I'm not sure where whimsy fits into that list, but my dishwasher plays a little victory tune when it finishes washing. It sounds like something from an early 90s jrpg. It makes me smile every time I hear it.
this post was submitted on 23 May 2025
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I have a zojirushi rice cooker that’s similar and I love it!
Other then that my oven, coffee maker, kettle, kitchen fan all have the same shrill beep that’s hard to know what’s what.
The rice cooker jingle slaps
Every device should sing its own song. Maybe if you start them together they can form a chorus? Like some sort of appliance band.
Why am I stuck thinking of the turrets from Portal 2?
I've got an anecdote in a similar vein about my dishwasher. It has a little lighted screen that tells you what phase of the wash it's in. At some point part of the screen broke so it doesn't show the G in "washing" and "drying" anymore. When I look at it, it reads as Washin' or Dryin' and it makes me smile because it feels like my washer has gotten a little sassy in its old age
I enjoy technology that feels like it has a little personality.
Whereas I think the opposite with my washer and dryer. It plays a little tune when it’s done. I’m sure that’s nice but I’d rather tha annoying loud buzz because I’ll actually hear it.
Maybe I missed the boat and no one else has laundry in their basement anymore, but I want a notification that successfully notifies me.
I always wondered why there wasn’t a basic pluggable notification capability. Consider a landline phone or a doorbell: you could buy devices to vibrate or flash, or be really loud, so hearing impaired folk get the notification. Don’t those same hearing impaired people also need to do laundry? Don’t lots of people with good hearing still have laundry in basements and garages? Why hasn’t there been a standard cheap notification output for decades, even from analog times?
Being able to plug in a notification device would be awesome.
You could plug in a power meter with wifi and look what power is used.
You could use a babyphone or a camera (e.g. an old phone).
I'm not sure if an Alexa (Echo Dot or so) would react on the little tune of your washer, but it hears the standard annoying beeps of my washer.
I saw a gadget once where they used a motion sensor to sense when the washer and dryer were done.
I have a baby monitor for my kids (1 way audio because I wanted to limit the privacy risk and I suspect more than that can lead to some bad habits) and it clearly filters for sounds at roughly the frequency of kids voices because you can't consistently say something over it and hear it on the other side, but my kid can go up to it and dictate a 500 word essay that summarizes down to "there's a bug on the window" and we'll hear every breath and word
Our machines have the ability to turn the buzzer on after each cycle, but it's not sticky. Given how far away from everything else the laundry room is, even with the chime you can't really hear it. So I have it set to just ping our phones when a load is done
What does 6 mean?
When my flashlight fails I can still beat zombies over the head with it. Is that what they are talking about?
Think of a smart house for example, or Tesla cars. When the internet is down, you should still be able to turn your lights on or off. When the battery is dead on a Tesla you should still be able to open the door from the outside with the door handle and not have to hotwire a 12v battery for the subsystem to work.
Graceful degradation
A system designed to experience graceful degradation, or to fail soft (used in computing, similar to "fail safe"[13]) operates at a reduced level of performance after some component fails. For example, if grid power fails, a building may operate lighting at reduced levels or elevators at reduced speeds. In computing, if insufficient network bandwidth is available to stream an online video, a lower-resolution version might be streamed in place of the high-resolution version. Progressive enhancement is another example, where web pages are available in a basic functional format for older, small-screen, or limited-capability web browsers, but in an enhanced version for browsers capable of handling additional technologies or that have a larger display.
I encountered an infuriating example of the opposite a couple years ago: a gas stove that wouldn't work without electricity.
A gas stove normally operates with a mechanical valve to control gas to each burner, and while modern ones have electronic igniters, it's possible to use a match or the like instead. These assholes went out of their way to add an electronic valve that shuts it off when there's no power. It's probably in the name of safety, but the scenario where someone leaves the valve open without igniting the gas is possible even with power by failing to engage the igniter correctly, and gas is smelly.
I should be able to use a gas stove when there's no electricity or the igniter is broken if I supply my own source of ignition.
For your example of a flashlight, consider one with USB charging. If the charging port or circuit fails, I should be able to easily take out the battery and charge it in another charger (Li-ion charging is pretty standardized). If the battery is dead but the USB port works, I should be able to use it as a USB-powered lamp.
Gas valves and igniters don't even need much power. They could put a battery in there so it could be used when the power is out. My propane fireplace runs for years on 4 AA batteries and that's powering the receiver for the remote too.
The burner valves operate mechanically. It has an additional shutoff valve that closes when there's no electrical power. A battery backup for the igniters would be a great feature though - a Li-ion battery stored at half charge would last pretty much forever.
Heat makes lithium ion batteries fail much quicker. A non rechargeable lithium AA would last a long time and they don't leak like alkaline batteries.
Heat is bad, but the battery could be positioned below the oven. Disposable would be cheaper.
Yes
Someone please explain this to microwave oven manufacturers.
Star Trek LCARS/computer/ship-communication/door noises
You know, we have all the technology to do that.
Has anyone done it? Why haven't I done it?
Damn you know, I'm gonna do it
I've been using them on my phones since Nokia 3650.
I just want doors that sigh blissfully when they open and close. Douglas Adams knew what the future should be.
Turning off notifications will improve your life.
I leave notifs on for sms. Everything else can wait.
It amazes me how companies miss these things...
I have a work phone and personal phone and they both scream at the slightest news.
Newer app versions don't heed the "fuck off and shut up" mode when I put the phones face down. So they get a time-out part-way through the day when I've had enough of the "every beep more jarring than every other beep" mentality: I throw them into the next room.
This calmer initiative sounds like a godsend.
You know they have "settings", right?
I've disabled notifications for everything except certain contacts. I was all about news notifications for a while, but that was obnoxious.
So they WANT you to ignore the warnings..
My phone stays on perpetual silence. Haptic feedback is all I need or want. The mere thought of my phone going off when not appropriate brings me undue anxiety.
I heavily curate what can and can't notify me, and specifically choose the least annoying notification sound for anything I give notification sounds to. Anyone who doesn't scares me
While an interesting idea, this sounds like an organization designed to separate some doofus investment manager with a lot of capital before inevitably folding because companies won't give a damn. Sure, if we were to pass laws allowing us to hunt down anyone responsible for using blue LEDs on devices which did not specifically need blue light, and burn their eyes out with a hot poker. Then, such a certification might make sense. But, so long as there are no repercussions for companies making horrible design decisions, why would any company pay for a certification like this.
Bad design goes both ways. I have a couple of small kitchen appliances (coffee machine & toaster oven) and their beeps are impossible to hear if there's the slightest bit of background noise. It makes using them a PITA. And then there's my microwave which could wake the dead.