A "Bill of Lights" to Restrict LEDs on Gadgets?

PetManimal writes "Mike Elgan has had it with useless lights on gadgets and computers. He singles out the Palm Treo and the Dell XPS gaming laptops as being particularly bad with the use of unnecessary lights, and also cites the plethora of LEDs on desktop PCs and peripherals. 'My PC and other computing equipment make my office look like a jet cockpit. I have two LCD monitors, each of which has two indicator lights that flash even when the PC is turned off. The attached sound control has a light on it. My keyboard has multiple lights. The power cord has lights, the printer has lights, and the power button is illuminated. My cable modem and Linksys router flash like crazy all the time. Together, these useless lights create a visual cacophony of blinking, multicolored lights that make me feel like I'm taking part in a NASA stress test for astronaut candidates.' Elgan calls on manufacturers to respect his 'Gadget Bill of Lights' to restrict the use of nag lights and allow users to turn them off. He also says the industry should pay more attention to industrial design when creating new products."

Sharpie

[Nutsquasher]

Black marker is your friend, my man.

Lights...

[omeomi]

Be glad you don't work in pro audio. My office/studio has more flashing lights than the space shuttle cockpit. 'course, I kinda like it.

Re:Wow...

[Known Nutter]

totally.

I really hate the "more important things going on in the world..." argument, but damn man... this is total nonsense.

Besides, I like my office looking like a cockpit - the more flashing indicator lights, the better. One light I particularly enjoy is on my television. The indicator LED is ON when the tv is OFF, and OFF when the tv is ON.

Re:I kinda like the lights

[EggyToast]

I love the lights too. It makes me feel like I'm in a cockpit or other cool place where a lot of stuff happens. People buy audio hardware because of the blinking lights!

If this guy is so intent on fixing it, he should get out the soldering iron and disconnect them himself. Or do the thing everyone else does when something is blinking or flashing too much -- cover it up with electrical tape.

Re:Lights...

[mibalzonya]

I have actually paid extra for more lights.

Re:Wow...

[Turn-X Alphonse]

Silly crap? Lets just assume for a minute that we have limited resources on this planet and we're wasting them and making the Earth hotter through it. I mean it's all in our heads but lets just say that maybe the case.

Now if we take 20 million people with 1 monitor, 1 PC and 1 Printer. That is 60 million little lights being wasteful if we assume it's 1 light per device. Wouldn't you think that is quite a power drain should we use them for several days a week at a couple of hours a day?

So don't buy from Dell

[Infonaut]

I'm confused. The article makes it sound like there are no alternatives to the products he mentions. I hate to play the, "Dude, get a Mac" card, but he's begging for it.

how about

[bigattichouse]

... black paint? or tape? Poof, no more lights.

I like my LEDs!!!

[deck]

I like to know the state that my keyboard is in. I like to know that the power to my monitor is on when blanked. I like to be able to see the activity of my switch so that if there is a problem I might get a preliminary diagnosis. You know, ALL of those blinky LEDs that I have do have a purpose. Like some have said, get out the electrical tape or the black marker pen and go for it if they so offend you. However, just because someone is bothered does not mean that everyone else is. This person is not the almighty, omnipotent, lord that he wants to be. Can it and go back in your hole in the ground.

I like Blinkenlights

[mobby_6kl]

Sure, some of them are a little redundant (the blue "ON" LED on my monitor, for example), but mostly they're very useful in telling me what's going on. Just a quick glance around the room reveals that the..

• ADSL modem is connected and there's very little traffic flowing
  
• There are four active devices connected to the network via the switch, all in 100MB mode
  
• Laser printer is in power-save mode, and there isn't much toner left
  
• Inkjet printer is off
  
• PDA has finished recharging
  
• surge protection is online and healthy
  
• sound amp is on the PC channel
  
• computer is on but idle
  
• NumLock is on
  

Very useful info that I couldn't live without. How would you feel if the whole post was typed with CAPS LOCK on because there was no LED indicator? Besides, I do like the "busy cockpit" look my room has in the dark.

