Remember those bright annoying LED lights you see in all those consumer electronics?

Well the concept is simple. If you opened up an LED candle these days, you will notice that it is only a single LED with a tiny chip embedded inside of it.

Well why not have an LED that can sense the light level and adjust brightness accordingly. Include a small photodetector, and a micro-controller to auto dim the LED when darkness is detected.

Not every electronics is complex or expensive enough to warrant an autodimming circuit. For those kinds of electronics, just use these auto dimming LED and make your device less annoying..
-- mofosyne, May 13 2013

If it were PWM, the LED itself could act as the sensor.
-- spidermother, May 13 2013


[+] One of my synths combines a rock-solid hardware design with a rock-solid class-action lawsuit firmware - one of which tasks is to make sure that, in low or normal lighting conditions, the player is effectively blinded by superfluous LED's and an undimmable EL-backlit LCD.
-- FlyingToaster, May 13 2013


Excellent idea. The LED would have to avoid being blinded by its own light, but this could be done by either (a) having the light sensor filtered against the relatively narrow band of emission from the LED itself or (b) Pulse the LED fast enough to look continuous, but sense ambient light during the "off" windows.

Slight caveat: a lot would depend on the context of the LED (eg, if it's exposed or recessed).
-- MaxwellBuchanan, May 13 2013


Yes, please, someone do it [+]
-- piluso, May 13 2013


This is so timely. I just bought a desktop charger/stand for my smartphone to go on my bedside table. The phone itself considerately dims down to a dull red clockface when I put it in bedside bode but the charger stand has a blue LED which could blind low-flying pilots. I covered it up with black tape but can still detect the light coming through at a sensible level. I'm toying with trimming the tape to make some sort of bat signal.
-- AusCan531, May 14 2013



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