5 ms·

Too late. Semiotically blue now means 'power LED/main button', so monitors, computer cases, etcetera all have one blue LED for the power button. Even your toast

Too late. Semiotically blue now means 'power LED/main button', so monitors, computer cases, etcetera all have one blue LED for the power button. Even your toaster has a blue LED on its on/off-switch. Changing this will take years. Perhaps premium brands will start making red power LEDs hip again, and we will enter a period of red LEDs (again). On the other hand, violet power LEDs might become fashionable, so count your blessings. I was amused that the HTPC computer case I chose had a small slider just below the blue power indicator; you can slide it to the right, and the blue is no longer visible.

linker3000 10y ago
A customer currently wants to return a 12 bay NAS because the blue power LED is too bright for their office.
- venomsnake 10y ago
  Did you tell him to put a piece of tape over it?
  - woliveirajr 10y ago
    ThinkGeek used to have it, I found on amazon: https://www.amazon.com/LightDims-Original-Strength-Electronics-Appliances/dp/B009WSJNCW https://www.amazon.com/LightDims-Original-Strength-Electroni...
    - weaksauce 10y ago
      I just use gaffers tape. Edit and if you need to see the light sometimes the I make a flap by folding it over so it covers it up but some parts are not sticky.
  - Bud 10y ago
    Another idea is to use a black Sharpie on the offending LED. Blocks most, but not all, of the light.
    - Bartweiss 10y ago
      This is a really clever trick, I'm surprised I haven't heard it before. "Hide your indicator lights" really isn't reasonable, but marker or masking tape would be good candidates for blocking 80%+ of the light.
- pbhjpbhj 10y ago
  It might be a good proxy for quality. A company that used such devices, that they made, would almost certainly have a problem with the eye-melting brightness of the LEDs. A good company would be expected to correct it.
- kalleboo 10y ago
  My NAS has a brightness control for its LEDs. You can even set a schedule so they're off at night only...
jamessb 10y ago
I think you might be overstating the strength of the association. Around me now I have 3 power buttons with white light [0], and 2 with blue light [1]. The color isn't very important because the power symbol makes the purpose of the button obvious. [0]: a Dell tower PC, a MBP with power button on the keyboard that is backlit like any other key, and a Dell monitor [1]: two other models of Dell monitor
- pbhjpbhj 10y ago
  I have blue, red, white, green power LEDs pointing at me now. Green is my preference for fully powered on indication.
Gracana 10y ago
Some high-end monitors provide control over the power LED. My friend's NEC monitor even has a brightness control for it.
- heywire 10y ago
  That reminds me that I covered the bright blue LED on the bottom bezel of my ViewSonic LCD with electrical tape a couple years ago. I can't believe nobody at ViewSonic thought it would be a bad idea to focus a bright blue LED towards the user of a display. I just double checked to make sure, no LED control on this monitor :(
  - khedoros1 10y ago
    I've got some low-end no-name from about 2008. It's got 3 layers of paper taped over the blue power light to make it reasonable. There's also the Antec Sonata case from about 2004...it's got 2 super-bright blue LEDs with reflectors. Here's a wonderful idea: design a case to look understatedly elegant, then give it two bright blue headlights. I disconnected them after the first night.
- pilif 10y ago
  Once you're at the point where you have to further decrease your margin in order to make some purely cosmetical feature configurable, maybe it's time that you re-think whether you really need that feature in the first place or not. Or in this case specifically, maybe it's time to rethink whether you really need a power LED on your monitor as it will be undoubtedly obvious whether a monitor is in-fact powered or not by just looking at it.
  - khedoros1 10y ago
    > as it will be undoubtedly obvious whether a monitor is in-fact powered or not by just looking at it. Will it? Is the screen dark because it's off (janitor bumped it at night), because my laptop didn't wake up when I docked it, or because I forgot to plug the cable back in after fooling with an SBC on that monitor yesterday? The power light makes the state of the monitor obvious, and so does an image displaying on it. The light's useful for the edge cases when there isn't an image being displayed.
rsync 10y ago
"Too late. Semiotically blue now means 'power LED/main button', so monitors, computer cases, etcetera all have one blue LED for the power button. Even your toaster has a blue LED on its on/off-switch." Red/off, green/on (stop/go) has a much, much deeper symbolic link and would be easy to adopt and be understood - no matter how entrenched blue LED symbolism has, or will, become.
- Bartweiss 10y ago
  The threat with red, though, is that it also has a strong symbolic link to "error". If you power down your console and suddenly see a red light, it conjures up awful memories of the Xbox 360.
- tempestn 10y ago
  Probably not ideal for the significant chunk of the population with red/green color blindness though.
- jessaustin 10y ago
  For the sake of both efficiency and reason, "off" needs no color of LED at all.

