I don’t like lights. Or rather, I don’t like unnecessary lights. This is especially true when it comes to consumer electronics. I never was much fond of computer with shitloads of illuminated fans, LEDs and cold-cathode tubes making them blue or green or whatever.
Sure, I thought they were a little neat, but I also knew that if I had something like that at home I would quickly start getting annoyed with it. I’m more of a “less is more” type person, and I always think that form should follow function and not the other way around.
Which leads me to light pollution. No, not that type of light, but rather the pollution of many illumination sources.
Because I have several sources of light pollution at home, and I try to minimize them as much as possible. When I call it quits for the day, I want my apartment to be dark. I don’t like unnecessary LEDs or illumination to pollute my nice, quiet and dark apartment.
I built my computer into a case with only one LED, and even that is too much which is why I tend to cover it up. I’m considering unplugging it. I don’t need a blue LED to tell me my computer is on – I know when my computer is turned on, thankyouverymuch.
My keyboard is a Logitech Illuminated, which thankfully has a button to disable the illumination. My mouse is a Razer that has a well-lit and admittedly cool-looking blue illuminated scroll-wheel. This LED can be turned off in the driver, which unfortunately only works for Windows users. I tend to just cover the mouse with something when I leave the computer for the night.
Not to mention the other LEDs around my apartment. A small glowy red thing on my receiver, the two white ones on my WDTV Live and the annoyingly bright blue one on my flatscreen when it’s in standby. The numerous LEDs on my network switch and IP-phonebox. The red/green combo on the back of my subwoofer, red when it’s in standby and green when it has a signal. And so forth and so on.
Most of these I can ignore since they’re fairly subtle. The one on the flatscreen is an exception, it’s blue and surprisingly bright. It only shines when the television is turned off, which I think is a bit ironic – I know it’s turned off, why do I need a blue LED to inform me of that?
Which leads me to the point of whining about light pollution in my home.
Yesterday I bought a set of three strips of LED lights. In my case I wanted to put them behind my flatscreen and provide some nice cozy illumination in an otherwise rather dark part of my living-room. Because, even though I dislike unnecessary lights, I do like lighting as a part of interior decorating.
The results were quite lovely, and it was a cheap purchase that enhanced the quality of my living-room quite nicely.
Except for one thing.
The switch to turn on power to the LEDs is a translucent plastic thing. And when the lights are turned off, the switch itself has a blue LED that turns on. What the hell? It’s as if someone felt that when I turn off one set of lights, I should want another one to turn on instead. As you can see in the below provided photo it’s really, really bright.
Who the hell thought this was a good idea? Yes, thank you. I KNOW the lights are turned off, I don’t need some bright-ass LED to inform me of this.
Update: The other day I disassembled the above-mentioned light-switch. I was planning on simply removing the LED, but it turned out that the switch actually needed it to function. I could’ve replaced the whole switch, but instead I solved it ghetto-style – I wrapped the bright blue LED in two layers of duct-tape. After this surgery the switch still glows, but at only a fraction of the brightness from before.
