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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

#311

Post by jasonthorsness »

bombcar wrote: post #218
m_eiman wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All phones and computers can be completely powered down. They're hardly ugly switches. iPhones (and I assume most Androids as well) can't be completely powered off. Neither can Macbooks. In fact, I'd guess that most modern digital things with non-replaceable batteries can't be powered off.

There’s a specific Dell laptop reset procedure that requires you to open the case and disconnect the battery so you can then press and hold the power button to get it to discharge all residual power. It’s a pain.

I had to do this a couple of times with a Lenovo that sometimes locked up completely when it went to suspend - battery was highly inaccessible so it was a 30 minute tense process each time - firmware update eventually solved the problem. Not sure what the solution for this is - something like one of those paper clip reset holes?

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#312

Post by gumby »

arinlen wrote: post #268
Kalium wrote: post #243

> 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, because it is a giant pain to live with devices you cannot turn off. I increasingly subscribe to the thesis that many designers and design teams design primarily in an effort to impress other designers . They don't have to use th…

> I increasingly subscribe to the thesis that many designers and design teams design primarily in an effort to impress other designers. They don't have to use the things. They often don't even really care if the things work at all. They care that other designers - their artistic peers - are impressed. To put things in perspective, this is how we get stuff like the Eiffel tower.

Which I never saw the point of, even (especially?) during my periods of living in Paris.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#313

Post by Loughla »

rypskar wrote: post #240
Loughla wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yes it is. It and my mics are calibrated to at least the thousandth. The shop has a 6" mic set on the ten-thousandth. But nobody uses that one because that's a level of detail that is just amazingly frustrating to chase.

>between several persons

This is just wrong. Rule one of precision equipment - do not touch my precision equipment.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#314

Post by atoav »

jsjohnst wrote: post #281
seoaeu wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Turning off your smoke detectors to save battery seems like a profoundly bad idea

Having an off switch on a life saving device like that sounds like a profoundly bad idea to me, so not sure why it would be brought up in this context. I personally would’ve used an example of something you might actually want to turn off, but it would just be a bad idea, not a potentially fatal idea, if you failed to turn back on.

I was listing things where I would not want an off-switch along with the reasons. As you rightly mentioned yourself having an off-switch on a smoke detector is a very bad idea.

The only place where smoke detectors are frequently switched off are remote huts that might be empty for the better part of a year. And there the best strategy is to unmount the whole thing, pull the battery out and place both things somewhere really obvious so the next guys notice immediately what needs to be done.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#315

Post by hundchenkatze »

BenjiWiebe wrote: post #270
bombcar wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If there's a plunger resisting the scale going down to harvest energy, that would prevent all the force from being on the load cell, giving you incorrect readings.

Couldn't you subtract the resistance of the plunger and display the adjusted value?

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#316

Post by moffkalast »

noobermin wrote: post #298
causi wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the owner of a whole passel of shitty third party Switch controllers I have yet to encounter one where the pair button didn't turn it off.

May be this one didn't? Have a little sense of good faith for foone (of all people)?

Or OP just forgot to RTFM and is ranting because they don't know how to use what they bought? Wouldn't be the first time...

At the very least it's terrible UX design though.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#318

Post by mega_dingus »

arinlen wrote: post #268
Kalium wrote: post #243

> 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, because it is a giant pain to live with devices you cannot turn off. I increasingly subscribe to the thesis that many designers and design teams design primarily in an effort to impress other designers . They don't have to use th…

> I increasingly subscribe to the thesis that many designers and design teams design primarily in an effort to impress other designers. They don't have to use the things. They often don't even really care if the things work at all. They care that other designers - their artistic peers - are impressed. To put things in perspective, this is how we get stuff like the Eiffel tower.

The Eiffel Tower was built as a temporary display for the World's Fair. It was very much intentionally designed to impress other designers; that was kind of the point

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#319

Post by frosted-flakes »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #144
hitpointdrew wrote: post #105

I would say there are a few reasonable exceptions to the rule. For example I wouldn’t want smoke detectors or carbon monoxide detectors to have off switches.

That is why smoke alarms take the chunky square lithium battery that costs more than the smoke alarm.

Smoke alarms typically take standard 9V batteries you can buy at the drug store, no? At least non-hardwired ones do.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#320

Post by buescher »

Steltek wrote: post #250
titzer wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Rechargeable AAAs are crap though. Power density sucks. Voltage level sucks (and voltage regulators will suck the battery dry before your micro does). And the form factor sucks. I'd sooner have a 18650-family (e.g. 14240 or 14500) become standard than a bunch of AAAs.

Panasonic Eneloops and similar modern low-self-discharge NiMH batteries are really nice. Their capacity is not quite as high as alkalines, but their internal resistance is an order of magnitude lower. At loads over 100mA, they're a far superior battery in both ability to deliver power and effective capacity. They have low self-discharge, so you can charge them after using them instead of discovering you need to charge them before using them. And I've never had one leak, but I assume they can.
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