[sph]

I have been thinking deeply about this problem. I bought a great, silent fan from Rowenta, with beautiful housing and does what it says on the tin with no fancy accessories. 3 speed + 1 very silent mode for sleep. Hey, it’s a European product, not some Chinese knockoff.

At some point during design, one person must have said “you know, why not add a brilliant white light that turns on in silent mode? Wouldn’t that be cool?” and there was no one powerful or smart enough to stop their hubris.

Every hot summer night, I turn off my bedside lamp, and scream internally when I notice I forgot to put a dark piece of cloth to obscure the blinding white light on the fan. In these nights, I dream of sending an email to Rowenta’s customer team, and asking them to present me the head of the person responsible for this.

I am reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance lately and how technologists have made the world ugly by forgetting to keep in touch with Quality and Beauty, and this is painful reminder of it.

[lukan]

That bright LED's became so cheap to allow putting them everywhere certainly had downsides. There are many devices now where I have to tape over to enjoy a dark sleeping place.

[ijk]

Back when red LEDs were the new cheap lighting option everything was great: red doesn't affect noght vision as much and at least for me it doesn't seem to prevent sleeping on the same way that the bright white LEDs do.

[moring]

And yet, you did buy the fan despite the bright LED (because you didn't know it was there when you bought it). Rowenta got your money, so from their perspective, they did everything right.

[torben-friis]

People don't talk enough about the effects of bright screens being cheap to keep on in urban areas.

Every drug store, bus stop and storefront in my city is painful to walk around at night.

[moffkalast]

There are many problems in life that a brush and some black acrylic brush-on primer can fix. This is one of those problems :)

[robocat]

I fixed a power wart LED today using black electrical tape, with a needle hole.

Ideally instead I need some stick-on semitransparent dark-alpha stickers to reduce brightness. Maybe I should use two polarized stickers, and rotate the second until brightness is perfect.

Are there non-linear solutions or HEV-sensitive photochromic solutions - so that LED brightness is low in the dark but bright enough in sunny conditions?

[mattio]

You can buy the version without the bright light, but the marketing people made it 10 dollars more expensive x-) /s