4 ms·

I have owned many freezers and fridges in my life, an it was always "higher number = colder". Which is usually completely obvious, because the dial includes a 0

by lqet 3y ago

I have owned many freezers and fridges in my life, an it was always "higher number = colder". Which is usually completely obvious, because the dial includes a 0 position, which shuts it off.

arethuza 3y ago
We have two fridges in our kitchen so I went and checked - one uses the "higher number = colder" approach and the other is marked in degrees C...
dagw 3y ago
Both my fridge and freezer controls are labeled in deg C and you select the actual temperature you want. Which seems to me to be the only completely obvious way to do it.
- kwhitefoot 3y ago
  Only works if the dial is calibrated. This very much not the case in the old days of mechanical thermostats. They were reliable and repeatable but not calibrated.
- lqet 3y ago
  My parents have a new IKEA fridge, and it also has buttons in degrees Celsius. But as I mentioned below, until quite recently, the knob mechanically influenced a bimetallic strip which shut off the power when it became too cold. You cannot expect precise temperature control from this setup, and any calibration would likely be lost after some months of wear & tear. So printing exact temperature measurements on the knob would've given a false sense of precision. I also suspect that at least in some jurisdictions, some governmental body would require exact and lasting calibration if exact temperatures were printed on the knob. At least where I come from, thermometers used for food must be calibrated and approved by a governmental authority.
- iforgotpassword 3y ago
  I've had both and both make sense. If there's no unit on display it's higher number = more cold (more power usage), without knowing how cold exactly. There is also a 0 usually, which can only mean off. Having 7 represent off would make no sense at all.
- PennRobotics 3y ago
  Big snowflake(s), medium snowflake, small snowflake on the dial. All embossed, of course. Arrow/tick mark on the panel. The bonus is this works in all temperature scales and language systems and probably includes most perception disabilities---blind, dyslexic, illiterate, etc. But I could still imagine a handful of people messing this one up. (Also, if the thing has an off mode... how do you mark and emboss that? A giant X? Well that looks like a snowflake, especially to your fingertip! A zero? A small horizontal line? Or, probably best, just a separate on/off switch...)
  - the_third_wave 3y ago
    > Big snowflake(s), medium snowflake, small snowflake on the dial. If you live in a snow-prone area you'll know that large snowflakes (which are actually clumps of flakes which happened to meet and merge on the way down) mean higher temperatures while small flakes equate to lower temperatures. So... Put it on the big flake to raise the temperature?
  - mcphage 3y ago
    > Also, if the thing has an off mode... how do you mark and emboss that? Make it a separate control entirely.
extraduder_ire 3y ago
I think of the number as representing "cooling power" since that's what the machine's purpose/function is. I had been unsure about this for a number of years, until one day I decided to check by slowly turning the knob to both extremes and listening for when the compressor kicked on and shut off.
Ajay-p 3y ago
I have only had the freezers in the apartments that I rent, and it is an escalating number. The question is not "how cold" does the dial make it, but the amount of cold we are asking the compressor etc. to make. For example, if you notice on older cars there is a dial for the air conditioning. On that dial there is a gradually increasing line of thickness (in blue in my mother's 2010 Camry). Increasing makes the car colder, or rather it makes the compressor deliver more cold air into the vehicle. So .. why is this dial on this freezer like that? Because I think at one time in history we viewed air conditioning as a manufactured force. Increasing the number is to increase the intensity of that mechanical force.

by lqet 3y ago

I have owned many freezers and fridges in my life, an it was always "higher number = colder". Which is usually completely obvious, because the dial includes a 0 position, which shuts it off.

arethuza 3y ago

We have two fridges in our kitchen so I went and checked - one uses the "higher number = colder" approach and the other is marked in degrees C...

dagw 3y ago

Both my fridge and freezer controls are labeled in deg C and you select the actual temperature you want. Which seems to me to be the only completely obvious way to do it.

kwhitefoot 3y ago
Only works if the dial is calibrated. This very much not the case in the old days of mechanical thermostats. They were reliable and repeatable but not calibrated.
lqet 3y ago
My parents have a new IKEA fridge, and it also has buttons in degrees Celsius. But as I mentioned below, until quite recently, the knob mechanically influenced a bimetallic strip which shut off the power when it became too cold. You cannot expect precise temperature control from this setup, and any calibration would likely be lost after some months of wear & tear. So printing exact temperature measurements on the knob would've given a false sense of precision. I also suspect that at least in some jurisdictions, some governmental body would require exact and lasting calibration if exact temperatures were printed on the knob. At least where I come from, thermometers used for food must be calibrated and approved by a governmental authority.
iforgotpassword 3y ago
I've had both and both make sense. If there's no unit on display it's higher number = more cold (more power usage), without knowing how cold exactly. There is also a 0 usually, which can only mean off. Having 7 represent off would make no sense at all.
PennRobotics 3y ago
Big snowflake(s), medium snowflake, small snowflake on the dial. All embossed, of course. Arrow/tick mark on the panel. The bonus is this works in all temperature scales and language systems and probably includes most perception disabilities---blind, dyslexic, illiterate, etc. But I could still imagine a handful of people messing this one up. (Also, if the thing has an off mode... how do you mark and emboss that? A giant X? Well that looks like a snowflake, especially to your fingertip! A zero? A small horizontal line? Or, probably best, just a separate on/off switch...)
- the_third_wave 3y ago
  > Big snowflake(s), medium snowflake, small snowflake on the dial. If you live in a snow-prone area you'll know that large snowflakes (which are actually clumps of flakes which happened to meet and merge on the way down) mean higher temperatures while small flakes equate to lower temperatures. So... Put it on the big flake to raise the temperature?
- mcphage 3y ago
  > Also, if the thing has an off mode... how do you mark and emboss that? Make it a separate control entirely.

extraduder_ire 3y ago

I think of the number as representing "cooling power" since that's what the machine's purpose/function is. I had been unsure about this for a number of years, until one day I decided to check by slowly turning the knob to both extremes and listening for when the compressor kicked on and shut off.

Ajay-p 3y ago

I have only had the freezers in the apartments that I rent, and it is an escalating number. The question is not "how cold" does the dial make it, but the amount of cold we are asking the compressor etc. to make. For example, if you notice on older cars there is a dial for the air conditioning. On that dial there is a gradually increasing line of thickness (in blue in my mother's 2010 Camry). Increasing makes the car colder, or rather it makes the compressor deliver more cold air into the vehicle. So .. why is this dial on this freezer like that? Because I think at one time in history we viewed air conditioning as a manufactured force. Increasing the number is to increase the intensity of that mechanical force.