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Everything with a battery should have an off switch

• rnernento 4y ago
  Forget about "with a battery" - everything should have an off switch. Rebooting hardware like the Amazon Fire TV is so annoying, and it's not like it doesn't like up or crash...
• Gibbon1 4y ago
  People should show respect on not link to foone here.
  • ReptileMan 4y ago
    What do you mean?
    • throwmeariver1 4y ago
      foone doesn't like hackernews so I guess OP meant to show "respect" to foone and not link their stuff here.
      • Gibbon1 4y ago
        foone gets harassed when their tweets get linked here.
        • bogantech 4y ago
          Is that actually true though? If one of their threads is interesting enough to show up on HN isn't it also likely to have been retweeted, shared around elsewhere too? They certainly pop up in my feed constantly due to RT's from other popular tech people on twitter
    • croes 4y ago
      Let me quote from one of foone's tweets: "I HATE GETTING POSTED ON HACKER NEWS"
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • sph 4y ago
  • _Algernon_ 4y ago
    If one doesn't want to get linked to on the internet, one shouldn't post things to the internet. It is as simple as that.
• atoav 4y ago
  Sometimes you don't want that actually. For example if the reason that device has an battery is a RTC (Realtime Clock) and it uses it to keep track of time. Or with things where battery life is a much smaller issue than forgetting to turn the thing on (e.g. smoke detectors). Or with things that draw unspeakably low amounts of current and where such switches would be hard to implement (e.g. digital wrist watches). Other than that: Yes please.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • jsjohnst 4y ago
    > Or with things where battery life is a much smaller issue than forgetting to turn the thing on (e.g. smoke detectors). What an odd example to pick.
    • seoaeu 4y ago
      Why? Turning off your smoke detectors to save battery seems like a profoundly bad idea
      • jsjohnst 4y ago
        Having an off switch on a life saving device like that sounds like a profoundly bad idea to me, so not sure why it would be brought up in this context. I personally would’ve used an example of something you might actually want to turn off, but it would just be a bad idea, not a potentially fatal idea, if you failed to turn back on.
        • atoav 4y ago
          I was listing things where I would not want an off-switch along with the reasons. As you rightly mentioned yourself having an off-switch on a smoke detector is a very bad idea. The only place where smoke detectors are frequently switched off are remote huts that might be empty for the better part of a year. And there the best strategy is to unmount the whole thing, pull the battery out and place both things somewhere really obvious so the next guys notice immediately what needs to be done.
• exmadscientist 4y ago
  (Background: I work in product design/new product development, and conceivably might have designed this thing! If any of those were still designed in the Western world. Which they aren't. I have designed some stuff like it, though!) Oh, great, this debate again! I shall use this post as ammunition next time I am arguing with our stupid design team about why we need an off switch on the stupid product we are designing, because it is a giant pain to live with devices you cannot turn off. (It is especially fun to put something together for the Very First Time, then realize you can't turn it off... and you need to turn it off because it's the Very First Time this thing has ever existed at all, and it isn't quite right, and you need to fix something. But it can't be turned off, and this is somehow by design.) (Our design team will never listen. This is because they, one, don't listen to anyone ever; and two, never use the products they design. Oh, sure, there might be a user study or two. But they never actually have to live with or work with the damn things.) > They never seem to just use the bluetooth module as the sole microcontroller We actually do this! It works pretty well. > and also it's not like microcontrollers are expensive these days. with a blobbed-on IC of some 8-bit custom non-programmable thing, they're probably spending like 1-2 cents each Yeah I wish we could get those prices. But we don't do COB (chip-on-board) and we only use microcontrollers we can get and read datasheets for, so we pay at least 20x that price. Maybe that's why we don't have any clients?
  • nicoburns 4y ago
    > This is because they… never use the products they design. Oh, sure, there might be a user study or two. But they never actually have to live with or work with the damn things. Yeah, I do software and Ive found the same thing: if I’m building it, then I’m actually the first user of the software, and I have all sorts of feedback for the designers. Luckily I’ve worked with some great designers who were usually more than happy to adjust the designs though.
  • raverbashing 4y ago
    > and we only use microcontrollers we can get and read datasheets for, so we pay at least 20x that price. Yeah, I see what you mean. And even if google translate can help, there are of course other problems 20x might be the actual cheaper option
• Nanite 4y ago
  Examples lying around in my house: Bathroom scale: lovely it powers up when you tap it, but eats up 2 button cells a year for a few dozen uses a year Kitchen scales, bit more use, at least once a day but again 2 button cells a year electronic caliper: Same, eats up 1 button cell a year, just sitting in my toolbox Strangely enough none of our kids toys with batteries seem to suffer from this problem How much extra cost does a hard on/off switch add to the bill of materials?
  • reticulated 4y ago
    Our kitchen scales have a single on button and auto power-off after a minute or so. I discovered completely by accident that holding the power button down for 3-4 seconds powers it off. Nowhere in any of the manuals was this mentioned (I went back and checked)
    • rightbyte 4y ago
      Maybe a rouge engineer added it for the benefit of mankind?
    • LorenPechtel 4y ago
      Many devices will turn off when you hold the power button long enough.
  • nickff 4y ago
    >” How much extra cost does a hard on/off switch add to the bill of materials?” BoM cost is not the whole story; a physical switch can greatly complicate an assembly, and may require hand-soldered wires. In addition to those cost-related factors, external switches are usually quite ugly, and getting them right can be very challenging, so it’s much easier to just omit them.
    • ggm 4y ago
      I think this is special pleading. At the volume we're discussing a surface mount flow solder on off device is not going to kill the BoM, and could be designed not to be ugly. It's no different to any other bad design. It could be better. All phones and computers can be completely powered down. They're hardly ugly switches.
• hnbad 4y ago
  Obligatory addendum every time foone is posted here: foone goes by they/them pronouns and foone hates HN and all it stands for so please don't bother them with twitter replies just because you saw this thread on here. If you think about following them on twitter because of a cool tech thread, please be aware that they're not a tech novelty account and don't complain when they tweet about politics.
  • dmurray 4y ago
    You forgot, foone isn't going to change from streams of Twitter posts to long form blogging.
    • hnbad 4y ago
      Well, this thread was less focussed than the last ones that got posted here so this seemed less likely to prompt the usual "Twitter threads are unreadable, why doesn't foone just write a proper article" replies, but yes. Foone has stated in the past that Twitter threads are the right medium for their ADHD-fueled bursts of writing and that blogs aren't.
