My ISP supplied router has an option to turn the lights off, which is great as otherwise it illuminates the whole hallway. I don't get why electronics makers think their product needs to have such bright lights.

The worst design is where the light is initially off but turns on when some condition arises (e.g. battery fully charged). You fall asleep in total darkness only to be woken up at 3am by the brilliant light of "your phone is charged now".

Simple. The engineers are working on the product during the day in well-lit spaces. Since the lights are always on, it never occurs to anyone that the LEDs might be too bright at night.

Alternatively, engineers point it out, and product managers don't listen

In a bright environment, a bright LED is useful. Instead they should also have a light sensor used to determine the ambient light level, and then adjust the status LED display accordingly. My Samsung TV does this with its "powered on" light.

Of course, that adds to the BOM and manufacturers love shaving off fractions of a penny. Asking them to add an extra 50 cents of parts for something consumers don't think about prior to purchase is a lost cause.

Old LEDs are fine in both bright and dark environments, too-bright LEDs are a recent (5y? 10y?) thing. I wonder if LCD could be even nicer... I don't think I've ever seen single-pixel LCD status indicator.

Any kind of light in my bedroom is deeply annoying to me when trying to sleep. And I have the same problem with sound too. Any kind of high pitch, etc, from a plug, light, etc, really does cause problems with my sleep.

> I don't think I've ever seen single-pixel LCD status indicator.

I approximate that by using a pin to poke a hole in the electrical or gaffer tape that I use to cover the lights.

It’s much easier to turn off the other lights than to brighten the environment enough not to see the blue lights of your router

In college, all of my electronics were in my bedroom as well as the communal router. I taped off as many LEDs as I could (even the router wall wart had a big blue light) and disconnected any LEDs that had leads (like inside a PC case). There were only a few instances of LEDs that I actually needed so those got white electrical tape over them to diffuse the light or swapped to red if the tape diffused it too much to see.

I don't mind having a nightlight on when I sleep, I think it helps me fall asleep quicker rather than pitch black but bright blue lights that fill the fucking room with light are the devil. I have much less electronics in my bedroom now since I now have personal space other than my bedroom to put stuff.

I've had a tiny chargeable buzzer that would light up entire rooms when it was plugged in. I started habitually closing the bathroom door just so it didn't bother me when trying to sleep.

I eventually got fed up that I broke the LED with some fingernail clippers. The device never turned on again.

I'm a pretty easy going person in life but learned how mad I could get over time at a pointlessly bright light and the people who put it there.