I just looked up to my "Lenovo Performance" webcam and saw its red dot [1] looking at me... some product designers have a worrying lack of awareness about de-facto standards and user expectations affecting the UX.

[1]: https://imgur.com/Kowt8WJ

Not just the weird meaning, but on my last Thinkpad the red dot and the slightly red glean of the camera lens look surprisingly like each other. Even worse I managed to get the cover in a position where it looked like it was closed, but the camera could still see.

Same on my Dell Latitude. Seems a very odd design decision. They've also centrally aligned the switch so that it's not immediately obvious from the switch position whether the cover is iver the lens or not. Super annoying.

To be fair a red dot is a design feature of lenovo. So at least it fits in nicely with the overall look of the laptop.

[dead]

Dell should go back to the basic design of the Latitude E6400, but with modern electronics and screen of course, and drop the optical drive. The keyboard on that laptop was fantastic, and the single captive screw on the back panel was great for serviceability.

For some inexplicable reason Dell has chosen to mark the button as "mute mic" (mic icon + X). So if the LED on the keyboard is lit up, the microphone is off, or rather, the microphone muting is on on. Brilliant design.

Then tie it to some signal or power rail that only gets enabled when the camera is in use, and that must be enabled for the camera to work, e.g. when there's power to the sensor itself.

I suspect most people don't want it. I can imagine lots of people calling customer service "Q: why doesn't my camera work?", "A: Did you open the cover?"

There's just a valid an argument to do the same for phones. How many phones ship with camera covers and how many users want them?

You can get a stick on camera cover for $5 or less if you want one. I have them on my laptops but not on my phone. They came in packs of 6 so I have several left.

https://www.google.com/search?q=camera+cover+laptop

Money.