  • userbinator 4y ago
    Even typical Twitter users can have opinions we agree with at least some of the time.
  • JasonFruit 4y ago
    Why should we care whether Foone's mad at HN? Posting to a medium you don't own and expecting to be able to control who responds and how never really works out. If you want control over who sees your content and how they can respond, you have to use a medium you control, and I don't see why Foone is special in that regard.
    • hnbad 4y ago
      The reason I said what foone wants and doesn't want is precisely that they can not control what others do. Yes, you can disregard all that, follow them on twitter and angrily chastise them for not sticking to cool tech projects and tell them to use a proper blogging platform, but I was providing this information based on the expectation that most people reading it would not want to be intentionally rude. If the only thing stopping you from being rude would be the police literally dragging you away from your computer, yes, by all means, try to prove a point by being intentionally rude just because they can't stop you.
• teekert 4y ago
  …And, one should be able to turn of every led even when powered on… At Ikea I almost bought a nice brushed steel extractor hood, except it had this obnoxiously bright blue led on the front. Why? I know when that thing is on without it drawing my attention constantly. Same with my Lenovo X13 gen 2, there is a bright white led next to the power button… just why…???
  • Cthulhu_ 4y ago
    I like how modern routers have a button on the front to just turn off any LEDs, that's a great improvement I think. Anyway I've got a speaker in my bedroom with an LED that won't turn off, and a USB-C hub that has a tiny blue LED that requires me to disconnect the whole thing first. Really annoying.
  • mellavora 4y ago
    because it draws attention in the showroom, increasing sales. I've found if you use a dremmel with a fine bit, you can usually turn off the LED. otherwise put something over it. but yes, my solutions should not be necessary
  • layer8 4y ago
    Agreed, i put https://www.lightdims.com/ https://www.lightdims.com/ or electrical tape on those. That doesn’t really work with transparent cases though.
    • teekert 4y ago
      Ha! Nice to see someone actually was annoyed enough to make a product out of this annoyance :)
  • Beltalowda 4y ago
    I don't know about the X13, but a lot of ThinkPads you can control the LEDs with some settings; /sys/class/leds/tpacpi::power/brightness on Linux (also some other knobs/LEDs in there). Thus far this has worked on every ThinkPad I've had; but again, I don't know if it will work on your X13 (or how to do it from Windows or other systems), but something to look at if you haven't already.
• cristifalcas 4y ago
  • bonoboTP 4y ago
    But you came across this and you wouldn't have come across it if he just put it on his own website. Network effects and game theory...
    • louky 4y ago
      People post their own and others' websites here very regularly!
    • CRConrad 4y ago
      We came across this by seeing it here on HN. Lots of people's own websites get posted here on HN, so we might well have come across it anyway.
      • icelancer 4y ago
        Considering that foone's "website" (or blog) is entirely giant Twitter threads...
    • emptyfile 4y ago
      Actually the moment I see that a link leads to Twitter or Instagram I don't click it.
  • kamranjon 4y ago
    It’s strange I have no issue reading posts like these but every time they come up someone complains about the format of twitter and I still have no idea what makes it so difficult for people and I definitely did not grow up with it.
    • CRConrad 4y ago
      Nowadays it cuts off threads and refuses to let you read to the end unless you're logged in.
• oneeyedpigeon 4y ago
  Just scanning my desk which has a laptop, mac mini, monitor, phone, nintendo switch, a bunch of ipods ... the only things I can spot that have a power switch are 4 of the 5 ipods.
  • easrng 4y ago
    What iPod has a power switch??? On mine at least (3rd gen Nano) the closest you can get to off is asleep with the hold switch on.
    • oneeyedpigeon 4y ago
      You're right — a few of them are hold, not power. Even the OG shuffle, which definitely looks like it's a power switch, appears not to be — when I switch it "off" during playback, there's a suspicious delay before the music stops.
    • DHPersonal 4y ago
      It’s been a while since I used my iPod Video/Classic, but I think I remember being able to turn them off by holding the Play button on the dial for three to five seconds. Maybe that was just the hard reset; I don’t remember.
      • easrng 4y ago
        Holding the play button puts it to sleep. Holding the center button and menu is the hard reset. There's no way to shut them down.
• key_to_dcmbr 4y ago
  ahahahah how ridiculous is this idea. Just want to see author having off buttons on all their remotes: TV, AC, ect. Enjoy manually turning them off and having redundant button=)
  • mschuster91 4y ago
    Many "classic" remotes are actually designed with the keypad itself being the power switch, they don't consume any power while not being used. "Smart" remotes are a different picture. audibly sighs and walks off the stage
  • francisofascii 4y ago
    The remote to my gas fireplace runs dead every few weeks. The remote uses radio, so I assume it is constantly communicating with the fireplace. I don't use it everyday, so I keep the back off to dislodge the battery when not in use, and reconnect the battery to turn the thing on. I would love a simple on/off switch.
• mihaigalos 4y ago
  The trouble with a mechanical off switch is that you cannot easily / periodically turn it on, so it depends on your usecase. AVR Picopower has been around for about 10y now. These devices dramatically drop power consumption to the point where batteries should last a very long time, definitely >1y, more like 3-5y. The fact that modern devices drain a lot of juice is either sloppy SW design or sloppy HW design, since I believe the cost for microcontrollers is very similar.
  • PMunch 4y ago
    That's the point though, in this case off means off. There is no reason his controller should have to periodically turn on, when you want to use it you turn it on.
    • johnsonap 4y ago
      Foone's pronouns are they/them
  • watwut 4y ago
    > The trouble with a mechanical off switch is that you cannot easily / periodically turn it on, so it depends on your usecase. That is not trouble, that is the whole point.
  • baybal2 4y ago
    You can have pushbutton on/off controlled by an MCU, and having near zero leakage. Just lookup circuits.
• unlog 4y ago
  I was thinking today if I can attach a switch on/off to my laptop battery to not wear it when I'm almost all the time on the desktop plugged in..
  • londons_explore 4y ago
    You'll be pleased to know nearly all laptops now do this automatically.
  • Hamuko 4y ago
    Some laptops will throttle if they don't have access to the battery power.
  • quickthrower2 4y ago
    I thought it was better to keep it 100% charged anyway?
    • Beltalowda 4y ago
      True for some older battery types, but not with Li-ion batteries; long story short, keeping the charge between ~30-80% is best for longevity.
