Huh. No, I can definitely see it. I just looked at my HTC One's IR transmitter for the first time, without knowing where the LED is. It's pretty clearly on the right side of the lock button, just under it.
I don't have HTC One to make a comparison - but if you have some "vanilla" remotes laying around and can see the IR LEDs blink in all of them when active - then yeah, probably you do see into the IR and I don't!
Yeah, I just tried both TV remotes (one is just a Samsung remote). I can see all of them, but it's only a faint glow. Try it in a dark room, you should be able to see it.
Nope, I just tried and went into a pitch-black room with a remote control whose LED on the Mac camera looks very bright, and tried to look at it while activating the LED - nothing, not a blip, I can not see the IR LED with my eyes...
I'm like the parent, I just can't see the common IR LEDs with the naked eye, not even faintly, not even in pitch darkness with the led 1cm from my eye. I think you just have a skill that we don't. Or maybe you just have IR leds with shorter wavelengths...
All three give very bright flash when viewed via my Mac's camera (just launching Facetime with no call and pointing the remote to it).