Now I remember the sepia-toned days of the 70s and 80s, when all we had was red, green and amber LEDs - they weren’t very bright, but we were thankful, so I was every bit as geeked-out as the best of them when along came beautiful blue, violet and white LEDs, along with ultra-bright green, red and yellow.
But here’s the thing: Blue LEDs, although they’re still a lovely idea, are too fucking bright to put on every conceivable piece of electronic equipment. They hurt to look at, and when your product happens to be one that people have to look at in order to use, they make your product a right pain in the arse.
Now, yes, I could shop around and maybe find one of the dwindling number of products where the manufacturers haven’t yet jumped on the blue LED bandwagon, but that doesn’t work for buying online.
So, manufacturers of electronic devices, please consider whether your product is truly enhanced or, like in most cases, actually diminished by the gratuitous inclusion of an eyeball-searing blue LED. We don’t want them in our faces.
I am completely on board with this rant. I just purchased a $20 set of speaker-headphones. Plug it into the USB hub and voila! Instant blindness!
Some designer intelligently thought that sticking a BRILLIANT BLUE FLASHING LED on a volume control about 10cm from your face would be a good idea. It doesn’t even serve any purpose; it just flashes. Increase volume? FLASH FLASH FLASH. Decrease volume? FLASH FLASH FLASH. Twiddle your thumbs and do nothing? FLASH FLASH FLASH.
Maybe I’m supposed to feel my cheap headset is more substantial thanks to that blinking horror of an LED, I don’t know. All I know is, it’s bright enough to reflect off my walls 10 feet away, and it’s 10cm from my face!
I love my laptop, very good stuff, but right now there are 11 (I shit you not) blue leds at an average of 1.5 inches from the screen, it´s fucking annoying, I even thought about taping them over.
A little blob of nail varnish is apparently quite good - if you pick the right colour, it just mutes the brightness down to a comfortable level.
The blue LED thing has been bothering me a while, but the thing that tipped me over the edge today is the arrival of my new USB hub - one of these - there’s a blue LED - painfully bright, of course - right in the middle. The odd thing is that the transparent flip cover includes an opaque plastic button/label that completely covers it (when the lid is closed) - it’s as if they stuck the blue LED in there, then realised ‘fuck, that hurts to look at’, and covered it up.
I’m an LED fanatic - I admit it. As soon as someone starts LED Anonymous, I’ll probably join.
Of course, I’m far from impartial in this debate, since I’ve been known to take apart the DVD drives in my computer and replace the boring status LEDs with brilliant blues. For a real kick I like to go with “pink” LEDs. I put that in quotes because it’s more of a purplish pink, and is my favorite-colored LED. (Why yes, I am a nerd )
The problem with blue LEDs is that pretty much all of them are ultrabrights.
Ultrabrights in the original colors do exist (and I love to use them), but are not commonly used in consumer products.
I do sympathize with your situation, but the only real options (besides covering the offending light with electrical tape, which I have done), are:
Replace the blue LED with a dim green one. The voltage requirements are similar.
Add a resistor to dim the brightness of your LED.
I do not recommend either of these options if you don’t have any experience with soldering electronics. Hell, even if you do, surface-mount LEDs are sometimes used and they can be a royal PITA if you only have a cheap soldering iron.
Agreed. My new modem for Internet satellite has FIVE of the things on it. It’s up in the loft above our bedroom. It was so damn bright it kept us up at night.
I ended up putting electrical tape over them and cutting a tiny little hole over each one so I could monitor them.
Still enough light leaks out of the cooling vents that it’s like having a night light on.
How about a butane lighter? I bought a cheap butane lighter a few days ago. The sales guy at the local mini-market told me these were very good and lasted a long time.
Anyway, I took the thing home and the first time I used it I discovered that it had a pair of extremely bright red and blue LEDs that flicker for about five seconds every time I use the lighter.
I bought a different lighter.
My new (well, four months now) laptop has blue LEDs. In fact, as well as the three little dots for power, HD usage and whatever, it’s got two STRIPS of blue LEDs, left and right at the front, graded in brightness so the brightest bits are near the centre, and then they fade as you go to the edge.
I think these are really really really cool. x 20.
I heart blue LEDs. Blue LEDs are my friends. Nay, they are my fuckbuddies.
There is no product that does not need blue LEDs. I wish my coffee mug had blue LEDs.
That settles it. I’m going to build a human-scale version of these, using blue LEDs as the lure.
Seriously, I like blue LEDs too, I just don’t like them skewering my eyeballs on items I have to look at for any length of time.
My external DVD burner has a blue LED that’s bright enough to see by when the lights are off. It’s on my desk right next to my laptop, so I cover it up to avoid going mad.
That’s not a bad idea (although not always practical as sometimes they’re located behind transparent fascias or are recessed into the plastic). But I just tried diffusing the light on my USB hub by putting a piece of translucent plastic over the top, and it still hurts to look at.
)
x 20.