Ah yes, it's to prevent people downgrading or running "unauthorized" firmware when they inevitably start adding user-hostile "features".
It is a high end (costs 12x what I paid for my last microwave) with browning elements. If that is the device you cook with you are probably wanting more out a microwave than a single big red button that says “+30 seconds” on the front. Programming your defrost, cook, and browning cycle is probably nicer on an app.
- Pre heat oven remotely
- Check on the food remotely
- Have (and update) settings for specific food?
I mean it's not the worst thing to connect online.
My current owen actually forces me to at least open once the hatch before allowing it to be switched on (I guess that it's to force me to check if anything was previously left inside).
/sarcasm
[0]https://www.nfpa.org/Public-Education/Fire-causes-and-risks/...
About the only thing it's useful for is to remind me when its preheated.
I took out the power controller board, unsoldered the two resistors that burned and put on higher wattage rated resistors. The light sort-of works now: it makes several seconds to turn on, dunno why.
Probably the right fix would be to replace the board with a custom design with just a little transformer and a diode.
I’ve run into several microwave controllers with a similar misfeature. All used the same controller board despite being different makes and models. The part that controlled the light was a plug-in board on the controller and a short in the light socket could blow a diode on it. Bad design since burnt out incandescent bulbs often fail with a short. The plug-in replacement cost ~$8, but nobody seems to stock it, only The whole controller board at ~$175.
I hate to have to change the time of the oven twice a year. It annoys me :P
I have a nice, cheap, small alarm clock by my bed which gets the current time over air (some sort of radio signal, probably https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_clock ) => works great, in the past it maybe needed up to 30 minutes or so to do an initial update of its time after a change of batteries, but then it always worked perfectly.
Why aren't more appliances using that? Shouldn't even an oven, maybe having a small antenna embedded in its front, be able to get that signal?
Hot Pockets are aerodynamically designed to be delivered directly to the mouth for most destructive effect. Short (napalm like cheese), medium (gaseous effect), and long term (myocardial infarction) impacts are improved at higher ordinance deliver rates.
Seeing as most major appliances are stationary it would have struck me as a good fit (with the exception of time zones / DST).
I don't understand this constraint as it was possible to buy wristwatches that could do this back in the early 1990s and probably earlier (that was when I saw one for the first time).
Just have support walk them through a menu on their phone for an "advanced" feature they just tap on, then hold the button on the microwave. Voila!
(Granted, I did tech support long enough to know this isn't easy; if someone can follow instructions, however, it should be doable.)
That last part could also be because I harp on it every time the topic comes up, that under no circumstances should she be answering yes or ok to any random prompts that she isn't very familiar with already, and please call me if she's at all questioning the legitimacy of what she sees.
My grandma is not tech savvy, but can follow directions pretty well. My spouse's grandma is tech savvy to a certain level and manages her own computer and photo library. I know either of them would likely be able to hold down a button and follow some set of directions to join a wifi and upload a file.
Now, figuring out how to get a containerization platform running in there might be a different matter...
I tease my wife about not figuring out email until 2005. Of course I date back to the era whence we had to run down to the data center and take turns on the operator console to send each other text messages.
"never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"
This also goes for assuming good faith -- when companies reach a certain size, the mantra instead becomes "always assume bad faith."
Kinda like how paying devs to push firmware updates to a damn microwave costs a lot more money than making a microwave that just works and doesn't need OTA updates?