No odometer, tachometer, temperature gauge

[mr_mischief]

Let's get rid of all those pesky indicators on car dashboards, too. I mean, really, all that junk that nobody ever looks at just serves to clutter up the dash and raise the price of cars. Why, they try to make it look like they are indicators of something. Like you're operating a piece of equipment and want to know its status. While we're at it, let's get rid of the speedometer and fuel gauge, too. I mean, if there's no fuel, you'll know because the car will stop. If you're going too fast, Mr. Police Officer will kindly let you know sooner or later.

Re:Sharpie

[arivanov]

Ducktape is like the force, it envelops, binds and holds the universe together.

See? You're part of the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

And enough with these flowers blooming outside; everything should be grass ..."

Grass? Pave your lawn and paint it green!

You don't understand

[Kohath]

You don't understand. He'll still know the lights are on, even if he can't see them. It causes him stress. Things aren't the way he wants them.

The only solution that will be acceptable is for every designer of hardware to design stuff the way he likes it. And do it now. Because he's important and his opinions matter.

Why is this strictly an ON/OFF solution?

[Radon360]

The problem isn't necessary the proliferation of LEDs in devices, it's how they're designed into the product. Do we really need a 5000mcd LED to indicate that a box has power? It's more of a matter of putting putting more sedate LEDs into things we like to check, but are usually not checked often. Designers need to get away from the "bigger and brighter...because we can" mentality, that's all.

Having to troubleshoot a piece of hardware, I certainly appreciate having LED indicators available to speed the process. I design them in on machinery and systems for items that are critical to check. Yet, at the same time, LEDs simply don't need to be the super, ultra-bright kind unless they're indicating a warning or serious problem, or their environment requires it (i.e. sunlight).

This shouldn't be an prescence/absence of LEDs issue, it should be one of actually specifying the right LED for the job, and designing their placement in a box accordingly, including behind a technician's access panel door, if appropriate.

My freakin bed room

[gurps_npc]

is so bright at night, it makes it hard to sleep. I try to 'cover' everything up, but light reflects.

Re:Wow...

[coyote-san]

There's probably a connection with how integrated the technology is into our lives. You want them when they're new and unfamiliar, and after a while you curse the lack of darkness.

At least there's a smidgeon of hope. Appliances used to include LED lights to appear "modern", but it's a real PITA when you have a clock on your stove, microwave oven, vcr, set-top box, and who knows what else all visible at the same time (or at most by only taking a few steps). Now they either gone (set-top boxes, DVD players) or optional (microwave). Too bad my stove still thinks I need a really bright nightlight in the kitchen.

Maybe routers (which seem to be the worst offenders) will take the hint. We might know how to read the indicators, but very few broadband customers know or care. They'll just call customer support, and customer support will just tell them to make sure the cables are connected and cycle the power. A single tri-color LED should work for that and be a lot less annoying. (Power? Upstream connection present but disabled? Upstream connection enabled?) Let people connect to an embedded webserver if they need more information.

P.S., I agree that it would be best to turn the devices off. I don't need my broadband connection and wireless router running all night even if I leave my computers up. (Perhaps especially since I leave my computers up.) But there are no power switches any more -- even "off" is usually pulling power. A lot of power -- I seem to recall reading that a full 1% of the US power grid is used by devices that have been "turned off". Even the powerstrip you use as a power switch will have its own indicator light.

I own a small roll of black electrical tape...

[Joce640k]

I own a small roll of black electrical tape...it only cost 50 cents and it works wonders on unwanted LEDs.

If only the colors made sense

[Animats]

There are proper NEMA color codes for indicators, and you'll see them on industrial equipment. Unfortunately, we went through a long period during which red LEDs were the only cheap color, and far too many red LEDs went onto equipment. Since LEDs are now available in all colors, it's time to go back to the traditional NEMA rules:

• GREEN - equipment normal, no action required.
• AMBER - abnormal condition, action may be required, but not immediate action.
• RED - trouble condition, action is required. No red light should be illuminated during normal operation. If you see a red light, something needs to be done about it immediately.
• BLUE - status indication, no specific meaning.
• WHITE - status indication, no specific meaning.