• carpenecopinum 4y ago
  It's cool that they managed to make the device work for them. But on the other hand, I think it should not be the job of the consumer to "fix" shitty design choices. If we accept devices that are borderline defective by design instead of sending them back to where they came from, what we'll end up with are more devices that are similarly broken for the sake saving a few cents. The only way we can truly fix bad design choices is by making them unprofitable for the manufacturers.
• baby 4y ago
  Recently my trimmer turned on by itself and then stayed on. I couldn’t turn it off. Had to put it inside a bocal until it drained itself of battery so that we could bare the noise.
• can16358p 4y ago
  While I get the motivation, I'd rather have my Apple devices which have some economic value to be findable using Find My, which can't function with a physical "hard" off switch. I'd rather have Bluetooth use infinitesimal amount of my iPhone/Macbook battery than them being lost/stolen which could be potentially tracked when off with "soft off". But besides some use cases like this, I agree with the post.
  • onion2k 4y ago
    I'd rather have my Apple devices which have some economic value to be findable using Find My, which can't function with a physical "hard" off switch. Why not? I mean obviously they wouldn't be findable if they were off, but that's a feature. Apple could add a physical switch and leave everything else the same. Your devices would function as they do now in "On" mode, but you'd also be able to turn the off properly. Isn't that better?
    • neoberg 4y ago
      So when it's stolen a thief can just switch it off?
    • can16358p 4y ago
      That would literally kill the whole point of being able to find it if it's stolen. I know there are other ways to do it (a sophisticated theif might just put it in a Faraday Cage), but Find My would just work in its current form otherwise, and putting a physical switch that physically switches it off kills the whole purpose.
• nvarsj 4y ago
  Super bright LEDs is one of my biggest pet peeves on electronics. And 99% of them seem to be blue. This one is red, but pulsing - oh god. For SMD leds it's pretty easy to destroy them directly by using a hot enough iron - they're heat sensitive and die easily. Just touch it with your iron and boom, annoying light gone.
• pmlnr 4y ago
  Everything with a battery should have an easy way to remove the battery. Correction: MUST have a way.
• pveierland 4y ago
  Related to the topic, besides the energy argument and the ability to cycle system state, I'd argue the huge importance of being able to power things off for personal freedom, especially for things with connectivity. We still have the power to shut off devices and largely the ability to block their connectivity (e.g. routing TV ads through a network filter). With 5G and future connectivity, it feels as there will be push towards not being able to block the network access of individual devices, such that a TV or fridge will just speak to its server directly via some XG/IoT network which the user does control, without any user ability to block this communication. After losing control over connectivity, it seems as power switches will be the next thing we'll start to lose control over, for engineering and ergonomic reasons, but also for control reasons. Such a shift may be further pushed by more ubiquitous and long-range wireless charging, if it gets to the point where devices such as our phones can be sufficiently charged simply by being inside buildings. Just thought I'd throw in my $0.02 vote for the ability to power off things.
  • throwaway049 4y ago
    Great. Now I need to buy a faraday cage to fit my refrigerator.
    • swader999 4y ago
      Think bigger. Do the whole house. There's paint you can get for this.
      • rocqua 4y ago
        Does that actually work for 5G? I believe that, in urban areas, you can even get cell reception from inside a microwave because a phone needs very little signal.
        • swader999 4y ago
          I can still get cell reception in my bedroom that has three coats of the paint with proper copper grounding running through it all. But it barely registers on my meter now whereas before it was 100x. I'm sensitive to emf and do sleep noticeably better now. I still turn my phone and wifi off at night. I'm about 400 metres from a cell tower. Rural so no 5g yet I think. Yeah I have the window film and metal window screens and metal fabric curtains too. Wasn't a trivial project.
• f311a 4y ago
  I can't even turn off my Suunto watch from the operating system. They are always on while they have enough battery.
  • c_o_n_v_e_x 4y ago
    This was always a gripe of mine, although I assume it's for our own good... I wouldn't want to accidentally turn my watch off mid dive.
• dschuetz 4y ago
  Especially those which supposedly are turned off, but still use battery power for low-power Bluetooth for device discovery. So many times I was driven mad by this very shitty and very expensive device, because a deep-drained battery is no joke!
• Hamuko 4y ago
  Another hot take: every device where Bluetooth isn't the sole method of interacting with the device (think AirPods), you should be able to turn off Bluetooth. You haven't seen hell before you've seen a speaker with Bluetooth that you can't turn off and you can't stop your neighbours from accessing. Or more specifically, heard hell.
  • nicolas_t 4y ago
    Hear, hear! After being woken up at 6am a few too many times because of a bluetooth speaker like this, I swore off all bluetooth speakers.
  • LorenPechtel 4y ago
    What is it with the lack of pairing?! My phone is paired with my car--but the bluetooth audio in the car will pick up whatever signal it hears regardless. Including from the car next to me.
    • Hamuko 4y ago
      No idea. Best guess is "convinience", but that fades away pretty quickly after being scared by a stranger taking over your speeakers.
• hitpointdrew 4y ago
  I would say there are a few reasonable exceptions to the rule. For example I wouldn’t want smoke detectors or carbon monoxide detectors to have off switches.
  • PMunch 4y ago
    Of course there are always exceptions. Smoke detectors usually have replaceable batteries though, which kind of work like an off switch. Pacemakers however should definitely not have an off switch, and a replaceable battery would be tricky. You'd have to do the switch like that BMO character.
    • tzs 4y ago
      > Smoke detectors usually have replaceable batteries though, which kind of work like an off switch. That is changing. Several states, including California and New York, no longer allow replaceable battery smoke alarms. They require long life sealed batteries. Other states are in the midst of doing so. They are doing this because smoke detectors have a limited lifetime. You are supposed to replace them 10 years after manufacture. However, they don't suddenly stop working at 10 years...they just get less and less effective over time. Many people don't realize they are supposed to replace them, or know it but forget. I didn't know, for instance, until mine was ~17 years old. It still went off when I'd sear a steak if I forgot to close the door between the kitchen and the room it was in so there was no obvious thing to tell me that it was likely losing effectiveness. By going to units with a sealed battery meant to last the lifetime of the unit they hope to make it more likely that people will remember to replace them. When it is time the units will beep like the replaceable battery units do when the battery is getting low. I would guess there are also people with the replaceable battery units who when it starts signaling low battery take out the battery planning to pick up a new one next time they are shopping, forget, and take a long time to remember if ever. Sealed units will help there, too. BTW, when buying smoke alarms it is probably best to avoid Kidde (also avoid them for fire extinguishers). They are prominently featured at Home Depot and Walmart, and can be a little hard to avoid if you don't take a bit of care. Here's why to avoid them, from the Wirecutter.com article on basic smoke detectors: > With placement on the shelves of Home Depot, Kidde is the most prominent competitor to First Alert, but its overall track record is, in a word, disturbing. In 2018, the company recalled more than 450,000 dual-sensor smoke alarms; in 2016, it recalled 3.6 million smoke/CO alarms, and in 2014, it recalled 1.2 million smoke/CO alarms. In addition, since 2005, Kidde has enacted three separate fire extinguisher recalls of 470,000 units (2005), 4.6 million units (2015), and 40 million units (2017). Worst of all, in early 2021, a federal judge ordered Kidde to pay a $12 million civil penalty “in connection with allegations that the company failed to timely inform the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) about problems with fire extinguishers manufactured by the company.” For these reasons, we can’t, in good conscience, recommend any Kidde products to our readers. > Although First Alert is not immune to recalls (it recalled nearly 150,000 smoke alarms in 2006 and roughly 600,000 fire extinguishers in 2000), none of them are recent or on the scale of what Kidde has had to do.
