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Comment by pas | Hacker News Reader

I'm still mesmerized by microwave ovens. Sure, all of them now come with a chip, but that part is guaranteed 100% shit (I mean who the fuck designs these unergonomic monsters anyway!?)

But the magnetron in them is complex, has to be machined to a high precision, yet they are a pretty old piece of completely analog technology.

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Regarding microwave oven ergonomics, the best one I've seen doesn't have old-school dials, but a touch-sensitive slider bar. You may think this is bad, but it works very, very well. The front of the microwave has the time display, the time slider bar, and two buttons: stop/cancel and start/+30sec. Open the door and there are a few auto cook options and power level options. There is no number keypad at all; the slider bar gives you both very fine and coarse-grained control, depending on how fast you slide across it. It's all very intuitive, and I was very impressed with it.

https://www.lg.com/us/cooking-appliances/lg-LMC0975ST-counte...

Oh, and it actually looks slick/sleek :)

Recently I interacted with a brand new but old-schoolish one (dials and all), which was only openable by pushing a big analog button (which required a surprising amount of force). And this design seems common despite the totally idiotic UX of pushing a button that slightly opens the door, so then you have to open the door by hand, instead of putting a fucking handle on the door so it could be one move. (Probably because it's that much cheaper to have a door without a handle.)

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