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Comment by davidy123 | Hacker News Reader

I wish there were a way, though maybe not at the hardware level, to get these bulbs to go dimmer. In many circumstances, especially at night when avoiding glare off windows, just enough light to prevent tripping over things post eye adjustment would be ideal. But the lowest setting is far brighter than that.

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Both Hue Color and White Ambient (that go from cold white to warm white) have a Nightlight predefined modes that give barely any light. I also have a dimmable lightbulb from hue that looks like these hipster 19th century lights and this one doesn't go that low. There are 3 types of regular Hue bulbs, maybe you need to see the.other ones?

In my experience, the White Ambiance lights don't get as dim as the other Hue bulbs. In places where I wanted even lower light, I've had to use their White Ambiance Filament or Color Ambiance bulbs.

White Ambiance also don't go as low for colour temperature (2200K) vs White & Colour Ambiance (2000K).

Nightlight on the colour & ambient bulbs I have don't go nearly dim enough. I haven't tried the hipster bulbs, but I don't want a lightbulb that calls attention to itself.

Setting it to red and lowest brightness is pretty good for making the surroundings dark, but your bulb itself will still be a massive red blob.

The different bulbs have different "minimums" I've noticed, but if you really want a nightlight setting you might want to get a dedicated bulb or light for it. The full color at "very low red" are quite low.

(Or like me, for my sins, have a single blue LED on a piece of hardware that lights the room bright enough to read by)

I have a PC connected to the TV in my living room with an annoyingly bright blue power light. Even worse, it blinks when the PC is asleep. I ended up taking it apart and wiring in a 470k ohm resistor and three 2.2uf electrolytic capacitors in parallel. The resistor lowers the brightness and the capacitors make it fade in and out a little bit instead of just going on and off. (It still lights up pretty fast, but it fades out fairly gently.)

Nice, the really annoying one I just covered with black electrical tape.

I've noticed the White Ambiance lights don't dim to a very low level for night time night light type of use, but the White and Color Ambiance bulbs can get far dimmer. Also the White Ambiance Filament bulbs seem to get dimmer than the regular White Ambiance bulbs.

It's a shame, really, because it seems like the expensive bulbs might meet your needs while their cheaper ones don't. Granted, the filament bulbs do seem to fall more in line with the regular bulbs, so might be worth exploring.

just enough light to prevent tripping over things post eye adjustment would be ideal.

If you don't mind going old-school, I picked up a five-pack of directional nightlights at the local hardware store for $20.

They plug into an outlet, only turn on when it's dark, and swivel so you can aim the beam at the tripping hazard of your choice.

I also put one in the bathroom outlet over the cat's litter box, to help her out.

It's just a tiny light bulb and a photodiode, so it's super simple, ultra-reliable, and completely unhackable.

I set my Hue Color bulbs to 25% and pure red at around 1AM every weeknight. It's dark but I can still see enough not to ram my toes into the coffee table.

Alright, Satan.

Also gives you that Hunt for the Red October feeling

Submarines use red lights for the same reason that they make great night lights (and were used in old photography dark rooms): human night vision isn't disrupted by red light so red lights can be kept minimally dim and be more than enough to see by.

Admittedly for submarines light pollution can be life-or-death (because you don't want an enemy submarine to spot you) and it's a little less critical in cities already full of light pollution at all hours.

I've wanted to build a bulb from scratch that contains, let's say, 32 LEDs such that when they're all on you get the full light intensity you were after.

But then dimming is then bucketed to 32 discreet steps where we enable anywhere from 1 to all 32 LEDs for the different levels.

No flicker, and perhaps at a single LED you get that very low-level dimming.

The later generation Hue bulbs allow you to go far dimmer than the originals.

I recently purchased their newer Hue White A21 (1600 Lumens) and while it has a brighter maximum as advertised, the lowest/dimmest it will go is also brighter than the previous generation which sucks at night. So YMMV as far as generation and lower brightness.

I wish they'd supply this information before you purchase. I want to know lumen RANGE.

Ah, I should have been more clear in my message -- I'm referring to the Hue Color bulbs.

A range would definitely be nice.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=red+led+night+light

i just have these all over my place. i don't need to turn anything on or off or mess with settings.

You can use different colors to reduce the brightness at that level. I find at 1% brightness on red it is only barely visible in a dark room.

I hve color Hue bulbs and they can get pretty low.

Can confirm, colour hues go really low, especially as you shift them into the red colour. I have that as a nightlight in the bathroom and bedroom on a motion trigger.

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