Dual Icon LED Panel Indicators Help Designers Improve Clarity Without Complexity

Many control panels and operator interfaces rely on traditional single-icon LED indicators for status and warnings. While these indicators are effective in basic setups, they often create design trade-offs.

Designers of equipment and control panels face constant pressure to reduce component count and shrink panel real estate—without compromising usability or safety. But using multiple components to convey different states takes up valuable panel space and adds to wiring complexity.

That leaves designers weighing the choice between a cluttered layout or limited feedback, which may lead to ambiguous lights for end users, especially in dynamic or high-stakes environments. APEM says there is a better approach.

The company’s Q14 dual icon series LED indicators can help resolve the design dilemma by delivering two distinct visual states with different colors and images from a single indicator using advanced optical engineering. A green LED icon reflects normal, active, or safe status, while red signals an alert, fault, or stop condition.

With its multi-layer dichroic light-filtering system, the indicators change both color and icon based on the state, giving users clear, intuitive, and immediate feedback without the need for additional indicators (Figure 1). This provides clear and intuitive guidance for users while reducing the need for additional indicators, saving panel space, simplifying wiring, and helping to reduce system complexity.

Figure 1: Two views of an APEM Q14 LED indicator illustrate how it can project two colors and dual on and off symbols for a richer user experience. (Image source: APEM)

The panel-mount 14 mm LED form factor supports streamlined designs without sacrificing usability—making it a popular choice for industrial equipment, medical devices, and instrumentation panels. They are compact enough to fit tight layouts yet large enough for easy interpretation of status changes (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Icons such as this battery indicator provide clear visual status to users. (Image source: APEM)

In a conventional setup, indicating two distinct system states, such as “idle” and “active,” or “fault” and “OK,” typically necessitates two separate LED indicators. This translates to an increased number of components, wiring, panel cutouts, and a cluttered user interface.

Each additional component elevates the bill of materials and introduces additional points of failure and design complexity. Designers can use APEM’s Q14 dual icon series to seamlessly integrate two visual states into a single, panel-mounted unit. Designers can achieve a cleaner and more intuitive interface while minimizing the number of components, panel real estate, and assembly time.

The result is a compact, intuitive solution that simplifies product architecture while elevating the user experience—ideal for process control, transportation, medical devices, and any application where clarity and efficiency matter.

Despite their compact size, the LEDs are designed to withstand harsh environments. They boast an IP67 rating for dust and water protection, and with a life cycle of 100,000 hours, the Q14 series ensures long-term reliability, resulting in reduced maintenance costs and service interruptions.

Powered by a nominal voltage of 12 VDC, they are designed for high visibility in any lighting condition, from direct sunlight to low-light settings. Designers can choose from a catalog of standard icons such as power, exclamation mark, warning triangle, and arrows (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Crisp icons such as this arrow provide clear guidance to users. (Image source: APEM)

The Q14 series features a compact 14 mm panel-mount design with a flat lens, engineered for environments where space-saving and intuitive status indication are priorities. APEM offers a wide range of part configuration options to suit diverse panel and interface needs.

Conclusion

Balancing clarity, space constraints, and usability of modern control panels is an ongoing design challenge. Traditional single-icon indicators often force compromises—either in panel layout or feedback quality. APEM’s Q14 dual icon series offers a solution by combining two distinct color-and-symbol states in a single, compact LED indicator, making them suitable for applications that demand durable, space-saving status feedback.