Mildly Infuriating

Thought I read somewhere it’s cheaper to get these super bright LEDs, so they use those rather than something easier on the eye.

From an electronic tech perspective... I've been replacing the LEDs in anything that annoys me with a dull red and a resistor valued to keep it barely visible. It's a tad more eloquent than tape. Most things don't need a led at all. I'd love to see manufacturers switch to an e paper solution with a simple "on" or "off" displayed. And I hate standby led's.

Fully agree. One of the worst offenders is the PS5 whose standby lights can’t even be covered with tape properly because they’re complex curves. Even the clocks on my stove and microwave are too bright. I happened to have some black “washi” tape (basically masking tape) and it did a nice job of dimming them without looking out of place.

I regularly take nail polish and paint over these infernal LEDs in layers until they are at a brightness that I find acceptable. Red are not so bad, but blue LEDs area nightmare. I have a cheap Chinese headlamp were the blue battery indicator is brighter than the red led for illumination, and the blue reflects off my glasses into my eyes.

Sadly appliances with useful dimming options are getting very rare.

In the same boat as OP and other commenters: electrical tape and sharpies FTW

I used to work in electronics manufacturing. I won't give my title because it was a shit title and didn't describe what I did well at all. I think that was on purpose to keep our salaries low.

I engineered final assembly test systems. Like the product fully completed. Most of these devices were commercial in nature.

My man, the testers fucking LOVED LEDs. Because LEDs not turning on correctly always means the device fails.

I hated them, because was really fucking hard to automate testing of LEDs. LEDs emit a wavelength, or combination of RGB. Because of the brilliance of my sales engineers, we used computer vision to automate this testing, NOT sensors. The reasoning? Much denser LED placements.

But guess what happens when your supply chain and manufacutirng is entirely Chinese and your product is designed and prototyped and originally manufactured here? YOU GET THE WRONG FUCKING COLOR CALIBRATED. I'm not shitting you, it was a tiny difference in Red wavelength. Tiny. but computer vision doesn't read wave length, it reads color.

LEDs make testing easy for humans. If you just need to see them light up? Everything is great. Bonus points for brighter LEDs for faster moving tests. Faster moving tests = more profit. Human testers means you don't spend money on automated testing and and can quickly repurpose humans to see if an LED is on.

Even the small white leds on my pc are annoying, I've recently used a black sharpie to dim them, it did wonders.

I have an old Samsung screen, which has a bright blue LED when it's working. So far, so good. If you turn off your PC, the same blue LED starts to blink. Looks like you get raided by the police. How can anybody think it is a good idea to have a blinking LED for a device that isn't used?

Those bright LED interfaces are called "Abusive Appliance Interfaces" by Nathan over on the Toasty Tech website. It seems like there's more people that are being annoyed by the bright lights than I thought.

it gives you a bit more appreciation devs who add in functionality to turn the LED off. My fan has that which is really nice, and my portable AC. Even my access points you can change them.

But still so many products with LED that cannot be changed or disabled so I have to use a piece of electrical tape.

why are they blue!!!

Literally chose not to buy a powerbank because the power button flashed blue as bright as possible. my PC has blue LED's on the front for status indicators, and i put some black nail polish over them to block out about 80% of the light.

You can't tell anyone this, but I have a friend who is deep inside the insurance industry. Some of the big guys have invested heavy into LEDs. So to maximize the LED investments, they give manufacturers safety discounts for every LED they can attach to their shit. Big guys make some extra zeros for their accounts, and sharpie and 3M get some splash, too.

Why has this become such a common thing? Is this really something most people want? To have a room that is never actually dark even with the lights turned off?

The gradual spread of light pollution has gotten crazy, and people still don't really notice it. We're at the point that it's actually driving insects to extinction. If you look somewhere rural vs. urban the difference in what constitutes "night" is mindblowing, and rural areas are getting brighter all the time themselves.

The team that invented blue LEDs won a nobel prize.

Now every fucking item in my room has a beacon that would put the eye of fucking Sauron to shame.

100% agree with you, and have started destroying LEDs where possible.

Search for “blackout tape” or “dimming tape” and you’ll find dark sticky tape in different degrees of transparency that you can use to dull or block these annoying kinds of lights. I learned about it through my wife, whose sleep is easily disturbed.

You shouldn’t have to buy this and make the effort, but I’m trying to make a practical suggestion.

I have a bottle of black nail polish. Every LED in my bedroom (except the smoke detector) is blacked out.

I seem to be fortunate that both my last cable modem and my router have built-in options to turn off all LEDs, even the power LED, for aesthetics.

I'm exactly the same as you. One tip I have is if you can open the device use masking tape on the inside of the shell where the lights shine through so it's dimmed but you can still see the lights if you need to/it's helpful to. I do this on some of my handheld gaming consoles so I can play them in bed and not be blinded by the LEDs

The worst is when you find bright LEDs all over a hotel room. Becomes like a buckaroo style puzzle game trying to cover things up with whatever you've brought along with you.

100% agree. I have tape over the lights on my PS5 to keep my room dark at night. Plus I turn all my monitors off...and sometimes put something over my router to cover up all those blinking lights...and the Oculus Quest charging light....

I keep the modem from my ISP in its box with holes cut out for the cables. Even with LEDs covered with an electrical tape, it would just shine its blue blinking lights through all the cooling grilles and light up the whole bedroom in the night.

I purchased a black paint marker. When I get new electronics, I turn off the lights at night and all eye-offenders get the hose.

It's annoying as fuck, but there is a solution: Masking Tape

It's semi-see-through. so you can still see the status, but it won't be nearly as bright. Add two layers if one isn't enough dimming.

My home office is in my bedroom. I've covered what I can with electrical tape but the glow still comes through. Sometimes I just throw dirty t-shirts and socks over things

To find a computer part that doesn't come with lights on it is getting harder. Even parts buried within the case have lights. How I want to destroy those LED lights on my motherboard.

Oh my gosh, yes, this drives me absolutely insane. Appliances should either turn their LEDs off after a few seconds, or not use them at all.

Depending on the device I use electrical tape or the liquid electrical tape. It works quite well at blocking the light.

It's so "Big Brother" can still watch you....?! 😅

Bluetack is your friend. The constant red light on our baby monitor was too distracting in the pitch blackness of the night that it kept my kids awake. A small amount of Bluetack and this problem is solved. Not asthectically pleasing but a good option.

sorry, it's the future, these are apparently mandatory now.

Absolutely boils my piss because it's so unnecessary

I miss having a LED on n'y phone.

If you're ever buying your own LEDs, make sure they're 2700K or less, it makes a huge difference in the temperature of light. The annoying part is that manufacturers ship appliances with god awful lightbulbs which, thanks to unfortunate advances, mean they will never die. A blessing and a curse.

I appreciate this sentiment, but I kinda dig the LEDs. We just ordered bookshelves that have them installed, and I'm kinda giddy about reading books while be illuminated from the home of the books, lol.

I'm an excessive kinda guy.