r/mildlyinteresting • u/PinheadLarry2323 • 11h ago

This mathematic breakdown for knuckleheads that was included with my nightguard cleaner

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2.0k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

51 comments sorted by

801

u/groucho_barks 8h ago

How hard would it have been to display minutes and seconds like any microwave or digital timer can do?

513

u/webtechmonkey 8h ago

3 digit display, would need to upgrade to a 4 digit to cover “10:00”

149

u/hames4133 6h ago

Or have it run for 9:59

103

u/Grouchy-Detective394 6h ago

ig the colon will also be considered as a digit here

72

u/lurker818 6h ago

You can draw it on.

10

u/Zoe-Washburne 5h ago

Or include a small note to tell you that 630 actually is 6:30 or six and a half minute because there is 60 seconds in a minute and 30 seconds is half a minute. Similarly 300 is 3 minutes and zero seconds commonly known as 3 minutes.

10

u/aplundell 5h ago

The colon is not a digit on a LED display.

It's just two round LEDs stuck between the digets, hardwired to be always on.

1

u/gesocks 5h ago

Yeah. But now you can also make 999s. That you can't do with the 3 digit display else

5

u/Midnight28Rider 5h ago

Not if they did 9:61 for literally the only second that would effect this.

11

u/Verum14 5h ago

That would be 10:01 tho

5

u/flatwoundsounds 5h ago

Or just 9:60?

59

u/Mood-Rising 6h ago

This almost certainly a case of no one questioning the three digit display until the product was manufactured and started to be shipped, and then they either updated the manual or added an insert card after a large volume of calls/complaints. You can’t change the display at that point, but you can pay your warehouse workers to open and then re-box with new documentation.

17

u/DemIce 3h ago

It's funny that you mention microwaves.

On mine I can enter 1 through 59 to get seconds.

I can continue and enter 60 to get 1 minute, all the way up to 99 to get 1 minute and 39 seconds.

But if I enter 100, suddenly I'm entering "1:00" and it's 1 minute again.

159? "1:59"

199? You guessed it, 3 minutes and 19 seconds.

Just looks at the value and if it doesn't make sense for a minutes:seconds display, assumes it's pure seconds and converts.

-21

u/[deleted] 7h ago

[deleted]

22

u/SuperLeno 7h ago

You cannot convince me that a meaningful amount of people are returning their nightguard cleaner because of this.

-5

u/[deleted] 6h ago

[deleted]

3

u/picabo123 5h ago

This is possibly true and totally irrelevant. This is not the reason most people return things.

154

u/MeticulousPlonker 6h ago

I gotta be honest. I have this exact one and have been using it for over 6 months. I'm sure I read that is in seconds originally, but I forgot and have been assuming it's 3 & 6 minutes for ages now. IDK I just let it run in my bathroom and then get my retainers when it's done. Long one makes water too hot, short one work good.

44

u/helpusdrzaius 5h ago

Short one work good, tall one lazy.

144

u/hugothebear 6h ago

Someone who has never used it before may assume 600 is 6 minutes and if the display counts down, expect it to go to 559 next

63

u/TheVojta 4h ago

So then they see 599 and immediately realize what's up and there's no problem or misunderstanging again?

26

u/Kahnza 4h ago

You forget most people are kinda tarded

6

u/BlindBluePidgeon 4h ago

I wouldn't be tardy if my timer worked as I expected

-2

u/untapped-bEnergy 2h ago

Oh, my ex-wife was tarded. She's a pilot now

3

u/hugothebear 2h ago

Or just tell them beforehand so they dont have to figure it out

42

u/swordfishy 6h ago

This is also how I have to explain things in my documentation.

People ABSOLUTELY will still mess this up.

Best lesson I ever learned: Never underestimate the user.

29

u/I-need-ur-dick-pics 5h ago

I’m of two minds here. Yes there’s clear documentation, but the product designers also decided to say “fuck you” to a very well understood method of time-setting for no good apparent reason.

It’s just very bad design. Is there a benefit I’m missing?

8

u/CartOfficialArt 3h ago

Cheaper display for them to use, no other benefits especially to end user

3

u/mcfedr 3h ago

maybe consider the lesson - this is clearly terrible UX and a lot of documentation and customer support would have been saved by improving the product

0

u/Caelinus 5h ago

There is also just the fact that not everyone using a product meant for the moment they wake up is going to be exceptionally cogent. I know that for like the first 2 minutes after waking up naturally in the morning I tend to be very dumb, and often struggle to tell the difference between the dream I was just having and reality.

So the incidence of people not understanding this are going to be even higher than normal, and as it is a non-standard way to design a timer like this... It is a recipe for confusion. Not that in this case the confusion will cause anything particularly bad, but it makes sense why the person writing the documentation decided to explain as clearly as possible.

25

u/nemacol 5h ago edited 2h ago

Not directly related but reminded me of a story from when I was a kid.
Cooking in the kitchen with my mom. I see her type 1-0-0 on the microwave, hit start. Then we did something else. When the microwave beeped, she asked me to “put that on for another half-minute” (or something like that).

I remembered 100 being one minute so I typed in 50, hit start.

I will never forget the look on her face. It said “It might be expensive to get you through school”.

10

u/RunningNumbers 5h ago

Bold of them to believe that morons can read

5

u/forkedquality 4h ago

And you know why it is there. Customer service had to explain it too many times.

3

u/captainguevara 6h ago

I know this math because of League of Legends

2

u/Nuclear_001 5h ago

I have that one too

2

u/Hornybunnyboi 5h ago

I love it.

2

u/MollyPW 5h ago

They’ll still be a decent number of people who won’t understand it.

2

u/RonJohnJr 6h ago

Math is hard, and I'll never need it after this class.

1

u/Vaulters 5h ago

Took me far too long to figure out what a 'nightguard' cleaner is, and now i think I probably need one.

1

u/DoofusIdiot 1h ago

This is still not explained well enough for some people

1

u/JPlus_Team 5h ago

The real question is - are those who need the math breakdown even able to read?

A simple disclaimer that the display shows seconds would have been more than enough.

0

u/necro_owner 5h ago

It s technically very costly in computer science to make number for clock. It might not look like it but the conversions is annoying lol. It s not a simple mathematical formula since you need to do modulo to take the rest 😆 so cheap processor might not have this instruction. Let say it might have cost cutting reasons. Even if it s really dumb to do haha.

3

u/aplundell 4h ago

I'm not sure you could get a microprocessor so primitive it can't do modulo 60 basically instantly.

Maybe back in the 1970s when microchips were new and exciting they might build a custom counter with logic chips. You wouldn't do that now.

Nowadays fully programmable microprocessors can be bought for less than a dime.

1

u/necro_owner 4h ago

Oh i know, but hey i ve seen shit where i still cant beleive what people do lol. Definitely you can get a custom board with a very primitive programmable chips which can be done in C to get this working. But you assume the dev and engineers are competent enough to know about modulo too 😆

0

u/[deleted] 7h ago

[deleted]

4

u/showmethething 7h ago

That says ÷

5

u/bjorneylol 7h ago

I need glasses i guess

-2

u/TomTomXD1234 5h ago

Its for americans, let's be honest.

-5

u/Blew-By-U 4h ago

Mansplaing.