Blue Light Flashing on Your GoPro? What it Means / Turn it Off

Curious why there is a blue light flashing on your GoPro?

The GoPro blinking blue light indicates that wireless function is turned on. The blue light is the wireless status light and it blinks intermittently when wireless is functioning.

What the GoPro Blue Light Means

According to the GoPro manuals for cameras with this feature, here’s what the blue light means:

The wireless status lights (blue) blink when wireless is on and the camera is not recording. ~ GoPro camera manual

When should you expect to see the flashing blue light? Only when 1) wireless is on and 2) you aren’t recording.

Here’s a list of the GoPro cameras that use flashing blue light to indicate wireless. At the end of the post, we’ll cover how to turn it off.

8 GoPro Cameras With Flashing Blue Light

Eight models use the blue wireless status light:

• All Hero4 Models: Black, Silver, Session
• All Hero3 Models: Black, Silver, White
• All Hero 3+ Models: Black, Silver

GoPro Cameras Without Blue Lights

The newer models don’t use a flashing blue light – because they indicate on the LCD screen of the wireless status.

• Hero11 Black: Status light is red only
• Hero10 Black: Status light is red only
• Hero9 Black: Status light is red only
• Max: Status light is red only
• Hero8 Black: Status light is red only
• Hero7 Models (Black, Silver, White): Status light is red only
• Hero6 Black: Status light is red only
• Hero5 Black: Status light is red only
• Hero5 Session: Status light is red only

I’ve read some forum posts of users stating that they have a blue light on one of these newer models. I own many of these (and I’ve searched the camera manuals for each model) and I’ve never seen a blue light on any of them.

If I’m mistaken, please let me know below. I want to share the most accurate information – and I’ll fix this if I made a mistake.

Here’s what you need to know about GoPro red lights.

How to Turn off the Flashing Blue Light

Why would you want to turn off the flashing blue light? There are two reasons.

1. First, it uses much more battery. It will drain super fast if you forget to turn off your wireless.
2. But another reason is that it also attracts attention to the camera. There might be times that you won’t want to draw the eye. In these cases, you might want to turn off the blinking light and still keep the wireless on.

Here’s how to do it.

How to Turn off the Hero4 Blue Light

There are two ways to toggle the wireless indicator on Hero4 cameras. This will turn on/off the blue light without turning off the wireless.

1. The easiest way is via the GoPro App. Inside the app, go to Settings. In the LED field, you can toggle the blue light on and off.
2. In the in-camera menu, go to Setup > LEDs. This is 4 options down from the top. You can turn the blinking off. The field has 3 options (4, 2, Off). This will turn off the red light as well.

If you want to turn off the wireless, you can do this in one step. Press
and hold the Settings/Tag button for four seconds. This is located on the side of the camera. And it will turn the wireless on and off.

How to Turn off Hero3 / Hero3+ Blue Light

Unlike the Hero4 cameras, you can’t only turn off the blue light and keep the wireless on with these cameras.

These cameras have a dedicated wireless button.

• Press and hold the wireless button on the side of the camera. This will turn off the blue light – and disable the WiFi at the same time.

By default, the wireless function is off on GoPro cameras.

I turned off my GoPro but the blue light is still blinking

The blue light indicates that Wireless is on. To turn off Wireless, press and hold the Settings/Tag button for four seconds.

This works for the Hero3 and Hero4 series of cameras.

More reading: How to use GoPro WiFi underwater

Your Turn

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