Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.

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Night lights that detect light levels are probably flickering so fast that it just appears to be on (lemmy.world)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Ok so I got this idea not while showering, but because I'm very high. The story does come from my bathroom though! I have a night light in my bathroom, and I was looking at the night light as I turned off the bathroom light. I'm a big nerd so I remembered that the things that detect light levels are actually diodes wired in reverse. I thought it would be funny to make it flicker by reflecting the light back on the diode, but it didn't work. That's when I had this realization

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Heat does affect diode lifetime. So brightness/duty cycle certainly does affect how long it'll last, because more energy going through means higher temperatures.

But with any light/fixture that has sane heat dissipation, it's not worth worrying about. LEDs will last decades in most scenarios.