Yes, that’s the way my two Subarus used to work. Now it never activates unless I press the button. Makes me happy.
On the topic of car annoyances, something I regularly post about in “small annoyances” kinds of places.
My GMC truck has a “parking assist” feature that uses sensors in the bumpers to warn me with an annoying beep if I get close to anything. Except it is stupid and useless, crying “wolf” all of the time.
There is a handy button on the dash to disable “parking assist”…but it comes back on when you restart the truck. No worries–there is a menu item in the setup menu for this specific purpose…but that resets itself too in a madding way when the truck restarts.
I have heard rumors that a mechanic with a laptop and the right software can neuter this stupid thing via the OBD-II port, but nothing solid.
Simply covering the sensors or disconnecting them is a no-go because they play a part in the air bag system I think, so by covering them, necessary emergency features could be disabled.
So I press that stupid button every time I start the truck.
**F’**d Over Road Disaster!
That would probably also register as there always being something close to you and continually triggering the alarm.
Most cars have something like that. Which also get more insistent as you get closer.
But if you have something that simply blasts a warning whenever you’re within a few feet of an obstacle would sure be useless and vexing.
Worse…it blasts a warning whenever it feels like it. I can be in traffic that slows for a traffic light and it might go off. Horrible design, guaranteed to be shut off and/or ignored.
Jeebus, that’s incompetent.
I’d almost wonder if that system on your vehicle is defective somehow, with one wonky sensor or whatever. Unless you’ve researched it online, or had it checked out or whatever. In which case I’m just flommoxed about that.
I absolutely hate my new Samsung washing machine. It thinks too much.
It is perfectly level and balanced but has no agitator, it uses water jets to balance the load, and it does it very poorly. So it will drain, try to spin, and find the load unbalaced, which it created on its own. The solution it has is to fill it up with water again and try to rebalance the load again, but that rarely works, so it will drain and refill over and over costing a fortune in water.
After several cycles of draining and refilling, I turn it off, rebalance the load by hand, and set the controls to "Spin Only’. Guess what happens if it thinks the load is still unbalanced, on the no water spin only setting?
It will fill itself back up with water anyway. Called around, no one services Samsung washing machines. I wonder why?
I like my Pixel 3 watch generally, but one of the things that annoys me if that if it runs out of battery (which happens routinely) I have to reset the brightness settings every time. Which means the battery runs down even faster if I forget.
I also had to essentially side load some feature enhancements to make them useful. Like forcing the screen to stay on for three whole seconds when there’s a notification, because by default it’s about 0.05 seconds. Stuff like that, that was just so poorly thought out.
I got a 5 year old LG refridgerator for $100 and it lasted another 5 years until the compressor went out. The local appliance repair place said “We won’t even touch those”
Oh, you can get them mechanically repaired. The big problem is trying to get them counseling.
Before you get fed up with it, and switch to a Samsung, it’s no better over here. Always On Display frequently turns off. There has got to be some kind of heuristic, or bug, where it will turn off the AOD if it thinks the watch is covered, or if it is not moving. That means AOD constantly turns off in dimly lit rooms. Except when it doesn’t, and it stays on.
There is a setting to bring up the media controls when I start playing something on the phone. They rarely ever come up on their own. Except sometimes they do. They always come up when I take the watch off the charger. It will show me controls for whatever the last thing I was playing.
I had been getting great battery life, then something happened this summer where it wouldn’t even last a day. Then last month it went back to great battery life. And by “great battery life” all I mean is that it lasts about 30 hours, so when I charge it every 24 I don’t have to worry about it. 12 hours is not great battery life.
My wife’s Subaru Ascent turns on the radio every time you start it. Even if it had been off the last time you drove it. Drives me nuts. Why, why is it doing this? I guess my wife is used to this as she always listens to the radio.
When we are in the car together, we don’t generally listen to the radio on short trips.
A few hours I happened to look and my phone and noticed the lock screen was indicating it was in Do Not Disturb mode. That’s odd, I only have it scheduled to go into that mode during the hours I normally sleep. Checking the settings, I discovered iOS now has a “smart activation” setting for Do Not Disturb mode, which was turned on by default. So my phone was deciding for me when I shouldn’t be disturbed, without my knowledge, “based on signals like your location, app usage, and more”. That explains why I keep missing texts – my phone decided on its own that it shouldn’t notify me.
Yes, Minister.
Mine autoplays my podcasts every time you start it, which means every time I use the remote starter it plays the podcast for about ten minutes before I get into the car.
It occurred to me today that modern cars have a vulnerability that didn’t exist when I was a kid. Suppose I leave my car keys at my desk at work and someone swipes them (or I drop the key inadvertently at the mall, or whatever). Back in the day someone with my key could tell what the make of my car was - and maybe the model if the key was fancy. But that didn’t help them find my car in the parking lot. Today, my key can help them find my car in a few minutes.
A slight improvement at best.
Back in the day I had stick the key I stole into every Oldsmobile. So laborious.
Nowadays I can push the button on the fob I stole every 5 or 6 cars or so. But if you have your car configured to not beep when unlocking, I still need to pull on the door handle of every car of your brand to find out if that’s the one I unlocked with your fob.
Pro tip: Configure your car to not beep when unlocking. And don’t leave your car keys where they can be readily stolen.
Pedantic former Buick owner: Every GM car. Their keys just had the GM logo on them, not the specific make.
But couldn’t the thief just walk around pressing the alarm button until a car starts incessantly honking?
I suppose they could. But different makes of fob have different arrangements.
There is no beep or alarm button on my fob, nor the previous 3 I’ve had. To trigger the remote alarm you need to know to press and hold this and that button for 3 seconds.