Touch controls for something as dangerous as a stove top are inherently a mistake. A human could easily have done the same accidentally. This is a lawsuit waiting to happen.
Say what you will about knobs, but the push and turn action is much harder to do by accident.
Most household objects and appliances are better off being as low tech as possible.
An acquaintance's daughter died in a house fire because the door had a "smart" lock that malfunctioned in the extreme heat. She was the only casualty in the entire apartment complex because hers was the only apartment with the smart door. Everyone else had conventional door knobs and got out in time.
I've since sworn off anything with any smart features whatsoever.
I guess you want mechanical knob on the inside to mitigate this? I know multiple friends who have a both-side "smart" door knob. I.e. the inner one is not connected until you turn it and something does something inside with a buzz.
It's exactly the same. The dogs paw would turn it on with a bump.
Same for gas, except it wouldn't ignite, just possibly blow up the apartment.
Unless you claim new knobs require a double action...then so could new touch buttons ( our touch induction took multiple actions to turn on which a dog could not do)
Don't leave things on the stove is a good lesson here perhaps.
I'd also hope the fat was not hot when they left it unattended.
I assume the firefighters were alerted early by modern tech, not people yelling out.
I have a Hoover washing machine with touch buttons. I can't count the number of times I activated something on it unintentionally by brushing against it.
It seems the designers were aware of this problem, because it has a key lock feature. Unfortunately it's hillariously ineffective. To activate/deactivate key lock you need to touch two buttons simulateneously. They forgot however that in practice it's almost impossible to activate two buttons at the exactly the same time. So the machine in most cases interprets this as pushing two buttons separately, usually further messing up some setting you wanted to protect by keylock.
I get that this is Hacker News catnip and everyone is going to rail against hi-tech and smart home features now, but I have a plain old-fashioned gas stove with knobs and dials and I have seen my cat turn it on before. Not on purpose, of course. She just jumped up there, knocked a dial into position, then sat on it, activating the sparking function. It was pretty scary and I've done what I can to train her not to go up there, but at the same time, stove flames don't leap to the ceiling. Don't keep anything flammable on an unattended stove and it shouldn't start a fire. Note that these people left an unattended pot full of grease sitting on the stove. When you're done cooking, clean up.
I would argue that the right solution is safer stoves that don’t start fires as easily. For example, induction stoves. Gas stoves are incredibly dangerous, and for some reason even modern stoves make no particular effort to turn themselves off of the gas isn’t ignited, to detect dangerous conditions, or otherwise compensate for the inherent dangers of combustion.
(Basically any pilot-light-using appliance has a thermocouple and solenoid that will turn off the gas if the pilot light is out.)
And there just happens to be a camera pointing right at it? (And that survives the fire while house is 'badly damaged'.)
I'm not suggesting foul play, but that's weird isn't it? Made weirder (to me anyway) by the article not mentioning it at all, just including the video like that's normal, everyone has a recording camera pointing at their hob...
I don't have cameras in my home because I'm more afraid of privacy issues than thieves. But it is very common these days to have smart cameras in the home. I have many colleagues who have them and use them to keep an eye on the kids and pets. Google Nest cameras, Alexa enabled cameras, third party smart cameras like Ring, the list goes on and on. Even Kodak has a smart camera these days. I wouldn't recommend it but you can get them for as low as $15 on sites like Wish.
I know some people do but I can't believe that's that common. Compounded by the odds of your dog triggering your touch-button hob and starting a fat fire, I just thought it was funny.
Well first of all, do they? My impression of 3D printers with cameras (you do realise what a niche of a niche that is right?) is that it's primarily used for supervising the print itself (quality etc.) remotely and timelapsing.
Secondly, I don't fault your logic, I just think so extremely few people have set up cameras recording the most dangerous (and commonplace) items in their home that it's surprising one of them had such a thing occur to catch on camera, and that it went unremarked.
I have cameras inside the house. Carefully aimed, with microphones disabled. We do this mostly to keep an eye on our cats.
The worst you're going to see is an old fat white guy going downstairs in the middle of the night, in his underwear. If that turns you on, then you know where you need to go get a job.
