In the middle of reading something for my design of online communities class in my dimly lit room, my mind began to wander and I started counting all the LEDs in my room. Like most people my age, my room is my office as well so I have all of my personal technology there.
How many LEDs are on in your room at night and what devices do they come from?
I count 19 LEDs from 8 devices:
- HP LaserJet 1012 printer
- Logitech Z-2200 speakers (if I forget to turn them off)
- MacBook Pro: MagSafe connector and annoying pulsing white LED
- Slinglink Turbo (serving as an ethernet hub)
- Belkin surge protector
- Dell display in standby (again, usually off but sometimes I leave it in standby)
- alarm clock
- my file server (3 from the NIC, 1 from the motherboard, 4 from the overpriced fan)
It looks a little something like this. (not all LEDs visible from this angle)
A twist on this question could be how loud is your tech at night. One of my friends sleeps with 2 1U servers under his bed and that’s like having a hairdryer on in your room 24/7. Your regularly scheduled content will resume later this week after I deal with an exam or three.
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{ 30 comments… read them below or add one }
I have the following LED’s:
1. Alarm Clock
2. MacBook Pro (magsafe and white)
3. Speakers
4. 20″ Apple Cinema Display
Not as many as you do Paul.
I recently did a cleanout of my room, minimalised everything.
1. 40″ Samsung LCD
2. Macbook Pro Magsafe and yes that damn annoying pulsating light
3. Xbox 360 powersupply
4. PS3 red light
These are hidden under my bed but I can still see a slight glow.
5. Airport Extreme
6. Cable Modem
7. External Drive connected to the AE
I turn everything off and sleep in total darkness. :)
Hah, two 1U servers. :D
My room isn’t too bad. I have:
Dell 2407
Computer BIOS (visible through the side/top fan grilles)
Amplifier Unit
My mobile phone also emits a constant LCD glow from its if it’s charging, but this is only once a week or so.
I have, in all, the following lights in my room.
1. D-Link’s ADSL Modem
2. Linksys WRT54G Wi-Fi router
3. TataSky DTH Digicomp
4. My Mac Mini
5. 3 LED Fans on my Zebronics Cabinet of my PC / 500gig storage box
6. 160gig pocket hdd in an external casing
7. Creative speakers
8. UPS
9. 19″ TFT
I’m planning to get an MB soon though :)
I had about 5 but they’re all covered by thick, black squares of duct tape to destroy any light night or day. All my tech is put to sleep at night so it’s silent.
I tend to leave my MagSafe adapter disconnected from my sleeping MBP at night. And the Rain mStand I’ve got it sitting on blocks that annoying pulsating light you’re speaking about.
I’ve got (at the moment) a printer under my desk, my hi-fi system (which I never seem to remember to switch off — it’s connected to my laptop), but that’s pretty much it.
Oh yeah, and lucky me has an imed Gemini online each night at the moment, too. But… only three more nights of that! Woo hoo!
L.
I can barely begin to imagine how many LEDs are glowing and flickering around my house. I have 2 laptops in my office, a rack full of equipment in the home theater, the Pronto remote control charger, a TiVo and LCD TV in the media room, a cable modem/Vonage ATA/router/switch/battery backup/alarm system/Windows Home Server in my equipment closet, Sonos ZonePlayers throughout the house, an old laptop in the guest room, a digital photo frame, 2 phone chargers, 2 camera chargers, etc. I hate to think about the resulting (wasted) power consumption.
This reminds me of an article that Peter Egan wrote for Road & Track regarding “total piston count.” I’m at 23 pistons if you include the 3 cars, lawn mower, trimmer, and 3 air compressors in my garage. Pistons are obviously less pervasive that LEDs.
