What Apple mouses and Braun shavers share | Hacker News Reader

What Apple mouses and Braun shavers share

rubenerd.com

24 pointsTomte62 comments

Ah yeah. I've bought some random aluminium BT mouse, it the charge port is on the front therefore the mouse can be used while charging as a USB mouse without any problem.

I also have an old Philips electric shaver. When the battery dies in the middle of a shave (obviously that's always while in use that the battery dies, unless you shave only twice a year), I can plug it in and use it while plugged no problem.

So I have a simple solution for OP: choose different brands.

I might be wrong but these shavers are generally "water proof", to be used in the shower and whatnot.

Turning off when charging sounds like a way to prevent someone to follow through with the shockingly brilliant idea of doing that while plugged in to the wall socket.

I think this is probably it. Life + death safety is going to trump usability every time.

Meanwhile the Apple Mouse thing was (I presume) Johnny Ive & his obsessions getting in the way of real world usability. I don’t think anyone is going to die if they use an Apple mouse whilst it’s plugged into a usb port!

I don't think anyone's going to do any damage by shorting a 12 V DC supply.

My Philips shaver has a 120v cord that goes from the wall to the shaver, and it won’t operate while plugged in.

Tell that to the lawyers that will be happy to sue Braun to find out.

Problem is that it's almost impossible to buy a (non-waterproof) rechargeable shaver that also works when plugged. In my typical usage case, shaving less than once per month, I have to wait a few hours every single time I want to use it!

This seems weird. I've had braun and wahls, and each lasts months on one charge, I use(d) them weekly for bread trims.

Sounds like your specific one has a defective battery. Or design.

Philips Multigroom 77xx have quick charge :) They claim 1 shave after 5 minute of charging. I am inclined to believe this based on experience.

Though, it's a not a direct replacement of Braun Series 7 mentioned in TFA - it's mainly a trimmer.

This starts to get really off topic, but I have the same use case. I don't know why, but at least here in Europe most shavers come with NiMH batteries, which seem to suffer from self discharging. Since I got one with a lithium ion battery, I can charge it twice a year and it is always ready to go when I need it.

The word for it is "mains shaver", though product searches might try to sell you rechargeables regardless.

But I want it to be rechargeable, just like a phone or a laptop. Usable either plugged or (when it has somme battery) unplugged.

Does your battery drain that quickly when not in use? I have a Braun 7 myself and often take it with me when travelling, and it easily does 6 shaves on a full battery, probably can do 10+.

I have an older Braun, and it may last three or four of my shaves. This means that it lasts too much to bother charging every time, but it drains too often to become a nuisance. If it only could work while plugged it would be perfect.

If you are only shaving 1x/month, buy yourself a straight razor.

Heck, buy one even if you shave more often.

You don't have to shave down to the skin, you can use it to trim a beard. I've been doing this for years.

Doesn't explain apple's Mouse

The story is not really about Apple Mouse, it's mostly mentioned tongue-in-cheek about comparable design traits and the backstory of how Apple design was influenced by Braun.

My (technically) waterproof electric shaver doesn't work while being charged, too — according to its manual, it's so that you won't try and use it while charging in a shower and electrocute yourself.

Philips and others do this as well. It always made me angry, but I'm not surprised by that decision.

"Take my Braun Series 7 electric shaver, a device that Twitter had a small meltdown over a few years ago when I admitted to having bought one. "

Daily proof that Twitter is cancer and if the entire site was nuked tomorrow humanity would have lost absolutely nothing of value.

I really enjoy Twitter when I follow these 2 rules:

1. don't read comments

2. only follow those you find interesting

It does allow reaching some companies which have by now shut down most other forms of communication, and only react to public outrage. So, it Twitter ceased to exist, these companies would be forced to reinstate another form of client service.

> if the entire site was nuked tomorrow humanity would have lost absolutely nothing of value

We would probably gain some value.

The charging port placement is cited as the dumbest decision made in the Apple mouse's design, but I don't think it is that bad. The battery life is measured in months. The charging time from 0 to 100 is about an hour. It's simply not an issue. When my laptop warns me that only 10% is left, I can comfortably go another week before it shuts off.

The main issue with the mouse is everything else. It is uncomfortable to hold, painful to move around, awkward to click and do the gestures. The sensor is worse than a generic $10 mouse you can get off Amazon. It misses the first couple of clicks every morning.

Horrible, horrible mouse. But not because of the charging port, that's ok.

> The charging time from 0 to 100 is about an hour. It's simply not an issue. When my laptop warns me that only 10% is left, I can comfortably go another week before it shuts off.

But then you might have something urgent to do and cannot stop using the mouse. Then...you forget about recharging. Rinse and repeat, until you get at 0%. I know it's not a big deal but it would not have been a big deal either allowing the mouse to work and recharge via USB at the same time by not putting the port beneath it.

In my experience this was not an issue. I would plug it in for 10 minutes while I took a break, and it would have enough to last me the rest of the day.

Urgent != take a 10 minute break.

While I admit that it seems rare/odd, I can imagine trying to look up an address, catch a bus, and my mouse dies.

10 seconds becomes minutes, and bus missed.

