Bad Design #3: Garage Door Opener
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This is my garage door opener. It has a single button to add new garage door signal transmitters(remotes) so that they will open the garage door. The downfall? The same button also clears all transmitters currently known by the garage door opener(receiver) if held too long. When I was connecting my remote, I read the first line of the instructions that say press and HOLD the button on the transmitter. I was not thinking clearly and held the button on the garage door opener instead. That wiped the other remotes that were already known by the receiver. This annoyed my roommates since they then had to connect their remotes again. I have had to connect many wireless devices together such as computer mice or the controllers to an Xbox 360 which built a standard that requires buttons on both devices to be held down. This presents a problem when the garage door opener design goes against this standard and instead clears its memory when the button is held down.
This sounds like a very confusing design! It must have been frustrating to have to recalibrate it. Good job with the blog, very thorough posts. Keep it up!
ReplyDeleteIt seems like this has become a trend in design flaws. Devices with one button for multiple, conflicting functions are absolutely terrible! Never thought someone would design a garage door motor like that though; how thoughtless.
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