The situation still hasn't improved all that much. Just looking around I have electrical tape over the LEDs of my modem, router, computer monitor, soundbar, humidifier, fan, entryway intercom, thermostat. And these are all new devices.
The one that got on my nerves recently is a little bedside 3-in-1 wireless charger.
Has one of the brightest LEDs I've seen lately right on front of the charger whenever a device is on it. Why would they put a bright light on a night-stand accessory, and put it in the front where its shining right into your eyes as you try to sleep?
Or better yet, why have an LED on it at all in the first place? Any device I'm putting on it has its own charging indicator, I don't need the charger itself to have one.
Many toys can be physically dampened, but another way is throwing a resistor in parallel across the speaker. I did this with a Little People princess castle my daughter had when she was very young and it was quite a nice way to do it— same bright and unmuffled music when you put the dolls on the stand, but at about 20% the volume.
I much prefer two or three coats of black nail polish. It looks much nicer than tape, is more durable, and the light can barely be seen - just enough to see it when you want to. Like it should have been from the factory.
I use stickers designed for dimming LEDs. They’re almost like a thick window tint cut into various shapes. Dim enough to stop the LED from being annoying but you can still see its status.
A little more expensive, but they look a little nicer too.
You can buy a sheet of LED blocking stickers on Amazon for a few bucks. I keep some in my suitcase and leave every hotel room a little better than I found it.
When I needed to dim the backlight on a new bedside clock, I asked a local window tint company for a couple of pieces of offcut film. I'm glad someone had the idea to turn that into a business.
IME consumer electronics have gotten a lot better about this, but appliances and other things outside the tech sphere are still awful. My portable AC unit has a bright-as-hell seven-segment display for the temperature which shows "--" even when it's turned off!
This might just be amateur EEs doing their thing in an organization that doesn't constrain these aspects of the product. Data sheet says If(cont)=20 mA? Okay, 20 mA it is.
Most of my devices have had ways to turn them off.
Router has a button which disable all lights until it's pressed again, monitors have the setting in their menus.
The only device thats shining brightly in my home is a storage controller I've got in my home server, with no way of turning it off - or at least dimming it down
yeah my routers' LEDs are obnoxiously bright, luckily they have an option in the app to turn it off on a schedule. The super bright green LED in my smoke detector unfortunately does not have this option. Nor do the blue LEDs in my smart outlets...
I had the tenant before me install fake fire detectors once. Always a green flash every few seconds but that was the only electronics in there. I only noticed because after a few years, I never had to change the batteries, so I decided to check them.
When you move into a new place, always check they are real and work.
Also, shake the ABC fire extinguishers. The powder can clump in the bottom of the cylinder. Or replace them if they're 15+ years old - the local fire station will take them to use in their training classes.