Anything that goes in a factory or a rack should obey those simple rules.

There is a good reason for this on some devices

[Targon]

You are one of those people who don't seem to understand why we NEED lights on routers. Routers can be(and often are) kept away from the computers and devices. In those situations, checking the router to see if the Ethernet cable is plugged in on the other end, or if data is being sent on that port are more important. So, green for link, blinking for data being sent/received. It makes sense, and isn't useless.

Many devices go to sleep, so all you have is a LED to indicate that the device is on. You would NOT want a device that doesn't have a power LED since it's nice to know when the thing is on or not, even if it is in sleep mode.

Yes, some devices are annoying in having too many blinking lights, and I really dislike the extra lights that are on some computer cases these days. But, you have to admit that there are times when having those bright lights is a real advantage.

So, devices with blinking lights are fine, but excessive numbers of "cute" lights isn't. On a positive note, you can generally turn off or unplug the extra lights on computer cases if you don't like them. Standby blinking lights are annoying, but will show you that the machine isn't really off by blinking.

If the power grid is so overloaded by all the devices that are in standby mode, then building some nuclear power plants should be done. There are obviously some places that those plants should NOT be located, such as in places there are earthquakes or that might be hit by a tornado, but that doesn't mean new ones should not be built. Let's get some power generation in place that doesn't require oil, and we will be in better shape.

Re:IR LEDs

[Anonymous Coward]

The night vision goggles should have an LED that comes on when the battery goes dead so that you know to replace it. And, it would help you find the goggles in the dark.

Re:Wow...

[Kadin2048]

Agreed. This is one of the reasons why I've always wished Apple would add disk-access lights to its systems, or maybe figure out a way to integrate disk-access into the one "master LED" that they like to put on the front of the Power Macs.

My IBM workstation has 4 LEDs on the front of it: power/status (solid for 'on,' off for 'off,' blinking for 'standby'), hard drive (seemingly any I/O on the primary IDE controller), network access (from the internal NIC), and an error light (triggered if it fails POST, I think, but I've never seen it on). I think they're all pretty defensible as things that ought to be displayed on the front of the CPU; I use the HD and eth0 lights a lot since I have a KVM switch -- I can start something on that machine, flip back to my other machine, and just keep an eye on the blinkenlights and know when it's probably done. (Are there other ways to do this? Sure; I could probably redirect its log to another machine, but this is a whole lot simpler.)

Computers are mysterious, sealed boxes to most people; when you pull all the indicator lights off of the front, you run the risk of making that perception worse. I like to know what the hell's going on inside mine, and chassis lights are an important part of that, particularly as cooling systems have gotten louder (tougher to hear the HD churn in many systems).

Re:Wow...

[fyngyrz]

Lights: Routers don't have enough lights. They need bar graphs that tell me how much of the available bandwidth is being used (and what means that needs to be configurable in the on-board software.) A counter of currently expected reply packets might serve as a metric for "busyness" as well. And we should be able to configure the colors - R, G and B LEDS have been available for some time, lets get to using them.

Industrial design: Too many devices are "designed", looks-wise. What this means is some idiot decided that they should be really small, for starters. What this causes is the device being dragged all over by the cables attached to it, or being unable to sit flat without being glued or rubber-banded to something more substantial. Another "design" goal seems to be to create devices that look like they were squeezed out of an orifice, have only one flat side (the bottom) and as a consequence, won't stack. Another thing is means is that the indicators it does have are on the top or sitting at some weird angle, so you can't read them unless you are hovering over the bloody thing. First, make sure there is a front, and second, put the lights there. Third, make sure there is a back, and fourth, put the connectors there... or make the front double-high and put the connectors on the bottom, and the lights on the top (some devices call for ease of regular access, USB comes to mind here.) But I have routers and switches - for crying out loud - that have the channel status indicators right next to the jacks. You can't see half of them for the forest of cables that comes out of the devices. These would be fine if they were just there to tell you the cable is connected; but they are terrible for looking at the already set-up router and trying to get a sense of which lines are active and/or properly connected, and there are no other indicators to take on that role, so you're forced to dislodge cables to try and read the device status. Just dumb.

