Comment by sph | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sph | Hacker News Reader

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I have been thinking deeply about this problem. I bought a great, silent fan from Rowenta, with beautiful housing and does what it says on the tin with no fancy accessories. 3 speed + 1 very silent mode for sleep. Hey, it’s a European product, not some Chinese knockoff.

At some point during design, one person must have said “you know, why not add a brilliant white light that turns on in silent mode? Wouldn’t that be cool?” and there was no one powerful or smart enough to stop their hubris.

Every hot summer night, I turn off my bedside lamp, and scream internally when I notice I forgot to put a dark piece of cloth to obscure the blinding white light on the fan. In these nights, I dream of sending an email to Rowenta’s customer team, and asking them to present me the head of the person responsible for this.

I am reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance lately and how technologists have made the world ugly by forgetting to keep in touch with Quality and Beauty, and this is painful reminder of it.

That bright LED's became so cheap to allow putting them everywhere certainly had downsides. There are many devices now where I have to tape over to enjoy a dark sleeping place.

Back when red LEDs were the new cheap lighting option everything was great: red doesn't affect noght vision as much and at least for me it doesn't seem to prevent sleeping on the same way that the bright white LEDs do.

Makes me wonder if e-ink could solve this. A red dot that's only visible in daytime, when you want it to be.

This is my only complaint about the Bose QuietComfort Ultras. Nearly $400 headphones and they have an LED that glows while charging so I can’t charge them in my room at night unless I throw a shirt or something over them.

Black... nail... polish...

Solves every LED problem.

Xerox, why did you think the power led on your multifunction should light up not only my home office, but the room next to it too?

Black electrical tape is even better. Because then it can be trivially peeled off later instead of requiring polish remover and a brush.

Yeah, but electrical tape looks like garbage. Trade off is aesthetics vs ability to remove easily.

There are various sizes/shapes of stickers intended to either dim or block led lights if aesthetics are important.

Electrical tape sometimes leaves adhesive behind when you peel it off, so you might not be able to avoid using a chemical during the reversal process.

Thank you for this tip!

I have some Black 3.0 (blackest paint on earth) I'm gonna try this with!!!

There are many problems in life that a brush and some black acrylic brush-on primer can fix. This is one of those problems :)

I fixed a power wart LED today using black electrical tape, with a needle hole.

Ideally instead I need some stick-on semitransparent dark-alpha stickers to reduce brightness. Maybe I should use two polarized stickers, and rotate the second until brightness is perfect.

Are there non-linear solutions or HEV-sensitive photochromic solutions - so that LED brightness is low in the dark but bright enough in sunny conditions?

I sure wish that were a thing, if you happen to figure that out let me know. So far the only real solution I know of is active throttling with a photoresistor and a mosfet based on ambient light.

Yeah, active electronics seems like the only solution that would vary brightness correctly. But electronics are too impractical for the simple problem of modifying existing LED lights.

Some quick searching didn't find any photochromic films (Visible Light Activated) that were activated by say blue light rather than UV light. Plus it seems the chemicals don't darken as much (cf. familiar UV-sensitive glasses) and they work best with particular wavelengths (so might not work under different sources of lighting).

I will stick with cheap plastic tape/film and pinpoint holes because of advantages (tidy, colour match the device, fitting around, easy to revert).

Same problem with my electric toothbrush. And it’s super bright chafing light also FLASHES. Why? It must be a designer who hates everyone. It’s can’t be an accident.

Something that's improved my life has been buying a sticker sheet of those LED darkening dots. They're only a couple bucks and look much cleaner than other solutions I've tried while still allowing for _some_ light to come through.

And yet, you did buy the fan despite the bright LED (because you didn't know it was there when you bought it). Rowenta got your money, so from their perspective, they did everything right.

People don't talk enough about the effects of bright screens being cheap to keep on in urban areas.

Every drug store, bus stop and storefront in my city is painful to walk around at night.

Well, I know I will actively avoid the brand now. Perhaps when they see the declining sales due to bad design, marketing will suggest to add even more lights and useless features.

The cycle of enshittification.

I don't think they will care about 1 customer. If it sells well right now, it means its doing the right thing from its pov and it also means that while it might feel wrong to you, that is what the market wants.

Lets say the sales do start dropping once you avoid it. At some point it will make sense to change it because most people likely want the change.

But from their pov, nothing is really different right? They are always catering to the most common demand in the market. How will this affect them or teach them a lesson?

You can buy the version without the bright light, but the marketing people made it 10 dollars more expensive x-) /s

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