My wife Kathy recently bought a nice-looking LED light. It has solar cells for recharging and a big battery, so it could be very useful. Much to my surprise, it has a variety of modes: bright white light, slightly yellowish light, red light, blinking red light, and one other mode I forget. There’s only one problem: I couldn’t figure out how to turn it on. When I pushed the power button, it went through some sort of demonstration display showing off its many modes of operation. This was all very impressive, but I merely wanted the bright white light. Yet, try as I may, I could not figure out how to turn on the light.
Now, the user interface for lights has been pretty well established for over a century. There’s a switch. You flip the switch up to turn it on, and slip the switch down to turn it off. I won’t bother posting a photo here; I’m pretty sure that you’ve seen such switches.
For some reason, though, the designers of this device felt that it needed a 21st century user interface. Here are the instructions for using it:
Now, there are three control buttons, labeled 4, 5, and 6. The instructions for those buttons are also 4, 5, and 6. But this device does not work as specified in these instructions. If you press button #5, as per instruction #5, it cycles through the different modes. If you press button #6 as per instruction #6, it steps through the modes, but when you release that button, it reverts to the demonstration mode.
I tried all manner of combinations of buttons, (two buttons pressed at the same time, one button pressed and held for several seconds, and various sequences of buttons). I eventually got it working, but I have no idea what actually worked. Now, when I press button #5, the bright white light turns on. When I press it again, the bright white light turns off. I don’t dare touch anything else; who knows what could happen?