1d ago

“How you design the beep is important.” Behind the movement for calmer gadgets.

The Eight Laws of ~~Robotics~~ Calmness:

Technology should require the smallest possible amount of attention.
Technology should inform and create calm.
Technology should make use of the periphery.
Technology should amplify the best of technology and the best of humanity.
Technology can communicate, but doesn’t need to speak.
Technology should work even when it fails.
The right amount of technology is the minimum needed to solve the problem.
Technology should respect social norms.

I'm a little suspicious about a certification body that's paid for by producers, but it's fine if they can make it work.

52 comments

I'm not sure where whimsy fits into that list, but my dishwasher plays a little victory tune when it finishes washing. It sounds like something from an early 90s jrpg. It makes me smile every time I hear it.
- Oh God yes, this, love that! My washing machine makes a very cheesy victory music with 90's beep speakers, it sounds like shit but it's awesome and makes me smile every time I hear it.
  It's awesome but I do worry that now all producers will pick up on that idea and soon the fridge will be playing a shitty Melody every time I open it
  
  I don't want my fridge to play a melody, but it might help if it oinks.
- https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rgUksX6eM0Y
- LG? Mine does the same. Also my washing machine plays the same tune.
  
  I'm pretty sure it's Whirlpool, but I think they repackage devices built by other companies.
- I've got an anecdote in a similar vein about my dishwasher. It has a little lighted screen that tells you what phase of the wash it's in. At some point part of the screen broke so it doesn't show the G in "washing" and "drying" anymore. When I look at it, it reads as Washin' or Dryin' and it makes me smile because it feels like my washer has gotten a little sassy in its old age
  
  I enjoy technology that feels like it has a little personality.
- I have a zojirushi rice cooker that’s similar and I love it!
  Other then that my oven, coffee maker, kettle, kitchen fan all have the same shrill beep that’s hard to know what’s what.
  
  Every device should sing its own song. Maybe if you start them together they can form a chorus? Like some sort of appliance band.
  
  Why am I stuck thinking of the turrets from Portal 2?
  
  The rice cooker jingle slaps
- Whereas I think the opposite with my washer and dryer. It plays a little tune when it’s done. I’m sure that’s nice but I’d rather tha annoying loud buzz because I’ll actually hear it.
  Maybe I missed the boat and no one else has laundry in their basement anymore, but I want a notification that successfully notifies me.
  I always wondered why there wasn’t a basic pluggable notification capability. Consider a landline phone or a doorbell: you could buy devices to vibrate or flash, or be really loud, so hearing impaired folk get the notification. Don’t those same hearing impaired people also need to do laundry? Don’t lots of people with good hearing still have laundry in basements and garages? Why hasn’t there been a standard cheap notification output for decades, even from analog times?
  
  Being able to plug in a notification device would be awesome.
  
  You could plug in a power meter with wifi and look what power is used.
  You could use a babyphone or a camera (e.g. an old phone).
  I'm not sure if an Alexa (Echo Dot or so) would react on the little tune of your washer, but it hears the standard annoying beeps of my washer.
  
  I assumed I’d do the power meter at some point.although some sort of sound recognition would be better, if t exists
  
  I saw a gadget once where they used a motion sensor to sense when the washer and dryer were done.
  I have a baby monitor for my kids (1 way audio because I wanted to limit the privacy risk and I suspect more than that can lead to some bad habits) and it clearly filters for sounds at roughly the frequency of kids voices because you can't consistently say something over it and hear it on the other side, but my kid can go up to it and dictate a 500 word essay that summarizes down to "there's a bug on the window" and we'll hear every breath and word
  
  Our machines have the ability to turn the buzzer on after each cycle, but it's not sticky. Given how far away from everything else the laundry room is, even with the chime you can't really hear it. So I have it set to just ping our phones when a load is done
  
  When I bought my machines,the ability to ping my phone would have cost $600 more.m I don’t want it that much, but there’s also no reason it should cost that much or that we should be dependent on an appliance maker to figure out notifications.
  At some point I’ll probably cobble together some sort of automation

52 comments