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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

#231

Post by Aissen »

HOT TAKE: maybe not. Just make it default off. Official switch pro controller does not have this issue because it's always off, unless you press buttons, then it connects. Corollary: you cannot store it in a place where buttons might be pressed, or it will indeed drain the battery like in the post.

(Edit: if you disagree, please tell me why. With proper design, it's possible for every button on this type of controller to act effectively as an on button, and I even cited a working, shipping example.)

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#232

Post by IE6 »

donatj wrote: post #171
Beltalowda wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Fix" what? That the medium or style they choses to express themselves doesn't work well for you? Well, tough; that's your problem, not his. They're not your bitch. The entitlement...

> That the medium or style he choses to express himself doesn't work well for you It doesn't work well for thousands of people, which is why there are always complaints. You can say the exact same things about his post asking them to fix the controller. Oh "the entitlement" and "that's his problem, not the controller manufacturers". We're asking him to fix his posts. He's asking them to fix the controller. When somet…

generally speaking coming out hot with a "whatever you're doing is wrong and you need to do it the way I want you to do it" is always a hard sell - regardless of how valid your original argument may be

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#233

Post by Foffle »

bombcar wrote: post #208
go_prodev wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That must be frustrating, but was quite funny to read. I would happily invest in kitchen appliances that have a silent mode for apartments and shared living spaces. My microwave beeps at the end, and then beeps again 10 minutes later once the food has been removed. My old toaster beeped 5 times when the toast popped, which is unnecessary when the popping action is loud on it's own.

You might be able to remove the “buzzer” or speaker in the device.

If it's a regular piezo buzzer, just stick a small rare earth magnet to it. Instant silence, and doesn't damage anything!

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#234

Post by globular-toast »

eternityforest wrote: post #217

Soft switches are fine if the power is really, really, low. For real. Like, if the battery is rechargeable, 5-25uA is pretty much zero drain. If it's disposable, you get about 1-5uA before it's A Problem(Because the only good use for a disposable is on stuff that only gets changed once in multiple years). In a lot of cases the switch is the least reliable part, and it makes case design harder, and maybe compromises w…

Beware of alkaline cell leakage, though. They fare much better if they are isolated when not used for long periods. But you could use a low self discharge rechargeable cell like NiMH instead of alkaline, of course.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#235

Post by dpark »

RHSeeger wrote: post #206
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…

> by spinning a dial When we moved into our current house, it had a microwave like that. When we replaced it, my primary requirements were 1. multiple fan speeds, and 2. a nice, simple touch pad for entering the time; preferably one where you didn't need to press a button before starting to enter the cooking time. The dial thing is... infuriating. It never once found a situation where it made using the device better,…

> The dial thing is... infuriating. It never once found a situation where it made using the device better, and in most situations it made it worse.

Digital dials can be nice in some cases.

My parents had an oven with a dial for the temperature. Spin it either way to increase or decrease the temperature by extra 5 degrees. I loved it. It was so much better than the touchpad design. The range of actual temperatures in an oven is pretty small and I found this much more friendly than punching in the temperature, getting it wrong, cancelling, and punching it in again. It was a “finger tip” dial so it was quick to spin. Probably horrible for people with bad arthritis or other hand mobility issues, though.

I wouldn’t mind a microwave with a similar dial for time. Again, the actual range of times in typical use (for me) is not that high. The design described with a two tier system for adjusting time seems moronic though.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#236

Post by falcolas »

hef19898 wrote: post #195
swader999 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think bigger. Do the whole house. There's paint you can get for this.

And coated windows. Sounds like the way forward. Does a smart fridge still work if you rip the modem and Wlan boards out?

Having worked in a former alphabet agency building that did have a faraday cage built into it, don’t worry too much about the windows. They weren’t a big enough hole to allow connections even in the middle of the city. Even standing at one with your cell phone was iffy.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#237

Post by titzer »

Zak wrote: post #100
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…

Make the battery removable, then you have an off-switch and a repairable device. For bonus points, use a battery in a standardized form factor so I can buy spares. I know, I know, the industry doesn't want me to keep my device working longer than the lifespan of a Li-ion cell.

ikr? They have these things now, they call them "AAA" batteries...holy heck, you can take them out, and they even make rechargeable ones. Like, if your thing doesn't work, you can just swap the batteries instead of waiting N hours for it to charge itself....what a concept.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#238

Post by rocqua »

swader999 wrote: post #141
throwaway049 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great. Now I need to buy a faraday cage to fit my refrigerator.

Think bigger. Do the whole house. There's paint you can get for this.

Does that actually work for 5G? I believe that, in urban areas, you can even get cell reception from inside a microwave because a phone needs very little signal.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#239

Post by delecti »

donatj wrote: post #171
Beltalowda wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Fix" what? That the medium or style they choses to express themselves doesn't work well for you? Well, tough; that's your problem, not his. They're not your bitch. The entitlement...

> That the medium or style he choses to express himself doesn't work well for you It doesn't work well for thousands of people, which is why there are always complaints. You can say the exact same things about his post asking them to fix the controller. Oh "the entitlement" and "that's his problem, not the controller manufacturers". We're asking him to fix his posts. He's asking them to fix the controller. When somet…

I'd rather read a twitter thread than a medium or substack post. It's not suboptimal for all of the consumers of their tweets.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#240

Post by rypskar »

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…

Is your caliper really that accurate and calibrated? In my experience you need a calibrated micrometer for that level of accuracy, especially to get a consistent measurements between several persons
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