No, we don't have any cameras in the kitchen, because the kitchen/dining/breakfast room area is isolated from the rest of the house by doors, and we don't allow the cats into those areas.
Yes, the doors have baby-resistant mechanisms for the door handles, otherwise one of the cats would open the doors himself -- he is long and smart enough that he can just reach up, wrap both front paws around the door handle, and pull down. We saw him do that once, which is why we have the baby locks in place.
But, if there were a fire in the house, there might be a video record in the cloud of what started the fire.
My dog has turned on my stove using the touch-actuated controls. Left a pizza box on top of the stove, and she tried to steal a slice, but ended up turning on the burner under the pizza box. Luckily we were nearby. Now, paranoid about it potentially happening again, we have a rule that you must engage the touch lockout (holding a certain button for ~5 seconds), but we’re human, and about 90% successful with that plan. It’s a legit risk.
I'll take old fashioned buttons and knobs any day. I bought a 3 year old car because the new model only did climate control in the on-screen menu.
The basic rule of thumb here is if the user experience doesn't need to change contextually, use hardware buttons. Not everything needs to be an iPhone!
> I bought a 3 year old car because the new model only did climate control in the on-screen menu.
This complaint always feels so weird to me. I don’t love the initial experience of setting up climate control on a touch screen, but it’s literally something you only need to do once ever.
New cars aren’t like old cars, climate control is set and forget now. We’re far past the time of having to constantly adjust it in order to maintain your desired temperature.
I mean, these kinds of assumptions are exactly why so many people complain about it.
Who is the "we" in your statement?
Different people are different. They have different preferences and needs, so any change in people within the car requires changing the system... It's why cars have zones of climate control for everyone.
Also, body temperature and ambient temperature are two different things, and different people feel varying levels of discomfort when their bodies are too hot or cold. Some people's bodies regulate their body temperature in different ways. Think the elderly, people of varying BMIs, or someone going through menopause.
Also there's countless situational reasons someone might have a body temperature that is different than ambient temperature. Eg it's very cold out and someone just got in the warm car and they need to warm their hands.
If you find yourself surprised when so many people complain about a problem that you're not experiencing, you might want to ask them instead of assuming they're ignorant.
> Different people are different. They have different preferences and needs, so any change in people within the car requires changing the system... It's why cars have zones of climate control for everyone
So? This stuff is linked to your driver profile. You only need to set it once.
> Also there's countless situational reasons someone might have a body temperature that is different than ambient temperature. Eg it's very cold out and someone just got in the warm car and they need to warm their hands
I’m so confused, I don’t think modern cars even have a climate control option that would do anything but heat if it’s very cold out.
Do people with decent HVAC setups at home really need to adjust their settings very often? What for?
Set what once? Are you saying the car knows you just finished a jog and are particularly hot...?
> Do people with decent HVAC setups at home really need to adjust their settings very often? What for?
I literally just explained. One example was hot flashes. A single human's body can vary in temperature depending on their conditions. That's it. You're completely negating the human body in your list of variables...
And again... just ask yourself why people complain about it. Is everyone ignorant, or is there perhaps something those people physically experience that you happen to not be aware of?
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 84.0 ms ] threadSay what you will about knobs, but the push and turn action is much harder to do by accident.
An acquaintance's daughter died in a house fire because the door had a "smart" lock that malfunctioned in the extreme heat. She was the only casualty in the entire apartment complex because hers was the only apartment with the smart door. Everyone else had conventional door knobs and got out in time.
I've since sworn off anything with any smart features whatsoever.
This includes analogue locks. Most locks would not be. You can't/shouldn't put any lock, analogue or electronic on an apartment door.
You can of course get fire rated electronic locks.
This is not the electronic bit. It's about the quality of the locking mechanism and how it goes in the fire testing furnace.
I guess you want mechanical knob on the inside to mitigate this? I know multiple friends who have a both-side "smart" door knob. I.e. the inner one is not connected until you turn it and something does something inside with a buzz.
It's exactly the same. The dogs paw would turn it on with a bump.
Same for gas, except it wouldn't ignite, just possibly blow up the apartment.
Unless you claim new knobs require a double action...then so could new touch buttons ( our touch induction took multiple actions to turn on which a dog could not do)
Don't leave things on the stove is a good lesson here perhaps.
