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Everything with a battery should have an off switch

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Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#24
post #4

Examples lying around in my house: Bathroom scale: lovely it powers up when you tap it, but eats up 2 button cells a year for a few dozen uses a year Kitchen scales, bit more use, at least once a day but again 2 button cells a year electronic caliper: Same, eats up 1 button cell a year, just sitting in my toolbox Strangely enough none of our kids toys with batteries seem to suffer from this problem How much extra cos…

> Kitchen scales, bit more use, at least once a day but again 2 button cells a year

I had a kitchen scale that would eat through its battery pretty quickly (within a month) even when not being used. I figured it could be an interesting project to open it up and try to figure out where the stray power draw was happening, but the obviously correct solution was just to leave the battery cover off and pop it in and out for regular use.

Anyway my current kitchen scale was given to me as a present and has a mini-usb input to charge an internal battery. I personally found it to be a bit overkill, but at least I wouldn't need to get a new battery all the time. Then I realized that it can't be used when plugged in and charging. As in even if it is fully charged, it will not work when plugged in a charging. I can't believe that design idiocy. The engineers/managers/everyone involved in the production of this product should be ashamed.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#26

Quoted post unavailable.

But you came across this and you wouldn't have come across it if he just put it on his own website. Network effects and game theory...

People post their own and others' websites here very regularly!

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#27

Quoted post unavailable.

It’s strange I have no issue reading posts like these but every time they come up someone complains about the format of twitter and I still have no idea what makes it so difficult for people and I definitely did not grow up with it.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#28

Quoted post unavailable.

It's fine to prefer different approach to content publishing, but there are lots of solutions to this problem – use them instead of complaining about the ways that other people choose to publish their content.

See https://threadreaderapp.com/user/Foone

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#29
post #4

Examples lying around in my house: Bathroom scale: lovely it powers up when you tap it, but eats up 2 button cells a year for a few dozen uses a year Kitchen scales, bit more use, at least once a day but again 2 button cells a year electronic caliper: Same, eats up 1 button cell a year, just sitting in my toolbox Strangely enough none of our kids toys with batteries seem to suffer from this problem How much extra cos…

>Strangely enough none of our kids toys with batteries seem to suffer from this problem

we have some toys around where the way to turn it off would be to unscrew the battery compartment and take out the battery. The toy cuckoo clock that the kid broke that now goes cuckoo at odd times was fun, but hmm, nobody can seem to find it in the house anymore, wonder what happened to it.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#30

Quoted post unavailable.

But you came across this and you wouldn't have come across it if he just put it on his own website. Network effects and game theory...

We came across this by seeing it here on HN. Lots of people's own websites get posted here on HN, so we might well have come across it anyway.
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