• davidgrenier 4y ago
  Seems like a legit business in the making. Removing useless LEDs from products.
• GekkePrutser 4y ago
  > They never seem to just use the bluetooth module as the sole microcontroller There's more reasons than just being able to plug a different BT controller (which is great in times of supply chain problems) You're also usually stuck with a different toolchain than you're used to, so you will have to learn all the quirks. And they may not have enough pins or not the right type.. But I get the point. It's kinda funny to read the "w000t my C64 now has Bluetooth". When the BT controller is actually much more powerful than the C64 :P
  • b112 4y ago
    But I get the point. It's kinda funny to read the "w000t my C64 now has Bluetooth". When the BT controller is actually much more powerful than the C64 :P Lies! You take that back!!
• jokoon 4y ago
  Lithium batteries, even when they don't provide power, slowly lose power. They can also "degrade" when they're not in designated voltage range. This is one reason why most batteries are soldered, because they need to be regulated at all times. So no, you cannot "turn off" a battery. A battery should either provide power, or be plugged to a charger.
  • balsam 4y ago
    According to the table in the following Article, lithium batts have the lowest self discharge rate. When you dont have credentials to present please present citations. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-discharge https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-discharge
    • ceejayoz 4y ago
      Degrading outside a voltage range and soldered batteries means they’re talking about the lithium ion or lipo parts of this chart. I’ve seen several “present credentials” demands here lately. I find it a bit odd.
      • balsam 4y ago
        Well, thats because I am a theorist who lately had to look at industry technical engineering websites about matters that academics dont care about and I find them to be mostly hearsay and heuristic garbage. I need to know whether your “credentialed” experiences can be written off. Citation: search for the terms “self-discharge”. I dare you to find something less kosher than the wikipedia page. I already find the wiki page less than kosher.
  • wongarsu 4y ago
    Sure, the battery degrades once its voltage drops to low or rises too high. But it also degrades from charge/discharge cycles. And without the ability to turn the device off the battery loses power even more quickly, either causing more charge/discharge cycles or bringing the battery quicker into the unhealthy zone.
  • 4y ago
• asddubs 4y ago
  you can snip off smd LEDs pretty easily if you have a set of flush cutters. I really like the knipex ones, they're high quality, truly flush, and very durable (this is just a random picture of them) https://cdn.bueromarkt-ag.de/product/1eb892022d09365e7dd2c7bb2ad92e12e43bafe0-seitenschneider_knipex_78_61_125_electronic_super.jpg https://cdn.bueromarkt-ag.de/product/1eb892022d09365e7dd2c7b... PS: foone knows what a chip on board is, right? I'm assuming they just used weird phrasing, but the fact that they called it a "blobbed over IC" kind of threw me off
• YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
  >> (Our design team will never listen. This is because they, one, don't listen to anyone ever; and two, never use the products they design. Oh, sure, there might be a user study or two. But they never actually have to live with or work with the damn things.) This is so obvious from everyday life that someone really ought to write a paper about it and have it published in Nature. Because it will certainly be published. It will probably become the most cited paper of all times, just because of all the pent-up pissed-offery that everyone carries in them, going around in a world where nothing. ever. fucking. works! dammit. Pfh. Sorry for the vent. This is what impractical design does to people.
  • andreareina 4y ago
    It's a book actually: The Design of Everyday Things
    • ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
      That book, IMNSHO, should be required reading for anyone that designs anything to be used by anyone.
      • smilespray 4y ago
        Last week, I bought ten copies of the book for everyone in our team — regardless of role.
        • gswdh 4y ago
          Surely, they only need one each?
        • spogbiper 4y ago
          Better ship a copy with every product sold so the customer can properly appreciate what you've done
      • micromacrofoot 4y ago
        Their managers should read it too, lots of bad products come from inflexible business requirements
• donatj 4y ago
  Evening with batteries should have user replaceable batteries. Ideally double A's. I am a huge fan of rechargable double A's. It's the main reason my Xbox sees so much more use than my PlayStation. My PlayStation controller is seemingly always dead when I go to use it, but I can just pop some new rechargeable batteries in the Xbox.
  • phaistra 4y ago
    > Evening with batteries should have user replaceable batteries There should be a law for this. Even for cellphones. When corporations market themselves as environmentally conscious, but don't allow the replacement of common wear items in their gadgets and products, then that's how you know they are full of shit.
  • LorenPechtel 4y ago
    No. User-replaceable batteries don't work too well with IP68 ratings. Nor do they work too well with devices where miniaturization is important. I'm wearing a Fitbit as I write this. User-replaceable battery?? It's 30 grams, not counting the band. How much bigger and heavier would it be with an openable seal? The seal has to take a lot--it's got 50m water resistance. Likewise, the battery needs to be secured against motion--that either means glue or mechanical pressure against it. The latter likewise increases size and weight. Other than these cases I agree with you. Batteries should be readily swapable.
• solatic 4y ago
  Counter-example: quartz wristwatches don't have off switches. And that's completely fine with me.
  • brational 4y ago
    i was just thinking how it always annoyed me that my garmin smartwatch doesnt have an off switch but that’s good context. though quartz doesnt have gps sensors..
  • rcktmrtn 4y ago
    Counter-example, or exception that proves the rule?
  • jrootabega 4y ago
    Interesting philosophical idea. I would argue that the position of the OP is really that things should have an off switch for when they're not being used. A watch is expected to be correct every time it's worn or looked at. It's never not being used.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • ComradePhil 4y ago
    They do. You pull the crown out.
