How to turn off annoying blue light in laptop webcam

I'm trying this free app from luxand. Used to login using your face. http://www.luxand.com/blink/

And it needs the webcam to record my face. But it comes with the annoying blue light. And it takes too long to record. Its about 1 hour already and the progress isn't even half.

And it really disturbs me. Is there any way to disable it? Does it affect the clarity of the image if I disable it?

Details:

Compaq b1200

Windows 7 32-Bit

2GB Ram 2GHz

Intel Processor

soul

Posted 2010-08-03T02:27:22.753

Reputation: 3 439

Hahaha. Reading this made me laugh--you can almost see how pissed off the asker was: http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Display-and-Video/Can-I-turn-off-Webcam-Light/td-p/3604941

– SolidSnake859 – 2015-06-28T06:48:23.987

Answers

In general you can't easily disable the light on the webcam via software. It's a security "feature" to prevent you being on camera without knowing it.

May I suggest the the same fix I gave grandma for her flashing 12:00 VCR?... I bit of black electrical tape.

Chris Nava

Posted 2010-08-03T02:27:22.753

Reputation: 7 009

4Electrical tape is the way to go, if you can manage to cover the light and not anything important (like the webcam's lens). I covered up my laptop's annoying 6(!) LED lights that were on the keyboard and now it's perfect. – Nitrodist – 2010-08-03T04:51:15.027

1I've covered the power lights on my monitors with partially transparent white tape. It lets enough light through to see that the power is on without burning green dots into my retinas. – Chris Nava – 2010-08-03T05:05:09.940

1Nah, electrical tape is too technical. I'd recommend duct tape. – Daniel R Hicks – 2011-11-05T23:53:53.273

put a dab of black paint or nail enamel on it

MUJAWID AHMED

Posted 2010-08-03T02:27:22.753

Reputation: 41

That works, but I'm not a fan of applying something to the computer that cannot be easily removed. I'd be more inclined to put gaffer's tape on it instead. – bwDraco – 2015-10-01T23:19:50.550

Under Windows some cameras come with control software (or it may be downloaded) that allows for disabling of the LED in a number of cases (e.g. some Logitech models).

On Linux it is possible to control the LED on a number of USB UVC-based cameras using the uvcdynctrl libwebcam command line tool (on Ubuntu and others) e.g. to turn off the LED on device video2:

uvcdynctrl -d video2 -s 'LED1 Mode' 0

You may need to play with some of the parameters as discussed on the UVC-devel mail list.

Pierz

Posted 2010-08-03T02:27:22.753

Reputation: 880

1The executable (uvcdynctrl) is within libwebcam-git package from AUR on Arch Linux; but not all cameras have that control (uvcdynctrl -c to list all available controls). – None – 2017-06-22T20:45:23.623

You can cover your light and/or your webcam using adhesive putty and a piece of black paper (got it here from a business card). Set the putty only on one side so it doesn't dirty the cam. (I put it on the light.) It looks like this:

J. Does

Posted 2010-08-03T02:27:22.753

Reputation: 155

The best way to do this is to undo the screws that hold the screen caseing together, using a butter knife very gentle prize the case apart, usually this very easy to do, at the top you will see the housing for the WebCam, gentle take the WebCam out, usually they are clipped in but some have small screws to hold it in place, when you have the WebCam free look at the board and locate the L.E.D. Now you have 2 options de-solder the first pin on the L.E.D. and bend away from the contact thus rendering it bypassed or you could simply cut it off entirely if you do not intend on reconnecting it later, beware that sometimes the L.E.D. is part of the circuit, if this is so when you disconnect 1 pin of the L.E.D. the WebCam will not function to solve this simply remove the L.E.D. and replace with a "Jumper" to connect the circuit and bingo WebCam working again, this is what I did on my Toshiba Sat Pro and it works perfect with no blue light... This is not a fix for the novice user.

TY SMITH

Posted 2010-08-03T02:27:22.753

Reputation: 11

I have a webcam with 8 blinking LEDs at the same time. Drove me nuts. I opened the case, and tried to disable the light sensor. That did not work - the LEDs went on all the time. I took pliers and pried apart each of them.

The camera works fine. In a nice dark kinda way.

Ryk

Posted 2010-08-03T02:27:22.753

Reputation: 11