Power use: Make the lights switchable, absolutely. That way, you can turn them off, and I can leave them on. I hope to have the whole facility running on solar and wind power by the end of the year, but even if I didn't, those indicators serve a purpose that I am perfectly willing to pay for. An LED indicator isn't a big power user. I'm not going to get too excited about those kinds of drains.

Cable looms: If a device is meant to have a bunch (more than one) of cables plugged into it, it should provide an optional (meaning, you decide to attach and use it or not, but always supplied) cable loom so that you can redirect the cables from the front to the back, or vice-versa, according to your needs. This goes back to the "device is too light" design error; for instance, if you try to re-route 16 or 24 network cables, you're going to drag the device around by the tensions associated with bending all of those cables. If there is a loom, the device itself will keep the tension of the re-route from torquing it around.

More lights. The more something can tell me without requiring me to interact with it, the more time I save. A glance is always faster than calling up a web page and selecting some option.

Re:If only the colors made sense

[Anonymous Coward]

This color scheme sucks for the 10% of the male population, and 1% of the female population that can't easily discern between, red, green, and amber.

I ran a flashing red light and totaled my truck because of this.

Re:Wow...

[Grishnakh]

I like indicator lights, including the one on my LCD HDTV. The manufacturer's logo is actually the indicator light; it glows yellow when in standby, and white when the TV is on. Contrary to what these luddite anti-light people think, this is actually quite useful. When it's yellow, I know that the set is plugged in and has power, but is not in the "ON" state. Then, when I press the power button (usually on the remote control), it turns white, which lets me know that the set is now ON, even though it takes a few seconds for the screen to light up. That way, I know that my command was received, and I don't need to press the power button again.

I honestly can't think of any indicator lights on my electronics that don't serve a useful purpose (except the blue LED fans in my computer of course). If they weren't useful, manufacturers wouldn't waste money putting them in. When you're making 1 million wireless routers, one extra LED probably adds a couple cents to the cost, at least; even at $.01, this would equal $10,000. I know I'd spend an extra $5 to get a router that had all the indicator lights (including the lights for all the ports) instead of one that had only one.

Re:See? You're part of the problem.

[cowscows]

The worst thing about an artificial grass surface like that, leaves and such get trapped on it, but don't really break down. Same goes for dead bugs, animal droppings, etc. You're replacing one kind of maintenance with another.

Re:Wow...

[llefler]

Computers are mysterious, sealed boxes to most people; when you pull all the indicator lights off of the front, you run the risk of making that perception worse.

Computer equipment has LEDs because we've become so accustomed to it NOT working that we want reassurance that it is actually doing something. It is a hardware hourglass cursor.

My annoying devices:
Why does a trackball need external LEDs? (Logitech Trackman)
Why does a USB hub need one, particularly a super bright LED?
And the power light on my old APEX DVD player is so bright I either tape it, or turn it the other way. Nothing like a red super bright LED in your line of sight when you're trying to watch a movie.

Re:Wow...

[McFadden]

Nicely put. Personally I say, the more LEDs the better. I can think of at least 3 important uses in my household.

1. With enough gadgets, the collective LEDs provide just enough glow so that I can make out the darks shapes of furniture etc., so that I can get to the bathroom in the middle of the night without turning on the lights and waking my wife (believe me, you don't wanna wake my wife).

2. They stop me walking into walls/expensive equipment, when I come home drunk and can't find the light switch.

3. And most importantly of all, what real nerd doesn't get a cheap thrill when he turns off the lights in his study (or wherever you keep most of your toys) and sees 'mission control' glowing, flashing and blinking away behind him as he heads off to bed?