• numlock86 4y ago
  I like the topic but the tweet ... oh boy, the tweet was really a waste of time. > buys the cheapest controller one could find > "Oh my god it's all cheap components/design!" > buys a transparent one > "Oh my god I can see the charger indication on literally the entire surface area which triggers my ADHD!"
  • jowsie 4y ago
    > I can't believe the modern equivalent of InterAct/MadCatz would let me down This line is sarcastic, the whole thing is somewhat tounge in cheek.
• curiousllama 4y ago
  > anyway the real problem is that I own a soldering iron and a willingness to void warranties. Yea, fair
• corderop 4y ago
  When I first read the title I thought about security reasons. I think this problem is more related on how the products are designed. Why does a controller need to be always looking to connections? For wearables, this could be ok, but not for a gadget that I'm going to leave in a drawer once I finish playing.
• inglor_cz 4y ago
  So true. I just found out in the hard way, by letting the battery in a home safebox expire. I cannot find the physical key and the electronic lock does not work without power. I will have to call some specialists to break in.
  • LorenPechtel 4y ago
    Bad design. I have a safe with an electronic lock. The batteries that run that lock are on the *outside* of the secure area. There's a little plate you can slide off and fish out the battery pack. That's how it's supposed to be done.
  • Timpy 4y ago
    I'm sure you had an array of considerations when buying an electronic safebox, but this is the bottom line as to why I would never buy one. As a programmer my day job is "this isn't working the way it's supposed to, lets figure out why and fix it." I can't fathom ever wanting to deal with that stuff when I get off work. A lock and key have been working just fine since the Roman times, it's relatively easy to conceptualize how it works, the things you can troubleshoot on it is a relatively short list, the UX surface area is small and predictable (it's just a lock and a key). I could go on for a long time. If something got along just fine before bluetooth and wifi existed then I never want to own a version that requires bluetooth or wifi.
    • inglor_cz 4y ago
      A lock and a key has other failure modes. I broke a key in a lock more than once in my life. I also once accidentally fouled up a lock with some kind of dirt/fluff that it stopped working with the key.
    • zepolen 4y ago
      Why did you pick a job you wouldn't do in your free time, doesn't that get tedious?
      • Timpy 4y ago
• lesgobrandon 4y ago
• TomGullen 4y ago
  Wristwatch?
• ospzfmbbzr 4y ago
  off means off!
• eternityforest 4y ago
  Soft switches are fine if the power is really, really, low. For real. Like, if the battery is rechargeable, 5-25uA is pretty much zero drain. If it's disposable, you get about 1-5uA before it's A Problem(Because the only good use for a disposable is on stuff that only gets changed once in multiple years). In a lot of cases the switch is the least reliable part, and it makes case design harder, and maybe compromises waterproofing.
  • globular-toast 4y ago
    Beware of alkaline cell leakage, though. They fare much better if they are isolated when not used for long periods. But you could use a low self discharge rechargeable cell like NiMH instead of alkaline, of course.
• npteljes 4y ago
  My most ridiculous experience was when an MP3 player froze back in the day. We had no way to switch off, or pull the battery out, so we waited 2 weeks, until the battery was dead. Then it worked fine after a recharge.
  • l30n4da5 4y ago
    my son's hoverboard had a similar malfunction. literally the handbook said there is no reset, and we just need to let it drain the battery. it took DAYS for the LED lights to drain the battery......
    • tempestn 4y ago
      I love the dystopian futuristic vibe of this comment. I imagine your son stuck hovering 15 feet off the ground...
  • antifa 4y ago
    Every mp3 player I owned had a removable battery.
  • myroon5 4y ago
    Accidentally fork bombed a MacBook and had to wait for it to die as well. Had to put it in the fridge for a bit of that time due to overheating as well
    • roryokane 4y ago
      Every Mac laptop I’ve used in the last 15 years has supported forcing a shutdown by holding down the power button for a few seconds. If the model is new enough that there’s no power button, you can hold down the Touch ID sensor instead.
      • nedt 4y ago
        You can also use cmd+opt+ctrl+power (quit all apps, shutdown) or cmd+ctrl+power (force restart) before trying a forced shutdown.
• steelframe 4y ago
  Just this last weekend, I was woken up at 4:00 in the morning on Saturday by a cheap toy drone remote controller that was incessantly beeping because its batteries were running low. So I'm feeling particularly strong about this subject at the moment, and I'd add required off switches for anything with a camera or microphone while we're at it, battery-powered or not.
• Aissen 4y ago
  HOT TAKE: maybe not. Just make it default off. Official switch pro controller does not have this issue because it's always off, unless you press buttons, then it connects. Corollary: you cannot store it in a place where buttons might be pressed, or it will indeed drain the battery like in the post. (Edit: if you disagree, please tell me why. With proper design, it's possible for every button on this type of controller to act effectively as an on button, and I even cited a working, shipping example.)
  • Jiro 4y ago
    If it's able to connect by pressing a button that is not a physical on switch, it's not off.
    • Aissen 4y ago
      You can have an electronic circuit that is open, unless you press a button, then it's powered on and keeps power until a timeout/event. I know, it requires some more complex concepts than a bidirectional physical switch, but it's doable. The twitter thread complains about controllers which empty their battery between uses because they keep trying to connect; but it's not something that's mandatory: an at-rest device can stay at rest without user interaction. I've used hardware on which the battery was still usable after years without use; it does requires very careful design, though.
• navbaker 4y ago
  Number one on the list of "gifts your family can give you to make you hate them": the BeatBo[0] child's toy. It rolls around, has no on/off or volume control, and is motion/vibration activated, so it will indeed start blaring music and rolling around if you take actions like "walk across the floor". [0] https://www.amazon.com/Fisher-Price-Bright-Beats-Tumble-BeatBo/dp/B01MS6ETGO https://www.amazon.com/Fisher-Price-Bright-Beats-Tumble-Beat...
• Kalium 4y ago
  > Oh, great, this debate again! I shall use this post as ammunition next time I am arguing with our stupid design team about why we need an off switch on the stupid product we are designing, because it is a giant pain to live with devices you cannot turn off. I increasingly subscribe to the thesis that many designers and design teams design primarily in an effort to impress other designers. They don't have to use the things. They often don't even really care if the things work at all. They care that other designers - their artistic peers - are impressed. This does not generally result in what we the customers or users would regard as good design. The phenomenon reminds me of software engineers I've worked with who were more interested in building something with event sourcing and stream processing and functional languages rather than solving the problem more readily.