I think the point here is, it could have been designed like thousands of other mice on the market, was not, and Apple is supposed to be about usability.

Hand waving "but you could do this", doesn't change the fact that you're having to do this, instead of using your mouse.

Perhaps this is what Think Different means? You're using it wrong?

Bah;

Same thing with my Sennheiser bluetooth headphones. It may seem like no one will want to use them while connected to a wire, but sometimes having awkwardly-wired headphones is better than having no working headphones at all.

If they're anything like my last sennheiser headphones, they will let you use the 2.5mm to 3.5mm adapter while the battery is depleted but then you need to carry two wires.

plus, safer to use in the shower?

To save you a click, neither works while charging. You're missing out on a lot of puns by not clicking though.

Sony WH-1000XM3 everything about that product is awesome, except that I can't use it while charging.

This is actually really useful to know. I have some Bose QuietComfort 35s that I use for work calls. I'll need to replace at some point and I've read a lot of positive things about the Sony equivalents. But it's a common use case that I realise my battery is low in the middle of the day (or in the middle of a call!) and I need to plug them in.

Even the Bose isn't great here because plugging it in causes a Bluetooth disconnect and reconnect which sometimes confuses Windows. So I have to power off, plug in, power on. But I can at least use it as a wired headset then.

Not to pick on you but why: "Sony WH-1000XM3 everything about that product is awesome"

Instead of: "Everything about Sony WH-1000XM3 is awesome"

Or: "I love the Sony WH-1000XM3, everything about it is awesome"?

It's a growing trend but unlike others (which are often down to regional differences), I can't figure out why people do this.

But doesn't it charge quickly enough that it's not too much of an issue?

With the way charging circuits go these days, I can imagine heat to be another reason to stop these devices from both charging and operating from battery at the same time (sure, it should be easy to make a pass-through, but phones don't).

With most adapters being at the wall, and a DC small-voltage current coming to the shaver, the risk of electrocution should be small, but I am sure we'd see people dragging extension cords with them into their showers, so that's a pretty reasonable safety measure too!

Maybe it has to do with so-called "suicide shower"[1] popular in emerging markets, which is a type of shower heads with exposed live wires and a heater element inside that magically warms water as it passes. An AC adapter joining that is going to be a smoke and fire magic show.

1: https://www.google.com/search?q=suicide+shower&tbm=isch

The problem would be a potential lack of a drip loop.

Oh indeed, I am not saying that it would be otherwise smart to run your shaver from the socket while showering, just that risks are not at the shaver end.

The reason is sneak circuits - a circuit unexpected in the design, perhaps from degradation of the hardware. Sneak circuits can and do put line voltage on the DC output of bad chargers. There is an EC standard 60601 for medical equipment and there are power supplies that conform to it. They have to be well protected from sneak circuits and they are expensive. Realizing both inexpensive and safe is best done by not allowing the device to run when it is connected to line voltage.

There is no "front" on the Magic Mouse. To place a charging port one has to imagine the surface (or height) of the device would be compromised to allow for the power cable connection.

One of the appeals of the Magic Mouse (at least to me) is exactly the form and shape of the touch surface. I can't even remember when was the last time I charged it, but I certainly enjoy the way it feels as I am holding it right now.

It is pretty straightforward to allow this, and surprising that Apple don't. As far as I know most solutions take some power from the charger with the battery itself devoted to charging. Problems can arise if the device requires too much power, but in the case of a mouse I doubt that would be an issue.

The shaver probably demands more power than the charger provides.

I thought it was an article about how Jonathan Ive (Apple) was inspired by Dieter Rams (Braun).

[1] https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/dieter-rams-film-exhib...

The Philips electric shavers do this too. They do not work while being charged and need up to 12 hours of charging for 30 minutes of operating time.

However, there are some “modern” shavers available now from Philips which offer 60 minutes of shaving with a 90 minutes charge time, so there is hope yet.

I had a 10-years old Philips shaver that did exactly this. My new Braun one instead works while charging, but it's probably not advertised as waterproof (even if it's mostly waterproof, or at least I've been lucky so far).

i have a phillips shaver (I think it's oneblade pro) and charge it once in 3-4 months...

I am wondering if my Anker portable battery has this problem. It just stopped charging. I have an older Anker batter and it works fine. There is definitely more magic under the hood with the newer battery.

Others have mentioned same behaviour with bluetooth headphones. Most of which has multiple batteries that can circumvent the problem by charging cells seperately.

I have a Braun shaver it shaves while it charges though.

Mine does the same. It's ~25 years old.

nice! mine's a spring chicken at around 14yrs

Laptops work when plugged in without a battery.

Both drawing power from a battery and charging seem to heat them up, perhaps both at the same time would exceed their thermal limits or at least degrade the lifespan of the battery.

I suspect devices that work while plugged in have circuitry that entirely or at least partially bypasses the battery to power the device. Then I guess it's a question of if the intended usage of the device can justify the additional complexity/failure modes/cost of the additional circuitry.

The shavers which are considered to be used also in the shower have running on power line disabled.

Probably a security measure to prevent people from using the shaver in the bathroom, while it's connected to the power outlet.

Neither shave very tight?

For a better shave, use the edges of your Macbook

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