Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Fixing annoying blue standby lights

fullcircuit.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 257 posts

Re: Fixing annoying blue standby lights

#21

Post by sandworm101 »

mrweasel wrote: post #12

Why 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…

Because a good number of customer service calls come from people who have a device plugged into a dead outlet. The led at least tells you the device is getting power. It can also indicate whether any internal fuses/breakers have tripped. And many manufacturers blink that one led for error codes and such. They have a purpose, and can generally be blocked by any bit of cheap tape.

Re: Fixing annoying blue standby lights

#22

Post by tatersolid »

dmd wrote: post #5
Baldbvrhunter wrote: post #2

great hack my pet peeve is flashing indicators, especially when it means "all normal"

Looking at you, SuperMicro: Every other “normal” LED on our server room is green. Theirs is amber.

We have some Cisco kit at one office all from the same product line purchased at the same time. On the switches ”normal” link lights are green, but on the firewalls the “normal” link lights are amber!

Our help desk gets a call about once a month from someone reporting the “orange lights” which are visible through a small window in a door.

Re: Fixing annoying blue standby lights

#25

Post by [deleted] »

mrweasel wrote: post #12

Why 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…

[deleted]

Re: Fixing annoying blue standby lights

#26

Post by XorNot »

sandworm101 wrote: post #21
mrweasel wrote: post #12

Why 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…

Because a good number of customer service calls come from people who have a device plugged into a dead outlet. The led at least tells you the device is getting power. It can also indicate whether any internal fuses/breakers have tripped. And many manufacturers blink that one led for error codes and such. They have a purpose, and can generally be blocked by any bit of cheap tape.

That doesn't explain why they're blue - which is a much brighter and more intense LED color then green or red.

The craziest one is the subwoofer my parents bought for their home theater - this is a device you would exclusively use in a darkened room while watching movies...and it has a full size eye-searing 3mm LED to indicate "power on" (it's been electrical taped over for about a decade now).

Re: Fixing annoying blue standby lights

#27

Post by mkj »

Soldering a nicer coloured SMD LED over the top of the blue LED works well. Most colours have a lower voltage drop, so the blue doesn't glow at all.

Worked well for my pocketbeagle board which was annoying me, my initial attempts a desoldering the blue one were unsuccessful (no hot air), but a nice amber one in parallel worked great.

Re: Fixing annoying blue standby lights

#30

Post by atticora »

I recently bought an adjustable bed base which has USB ports on both sides. Each port has a bright blue light that illuminates the whole bedroom at night. I don't use them so covered both with black electrical tape. Problem solved. I've had the same problem with several desk lamps that lit up the world with that blue light even when turned off. I returned a couple of those immediately.

But I looked through the reviews for all of the above and the issue wasn't even mentioned. I thought I was one of the few weirdos that care. It's nice to read here that I'm not alone in this. But we have to complain enough to make the manufacturers care.

Post reply on HN