‘NIGHTTIME BLUES’ [OC]

At one point, blue LEDs were super expensive because of their difficult production.
So any product that has a blue LED was considered premium. I guess they were also considered futuristic and high-tech.
Somehow, this is still in the mind of some manufacturers.
All I want is a barely-visible-in-soft-daylight diffused/frosted red or amber LED.
But no, it's always some 5w lensed blue LED at somehow produces a tighter beam of horrendous blue light that's brighter than most flashlights.

Veritasium did a bit Why it was almost impossible to Make the Blue LED

Yeah, the history of the blue LED is actually really interesting. It basically exists because one Japanese dude refused to take no for an answer, and continued working on developing them even after his company stopped funding his LED project.

And when blue LEDs just started being available prop designers for scifi loved them because LEDs work much better on screen than incandescent bulbs, and as blue lights were something people didn't have yet in their household objects they looked new and interesting. Look at the Doctor Who and Torchwood props from the mid 2000s, everything from the iconic Sonic Screwdriver to alien zappers and bleepers and greebles of all kinds were full of tiny blue lights because it screamed "scifi" to the viewer.

Very quickly, though, blue LEDs got cheap enough for everyday junk and manufacturers immediately shoved them into every consumer product because they were new and interesting and, thanks in part to the scifi trend, made stuff look like scifi future tech you could have in real life.

Now, a couple decades on, we're still kind of stuck there.

You even see them in Christmas lights. They're so retina piercingly stark, like not a chill light at all (though obv on the "cool" end of the spectrum). I'm out here walking my dog looking at the nice twinkly warm lights - no one wants to see your damned pinprick holes into the Tron dimension

They're the "literally" of LEDs? Wrong in almost every context but people can't stop using them?

I have a fan with a special silent mode to be used at nighttime. Guess what: The LED indicating silent mode is on is bright enough to read by its light.

If I meet the person responsible for that decision I will put them to sleep.

Same here. I put two rings of jet-black electrical tape over the speakers I bought online because someone thought it was a great idea to blind me whenever I use the computer. There's no way to turn them off when they're plugged in. WHY??

Try gaffer tape instead. It blocks all the light. It doesn't reflect much light at all. It generally sticks to anything. You can get it in a variety of colors. It doesn't leave as much sticky residue when removed or repositioned. I've not encountered many surfaces (expect painted surfaces) that it actually damages when carefully removed. I use black gaffer tape on basically all my electronic stuff: one strip to cover the whole light, two strips a razor's edge width apart so that I can still see the indicator if I try but otherwise 99.9% of the light is blocked, or a strip with a folded over tab at one end for the displays I want to block %100 of the light %90 of the time.

Duct tape, duck tape, electrical tape, masking tape all really suck unless you love that sticky gunky residue they inevitably leave on everything. Gaffer tape isn't perfect, but it's much better for this kind of semi-temporary light blocking without too much surface damage kind of job.

Electrical tape gang here checking in. Less residue than duct tape -- for the stupid bright LEDs you can still see them through the black tape even.

This feels like one of those small innovations that will become a marker of quality once somebody thinks about them for a while. Someone will figure out how to make the perfect indicator visible in a dark-ish environment without emitting much light otherwise, or some other way to confirm something is charging and it'll become the way you can tell which electronics are expensive. I, for one, can't wait. My fiber box is wrapped in so much tape you could drop it from a tall building and it'd be just fine.

I have an air purifier that is stupid bright, I tried painters tape but ended up using the aluminum foil tape to block the lights

This, but I use washi tape because it is less gunky.

But how would you ever know the TV was turned off if it didn't have a light to tell you?

It's how you know that it's waiting for your remote controller signals, right? Otherwise how would you know that the TV is waiting. Always waiting. So lonely. Please send it signals!

At least with my LG TV you can switch that off. It's in general settings "Standby light" :)

It also falls off too easily. My favorite for this use case is black Gorilla tape. Like duct tape but thicker.

It’s the very colour we’re not supposed to see at night though, if we want to sleep.

Sleep studies have found that even the standby light on a TV impacts sleep negatively.

Blue is percieved as brighter by the human eye at the same luminosity of other colors.

Also eyelids don't block as much of it, so can still perceive blue lights with your eyes closed.

Also blue LEDs tend to be more efficient and higher luminosity...

Some electronic devices let you dim the status LEDs in the settings, e.g. for Fritz!Box routers.

I use white electrical tape. It drastically reduces the light brightness but allows enough though to know the light is on.

You can get tape that's not clear nor is it completely opaque.

You can find dark colored "clear" style tape.

Alternatively, take a sharpie to some Scotch tape. Color to preference.

Dry erase. Just dab it to adjust darkness levels.

"Modern"

I remember when everything used red LEDs, especially alarm clocks. It was nice.

You’re the first to even mention it. ☺️

Yeah, it's way worse in vehicles haha. I have an aftermarket entertainment system in my 2006 Matrix -- it has three modes: Daytime colours (bright), nighttime colours (dark blue but still bright), and screen off. Highway driving at night means the only real option is screen off. I otherwise really like the system, but it seems like a huge oversight. It seems that none of the developers of these things ever actually test them in nighttime driving/working conditions.

I'm sorry, but what on earth is a "buggy whip"

We shouldn't have to. Products should be made sensibly and of quality. They'll skimp and save fractions of a penny on every single facet of a product's design, so what possesses them to waste all this money on blinding lights that nobody asked for?

drop of black nail polish?

Black electrical tape works really well to temporarily cover LEDs.

Edit: I feel unoriginal... The very next comment I read also suggested black electrical tape. That's why I should just lurk like always :/

Edit2: it feels like every other comment suggests electrical tape. At least I am not the only unoriginal lemming.

Judging by all the comments, I’m definitely not the only one with this pet peeve. 😅

Every study ever done shows the mental and physical health benefits of dark for sleeping. Worth looking into.