prevented by simply putting down the phone/book/whathaveyou, and looking out the window. I said prevented, not cured, because once it sets in, no amount of looking out the window will cure it.

My experience is that it helps with being able to look at screens, but not that it is better than not looking at screens while riding. I needed to occasionally leave the screen and close my eyes or look outside (depending position in the vehicle) for a bit to calm down. But otherwise I cannot look at screens on rides for more than a few minutes, so it is better in this sense.

So yeah, as somebody with (moderate) motion sickness, this advise resonates with me to some extent.

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