I’ve noticed that blue LEDs have become quite popular with electronics manufacturers, and especially in computer components these days. 

During my last cleaning I was advised by the hygienist to start using an electric toothbrush.  The braces give me fits trying to get everything out with regular brushing.  She gave advice on a couple of brands, one of which was Oral-B (Braun).  So I went out and acquired an 8850 DLX, mounted it on the wall in my bathroom, and plugged it in. 

The first thing I noticed was that it’s inductively charged.  I thought this was an ingenious solution to dealing with the problem of getting power to a unit that needs to be watertight, since it didn’t require any external electrical contacts.

Anyhow, the thing has a blue LED on the front that flashes while charging and stays on once it’s charged.  The problem is that the thing is so bright that the flashes illuminate my bedroom if I leave the door to the bathroom open.  I suppose I could just close the door, but I’ve gotten so used to having it open that doing otherwise doesn’t feel right (you get used to a certain “feel” to the room at night).

I suppose my point in all this is that blue LEDs are much brighter than the old red and green ones, to the point of being capable of lighting up a room.  I wish the manufacturers would take this into account and dim them a bit in the future.