[blunte]

What's not clear to me is whether other participants of the meeting are aware of my sound while my mic is "muted".

I'm far less concerned about the videoconference system hearing me than my other meeting participants. This morning during a boring company-wide meeting I accidentally fell asleep (it was an early morning meeting and I was still in bed!)

All that said, it should really be a right of consumers that audio and video capture devices have a physical on/off switch.