Lets see
two on keyboard
on on monitor
bright lights all over my razer copperhead mouse ( i usaully put it under a baseball hat)
a good 10 my gigabit switch
alarm clock
stereo
a blinking one on the front of my server that is for sale
as for sounds i used to try to leave my server on all night but it was annoying like your friends, but i do leave my pc on 24/7. both are rackmount but when i built the pc i made it quiet and didn’t hook up any leds on it.
if interested in the server email forsale mattstips com.
currently none, but i remember days when i had a 16 port netgear switch in my room blinking all night ;-)
I’ve only got one room (bedroom/sitting room) so everything I own (and my boyfriend owns) is in that one room. I think these are the lights in my room:
1. 2 MacBooks – mine is next to my bed on a shelf, so the “white light” is level with my eye
2. MacMini – blinking white light) + USB Hub – not blinking white light
3. Hp Printer
4. TV – small red standby light
5. PS2 red light
6. TV channel decoder – green/red light
7. TFT screen
8. 1 mobile phone – green standby light (always on)
9. 2 mobile phones – only blink red when battery is low or when in charger
Sound wise, it’s great though; sometimes the MacMini growls a bit, but most of the time he’ll keep quiet.
Formerly though we used to have an old server under our bed. Man, that made a racket.
No wonder America gets a lot of grief about its use of energy and how it does little to combat climate change. Turn everything off when not in use and do your bit to save the planet! I switch off EVERYTHING at night. The only thing left plugged in is the microwave.
Around 12 for me:
Couple of PC’s
Macbook
Speakers
Router etc.
It depends on what I’ve been using that day.
How can anyone sleep a whirring server under their bed?
Oh crumbs
All I know is that when i get the sofa to sleep on, the two Apple MacBooks in the same room tend to give off some type of nuclear radiation glow.
One or two of these is enough to cause me disturbed sleep. All I end up doing is throwing my socks over them…
In my studio though I have several more, but no where near as many as everyone else so far.
Im LED deficient so it would seem.
GOOD LUCK WITH THE EXAMS!!!
Graham
ImJustCreative
“On: Creativity within Life”
I’ve got
My 22″ HP W2207
MacBook Pro Magisafe and the pulsing light which is brighter than the sun, but it dims if you sleep it while open because it knows bright it is due to the inbuilt light sensors. So sleep it while open facing a bright light.
My Canon LBP2900i which is networked and is a hassle if i turn it off.
My Linksys WRT300N, Netgear DG834PN Modem Router. I use the Linksys at the wireless signal because its bad ass.
Sky Satiliete Box
TV Reciver
AMP.
Speakers – creative something.
Stupid light on my home phone.
Thats it, far too much in my room. :)
Dude, kill that fan!
I have a server/myth/other box in my room, I control the fans with lm-sensors and fancontrol so they spin up and down occasionally (noise only, no unnecessary lights) but there is a blue led disk activity light on the front… if it starts recording a show or running some maintinance process in the middle of the night it kicks up like a strobe.
When I was a kid, I had about 500 old PC motherboards lying around in boxes. I got this really nuts idea, and to the chagrin of my parents, I screwed them to the wall. They covered an entire wall in the room. Then randomly I put some red and green LEDs (this was before blue and white were remotely affordable) on the boards. It made quite a sight at night. I wish I had a photo of it.
-Ezra Hilyer – http://www.straypoetry.com
My “tech”? God, sorry but this might be your nerdiest post ever Paul. But, I’m amazed with the detailed responses given. I await more delicious lists of LED lights in people’s rooms at night.
This *is* an awesomely geeky post, but then I am a GT geek so I guess all's fair. I have a HTPC in my living room that creates a ridiculous amount of noise, and another PC in my study room that is significantly quieter. (My laptop is a MBP, which usually stays in the office as well.) In my "sleeping" room, however, almost nothing besides a basic 20" TV. I find that putting too much "tech" into my bedroom makes it much harder to sleep in there.
