Blinkity Blinkity Blink
If you’re reading this and can’t recall if annoying, blinking lights on your technology haven’t made you angry, congratulations, you’re a Luddite of immense stature!
I remember years ago when I thought those little LED lights were pretty neat to see on the stereo I had just bought. Remember stereos? Now blinking lights are everywhere. TVs, toasters, routers, battery packs, battery chargers, air conditioners, air filtration units, speakers, printers, you name it. If it requires electricity to operate, it likely has at least one LED, and it might even blink. The brighter, the better, it seems (ask any product owner)…
Lights might be there for many reasons. Some might require looking in a manual to tell you what’s going on, while others tell you the device is on or off, which I think would be pretty evident without an LED. Some are letting you know the device is charging, needs a filter change, needs a reboot, needs a tray emptied, is out of ink or paper, shows remaining charge, is in use, needs service, doesn’t need service, has a message, is low on something, is too hot, has lost a connection, you get the idea.?Some of these are useful, and some are not.
Perhaps the worst place for these lights is the bedroom while trying to sleep. Perhaps a TV, maybe a speaker, a phone charger, an air purifier, an autonomous vacuum, or an air conditioner?
The last one is why I’m on this rant. Our bedroom gets warm in the summer, so we run an in-window AC unit to keep it comfortable enough to sleep. Last year we updated our older unit with a new, slightly smaller, and quieter one adorned with several brilliant blue status lights, plus a blue LED temperature readout - don’t get me started on blue light; that’s an entirely new rant… The lights are persistent and light up the room so much we need to cover them so we can actually sleep.
There’s one light I can’t cover because it’s constantly blinking inside the unit, giving the grille a blinking blue glow. The grille can’t be covered, or it would render the AC useless. The only reason I can come up with why it is there is to tell a technician that the compressor is fully charged. That might help the technician, but for me, its purpose is to help me stay awake. Did the product owner or designer consider why so many persistent lights were built into a product likely used in a bedroom? They did not. I recently learned of someone I know that keeps an air purifier in their bedroom, but they unplug it at night because of an obnoxious blue light. Doesn’t that defeat the purpose?
I know people who travel often and always bring a roll of black tape to cover the myriad LED lights in many hotel rooms. I have also recently discovered that products are available specifically for this type of annoyance, like black sticky dots and smoked tape roll dispensers. A new market has developed in response to sleep-depriving LED lights.
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It’s not all bad. My Sonos speakers allow me to turn off status lights altogether. I have heard of other products that enable dimming status lights, but there is a long way to go in this area. So, for now, if you’re a product owner contemplating LED lights in your product, here are some things to consider.
Lastly, consider where in the home your product may live and design for that.
I hope this rant makes its way to a bunch of product owners in the world. I’m willing to bet I’m not the only one annoyed by this trend in modern devices.
I know what you mean by product owner, but to any readers they will assume this is the consumer - the person who owns the product in general. Might want to consider another term or label.
?This is a good laundry list. Shows we’re talking broadly, not just high-tech products.