{"id":3106,"date":"2024-04-14T14:00:02","date_gmt":"2024-04-14T19:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/claremontcoloniccenter.com\/?p=3106"},"modified":"2024-04-14T08:20:51","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T13:20:51","slug":"bright-indicator-lights-ruining-your-sleep-youre-not-alone-heres-why-they-exist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/claremontcoloniccenter.com\/?p=3106","title":{"rendered":"Bright Indicator Lights Ruining Your Sleep? You\u2019re Not Alone. Here\u2019s Why They Exist."},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Bright Indicator Lights Ruining Your Sleep?\nYou\u2019re Not Alone. Here\u2019s Why They Exist.\n<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\tFor thousands of years, the nighttime\u2019s daily darkness naturally told humans it was time to go to sleep. That\u2019s an evolutionary principle embedded into our brains \u2014 and it becomes apparent for those who can\u2019t peacefully slumber at night because of the annoying indicator light that\u2019s part of many household electronics.<\/b><\/i>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\tCountless devices and appliances \u2014 from surge protectors and televisions to headphones and laptops \u2014 often have a bright light that turns on when plugged in but can\u2019t be turned off unless the product is unplugged. It\u2019s a pesky bedroom nuisance.

\n\n\u201cExposure to light at night is a completely unnatural and alien experience,\u201d Steven Lockley, a neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School\u2019s Division of Sleep Medicine, said in author Paul Bogard\u2019s 2013 book, \u201cThe End of Night,\u201d which explores the effects of artificial light on society and health.

\n\nNot only are there more of those lights these days, but many are brighter than they used to be. Some manufacturers say indicator lights can sometimes serve a practical purpose. But the one thing that\u2019s clear is that at bedtime, people looking to get some sleep just loath those difficult-to-ignore dots of light ruining the comforting darkness needed to get some shuteye.

\nThe solutions we come up with<\/b>

\n\nFor Kyle Moschen, a 27-year-old public relations professional based in Seattle, it almost looked like a starry night sky in the studio apartment he used to live in with his boyfriend, except it wasn\u2019t beautiful like Vincent van Gogh\u2019s famous painting, it was irritating.

\n\nBright lights emitting from many sources \u2014 from the oven, an automatic fan, the fire alarm, an air purifier and a wireless phone charger \u2014 made it difficult for Moschen to sleep at night.

\n\nHis solution: Tape those bad boys right up.

\n\n\u201cI was looking around and I just kept noticing more and more and I felt so confused, like why are there so many lights?\u201d Moschen told CNN. \u201cI was like this crazy person putting these black strips of electrical tape on every little light.\u201d

\n\nAmazon, among other retailers, stocks several different sizes and shapes of blackout, or light-dimming, stickers and sheets.

\n\nThe solution looked a bit different for Jonathan King, a finance professional based in New York.

\n\n\u201cI plug in my Logitech headphones and it\u2019s a little blue light but I really have a hard time sleeping with any light on so I have to either wear a face mask or what I usually end up doing is putting a shirt over the headphones so I don\u2019t see them,\u201d King told CNN in an email.

\nThe practical and aesthetic purposes of indicator lights<\/b>

\n\nTo put it simply, an indicator light just reflects the status of a device, and that varies from product to product. For example, an indicator light could show that a device is charging or plugged in and working properly. For Bluetooth devices, they\u2019re necessary when pairing with a phone.

\n\nThose bright indicators are often LED lights. LED lighting is an energy-efficient option for manufacturing indicator lights. The light has a long lifespan and doesn\u2019t generate excess heat \u2014 important qualities for a technology that\u2019s used every day.

\n\nBlue LED light \u2014 a common indicator color but one particularly disruptive to sleep \u2014 was such an industry breakthrough that the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to physicists Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura for creating it.

\n\nBlue LED was introduced for commercial use in the 1990s. Amid a growing tech industry, blue LED offered a new, innovative color that gave consumer electronics a cutting-edge appearance.

\n\n\u201cSometimes those lights are on there just for aesthetic appeal, contributing to the gadget\u2019s design, appeal and user experience,\u201d David Loftus, president and chief executive of the Electronic Components Industry Association, told CNN.

\n\nStill, many manufacturers do without them. \u201cA lot of times, some don\u2019t have it because it is a very inexpensive device and the manufacturer has chosen not to spend a few pennies on putting an LED status light in it. Or, the devices are just really simple and don\u2019t need it,\u201d Loftus said.\n\nManny Linhares Jr., senior director of product management at Legrand, a French electrical equipment manufacturer, said the indicator lights of Legrand\u2019s products are essential for functional, aesthetic and safety reasons.

\n\n\u201cAs a manufacturer, adding an LED light does cost something, so to add one just to add one seems quite wasteful. So in our case, it\u2019s used purposely to enhance the user experience,\u201d he said.

\n\nLinhares Jr. also said the lights can be helpful as night lights.

\n\n\u201cWe aim for the subtle lights to help a customer know where these devices are when the lights are off in spaces where the occupant isn\u2019t familiar with the room, like in hotels you at least have that subtle light glow,\u201d he said.


\nContributors: Bryan Mena, John Towfighi \u2013 CNN Health<\/i>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bright Indicator Lights Ruining Your Sleep? You\u2019re Not Alone. Here\u2019s Why They Exist. For thousands of years, the nighttime\u2019s daily darkness naturally told humans it was time to go to sleep. That\u2019s an evolutionary principle embedded into our brains \u2014 and it becomes apparent for those who can\u2019t peacefully slumber at night because of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/claremontcoloniccenter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/claremontcoloniccenter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/claremontcoloniccenter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/claremontcoloniccenter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/claremontcoloniccenter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3106"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/claremontcoloniccenter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3110,"href":"https:\/\/claremontcoloniccenter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3106\/revisions\/3110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/claremontcoloniccenter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/claremontcoloniccenter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/claremontcoloniccenter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}