If Infrared not visible, why the red LEDs?

The simple answer is that they are using near IR. LED manufacturers have a good handle on how to make them so they are affordable.

Their center frequencies may be invisible to the M-1 eyeball (i.e. human eye), but unless they put a filter in front of the LEDs (which cause them to produce less illumination) there will be some of it that you can see.

The effect is minor. Basically, to see it you must look directly at the emitter. You're not going to see it in reflections or scene illumination.

Far-IR is completely invisible. But a whole lot more expensive because the manufacturing process is different.

Near-IR emitters are mass-produced. Far-IR not so much.

IR lasers are another story. They emit on a single frequency, so there is no gaussian curve describing their output in the frequency domain. They are so invisible that they can be dangerous. Working around lab CO2 lasers, for instance, requires removal of all jewelry and controlling the beam. They will not trigger a blink response so you can sustain a lot of damage in a short time and not know it right away.


The transition from visible wavelengths to invisible is not infinitely abrupt. Your eye's sensitivity falls off in the IR range. But in the near IR, it may not be zero sensitivity.

And the emission spectrum of LED's is not infinitely narrow. So not all of the photons coming off of an LED have the exact same wavelength.

The net effect of these two things is that when near infrared LED's are driven very hard, some photons will come off of them that are visible. To the camera, those LED's are like a super bright spotlight. But to your eye, they are just glowing modestly.

I have also seen cameras where the LED's were not visible at all. So there is some variation there.


I have never ever noticed that a remote control or any other IR-LED emits any red light. It might glow very, very dark, because a tiny little bit of the light is emitted at higher, visible wavelengths.
Maybe, you are a bit special and can see light deeper into the IR range, that would be interesting.

On the other side, you ask

why do most tv remote controls and security cameras appear to have a visible red colored LED lit when the infrared light is being emitted?

which basically means

Why are there two LEDs, one red, ond IR?

That's just a feedback that the device is working. Remote controls have a visible LED on the top (mine is blue, by the way) and an IR LED pointing forward.

Security cameras indicate that they are on / are recording to the ones in front of the camera, there are even fake cameras with no more electronics than just this LED and its blinking circuit

And on advertisements like your picture, the IR LEDs are often "photoshoped" red.

In reality, camera sensors can see IR light, but it appears blueish white. This is the reason why for example cigarettes sometimes glow blue instead of red on photos. Today, there is a filter in front of the camera sensor, which prevents this. It typically does not block the IR of an LED which is very near to the visible spectrum, but some filters do.