  • zanellato19 4y ago
    Oh man, do I believe this. I think every profession does this, tbh, I saw a lot of developers try to do stuff just to impress the rest of the team, but designers are one of the most impactful because they don't do stuff that is _so obvious_ like this one
    • yawz 4y ago
      I experienced this in programming when I got into Scala 13-14 years ago. For an outsider, it looked like the community was more interested in impressing each other than solving real problems.
      • Joeri 4y ago
        I have to say that scala was the most fun in programming I’ve had. You can make beautifully elegant code, that is oh so clever. It is easy to get seduced into thinking about elegant code instead of good solutions.
    • marcosdumay 4y ago
      Yes, every profession does that to some degree. But most professionals are impressed by things that make the results of their work better, even if at completely unreasonable costs. Designers nowadays are in a fashion to get impressed by things that make the results of their work worse. That leads to completely different problems.
• beckman466 4y ago
  wtf? how else are our Silicon Valley overlords supposed to check in on us, how else do they prematurely wear down our gadgets so we have to pay expensive money for their tech team to un-glue and then re-glue a battery inside, or to replace the gadget entirely (with various components still functional, but turned into e-waste due to their fundamental black-box proprietary nature?
• 1970-01-01 4y ago
  If it beeps, blinks, moves, or makes noise, it needs a kill switch!
• causi 4y ago
  If he read the manual he'd know the off-switch for Switch controller is clicking the pair button one time.
  • Forge36 4y ago
    Who reads the manual? I suspect the HN crowd tends to read them more often, even so, I suspect many of us avoid that until "necessary" (IE: I've been stuck on a problem I care about for too long)
  • drakythe 4y ago
    As indicated in the thread via his own words and pictures this is an off-brand switch controller, not a Nintendo official one. They don't have the same requirements for even features as the official Nintendo Pro or Joycon controllers.
    • causi 4y ago
      As the owner of a whole passel of shitty third party Switch controllers I have yet to encounter one where the pair button didn't turn it off.
      • noobermin 4y ago
        May be this one didn't? Have a little sense of good faith for foone (of all people)?
        • moffkalast 4y ago
          Or OP just forgot to RTFM and is ranting because they don't know how to use what they bought? Wouldn't be the first time... At the very least it's terrible UX design though.
    • johnsonap 4y ago
      Foone's pronouns are they/them
  • 4y ago
• justinator 4y ago
  >Driving a car is the ultimate expression of freedom. I see someone drank the Kool-Aid.
  • moffkalast 4y ago
    Drinking Kool-Aid is the ultimate expression of freedom. This statement was brought to you by Kraft Heinz.
  • justinator 4y ago
    I'm glad people are connecting with this comment (it's mine), but it's actually not about the article! My apologies, there was another, pro-car article that this should be attached to, but now I cannot find on hn. Carry on!
• windex 4y ago
  We need more hardware buttons and dials. Things like power, mic etc need a hardware switch
• otikik 4y ago
  Everything that plugs into a power socket should have a switch as well.
  • noobermin 4y ago
    Everything powered through electricity should have a on/off switch.
  • trasz 4y ago
    In UK every power socket itself has a built in power switch.
• arthurcolle 4y ago
  Pretty funny this is top post, this morning I was woken up by a demented smoke detector that needed to be reset
  • Tempest1981 4y ago
    Is the battery removable? Best tip (if not) is to put it inside an ice chest, and put that in your car or refrigerator, then try to go back to sleep once the adrenaline rush subsides.
    • arthurcolle 4y ago
      Unfortunately I was unable to reach it so I just stayed awake and eventually maintenance came for a visit and they replaced the battery and reset it.
• nonameking2026 4y ago
  My backup iphone starts randomly - even just sitting alone in the corner unplugged. I regularly have to recharge it.
• rahimiali 4y ago
  Basically, Foone ends up disassembling a device that has no off switch, and leaves it disemboweled on his desk as a warning for other devices.
  • johnsonap 4y ago
    Foone's pronouns are they/them
    • rahimiali 4y ago
      my bad. I shouldn't have assumed gender.
    • aulin 4y ago
      how is one supposed to know this from the twitter thread in this post? I even tried to actively look them up and couldn't find any info about it.
      • jwilk 4y ago
        https://twitter.com/Foone https://twitter.com/Foone > Hardware / software necromancer, collector of Weird Stuff, maker of Death Generators. (they/them)
      • johnsonap 4y ago
        it's in their twitter bio
    • S0und 4y ago
      You've posted this "fun fact"? 4 times already. Are you this bored?
      • johnsonap 4y ago
        Just something I care a lot about.
        • 4y ago
• arkaic 4y ago
  How about when my desktop won't stay asleep, because, I don't know, some update is scheduled to run, or some unknown number of errant processes that have a schedule exists somewhere. And yes, I turn off my mouse each time so table vibrations or gusts of wind are ruled out.
  • _Microft 4y ago
    Assuming that you use Windows, run the Event Viewer as admin. In the Event Viewer go to "Windows Logs"->"System" and look for events from source "Kernel Power". Find a wake-up event and read the report. It will tell you what caused this event. Happy debugging!
    • arkaic 4y ago
      Thanks! I'll try this out
      • _Microft 4y ago
        Feel free to reply here later, I’d be happy to hear whether that helped with figuring out your problem!
• m-p-3 4y ago
  This is doubly so with kids toys. At least let me turn it off when piling them all in the toy-box without having them pressing a button on eachothers, making noises and draining the batteries..
• hypertele-Xii 4y ago
  > I went out and bought this as it was the cheapest bluetooth controller I could get on a same-day notice and boy I'm not happy with the quality results Man buys cheapest product, is surprised by its lack of quality.
• lynguist 4y ago
  Isn’t the takeaway message from this: just don’t buy the cheapest and worst product? It will always give you a bad experience. When filtering for products the cheapest one and most expensive one should not even be considered.
  • yeah666 4y ago
    [dead]
    • brianpan 4y ago
      [dead]
      • johnsonap 4y ago
        Foone's pronouns are they/them.
  • sydthrowaway 4y ago
    Or y’know, buy crap products to rant about them and increase your social media engagement
• drewzero1 4y ago
  Especially kids' toys! We have a mostly wonderful toy firetruck that we don't bring along anywhere because it might start singing at any moment.
