This makes me think of a recent experience I can relate to. I got a new iPhone that has a feature called, and I quote, an "Always-On display." According to https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213435:

  Always-On display goes dark when you don't need it
 
  To save battery life, the display is completely dark when:
 
  • Your iPhone is lying face down
  • Your iPhone is in your pocket or bag
  • [...]

These seem reasonable to me, at least they haven't caused any noticeable problems. But it goes on, including:

  • You haven't used your iPhone for a while
    (your iPhone learns your activity patterns
    and turns the display off and on accordingly,
    including if you set up an alarm or sleep schedule)

This one's kinda infuriating. Every now and then, it's dark when I look at it, and I try to repeatedly "teach" it that I'm not asleep and it shouldn't have gone dark, or give up and try to ignore that it's not doing what I expected from it.

What makes it frustrating more than anything is the feature's name: "Always-On display." If not for that, I think its actual best-effort behavior is fairly reasonable.