I have this cable modem that's practically pointing at my be and if I look towards my feet, the super bright blue LED's are pretty blinding at night, not to mention they literally light up the room. You would think someone would have caught that by now at the factory and used a slightly darker color so as to not blind you when you look at the front of this thing. I really didn't feel like taking it apart since it also looks like the LED's are smd type and not our old round type which I do have, so here's what I did, but I also found what one other person did.
I have some leftover window tint and just cut a nice rectangle that would cover all the LED's. The reason I did this is because some of the green LED's actually turn yellow, and the blue are also a different color which is why replacing them would not be a simple fix either. This is what it looks like without the paper.
I place the paper on the top just to get an idea of how this would work. I just added water to the back of it, then used a credit card to smooth it all out. It was a bit harder than you would think, just trying to get it straight, but that's where the water helps. Spray the film away from the modem, then apply it to the modem.
Here's the actual finish set up. It's a bit darker even though the light stills bleeds from the sides of the modem case since it has holes all over the case. This is fine since it sits next to a box and the side of the desk, but hopefully the front won't be as bright as before. My tint is the dark version so I know it should help a bit more. The light would be darker but I can still see all the LED's through the tint if I need to trouble shoot it. The first layer was fine, but I decided to put a second layer over the first one to make it even darker. I like it better now. The first layer did cut the room blue light quite a bit, but the second one should keep it even lower. I do like the tint since the icons are even more defined with it and I can put more layers if I really want it darker and still be able to see what each icon is. With this I also don't have to worry about tape falling inside due to heat. So I do like how this turned out.
In any case, people should know how annoying these super bright LED's are on things like these or TV's. It wouldn't be bad if they were dimmer, but they are not. I usually change these to something red that's just easier on the eyes. Then again, many of the new LED's are so bright it doesn't matter what color they are sometimes. So you may want to check the specs first before buying them.
This is the other option if you do decide to open it up. It's a different model, but it's the same annoying LED's.
https://thisdoesnotcompute.org/2013/10/06/fix-for-blindingly-bright-motorola-cable-modem-lights/
Here's another.
http://corylown.com/?p=23
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