• linsomniac 4y ago
  Or, just make devices not so power hungry. I got this fancy tire gauge+filler. It uses a couple coin batteries. They live around 6 months with it "off". I use it a couple times a year, so basically every time I go to use it it is dead. Removing the batteries requires disassembly. A year or so ago I soldered in a couple AA batteries in place of the coin batteries, it's been good so far, but I'm waiting to see. On the other hand, I have a Mitutoyo caliper, which also uses a couple coin batteries. I sometimes forget to turn it off when I put it back in the case, and so far, over 6+ months, it hasn't run the batteries out. So it CAN be done. Both devices are basicaally the same: LCD display and they measure a sensor. Back when I was in HS, I had a Casio calculator watch, but it ate through batteries (3-6 months IIRC). The bracket for the strap broke, so I just taped it up in my locker. Soldered it to a D battery, and never had to replace it again. :-)
  • teej 4y ago
    User control has a big benefit here. I want certain devices to sacrifice battery power in exchange for fast wireless re-connections over bluetooth. My headphones for example - I don't want to wait, use the bluetooth antenna all you want. But I don't want that 100% of the time. With a power switch, I get my ideal user experience (fast reconnects) and I have control when to apply that user experience (on/off switch).
  • seizethecheese 4y ago
    It’s totally possibly to engineer devices that last a lot longer. I’m currently working on a new device that will monitor my weight for 3 years without recharging. (It reads continuously, it’s a scale for Bottomless.)
• dontcare007 4y ago
  And get rid of the bright external, useless leds! My room looks like a planetarium at night, since every device has to have a status light...
  • LorenPechtel 4y ago
    Hidden benefit of this--my wife still can't understand how I can get up and go to the bathroom at night without turning on the light. The various dots of light provide me enough reference that I can navigate correctly even though I can't actually see what is in front of me.
• lizardactivist 4y ago
  I'm thinking a lot about security aspects of this. If I turn off my iPhone, MacBook, or Google Pixel phone, are they really off? What are the security implications of "modern standby" on laptops where the CPU and WiFi are always on even after I fold the lid down?
  • nedt 4y ago
    On the iPhone it's a security feature that it still can be tracked if turned off or the battery is (almost) empty. So that's one of the aspects.
  • kevmo314 4y ago
    An off switch doesn't convince me more though. If the company really wants things always on, they could easily wire the hardware off switch to a software off switch and elevator-close-button it. In fact, even a non-nefarious company might do that so a sudden power loss doesn't cause data corruption.
  • Ensorceled 4y ago
    And Bluetooth ... Pretty annoying that my closed laptop, that's in another room, can drift in and out of being "found" by my bluetooth headset and stop music playing.
    • staindk 4y ago
      Sorry, the following rant is only tangentially related. New Windows sleep (""sleep"") states are bewildering. My S/O's new laptop only supports "S0" or "Modern Standby"[0]. It can sit there closed up in its deepest supported level of "sleep" and have its fans spinning and keyboard backlight lit while downloading updates or whatever else it deems important. Sure, introduce something like S0 and spend time improving it. Try to "perfect" it like how Apple has seemingly perfected its low energy use modes on its devices. It will probably take MSoft 10 more years. But don't also artificially restrict the use of other sleep states. On the new laptop it is supposedly a hardware restriction, but I'm guessing it's more just some firmware toggle (IIRC some laptops have had S1-3 re-enabled via firmware updates, but I'm not entirely sure now). Edit: it seems that MS has patched a bunch of regedit tweaks that used to allow re-enabling more sleep states[1], though it depends on exactly what laptop model you are on as well I suppose. [0] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/power/system-power-states#sleep-state-modern-standby https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/power/system-... [1] https://superuser.com/questions/1179987 https://superuser.com/questions/1179987
• sandworm101 4y ago
  Cars. Cars are ubiquitous. They are everywhere. We all relate to them without thinking. Cars run on batteries. Even IC runs various systems using battery power when parked. But do cars have an off switch? To turn them truly off, such as when storing for a long period, the procedure is take a wrench and physically disconnect the 12v battery. So I disagree with the author. At least some battery-powered products are doing perfectly well without off switches. Other IC vehicles, notably aircraft, do have true off switches that fully shut electrical power at the source. So it isn't anything inherent to IC technology. Consumers have spoken: some things do not need off switches.
  • titzer 4y ago
    My car's entertainment system is stuck in a crash loop 24/7. It is slowly draining the battery, to the point where I worry my car won't start if it has been off for more than a week or two. And I don't agree that "consumers have spoken". Consumers don't design cars; their feedback loop is long, lossy, and easily ignored. Profitability drives car design, not what consumers want.
    • zerocrates 4y ago
      I have a Ford that sometimes has a similar problem: a freeze/crash in the entertainment system makes it partially unresponsive (so it can be stuck playing whatever it was playing at whatever volume it was at) and it will just eat the battery in no time. The solution is to pull the fuse to restart the thing. There's a big Microsoft logo badge right on the center console letting me know who to thank for that.
    • LorenPechtel 4y ago
      I've hit that problem without a crashed entertainment system in my Corolla. When we go away by air I connect a battery maintainer.
  • ehhthing 4y ago
    Can we add pacemakers to this list too? A bad lurch could kill someone...
• backtoyoujim 4y ago
  I have a corollary: that these on and off switches should not require "an app".
• memco 4y ago
  An off switch is always handy. I have a monitor without a power button and so I can’t shut it off without disconnecting it. It also makes it harder to troubleshoot when there’s no signal: is it the power or data that’s at fault? I’m not sure because there’s no buttons at all so I just have to keep connecting and disconnecting cables until it works which is more difficult to discern because I’m looking at the back where the cables go rather than where the output is displayed.
  • weberer 4y ago
    Just plug it in to a power strip that has a switch.
• bonestamp2 4y ago
  Apple Airpods Max: My biggest complaint about these is that they don't have a proper power switch that absolutely cuts the power. This is especially awful since the case they ship with is awful and I don't want to use (but it, or some other magnetic solution is required to put them in low power mode. I don't want low power mode, I want no power mode. Just put a damn switch on them!
• code_duck 4y ago
  One of the most annoying on-off interfaces I deal with for an electronic device is my insulin pump. When one intentionally turns off delivery or it runs out of insulin, it beeps loudly every few minutes. To turn it off, it has to be plugged in, and then the shallow, stiff button on the top held for 20-30 seconds. Turning it on is easier, but opaque - connecting it to power starts it up after a few seconds. I understand why a crucial medical device doesn't have an off switch that could be engaged accidentally, but I don't understand why they tie the function to being connected to a power source.
