I hate those blue retina blasters. Few years ago I bought USB disk and when I connected it to PC it had nice white light. Finally the blue LED fad is over, the white LED lights are the new cool. A year passed and I had to buy new motherboard. When I connected that same USB disk it suddenly light in bright blue because I connected it to USB 3 port that the new motherboard had.
Fixing annoying blue standby lights
11–20 of 257 posts
Re: Fixing annoying blue standby lights
#12Why is it that manufacturers go for blue or bright white LED indicators? I assume that they are cheap enough that it doesn't matter, but green would probably still be slightly cheaper.
We have a USB charger that cannot be used in a bedroom, not that you should, but it can light up an entire room. Why not just have a tiny green LED? Apple is really good about not using bright LEDs in their product, or really any LED indicators (there might still be one in the magsafe). So why is it that every cheap random fly by night Chinese manufacturer feel the need to add a tiny blue torch to their products?
Re: Fixing annoying blue standby lights
#13great hack my pet peeve is flashing indicators, especially when it means "all normal"
God the worst is bluetooth headphones. Oh people would never use these in the dark and especially not with other people trying to sleep directly next to them.
Re: Fixing annoying blue standby lights
#14Quality Street were wrapped in opaque paper this year.
TP-Link's TL-WPA4220 powerline extenders (and presumably other models) let you turn off the status LEDs in software (there should be a list of hardware that lets you do this).
Re: Fixing annoying blue standby lights
#15Why is it that manufacturers go for blue or bright white LED indicators? I assume that they are cheap enough that it doesn't matter, but green would probably still be slightly cheaper. We have a USB charger that cannot be used in a bedroom, not that you should, but it can light up an entire room. Why not just have a tiny green LED? Apple is really good about not using bright LEDs in their product, or really any LED i…
> We have a USB charger that cannot be used in a bedroom, not that you should, but it can light up an entire room.
Had the same issue, thankfully a piece of black duct tape was heavy enough to fix the issue. Really annoying to have a device which is essentially unusable out of the box.
> Apple is really good about not using bright LEDs in their product, or really any LED indicators (there might still be one in the magsafe).
They do have an indicator led on the magsafe plug, which is either amber or green, and is pretty bright but easy to unplug.
The old MBPs also used to have a white but pretty dimmed led "breathing" during sleep, it was quite pretty unless you wanted to sleep then it was annoying. If easy enough to put a thing in front.
I also have a ugreen mini dock with a white led, no idea why. It's a passive dock, if it's plugged in it's on, I don't need to have a reminder.
Re: Fixing annoying blue standby lights
#16Why is it that manufacturers go for blue or bright white LED indicators? I assume that they are cheap enough that it doesn't matter, but green would probably still be slightly cheaper. We have a USB charger that cannot be used in a bedroom, not that you should, but it can light up an entire room. Why not just have a tiny green LED? Apple is really good about not using bright LEDs in their product, or really any LED i…
Speculation: Perhaps they are trying to distinguish themselves from the "cheaper" products by using the "new" blue LEDs? IIRC the technology for them was figured out much later than green or red, so maybe there is a bit of leftover "futuristic" feel to them.
The last time I saw a blue room-illuminator was on an ancient Belkin Bluetooth dongle. IMO the practice has gone out of style with most name brands (including Apple).
Re: Fixing annoying blue standby lights
#17LightDims solved the problem of bright and blinking status LEDs in our home, they sell sticker sheets in various colors that dim or completely block the light: https://www.lightdims.com/store.htm
Or just use some mostly-opaque tape, such as masking tape or brown cellulose tape (which is what I remember using on one obnoxious external hard drive many years ago) and add more layers to dim it. Or use a black permanent marker. A great many households will already have one or the other of these already. But I presume that none of these would particularly serve the purpose of the article, allowing infrared signals…
> Or use a black permanent marker.
I've a USB charger with a blue led so bright permanent marker only dims it, even after several layers it still lights up the room.
Re: Fixing annoying blue standby lights
#18Tape is cheap, removable and blocks light.
Re: Fixing annoying blue standby lights
#19great hack my pet peeve is flashing indicators, especially when it means "all normal"
How do you feel about the (more common in previous years) flashing indicators for disk activity?
It made sense when HDDs were universal, it provided a quick check for a common cause of major slowdowns (you would then go hunt for the source of the IO).
Also on most cases you can / could just not plug that header in. Not an option for external drives tho.
Re: Fixing annoying blue standby lights
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you feel about the (more common in previous years) flashing indicators for disk activity?
It made sense when HDDs were universal, it provided a quick check for a common cause of major slowdowns (you would then go hunt for the source of the IO). Also on most cases you can / could just not plug that header in. Not an option for external drives tho.
You didn’t even need a light, you could hear the disk.