Tuesday, July 28, 2020

The Epitome of Poor Design - The buzzer

Mini Piezo Buzzer

When in fear, when in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.

The buzzer is found everywhere from soy milk makers, to washing machines, dehumidifiers, microwave ovens, bread machines etc.

The reality is that most of the machines that we use are loud enough as it is. A bright charging light is a bad idea, so is a sound that isn't necessary. A WiFi router from 15 years ago had plenty of  bright LEDs, now in 2020, they only have a few LEDs and they're reasonably dim.

For the very least, designers could put the option of disabling the buzzer for non emergency/overheating situations. An option to set the buzzer volume could be good too.
Nevertheless, getting rid of the buzzer altogether would be best. Fewer lines of code, components in a circuit etc. means more stable software.

Less alerts would make our lives a little quieter.