Pretty sure i’ll have the most :)
equipment – # of LEDs
custom desktop machine – 16
secondary desktop – 4
2 monitors – 2
cable modem – 4
2 power bars – 6
router – 7
cordless phone – 1
printer (standby) – 1
1 completely illuminated keyboard – lots
1 backlit keyboard – lots
1 norm keyboard – 3
one of my mouse has an LED to indicate DPI – 1
external HD – 1
speaker controls – 3
alarm clock
i believe that is all. and my soon-to-be MBP :)
Typically, both of my computers remain off (or at leasy my laptop is in standby, where the poower LED also remains off). I keep the number of lights on in my room while I’m sleeping to a minimum:
2 alarm clocks (for the sleepy high school student who needs to get up for the school bus)
The power LED on my printer (an HP PSC 2350), which is on top of a 4 1/2 dresser, so I can’t even see it on
When my Sony CLIE (a Palm-powered PDA) is charging, the LED on it’s cradle
When I charge my cell phone (a Motorola i855, one of the Nextel iDEN-type, but marketed by Boost Mobile, with a screen on the front), the backlighting from that
When i leave my Behringer Xenyx 502 mixer on, the very bright blue power LED on it – this is quite noticeable
Most of this stuff can hardly be seen from my bed, thanks to the way my room is situated.
1. TV
2. CRT Monitor (usually Off)
3. DVD/VCR Combo
4. Optical Mouse (Computer is usually off)
5. Keyboard (Computer is usually off)
Quite a few here.
Total: 21-ish.
Sharp TV
Mac Mini + Belkin USB Hub both white LEDs
2x External HDDs (Lacie and Memorex) one Amber, one Blue
IPod if it’s docked.
PVR’s clock display
HK Receiver’s amber standby
HK Sub’s amber standby
PS3 Red Standby
Monster Power Center’s 4 LEDs and Voltage display
Cable Modem
Linksys Router
Alarm Clock
My Gamer chair (glows bright too… only because I always forget to turn it off)
Cell phone (charging)
Electric Blanket heat adjuster. (A necessity during the cold winter months here up north)
I used to turn off my Monster power center so all the LEDs turned off on my HT set-up. This way I could sleep in the dark, but now I don’t really notice them.
I’ve also done a clean-up recently and moved the AirPort Extreme along with my external harddrive to the basement, got rid of two switches, my La Fonera+, my TV and some other stuff.
Now there are two power bars with one LED each (but I’m planing to get rid of them), the MagSafe LED and the MacBook LED left – which makes 4 in total.
Well, at my place I’ve some kind of small office, where I put all gadgets and computers, but at my room only my JukeBox where the only way to turn it’s LCD off it taking the plug away
I try to shut everything off at night, but the white light on my MBP is often pulsating as I try to sleep.
This post is a good opportunity to bring up Standby Power (or vampire power). The LEDs themselves on these devices don’t use much power, but other circuits/power supplies within them do. That cable box with the glowing LED? Put your hand over it, it feels like you could fry an egg. It’s money on your electric bill evaporating into thin air, and represents fossil fuels being burned needlessly. Please plug all of your “tech” components into a power squid or the like and turn it off at night to prevent this phantom power drain. Thank you, don’t forget to tip your waitress.
Hmm…
I have my PC which inside has 4 LEDs on the mobo and two UV Cathodes
Creative Gigaworks 2.0 Speakers
Netgear Router (4 LEDs)
Alarm Clock
Comcast Digital Box
Cell Phone
Home Phone
12″ Powerbook (Charger and white pulsing light)
4 Surge Protectors
And thats about it.
Total 7:
Macbook
Creative Speakers
Time Machine iPod Speakers
Lacie External Hard drive
WD External Hard drive
Electric toothbrush
Fire Alarm (it has 2 flashing LEDs)
Ouch. I even covered up the smiling TiVO guy with tape because he was too annoying.
Yes, we consume too much power. We revel in it! Some technology even goes so far as to be very weirdly designed, just to use more power. I have a Philips DVD player. There’s an on/off light. Actually, it’s just an OFF light, because it’s only ON when the DVD player is OFF.
I have enough LEDs to create a light show which can be seen through my curtains. There’s also a router with up to 8 lights on downstairs, a microwave down there also, my MacBook, LCD screen printer, etc.