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Comment by _greim_ | Hacker News Reader

> near-infrared

So, still red then?

No. "near-infrared" isn't a red color shade, in fact it's not normally visible at all. Near-infrared is what your media remote uses to control your TV and audio system. You really cannot see it.

Well, you can see the LED blinking if you look at it straight on, but I guess it may bleed into the visible spectrum.

That's pretty fascinating if you can see it. I just tried with three different remotes - and alas, I can't see a thing, no matter how hard I try.

All three give very bright flash when viewed via my Mac's camera (just launching Facetime with no call and pointing the remote to it).

Huh. No, I can definitely see it. I just looked at my HTC One's IR transmitter for the first time, without knowing where the LED is. It's pretty clearly on the right side of the lock button, just under it.

I don't have HTC One to make a comparison - but if you have some "vanilla" remotes laying around and can see the IR LEDs blink in all of them when active - then yeah, probably you do see into the IR and I don't!

Yeah, I just tried both TV remotes (one is just a Samsung remote). I can see all of them, but it's only a faint glow. Try it in a dark room, you should be able to see it.

I'm like the parent, I just can't see the common IR LEDs with the naked eye, not even faintly, not even in pitch darkness with the led 1cm from my eye. I think you just have a skill that we don't. Or maybe you just have IR leds with shorter wavelengths...

Hmm, this thread would suggest that many people can see it:

http://forums.logitech.com/t5/Alert-Security-Systems/IR-LEDS...

Security cameras with IR leds are pretty bright to me. I can easily tell when the IR leds are on. Have you noticed anything like that?

Nope, I just tried and went into a pitch-black room with a remote control whose LED on the Mac camera looks very bright, and tried to look at it while activating the LED - nothing, not a blip, I can not see the IR LED with my eyes...

Huh, weird. I'm going to ask a few friends to see if they can see it, thanks.

FWIW, from his Twitter profile [1]:

Astronaut, part-time dad, professional voice actor, F1 driver, liar.

[1] https://mobile.twitter.com/stavros

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