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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

#221

Post by bombcar »

lobochrome wrote: post #71
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…

Regarding Kitchen Scale: I recently bought this [1]. It works with friction - you turn the nob once or twice and you're good to go for a couple weigh ins. It feels rather cheap - so let's see if it really lasts. I love the idea though. I wish we had more energy harvesting gadgets like this. [1]; https://caso-design.de/en/p/caso-kitchen-energy-design-kitch...

Since scales inherently involve putting weight on them it should be possible to use that weight to push down a plunger generating enough electricity to run for the weigh-in.

A spring would then reset it for the next time.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#222

Post by chrisoverzero »

wildmanx wrote: post #215
thaumasiotes wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've lost track of the number of times I've lamented "did anyone actually use this?" We have a combination oven and microwave (yes...) that seems to have been designed with the primary purpose of enraging the owner. The microwave can only be set in 15 second increments. But you can fine-tune it, in five-second increments, by spinning a dial. Except that you can't do that while the oven is on. The microwave makes a…

> The microwave makes a noise while it's operating. When it's finished, it will beep unobtrusively and then continue to make the operating noise. You can stop it from making the operating noise by opening the door. Check out Chesterton's Fence.

Tell us why you think it’s relevant.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#223

Post by wildmanx »

vjk800 wrote: post #189
lavela wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the real problem is that you can't keep all those little features you'd wish for in your head, so while you are making a buying decision they don't factor in as much as the lower price achievable without those features.

This is the real problem. Otherwise the markets would have solved the crappy products problem a long time ago. When I use something at my home, I usually have a constant stream of minor annoyances that could easily be fixed by the manufacturer. However, when I'm shopping for a new product, I dont remember any of them.

The odd part is that for many people that's even the case if it's software _and_ they are programmers themselves _and_ it's open source. But they go complain instead of just fixing the minor annoyance.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#224

Post by bombcar »

Loughla wrote: post #212
Aardwolf wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bathroom scales, kitchen scales and calipers all have versions that work without electricity and aren't much less convenient (if not more convenient since no waiting for electronics to boot up slower than they should or clunky menus)

I disagree. Measurements are funny things depending on the level of detail you need; analog versions of measurements are very clunky when you need precision. (now this is a bit much for bathroom scales and kitchen scales, but it was the calipers that interested me). When I need under .01 precision, my analog calipers just do not do the job as well as my electronic calipers. I can read them, but the last couple of tho…

The nice thing about analog is they don’t confuse you about precision - a digital caliper could be only precise down to .01 and yet show .0001 increments.

For many things like a bathroom scale precision isn’t really needed anyway.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#225

Post by wildmanx »

chrisoverzero wrote: post #222
wildmanx wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The microwave makes a noise while it's operating. When it's finished, it will beep unobtrusively and then continue to make the operating noise. You can stop it from making the operating noise by opening the door. Check out Chesterton's Fence.

Tell us why you think it’s relevant.

Sure. Sibling comments to my comment explain that the continued "operating noise" is a cooling mechanism that's required by the microwave oven.

So, it wouldn't be a good idea to just rip that part out of the design. Even if it may be annoying. Perhaps a better explanation is needed, like some models showing "cool" in the display. But it's per se not a design oversight.

Chesterton's Fence is about not changing things before understanding what led to the current state of affairs. I think the principle easily extends to complaining as well.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#227

Post by kemayo »

kyaghmour wrote: post #210
andreareina wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a book actually: The Design of Everyday Things

That's such a godawful book. In my view it epitomizes everything that is wrong with design today. And the worst part is that comments like these make it come off as the go-to reference to actually solving these problems. The reasons it's the worst design guidance out there is that it teaches: 1) that engineers should NOT be entrusted/involved with user design. 2) to conceptualize users as blissful idiots. 3) that obs…

> So this is what we actually get, devices that SILENTLY fail, designed for people who are assumed not to know what they're doing and who likely do NOT have any technically-literate person around them that could assist them if they could in fact identify the problem.

It sounds like your complaint isn't with the advice from the book, but rather that Apple didn't follow it. They did hide away the error messages, but they didn't provide help and insight.

If they had done so, you'd have (presumably) been told in the software that there was a problem with certain albums, and been walked through a flow that would fix said problem. Or maybe a link to a support page that'd do the same. This, if it was done, would have been much better than showing "error 0xFHJAD1234".

Thus I think it's fairly good advice, as long as you read the "instead" as a critical instruction. You should eliminate opaque error messages so long as you can provide help and insight for those cases you have removed.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#228

Post by steelframe »

Just this last weekend, I was woken up at 4:00 in the morning on Saturday by a cheap toy drone remote controller that was incessantly beeping because its batteries were running low. So I'm feeling particularly strong about this subject at the moment, and I'd add required off switches for anything with a camera or microphone while we're at it, battery-powered or not.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#229

Post by brational »

solatic wrote: post #149

Counter-example: quartz wristwatches don't have off switches. And that's completely fine with me.

i was just thinking how it always annoyed me that my garmin smartwatch doesnt have an off switch but that’s good context. though quartz doesnt have gps sensors..

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#230

Post by l30n4da5 »

npteljes wrote: post #226

My most ridiculous experience was when an MP3 player froze back in the day. We had no way to switch off, or pull the battery out, so we waited 2 weeks, until the battery was dead. Then it worked fine after a recharge.

my son's hoverboard had a similar malfunction. literally the handbook said there is no reset, and we just need to let it drain the battery. it took DAYS for the LED lights to drain the battery......
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