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0 pointsryandrake2y ago0 comments

I'd love to hear from someone in the consumer electronics business to weigh in on how this happens. Who in the design chain wants LED lights on everything? Probably not engineering--it's more work for them. Probably not the business managers--it adds unnecessary cost to the product. Is it the industrial designers? Do they simply have to have LEDs all over everything? Is it just dogma that everyone follows/accepts: "You have to have an LED light!" How does it happen?

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6 comments · 2 top-level

theamk2y ago· 3 in thread

If I have to guess, support & engineering would be the main force behind LEDs.

For example, you have USB port in the bed base, and it does not charge the cellphone, so you call tech support. With LED, it's simple. LED on -> "verify the USB port is not bent or damaged, check your cable, check your cellphone"; LED off -> "verify bed is plugged in, verify outlet has power". Without it? Much harder, especially if you are talking over the phone to non-technical person who does not follow the instructions.

(I made a number of one-off home devices for my own use and there is almost always an indicator LED of some sort. Combined activity/power if I can make one, or at least a power one if it's impossible. Some of them are blue, because blue is a nice color and needs really low current to be visible)

JohnFen2y ago

The real questions are: why blue, and why so bright?

LED indicators are useful, but they should be red (which comes with the added benefits of being less expensive and drawing less power than blue ones), and shouldn't be bright enough to light the area around them.

theamk2y ago

the "why so bright" part is simple: given same current, blue is noticeably brighter. A 5 mA current will make passable red, but flashlight-level blue. If you are old-school designer who got used to red and green LEDs, all your blues would be super bright. I still worry when I see 2K or a 5K resistor next to a LED: "Wait, that's too much resistance and too little current, user is not going to see it... hm, which color is it? Are you sure it's that sensitive? Maybe decrease resistance a bit just to make sure you don't have to redo the PCBs?"

Which also means that blue LEDs draw _less_ power than red and green ones, for the same brightness. Thinking about this, this could be a one reason to use them in battery-backed devices.

The "less expensive" part may be was true in the past, but is bogus today: a random search shows $0.01468 for red[0] and $0.01572 for blue[1] in 10K quantity. 0.1 cent is not going to affect your final cost, unless you are into super-cheap devices.

[0] https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/beking-optoelectr...

[1] https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/beking-optoelectr...

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Mountain_Skies2y ago

Wonder if some of it is due to blue still being perceived as high tech. For people over a certain age, red was the default LED color for decades as may have become associated in the average person's mind with outdated technology.

Eisenstein2y ago· 1 in thread

I don't think you need someone in the industry. It is added because without a light people don't think it is working, and the bright blue lights are tiny any cheap, and adding a way o dim them or turn them off is more expensive.

s1mon2y ago

Blue LEDs were a lot more expensive when they were first introduced than red, green, amber, etc. Putting blue LEDs on products was seen as premium or trendy, but by this point, they’re not as special, but they are still more expensive than other colors. White LEDs are typically blue LEDs with phosphor that is excited by the blue light so it emits white(-ish) light. White LEDs are often similarly priced to the blue LEDs they’re based on.

[product designer who’s designed in countless indicator LEDs on products based on the product requirements and also often ends up adding tape or funtack over the LEDs on products to avoid blinking in the bedroom]

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