[greenice]

Commenting on the „overcomplicated UI“ designs:

It takes quite some research to find single-purpose devices, that are tailored for a specific use case - and are not overburdened with often unused features. There‘s not enough metadata out there on ecommerce sites to filter for that.

Take the microwave example: I‘m happy with the Samsung MWF300G microwave which does just one thing (heating stuff) really well in a very straightforward way:

One haptic dial for duration. One for Watt. And a simple display for time.

Just use the duration dial to set the time. That‘s it. You‘re done by turning your hand just once.

It starts automatically. No start button needed. No program selection. No stop button - just dial it back to zero if needed.

[tobr]

I believe that’s the one I got, too, after looking at basically all the options available. It’s still, I regret to tell you, a terrible product.

First of all, the sound design is criminally bad. Whenever you touch the controls it lets off an obnoxious beep that is way too loud for a home environment. It should of course be completely silent, except a pleasant sound to let you know it is done, and of course, like other reasonably designed home electronics, it should allow you to adjust the volume or turn the sound off completely. (Imagine, for sake of argument, that your iPhone beeped whenever you touched it. It would be bizarre. Why would you want that in a microwave oven?)

Second, the controls are flimsy and glitchy. If I try to increase the time slowly or by a small amount, the value tends to jump erratically up or down by some random amount. I need to firmly push the dial inwards while turning to avoid this.

Third, except for the noise pollution of those beeps, it also brings in more light pollution in my home, through a blue blinking seven-segment display that insists on always showing the current time. This is a bad feature that is irrelevant to the purpose of the microwave, and I would prefer to turn it off.

Finally, I hate the way it looks. Silver-coated plastic, reflective blacks and blue LEDs looks good in a cheap sci-fi flick, not in a home. What’s funny is that the inside actually looks pretty nice, a navy-blue metal with an organic white splatter pattern.

[r00fus]

I’ll do you one better a single dial microwave that even my 5yo could use I bought in 2017 [1]

Commercial grade. No rotating dish but still warms everything nicely. Pain for defrost but honestly I just don’t defrost stuff much.

[1] Sharp R-21LCFS Medium Duty Commercial Microwave (Dial Timer, 1000-Watts, 120-Volts) (Update of R-21LCF) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BDF5ZNS