The process used to make most blue LEDs “lends itself to incorporating quantum wells into the structure”, according to Barney O'Meara, of Canadian LED manufacturer, the Fox Group. Some researchers believe that even very low levels of blue light during sleep might weaken the immune system and have serious negative implications for health.Īnd because of Nakamura's innovation, blue LEDs really are different from old fashioned LEDs. It can also interfere with our internal body clocks, disrupting sleep patterns. It is harder for the eye to focus and causes greater glare and dazzle effects. In fact, blue light causes greater eyestrain and fatigue than other colors. How can there be a difference between blue and red, green, or amber? What's all the fuss about blue LEDs? Surely a light is just a light, no matter what the color. So you'd have thought I could just ignore it, but no, even in my peripheral vision it was too bright.” Are they moaning about nothing? “The damn thing wasn't even right in front of me. “Doesn't matter where you put it, it's like a needle sticking in your eye,” says Steve Nelson, a US-based travel industry worker who was so irritated by a powerful blue LED on a new USB hub that he eventually slapped paint over it one evening. “Then some complaints from customers started surfacing, saying 'well, these blue LEDs seem very intense'”Īn online search will turn up hundreds of complaints from people who are so annoyed by bright LEDs on products that they cover them up or even snip their wires. “From about four years ago, we began to see this gratuitous use of blue LEDs,” said Eash, speaking in a telephone interview from the industrial design house's US headquarters in Boston last year. In a battle for consumer attention, product makers adorned their products with more and more of the intense blue highlights.Ī Widgets Consumers get the blues
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However, as blue LED makers gained experience, prices fell. “Every product designer wanted the blue LED,” recalls industrial designer Brandon Eash of Design Continuum, “suddenly there's this brand new color, and it's kind of cool and high-tech looking.”
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This meant that when they began to appear in products, about seven years ago, they had real kudos. So early blue LEDs required an untried, and very expensive, manufacturing process. Nakamura essentially crafted a new technique for making LEDs, instead of simply extending the processes already used for red and green LEDs. The first usable blue LEDs were created by Japanese scientist Shuji Nakamura, who followed research leads that others had dismissed as dead ends. There's a reason for that.ĭeveloping the blue LED was very difficult. Product designers tend to use blue LEDs instead of red, green or other colors. But used in the wrong way in poorly-designed products, or used at the wrong time, they can. Now, don't throw away your electric toothbrush just yet – blue LEDs won't definitely make you ill.
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Yes, those bright blue sparks of light on mobile phones, PCs, toasters, TVs, monitors, air purifiers, medical equipment, electric toothbrushes, and thousands of other products. So what's the deadly component? The blue LED. Could a common component used in consumer electronics lead to eyestrain, headaches, disturbed sleep, and even increase the risk of cancer? It sounds alarmist, but in fact the first three of these claims are accepted as fact by experts in relevant fields – the last, the risk of cancer, is unproven.