The light, it BURNS usss, Precioussss

[unixronin]

The alarm function on the clock radio we unearthed from the moving boxes a few days ago apparently no longer works.  So, yesterday, I went to Wal-Mart and bought two new alarm clocks, one for each bedroom.  The one for the girls' room works fine, but I happened to see one on the shelf that had a blue, rather than red or green, LED display.

"Ooh, pretty blue LEDs," I thought.  (Yeah, I like blue LEDs.)  And I picked it up without a further thought beyond checking to make sure it had battery backup.

The damned thing uses high-intensity LEDs.  In an ALARM CLOCK.  Four digits' worth of seven-segment high-intensity blue LEDs in an alarm clock that's going to be in a bedroom where people are trying to SLEEP.  That's thirty-three high-brightness blue LEDs, counting the indicators.  I don't know what on earth they were thinking.  Bright?  This thing is excessively, ridiculously, absurdly, insanely bright.  You could READ by the light of the damn clock...  from across the room.  This thing isn't an alarm clock, it's a damn airport beacon travelling incognito.  It could give the Eddystone Light an inferiority complex.  I ended up putting my heavy black cotton pajama pants (which are almost gi-pants weight) over the damned clock AND I COULD STILL READ THE DISPLAY THROUGH THE PANTS.  When I got up and moved the pants to turn the alarm off, the uncovered display was so bright in a not-all-that-dark room that it hurt my eyes.

That's frelling ridiculous.  It's going back to the store today to be replaced by one with a sane, standard, night-vision-safe, low-intensity red display.

Comments

[suzilem.livejournal.com]

Isn't there an intensity control? Even my low-tech ancient red LED has a dimmer control. Too bad. Blue would be prettier.....

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

You'd think so, wouldn't you? I looked for one as soon as I first plugged it in and saw how bright it was... nope. No joy.

But we are, after all, talking about a $9 alarm clock from Wal-Mart. After I take this one back, I'll get a decent Westclox or something, probably from Target.

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

Sounds like hi intensity blue LEDs have come down in price, then. :)

-Ogre

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Presumably so. I now have a red-LED Westclox for essentially the same price as the "OH MY GOD, MY EYES, MY EYES!!!" house-brand thing from Wal-Mart.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

The other approach that has occurred to me is a piece of static-cling flexible neutral-density filter or similar.... say, about an ND8 or so. Maybe even ND16.

[smandal.livejournal.com]

Until I started using my cellphone as my alarm clock/bedside phone, my battery-powered LCD alarm clock was my most preciousssss possesssssion.

[smandal.livejournal.com]

It also played The Entertainer, which made my ex violently annoyed.

What is it with the blue hi-intensity LEDs?

[zeekar.livejournal.com]

All modern tech seems to be required to have these things on them. The latest PC we have has one on the front of the case - at just the right angle to zap you in the eyeballs if you put it on the floor under your desk by your legs. The USB dialup modem we were forced to buy while waiting for our DSL transfer likewise had one. But worst of all, the USB Wi-Fi adaptor we got for the TiVo in our bedroom has one. I plugged that in - the USB ports are in the *back* of the TiVo, toward the wall - and was treated to a bright blue glow all over the wall behind the entertainment center - which is open all the way through to the wall, so we got lots of surface area of blue light. There was no way we were going to be able to sleep in there. I wound up putting electrical tape around the thing . . .

Re: What is it with the blue hi-intensity LEDs?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Well, stable high-intensity blue GaAs LEDs are "new and hot", and therefore "cool". So they plaster them everywhere in sight, appropriate or not.

We used to use a pair of Nextel/Motorola i1000+ phones, and we had two desk chargers for them. There were two little tiny green LEDs on each charger, one for "phone plugged in and charging/charged", one for "extra battery plugged in and charging/charged". They lived on our nightstands, and we just dropped the phones into them overnight.
Recently I bought myself one comparable desk charger for the i305 phones we have now. It has a socking great high-intensity blue LED on the front that lights up half the room, and is totally redundant because the i305 lights its display backlight whenever it's on charge anyway.
The damn thing lives downstairs on my desk.

Now, I replaced the green stock power LED on babylon5's case with a high-intensity blue because (a) it looks really good on the charcoal-grey case, and (b) the stock power LED was DOA when I got the case. (Antec sent me a replacement, but I never installed it. I prefer the blue.) And vorlon's Thermaltake case has semi-hidden blue power LEDs that look really nice on the heavy black brushed-aluminum front door. But there's places they're appropriate, and places they're not. An alarm clock definitely falls into the latter class.

(Yeah, I picked it up because of the blue LEDs. It never for a single second occurred to me they might use high-intensity LEDs on an alarm clock.)

[bbullock.livejournal.com]

According to something I read recently (I think on scleroticrings LJ), blue LEDs have become very popular with the manufacturing industry, especially where electronics are concerned. And why? Because they look "futuristic" and people are more likely to buy something with a blue LED on it than without.
I guess your purchase would be a good case study.
In any case, they're putting those on all sorts of things, even items that don't need a blue LED, and yes, they are freaking bright, far more intense than red or even green.