• WalterBright 4y ago
  It'd be very, very nice if devices with re-flashable memory had a physical write-enable switch on it. No, not a software switch. With physical write-enable, no more malware getting installed on them.
• WalterBright 4y ago
  I installed a battery cutoff switch on my car. One of the best investments in upgrading a car. My Kindles all die fairly quickly even when off. A lot of my electronics is plugged in via bus strips with off switches.
  • tempestn 4y ago
    Don't you find it annoying losing all the settings in your car? Radio stations, etc.? If you're leaving your car for a long time without driving it, I would suggest adding a pigtail to make it easy to plug in a battery tender instead.
    • WalterBright 4y ago
      Not really. I lose the presets, but I play music from a USB stick anyway. It's far, far less trouble than coming back from a trip and finding your car dead in the airport parking lot. Many times I've also discovered a dead battery in the morning because the door wasn't closed all the way and the interior light was on. Ugh. Having a separate "tender battery" for car-is-off power needs is a fine idea. Another idea is for a battery voltage monitor that will cut off the battery if the voltage starts to drop.
      • tempestn 4y ago
        They're not cheap, but Antigravity batteries (1) implement that. It monitors battery voltage and disconnects when it reaches a given level. To start the car you just press a button on a fob to internally connect to the reserve, and off you go. Doubly useful for Lithium batteries since they really don't like being over-discharged. 1: https://antigravitybatteries.com/ https://antigravitybatteries.com/
• kornhole 4y ago
  I like to walk into cell phone stores and ask if they have any phones with an off switch. These are of course rare and only sold by niche companies like Pine and Purism. Everything else just looks like it is off while it is still transmitting in low energy mode.
  • hunter2_ 4y ago
    Wait... If I power off (not sleep) a typical phone, it still transmits? I know there's the baseband processor that does its own thing, but I would've thought the userland "off" state shuts that off, along with everything else except for whatever watches the power button and battery charging.
    • Saris 4y ago
      It's a ridiculously easy thing to test, and I've never heard of a phone transmitting while powered off or in airplane mode so far. The FCC for one would throw a fit if airplane mode or power off still actively transmitted.
      • kornhole 4y ago
        I would be very curious to know how one could test this so easily. https://www.imobie.com/icloud-unlock/locate-a-lost-cell-phone-that-is-turned-off.htm https://www.imobie.com/icloud-unlock/locate-a-lost-cell-phon... and many articles demonstrate that even when a Google or IOS phone is off it can still transmit its location. This means it is not truly off and could possibly transmit more information than you realize. My custom OS phone does not do this TMK, and I am just SOL if I lose it. This is the price I am willing to pay.
        • Saris 4y ago
          An RF power meter or spectrum analyzer. It would be very clear if a device is radiating enough RF energy to make a connection. Battery life is another giveaway, I've had android phones turned off in a drawer for months and they still have nearly 100% charge when turned back on. If they were using enough power to make any kind of cell connection, the battery would be dead in a few days. The link you have there even says "When your phone is turned off or runs out of battery, you won’t be able to track its real-time location"
• deanCommie 4y ago
  I watch my Roku SmartTV about 3 times a week for about an hour or two (most of the rest is on my PC) During that time, I maybe tap the buttons a dozen times as i scan around to the app and the thing i want to watch. I have to replace the 2 AAA batteries inside that thing easily every 3 months. WHY.
• thealistra 4y ago
  People say everything (and everything should have user replaceable batteries). I would not like a pacemaker with an off switch you can trigger by accident or have it have user replaceable batteries - seems dangerous to your health
• dtgriscom 4y ago
  [dead]
• lynx09 4y ago
  What about pacemakers? If that is the exception, then not everything with a battery needs an off switch.
  • timothyduong 4y ago
    I had this same thought. Also quartz wrist watches. Turn that quartz watch into an automatic that you wear seldomly. (Aka you need to readjust the time each time you wear it!)
• diegof79 4y ago
  Example in front of me: the MacBook Pro. At some point when Apple introduced the touchbar someone decided that you don’t need to truly turn it off… and it automatically turns on when you press a key. Meaning that you can’t cleanup the keyboard without draining the battery first. (I tried looking for undocumented configs to turn this off… for years -well more or less since 2017)
  • priteau 4y ago
    There are utilities to help with this problem: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2021/06/04/keyboardcleantool https://daringfireball.net/linked/2021/06/04/keyboardcleanto...
    • diegof79 4y ago
      I used KeyboardCleanTool but it didn't worked for me. What it does is to put an app window that captures keyboard events, but you can still press certain keys (like a lock screen shortcut in the touch bar) to by-pass it. Many times what I did is to open vi in the terminal... and it does the same without the extra app.
• fennecfoxy 4y ago
  >Buys lowest common denominator/cheapest product >"oh no this product is really bad and the features don't make sense" Alright buddy. There are plenty of devices I have without an off switch that work perfectly fine. In terms of controllers, the Xbox controllers I have will go to sleep after not having been used for a little while and conserve battery that way. The problem isn't lack of off switches, it's the lack of features related to the lack of an off switch.
  • indrora 4y ago
    Except that the PDP folks are the biggest name in blessed Switch controllers, making many of the officially licensed character controllers such as the Mario and Luigi branded ones. They were given access to the original GameCube controller molds and design files and created the better SSB controllers. The hierarchy is Nintendo, PDP, hyperkin, 8bitdo, everyone else. This is endemic to the PDP controllers. If I want to turn off an Xbox One controller, I can pop the batteries or it'll turn off after it's not connected for 30 seconds. PDP wireless Switch controllers? 10 minutes later and they're still hunting for their paired console, often with no way to forcibly turn it off. Even 8bitdo do in several iterations have Xbox style battery compartments and their fighter pad has a physical switch. PDP can ship these cheap because they can have loss leaders in the low cost options, making up for the difference with their high end controllers and even their rather extensive selection of other console controllers. Ironically, their switch joycon charger dock is one of the best and some of their headsets are rivaling even the better Gamer ones now.
  • LorenPechtel 4y ago
    If it's got a processor someday that processor will need to be rebooted. Provide me some means of doing so!
    • Kirby64 4y ago
      Not necessarily true. Embedded software with extremely well defined process loops should never need rebooting. In practice there can be bugs, but this is not a given. There's probably substantially more embedded software than you're aware that never needs or gets rebooted.
• foxyv 4y ago
  Nowadays, the passive energy usage of the device can use less than the self discharge of the battery. This kind of makes an off switch pointless.