this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2026
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OK since nobody has said it yet. How everything has a goddamn LED in it to show its on or off or disconnected or whatever.
I hate how I have to put eletrical tape over all my device lights so I can get some peace at night.
Edit: shit this thread is specifically about noises, not general annoyances. I do not retract my statement however.
This was at its worst when blue LEDs were new. Everybody wanted to show how cool they were and used a blue LED, but they were the brightest lights imaginable.
Like, just a hint, if your indicator light actually casts shadows on my wall at night, it's too bright.
I have an air purifier and one of the amazing things about it that they haven't actually advertised is that there is a button you can press to make all the LEDs go off. I just bought the best one in my price range, but if they put that feature on the box I'd have gone right for it.
YES, especially when they're overly bright for their intended purpose. Notify bright, ok. Pin hole sized LED bright enough to light up an entire room at night, NOT OK.
I’m kinda the opposite—I miss functional LEDs on things. I miss disk activity light the most, but there’s many things that have no indication as to whether they’re even on or connected. Overly bright LEDs are a problem tho
Count your lucky stars you cannot hear LED's.
I can. My hearing is extremely sensitive.
I've gone through the effort to set up smart plugs for most of my devices, to turn off automatically, for no other reason than eliminating the buzz.
Oof. I hear cheap charging blocks, LEDs would suck
Charging is hit or miss for me, my USB-A > USB-C outlets are silent, but I can hear the buzz from USB-C > USB-C
Literally the only good thing about my hearing loss is I don’t have to deal with this sort of thing anymore. I used to be able to hear myself blink if the room was quiet enough. I used to get my hearing tested regularly to make sure my meds weren’t damaging it and I could hear both higher and significantly lower sounds than humans are supposed to hear. Now that one ear is basically shot they don’t care anymore about testing
That is actually pretty interesting! Are you sure it is the LEDs that you can hear? I would probably lean towards the mains 50Hz buzz being heard by you due to internal transformers
Depends; I’m a lot older now and deaf (but have tinnitus, yay) in one ear, but I could hear the flyback whine of old TVs. I can hear the odd switching regulator still, but most these days are switching waaaaay above even the best human hearing range.
50/60Hz buzz should be fairly rare these days except for some high power cases or some really poorly designed electronics.
Man, I hated that sound. A lot of computer monitors had it too before they switched to LED/LCD displays.
It's without a doubt the LED's themselves. Moving closer to the exact location of the LED confirms it.
For some cheap products, I've physically cut one side of the LED pin to shut it up, and the buzzing stops.
Though technically it could be the sound of a capacitor charging/discharging or the resistors, not exactly sure on the exact mechanism, but it's at the very least something on the LED circuit.
Encouragement to do a double blind test on this one; box up some LED's with a power strip, one on and one off, have the person who set them randomize which are on and then you guess which (neither, R, L, both). Repeat a few times.
I know similar experiences aren't predictive, the sound is a kind of synesthesia with the concept of running electronics (which is itself pretty cool/interesting!).
A double blind would mean no results are discovered lol.
A single blind test would be fine.
~~And yes, I've done this. I've turned away from a device, and my partner either toggled a switch powering thw device, or a switch which wasn't connected to anything.~~
Perfect accuracy.
Edit: I replied when i first woke up. I didn't read carefully.
Neat experiment idea but I don't have a tools for that lol.
If I ever do, I'll pin this message and reply to it :p
...wow, you just reminded me that i used to hear LEDs, too: i'd totally forgotten about that...anyway, i can vouch that commuting a couple of hours every day in a top-down roadster for twenty years makes the problem go away; heck, the tinnitus even drowns out a lot of electronic-feedback clicks and beeps which are supposed to be audible...
Blue LEDs are the absolute worst. I have to keep my bedroom door shut to sleep at night because the LED clock display on my stove is so goddamn bright it lights up the whole house.
I was part of a “focus group” just some random people that my friend and his team asked questions to about some humidifier or something, I genuinely don’t remember and he was shocked when I said I didn’t want ANY LED lights on the product and he’s like “how will you know it’s on??” On a product that would absolutely make noise while running. We compromised and I told him a completely hidden LED under the product, as long as it had no light leaks would be acceptable.