Everything with a battery should have an off switch • Hacker News Board

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#31

Post by ggm » Mon, May 09, 2022, 8:56 AM UTC

nickff wrote: post #7

Nanite wrote: 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…

> ” How much extra cost does a hard on/off switch add to the bill of materials?” BoM cost is not the whole story; a physical switch can greatly complicate an assembly, and may require hand-soldered wires. In addition to those cost-related factors, external switches are usually quite ugly, and getting them right can be very challenging, so it’s much easier to just omit them.

I think this is special pleading. At the volume we're discussing a surface mount flow solder on off device is not going to kill the BoM, and could be designed not to be ugly.

It's no different to any other bad design. It could be better.

All phones and computers can be completely powered down. They're hardly ugly switches.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#32

Post by CRConrad » Mon, May 09, 2022, 8:57 AM UTC

kamranjon wrote: post #27

cristifalcas wrote: post #23

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.

Nowadays it cuts off threads and refuses to let you read to the end unless you're logged in.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#33

Post by Accacin » Mon, May 09, 2022, 8:57 AM UTC

Nanite wrote: 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…

I had some digital bathroom scales, and I weigh myself pretty much every morning. The battery lasted a month, and those button cells are pretty expensive.

I decided to take it to be recycled and just bought a mechanical one. It was a little annoying at first as it's not as precise, but for my purposes that works fine.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#34

Post by raverbashing » Mon, May 09, 2022, 9:02 AM UTC

exmadscientist wrote: post #3

(Background: I work in product design/new product development, and conceivably might have designed this thing! If any of those were still designed in the Western world. Which they aren't. I have designed some stuff like it, though!) Oh, great, this debate again! I shall use this post as ammunition next time I am arguing with our stupid design team about why we need an off switch on the stupid product we are designing…

> and we only use microcontrollers we can get and read datasheets for, so we pay at least 20x that price.

Yeah, I see what you mean.

And even if google translate can help, there are of course other problems

20x might be the actual cheaper option

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#35

Post by rebuilder » Mon, May 09, 2022, 9:03 AM UTC

CogitoCogito wrote: post #24

Nanite wrote: 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 f…

I dropped my kitchen scale and it broke, so I had to go shopping for a new one. Which was kind of fine since that scale wasn’t great. But finding a good scale turns out to be pretty hard!

In the end I found some review that compares different scales and as a reference they used an entry-level lab scale. So I figured, hey, why don’t I just buy the benchmark scale? It costs about the same anyway.

So now I have an ugly German lab scale that actually has an off button and runs on a 9v battery. Here’s hoping I never have to buy another.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#36

Post by Cthulhu_ » Mon, May 09, 2022, 9:03 AM UTC

Nanite wrote: 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…

> electronic caliper: Same, eats up 1 button cell a year, just sitting in my toolbox

ooo a chance to plug one of my favorite youtubers; I believe it's this video [0] that compares cheap with expensive / brand digital calipers; the TL;DR is that the expensive ones use much less when off, or, the cheap ones use 4x as much. They both keep using power when off though, so that when you move the calipers while off it will still measure the distance.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnDype-j3hk

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#37

Post by rplnt » Mon, May 09, 2022, 9:04 AM UTC

kamranjon wrote: post #27

cristifalcas wrote: post #23

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.

Well first of all you need to be familiar with the format. Or better said, with the abuse of the format. Because while it might look like replies, you need to figure out it was used to post an article and not actually additions/corrections what would be a common use for someone replying to themselves. But it's still hard to figure where it ends as the replies from the author seamlessly blend into other users' replies. It doesn't help this particular author doesn't number those tweets (which in itself is ridiculous) or even use punctuation or capitals. It just seems like random rant, not something we're supposed to be be reading when someone shares a tweet.

And then there's the noise. Why do I need to skip icons, names, numbers, padding, dividers after every sentence? And while our brains are relatively good at it, I still need to process it as it gives clues into where the "article" ends.

Twitter is the worst format to post articles. At least it was until someone came up with the idea to post them as videos with computer voiceover.

(I'm using the word article here, but I'm still not convinced it isn't just a random rant)

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#38

Post by iamben » Mon, May 09, 2022, 9:05 AM UTC

exmadscientist wrote: post #3

(Background: I work in product design/new product development, and conceivably might have designed this thing! If any of those were still designed in the Western world. Which they aren't. I have designed some stuff like it, though!) Oh, great, this debate again! I shall use this post as ammunition next time I am arguing with our stupid design team about why we need an off switch on the stupid product we are designing…

> This is because they, one, don't listen to anyone ever; and two, never use the products they design. Oh, sure, there might be a user study or two. But they never actually have to live with or work with the damn things.

I wonder the percentage of consumer (and business - have you ever used a POS in a pub?!) electronics this applies to? It's gotta be high 90s. I've lost track of the number of times I've lamented "did anyone actually use this?"

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#39

Post by emptyfile » Mon, May 09, 2022, 9:06 AM UTC

bonoboTP wrote: post #25

cristifalcas wrote: post #23

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...

Actually the moment I see that a link leads to Twitter or Instagram I don't click it.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#40

Post by Cthulhu_ » Mon, May 09, 2022, 9:06 AM UTC

teekert wrote: post #10

…And, one should be able to turn of every led even when powered on… At Ikea I almost bought a nice brushed steel extractor hood, except it had this obnoxiously bright blue led on the front. Why? I know when that thing is on without it drawing my attention constantly. Same with my Lenovo X13 gen 2, there is a bright white led next to the power button… just why…???

I like how modern routers have a button on the front to just turn off any LEDs, that's a great improvement I think.

Anyway I've got a speaker in my bedroom with an LED that won't turn off, and a USB-C hub that has a tiny blue LED that requires me to disconnect the whole thing first. Really annoying.