> THROUGH an in-series LED That's a pain electronically since the brightness of the LED would vary depending on the current drawn by the camera and/or micropho

> THROUGH an in-series LED That's a pain electronically since the brightness of the LED would vary depending on the current drawn by the camera and/or microphone. In order to not blow the LED, the circuit may have to be set such that the LED wouldn't be bright enough to notice reliably when the camera is in a lower power (but still functioning) mode. You could easily get what you actually want by putting an LED in parallel with the power supply to the camera and/or microphone though. Then the LED would maintain a fixed brightness but wouldn't be able to be switched off unless the power to the camera/microphone is cut. Separately, it's possible to have unpowered microphones. I suspect laptop microphones are of the unpowered type (and amplified elsewhere). It's still quite possible to have a circuit which is hardwired to be incapable of passing the microphone signal without lighting an LED. I'm just saying that your "in series" demand is unrealistic, and instead you should prescribe what you actually want rather than specifying an electronic circuit that can't necessarily achieve it.