My bedroom looks like a spaceship

I sometimes feel like I\’m sleeping under a Christmas tree.
It seems every device we get these days, has some little LED status indicator.
The on/off switch on an extension lead. The charging light on a charger. The on/off indicator on…well… pretty much anything you plug in these days.
And that\’s usually fine — until you turn the light off to go to sleep.

Suddenly, it\’s not so fine.

My bedroom looks like a spaceship in the dark.

There are lights everywhere. Bright, multicolored, often blinking…lights.
My own fault, I guess. \”Oh, I\’ll be able to see that in the dark.\”
Yeah. I will. But when there are 20 things blinking and glowing in the dark, it gets a bit overwhelming.

So what to do about it?

First off, I taped stickers over just about every light. I turn off stuff I don\’t need glowing in the dark — after I sticker over the lights on it, just in case.
Not very pretty, not always effective, but better.
I have an alarm clock that is — even dimmed — so bright, it lights up the entire room. Even DIMMED. (Whoever thought of what that thing emits as dimmed, is a little.. dim.)
Not kidding.
I turn it face down. Not quite what the designer had in mind, but there you have it. I was actually quite shocked at just how bright it is.
Actually, it\’s back in its box at the moment, because I\’m so fed up with it.
There is also a plug extender which is extremely bright. So bright in fact, even with stickers over the LED there is still some light. It got so annoying, I don\’t use it anymore — even though it\’s a great device. 

Argh. Seriously.

• The Microwave Clock
• The Cooker Clock
• Some fridges
• Some washing machines
• Dishwasher
• The Satellite / Cable box
• The TV
• The Computer / Laptop / Tablet
• Computer monitors
• The router
• The Answering Machine / Landline Phone 
• Extension lead On/Off switches
• Games consoles
• Electric Heaters
• Speakers (usually desktop speakers)
• Touch table lamps
• Printers
• Any charger that\’s plugged in

And probably a million more I could list. All with tiny little LED lights.
You name it, there\’s probably a little light on it.
One on it\’s own isn\’t so bad. All of them?
ARGH.

What about power consumption?

Actually, the power consumption of those standby devices is negligible. 
That\’s to say, each on its own is negligible. But all of them combined? Yeah, that\’s rather a bit more than negligible, but still not a huge amount.
However, you have to take some things into consideration.
How much power is consumed in standby?
How much power is consumed to wake up from standby?
How much power is required to start the device up from cold?
My computer uses almost no power to wake up from standby mode – but it uses a whopping amount to start from cold.
So that is better left on standby — unless there is some USB device plugged in to charge. Then it\’s a different matter.
The same probably goes for the TV. (I don\’t currently have a TV.)
Routers tend to be on always as well.
And all of them have freaking lights on them. It\’s really annoying.

Still… the light show at night is something to behold. Everything is either glowing, blinking or shining in the dark.

So, if it annoys you as much as it does me — get out the sticky tape and go to town on your \”blinkenlights\”.