Someone just pointed out something that has bugged me for a while now. It’s the current trend in audio and video equipment to have a “standby” light. This is usually a little red LED next to the power button. It comes ON when you turn the equipment OFF, and goes OFF when you turn the thing ON!
Since the dawn of electrical/electronic devices, lights come ON when you turn the device ON. You see the light, you know it’s on. No light, it’s off. That is a given. It’s simple, obvious, elegant.
So who came up with this idea to do the opposite??? This really seemed to come into play with remote controls. I guess the concept is that the device is letting me know it’s on standby, ready for my remote control command. Stupid. I don’t need to know that. Unless I’ve unplugged the device, I don’t need the reassurance that it’s waiting for me to do something.
Can we start a petition or something?
I agree, I was trying to sleep last night and thought the very same thing – my room was illuminated but many little red or green leds, I don’t want that – why waste all that power (ok its a tiny amount of power but still). It’s dumb and I was considering prising the little buggers out. Plus could there not be a better method of standby? One that doesn’t take power to work – I remember when I was a kid there were ‘crystal radio kits’ which would provide you with radio recption without a power source – well the radio waves were the power source – so surely there must be someway that the remote can transmit a tiny bit of power to the device that turns it on rather than have it always ‘waiting’ for it. It all seems really dumb to me.
Okay, but how would you find a remote control in a room with lights turned off?
That reminds me of a similar gripe I have with XBox controllers and XBox live:
http://www.darronschall.com/weblog/archives/000141.cfm
I thought the light was there so you can tell the difference between when something is in standby, and when its off altogether… so you don’t stand there manically pressing a remote when the power is off.
“Okay, but how would you find a remote control in a room with lights turned off?”
Not sure, but that little red LED on the player isn’t going to help me find the remote.
“I thought the light was there so you can tell the difference between when something is in standby, and when its off altogether… so you don’t stand there manically pressing a remote when the power is off.”
I guess that’s the idea, but in all my devices, “off” is the same as “standby”. The only way to really kill the power is unplugging the thing. I don’t need a light to tell me that I didn’t unplug something.
The standby LED is a real-life version of the system tray icon. It doesn’t really do anything, except remind you of it’s existence.
I agree 110%. I hate that. My DVD player does that and it drives me crazy. It is off when i think it is on and vise versa. This trend has to go. I dont need a light telling me that it is on standby. In my book, as soon as i plug the thing into the power strip it is in stand by. My remote doesnt have a standby light, but i would assume that if you put it back where you found it, you could find it in the dark.
Standby lights on consumer electronics are completely useless.
I’m guessing this idea migrated from pro equipment where standby lights are quite useful in a situation where gear is being moved or has a high chance of blowing a fuse and the standby light is then a good indicator that the device indeed has power and is ready to run.
There is no “real” off mode anymore. Anything that uses a remote control goes into standby mode when you “turn it off”. We, including myself waste so much electricity in this fashion, but it is convenient… and we all love that… even at the cost of the destroying our environment. The only way to really turn off our electronics when we’re not using them is to unplug them… otherwise we’re just wasting energy even when we’re not using them. Do I unplug my electronic devices when I’m not using them? NO. I wish i wasnt so lazy and did though.
Rick, that explanation makes the most sense, though it’s a useless feature in a dvd player or home stereo.
Guojian, agreed. Actually, I just bought an extra power strip that has my tv, vcr and 2 dvd players plugged in to it. I can shut them all OFF (really off) with one switch, and save energy. Some friends of mine did that with every electrical appliance and saved a ton on their electricity bill.
I guess I can kind of see the logic of having some kind of standby indicator. But the red light next to the power button is just wrong.
Hehe my wife and I just bought a lamp at ikea that has a led that turns on when the lamp is off and turns off when the lamp it’s on…funny, so technically it’s on all the time!!! I dont know whats the purpose of that, perhaps to keep you off steping onto the switch and break it when theres no light at all.
While we’re at complaining about bad interface design: I also like industrial designers to stop making everything look round and organic! This is so ulgy! Cars, HiFi, everything needs to be round and maybe even with some terrible colors. Where did the 80ties went where things still were simply angular and black?!
try to crhash your head on somthing angular … and then on somthing organic.
the problem is to find the right design for each object.
(try to do all the things like a mac and you will have a windows vista … stupid… why people do not buy a mac os X inted of the new release of the win os ? )
Evrything has a green/red led … but you cannot buy a white led lamp that is power saving … you have to buy atraditional one with a led on when it is off.
(why led on when lamp power off ? the reason is that you can find it in the dark. )
and so on.
Well, first off: I think the standby method is needed because it keeps providing certain electronic components with electricity. Like for example everything that is similar to volatile memory. That way it can react to remote controlls and remember certain aspects like presets.
There was a study in “Natuur & Techniek”(nature & techniques:BE) a few months ago that measured the surprisingly considerable amount of electricity that is wasted that way. Don’t remember the exact figures, but it was in the order of 10%. But as mentioned before, it’s really a choice of comfort vs. economics/environment.
A sollution would surely be things like this:
(back to magnetism! Yey!)