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they need to invent e-paper but for LEDs. so many devices use an LED to indicate that they are switched on, and this is necessary, but any brightness is too much brightness. if only they could indicate being on in a way that would never distract and never light up a dark room…
yes it did occur to me right after posting this that you could use an LCD, but i've never seen an LCD that wasn't dull. i think i want something almost unobtainable: an LED that's always minimally bright. i guess an ambient light sensor could be used but, expensive…
though there are those weird screens from some vendor i forget that are somewhere between LCD and e-paper: they look like a mirror when off, and like white when on. that might be good enough?
unfortunately, the most important reason that LEDs are so hard to replace for this use case is that they unambiguously indicate something is powered on. a continuously lit LED requires continuous power, it's not possible for a device to be truly off and yet have the LED be lit up
@hikari I've got a switch with a white LED in it to indicate that the lights it controls are on. I'm guessing that due to inductance, the LED is lit even when the switch is off, just slightly dimmer than when the switch is on…