I'd also hope the fat was not hot when they left it unattended.
I assume the firefighters were alerted early by modern tech, not people yelling out.
Knobs usually are design to be push-and-turn. Much more difficult for a dog to do accidentally.
For any sane stove the gas only flows when pressing the nob unless it is lit.
Also, any gas appliance with non-functioning security features canmot be reconnected to the gas mains.
There's plenty of people willing to risk it but forcing the service people to follow rules cuts the risk.
It seems the designers were aware of this problem, because it has a key lock feature. Unfortunately it's hillariously ineffective. To activate/deactivate key lock you need to touch two buttons simulateneously. They forgot however that in practice it's almost impossible to activate two buttons at the exactly the same time. So the machine in most cases interprets this as pushing two buttons separately, usually further messing up some setting you wanted to protect by keylock.
(Basically any pilot-light-using appliance has a thermocouple and solenoid that will turn off the gas if the pilot light is out.)
I'm not suggesting foul play, but that's weird isn't it? Made weirder (to me anyway) by the article not mentioning it at all, just including the video like that's normal, everyone has a recording camera pointing at their hob...
I know some people do but I can't believe that's that common. Compounded by the odds of your dog triggering your touch-button hob and starting a fat fire, I just thought it was funny.
Secondly, I don't fault your logic, I just think so extremely few people have set up cameras recording the most dangerous (and commonplace) items in their home that it's surprising one of them had such a thing occur to catch on camera, and that it went unremarked.
The worst you're going to see is an old fat white guy going downstairs in the middle of the night, in his underwear. If that turns you on, then you know where you need to go get a job.
No, we don't have any cameras in the kitchen, because the kitchen/dining/breakfast room area is isolated from the rest of the house by doors, and we don't allow the cats into those areas.
Yes, the doors have baby-resistant mechanisms for the door handles, otherwise one of the cats would open the doors himself -- he is long and smart enough that he can just reach up, wrap both front paws around the door handle, and pull down. We saw him do that once, which is why we have the baby locks in place.
But, if there were a fire in the house, there might be a video record in the cloud of what started the fire.
The question "Did I left my oven on?" is one that has been said so often is has spawned an entire category of jokes and anecdotes.
It's not hard for me to imagine someone having their kitchen camera point roughly in its direction!
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The basic rule of thumb here is if the user experience doesn't need to change contextually, use hardware buttons. Not everything needs to be an iPhone!
This complaint always feels so weird to me. I don’t love the initial experience of setting up climate control on a touch screen, but it’s literally something you only need to do once ever.
New cars aren’t like old cars, climate control is set and forget now. We’re far past the time of having to constantly adjust it in order to maintain your desired temperature.
Who is the "we" in your statement?
Different people are different. They have different preferences and needs, so any change in people within the car requires changing the system... It's why cars have zones of climate control for everyone.
Also, body temperature and ambient temperature are two different things, and different people feel varying levels of discomfort when their bodies are too hot or cold. Some people's bodies regulate their body temperature in different ways. Think the elderly, people of varying BMIs, or someone going through menopause.
Also there's countless situational reasons someone might have a body temperature that is different than ambient temperature. Eg it's very cold out and someone just got in the warm car and they need to warm their hands.
If you find yourself surprised when so many people complain about a problem that you're not experiencing, you might want to ask them instead of assuming they're ignorant.
So? This stuff is linked to your driver profile. You only need to set it once.
> Also there's countless situational reasons someone might have a body temperature that is different than ambient temperature. Eg it's very cold out and someone just got in the warm car and they need to warm their hands
I’m so confused, I don’t think modern cars even have a climate control option that would do anything but heat if it’s very cold out.
Do people with decent HVAC setups at home really need to adjust their settings very often? What for?
Set what once? Are you saying the car knows you just finished a jog and are particularly hot...?
> Do people with decent HVAC setups at home really need to adjust their settings very often? What for?
I literally just explained. One example was hot flashes. A single human's body can vary in temperature depending on their conditions. That's it. You're completely negating the human body in your list of variables...
And again... just ask yourself why people complain about it. Is everyone ignorant, or is there perhaps something those people physically experience that you happen to not be aware of?