Comments on: Knobs > Digital

By: PhilSteinmeyer.com » Blog Archive » Knobs > Digital, part 2

PhilSteinmeyer.com » Blog Archive » Knobs > Digital, part 2 — Sat, 10 Jun 2006 03:48:53 +0000

[...] This evening, we were making cookies in our new oven (initial discussion), and the oven shut off about 2 minutes before the cookies were done, due to some confusion in using it. [...]

By: theadvergamer

theadvergamer — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 16:11:12 +0000

Reminds me of the 80s obsession with graphic equalizers that you could fiddle with forever - my need to tamper with them was far ahead of my ears’ ability to detect the changes. Now I just turn the amp on and leave the dials pointing up. I miss all those twinkling lights though.

By: Sumit Mehra

Sumit Mehra — Mon, 29 May 2006 10:09:27 +0000

So i guess the Knob was replaced by Buttons (digital) to make it look new age cool.

So what i see here as convenient is to have a knob, not neccessarly it needs to be mechanical.

Is it nice to hear the KRANKING sound as well when you trun the knob? probably not.

I saw something similar on a music system, Digital knob…to move …throught the track list.

It was more kind of a finger powered roating disc, rather than a thumb-n-finger controlled knob.

By: Viridian

Viridian — Fri, 05 May 2006 04:48:45 +0000

“Iâ€™m dreading the day when I have to use a digital toilet.”

Don’t ever go to Japan!

By: Jeff

Jeff — Wed, 03 May 2006 20:07:20 +0000

Ughh, our oven has knob issues. We have a digital display, but a knob and must turn it to set temp, timer, etc. If you want 3 hours you about break the kneb off by spinning it around so many times.

By: ac

ac — Wed, 03 May 2006 19:50:43 +0000

Exactly why any decent music equipment and software (read: none) have knobs that turns endlessly to have best possible precision to adjust a digital, possibly floating point, value.

I’ve been preaching about this issue for a while but no one else seems interested.

You might ask how it works in software: Simple, click the knob and the mouse pointer turns into a hand that stays still while moving the mouse adjusts the value as long as you the knob clicked. This way you can position knobs on the edges of the screen in software without bumping to the issue that plagues a ton of software where you can’t adjust the dial because mouse pointer hits the screen boundary.

By: Scott

Scott — Tue, 02 May 2006 19:00:34 +0000

Ok, we just bought a range with the silly digital interface. Her’s how it works.

Press BAKE. The display shows 350 degrees. Use UP and DOWN to adjust the oven to the desired temp. (between 100 and 550). After four seconds of not being pressed, the oven kicks in, and then shows the current temp (which is helpful and somewhat addictive watching the temp go up). And then it beeps when it hits the desired temp.

And yes, it’s an annoying interface. What’s particularily scary isn’t so much the interface itself, but that everything uses membrane switches, which from my experience don’t have a great shelf life to begin with, and now you are putting those things near a heat source.

It used to be that you could count on your stove potentially lasting for 15 years or so, due to the realtively hardy mechanical components. While the actual stove/oven might still be completely useable, you are simply one stupid silly cheap-ass membrane switch (which probably have a shelflife of something like 5 years of a decent amount of use) away from needing a new stove.