linker3000 10y ago

A customer currently wants to return a 12 bay NAS because the blue power LED is too bright for their office.

venomsnake 10y ago
Did you tell him to put a piece of tape over it?
- woliveirajr 10y ago
  ThinkGeek used to have it, I found on amazon: https://www.amazon.com/LightDims-Original-Strength-Electronics-Appliances/dp/B009WSJNCW https://www.amazon.com/LightDims-Original-Strength-Electroni...
  - weaksauce 10y ago
    I just use gaffers tape. Edit and if you need to see the light sometimes the I make a flap by folding it over so it covers it up but some parts are not sticky.
- Bud 10y ago
  Another idea is to use a black Sharpie on the offending LED. Blocks most, but not all, of the light.
  - Bartweiss 10y ago
    This is a really clever trick, I'm surprised I haven't heard it before. "Hide your indicator lights" really isn't reasonable, but marker or masking tape would be good candidates for blocking 80%+ of the light.
pbhjpbhj 10y ago
It might be a good proxy for quality. A company that used such devices, that they made, would almost certainly have a problem with the eye-melting brightness of the LEDs. A good company would be expected to correct it.
kalleboo 10y ago
My NAS has a brightness control for its LEDs. You can even set a schedule so they're off at night only...

jamessb 10y ago

I think you might be overstating the strength of the association. Around me now I have 3 power buttons with white light [0], and 2 with blue light [1]. The color isn't very important because the power symbol makes the purpose of the button obvious. [0]: a Dell tower PC, a MBP with power button on the keyboard that is backlit like any other key, and a Dell monitor [1]: two other models of Dell monitor

pbhjpbhj 10y ago
I have blue, red, white, green power LEDs pointing at me now. Green is my preference for fully powered on indication.

Gracana 10y ago

Some high-end monitors provide control over the power LED. My friend's NEC monitor even has a brightness control for it.

heywire 10y ago
That reminds me that I covered the bright blue LED on the bottom bezel of my ViewSonic LCD with electrical tape a couple years ago. I can't believe nobody at ViewSonic thought it would be a bad idea to focus a bright blue LED towards the user of a display. I just double checked to make sure, no LED control on this monitor :(
- khedoros1 10y ago
  I've got some low-end no-name from about 2008. It's got 3 layers of paper taped over the blue power light to make it reasonable. There's also the Antec Sonata case from about 2004...it's got 2 super-bright blue LEDs with reflectors. Here's a wonderful idea: design a case to look understatedly elegant, then give it two bright blue headlights. I disconnected them after the first night.
pilif 10y ago
Once you're at the point where you have to further decrease your margin in order to make some purely cosmetical feature configurable, maybe it's time that you re-think whether you really need that feature in the first place or not. Or in this case specifically, maybe it's time to rethink whether you really need a power LED on your monitor as it will be undoubtedly obvious whether a monitor is in-fact powered or not by just looking at it.
- khedoros1 10y ago
  > as it will be undoubtedly obvious whether a monitor is in-fact powered or not by just looking at it. Will it? Is the screen dark because it's off (janitor bumped it at night), because my laptop didn't wake up when I docked it, or because I forgot to plug the cable back in after fooling with an SBC on that monitor yesterday? The power light makes the state of the monitor obvious, and so does an image displaying on it. The light's useful for the edge cases when there isn't an image being displayed.

rsync 10y ago

"Too late. Semiotically blue now means 'power LED/main button', so monitors, computer cases, etcetera all have one blue LED for the power button. Even your toaster has a blue LED on its on/off-switch." Red/off, green/on (stop/go) has a much, much deeper symbolic link and would be easy to adopt and be understood - no matter how entrenched blue LED symbolism has, or will, become.

Bartweiss 10y ago
The threat with red, though, is that it also has a strong symbolic link to "error". If you power down your console and suddenly see a red light, it conjures up awful memories of the Xbox 360.
tempestn 10y ago
Probably not ideal for the significant chunk of the population with red/green color blindness though.
jessaustin 10y ago
For the sake of both efficiency and reason, "off" needs no color of LED at all.