Not to hijack your post with a PSA but I think you'll endorse it...

If you are building a product and it has any indicator lights please dim/diffuse/lightpipe them.

It seems to be a trend these days of ultra bright LEDs for indicators, I have so many devices I've either disconnected, dimmed or taped over the LEDs because it is so bloody bright.

▲ godelski 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Extra helpful if you can add a photodiode to the system that can adjust brightness accordingly. It costs effectively nothing in parts and should take any competent engineer less than 5 minutes to include it. Better, use multiple because redundancy is better! I wish my car had redundancy so it's entertainment panel could go back to adjusting from being visible during the day to not being blinding at night (it has brightness adjustments but that's insufficient for a car and living anywhere outside a major city)

For people doing software, press for the love of god just make that shit adjustable. Only fucking noobs hard code variables. Practicing good habits will help everyone, including you. Unless you got a serious reason not to, expose that to the users. Even if you don't think anyone will want it, I promise you, someone does. There's a lot of people and everyone thinks differently. So only lock down what needs to be locked down.

Unless you're trying to create e-waste or piss people off. Which in that case I only have two words for you and they aren't nice

▲ fecal_henge 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

To reply to this and the above comment:

Cheapest light pipe on digikey: 16 cents Cheapest photodiode on digikey: 11 cents Cheapest LED (obviously that annoying blue): 625 milli cents!

Part costs matter! Its not just the BOM, its the NRE from the increased complexity. Im not saying saying its OK, just that its inevitable considering the economic conditions.

I do board level designs and drop down LEDs. If you are not specialising in indicators, its hard to visualise how bright 10mA through your diode is going to be. Add to this that sometimes you never even see the thing you designed!

	▲	godelski 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		`> 16 cents Cheapest photodiode on digikey` On DigiKey the cheapest is $0.125[0]. On Alibaba I can find much cheaper, including less than penny [1,2]. Now pretend with me that you're building in lots. You're going to get cheaper than Alibaba, though maybe not by much. `> I do board level designs and drop down LEDs. If you are not specialising in indicators, its hard to visualise how bright 10mA through your diode is going to be.` I think if it is annoying enough that at presumably >10m away it can keep the gp awake you don't really need to be that precise in your measurement. It's basically way too bright. But if you want to get creative you could use the diodes in the circuit or even your led if you'll blink it. But that last one doesn't tell you the led brightness, only ambient. [0] https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/harvatek-corporat... [1] https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/1-4V-20-30-45-60_6253... [2] https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/JST3-3MM-receiver-pho...

▲ paradox460 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You don't even need to do that. You can measure ambient light with the LED, using it as a photodiode

	▲	godelski 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The sane one that's on? Is that light constant or blinking?

▲ brikym 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Please forward this to the billboard advertising industry.

	▲	Razengan 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The entire advertising industry is cancer.

▲ Razengan 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

This is actually one of the best things that Apple did with their devices (except a few like the MacBook MagSafe) that PC users with their 1000 lights on everything just don't get.

	▲	8n4vidtmkvmk 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Hey now, don't blame us PC users. It's almost impossible to buy decent hardware that isn't RGB`d up the wazoo. Do I want all that crap lighting? No. Do I have a choice? No.