I’ve never fully understood how the ‘popcorn’ button on microwaves work (I’ve read different things that may or may not all be true depending on make/model), but my current one always runs for exactly 3 seconds too long and ever so slightly burns the popcorn.
It’s not burned enough to throw it out, but it does give a noticeable “burnt popcorn” smell that kind of ruins my day.
So instead of pressing “popcorn” and doing something else, I have to stand there and watch it to hit ‘cancel’ in time.
I always thought it was weird that they don’t just stuff a cheapo little microphone in against an interior panel and write a couple lines of code, when it detects 3 really loud sounds within 1 second disable the timer, and when it detects a sound after a 2 second gap, turn off if no new sound detected within 2 seconds
Some do, in fact.
Because that takes infinitely more resources than not doing it.
Same can be said for the normally implemented popcorn button. May as well spend 9 cents on a shitty electret mic and 6 cents on a marginally larger IC
You’re way underestimating the BOM and engineering costs, and also eating directly into the shareholder value, communist.