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by magneticnorth 319 days ago
Yes, seconding this one too. I've opted for ugly black electrical tape squares over the worst offenders in sleeping spaces, but why is that the only option?
2 comments

Ha, I've done the same. I never thought I'd become like my old grandpa, who didn't like when TV stations started adding crawls to the bottom of the screen for certain news/information so put electric tape across the bottom of the screen.

If they're going to do LEDs, at least do red ones, which don't obliterate night vision. Making them togglable is the ideal unless they're literally a life-or-death piece of equipment.

It used to be dim red LEDs but then in the early 2010s everyone switched to blue to look more fancy and modern. Sometimes really bright ones too, I used to have an ASUS router that had bright enough (blinking!) blue LEDs to light the entire room up. Without any option to disable them, of course.

With all public debate around the effects of blue light on sleep, it's weird more people haven't found that concerning.

> my old grandpa, who didn't like when TV stations started adding crawls to the bottom of the screen for certain news/information so put electric tape across the bottom of the screen.

Your grandpa implemented an IRL Adblock.

He was really ahead of his time.

This is something Eero routers do well: you can turn off the light (which is a more subtle white to begin with) in settings.
Same is true of my Ubiquiti UniFi. You can set the brightness 1–10 and even set times of day when lights and display should be on or off.
Many Linksys routers let you turn off all of the lighting as well