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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

#41

Post by michaelt »

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…

> Yeah I wish we could get those prices.

You might enjoy [1] about a microcontroller that's ~3 cents, in quantity 10.

Of course it's only one-time-programmable, and generally pretty basic. And that's a pre-supply-chain-crisis price - these days prices have risen to 9 cents [2]. Still very cheap though!

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYhAGnsnO7w [2] https://www.lcsc.com/product-detail/Microcontroller-Units-MC...

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#42

Post by mellavora »

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…???

because it draws attention in the showroom, increasing sales.

I've found if you use a dremmel with a fine bit, you can usually turn off the LED.

otherwise put something over it.

but yes, my solutions should not be necessary

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#43

Post by hnbad »

dmurray wrote: post #12
hnbad wrote: post #6

Obligatory addendum every time foone is posted here: foone goes by they/them pronouns and foone hates HN and all it stands for so please don't bother them with twitter replies just because you saw this thread on here. If you think about following them on twitter because of a cool tech thread, please be aware that they're not a tech novelty account and don't complain when they tweet about politics.

You forgot, foone isn't going to change from streams of Twitter posts to long form blogging.

Well, this thread was less focussed than the last ones that got posted here so this seemed less likely to prompt the usual "Twitter threads are unreadable, why doesn't foone just write a proper article" replies, but yes. Foone has stated in the past that Twitter threads are the right medium for their ADHD-fueled bursts of writing and that blogs aren't.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#44

Post by pm215 »

iamben wrote: post #38
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…

A friend of a friend retired from the tech industry to become a joint-investor in a small chain of pubs. He ended up writing his own Linux-based POS software for the pub tills, AIUI...

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#45

Post by [deleted] »

CRConrad wrote: post #32
kamranjon wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#46

Post by sverhagen »

raverbashing wrote: post #34
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

Sure, but you have a manager who thinks... against better judgement... again... that they are gonna sell 20 million units of the thing, so their math suggests that you should... yep... prematurely optimize.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#47

Post by hexo »

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…

I would fire the whole team immediately if they really dont listen. Noone wants another e-waste.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#50

Post by mihaigalos »

The trouble with a mechanical off switch is that you cannot easily / periodically turn it on, so it depends on your usecase.

AVR Picopower has been around for about 10y now. These devices dramatically drop power consumption to the point where batteries should last a very long time, definitely >1y, more like 3-5y.

The fact that modern devices drain a lot of juice is either sloppy SW design or sloppy HW design, since I believe the cost for microcontrollers is very similar.

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