# Stupidest product design you’ve experienced **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 25, 2023, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621 "2023-03-25T02:57:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 111
**Author:** ![GESancMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gesancman/32/2923_2.png) [@GESancMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GESancMan)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/2201 "2026-06-29T14:17:09Z")
> [@enipla](#): > > I’ve got some ear buds that my wife bought. She doesn’t like them. I understand. I do wear them when mowing grass. The on/off switch is pretty much the entire back of the thing. Phizo electric or whatever. It’s touch sensitive. So, when you try to adjust the fit, you often turn them off/on. I DO have to touch it to adjust it in my ear. Yeah, my ear buds were ridiculous. Touching them in any way would have all kinds of unpredictable effects. And I couldn’t see any controls on the damn things. Many times I would take them out and put them back in their case, then later realize that when doing so, my music had started up again, and had been going all that time. I finally figured out I could download an app for my phone and set all of the controls on the ear buds to “do nothing,” which solved my issues. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2026, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/2202 "2026-06-30T11:55:56Z")
This is a minor gripe, a bit of an annoyance, but I’m surprised it made it to market like this. The ‘baffles’ or flaps or whatever they’re called inside a dryer drum that cause the clothes to tumble. On my dryer, they don’t extend all the way to the front, leaving a gap of maybe two inches or so. The problem is, about half the time I run the dryer, when it’s done, I’ll find a wet sock or something stuck in there. At least it’s normally something like a sock that I can just lay out and it’ll air dry. From time to time it’ll be something bigger, for example, the leg of my jeans, which causes them to get twisted and sometimes even wrapping up other things with it. It usually means having to pull it all apart and start the dryer back up. On the occasions that I think of it, I’ll make a point of checking on it before it finishes running. ---
**Author:** ![dougrb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/76d3ee/32.png) [@dougrb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougrb)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2026, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/2203 "2026-06-30T21:53:18Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > leaving a gap of maybe two inches or so This might help. I discovered these a while back when a friend washed some clothes here. They keep things from clumping up. I have one hard plastic one like in the pic. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dryer\_ball](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dryer_ball) ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2026, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/2204 "2026-07-01T05:13:47Z")
> [@dougrb](#): > > This might help. I discovered these a while back when a friend washed some clothes here. They keep things from clumping up. I have one hard plastic one like in the pic. > > [Dryer ball - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dryer_ball) But your link says: > **Disputed efficacy** > > The efficacy of plastic dryer balls was disputed by Popular Mechanics who, in 2009, published experiment results in which staff were unable to find any beneficial effects.[8] Their link didn’t work. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2026, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/2205 "2026-07-01T13:40:57Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > Their link didn’t work. And neither does a drier ball. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2026, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/2206 "2026-07-01T13:51:40Z")
That Wikipedia article talks about dryer balls as an alternative to dryer sheets. @dougrb suggested dryer balls to help prevent clumping. I have heard the suggestion to use tennis balls for that purpose. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2026, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/2207 "2026-07-01T13:57:23Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > I have heard the suggestion to use tennis balls for that purpose. My wife does that when she puts sheets in the dryer. She says it helps to keep them from clumping up. Sometimes. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2026, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/2208 "2026-07-01T13:58:49Z")
What happens to me when drying sheets is the whole thing balls up, usually in the fitted sheet. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2026, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/2209 "2026-07-01T14:51:41Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > What happens to me when drying sheets is the whole thing balls up, usually in the fitted sheet And? > [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > That Wikipedia article talks about dryer balls as an alternative to dryer sheets. @dougrb suggested dryer balls to help prevent clumping. > [@](#): > > Dryer balls are said to act as a moving buffer, preventing wet laundry from coalescing in the dryer, allowing increased air flow.[3] > … Popular Mechanics who, in 2009, published experiment results in which staff were unable to find any beneficial effects.[8] > [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > I have heard the suggestion to use tennis balls for that purpose. I’m assuming that “any beneficial effects” means just that. If either group experienced clumping, it would have been observed. If neither group experienced clumping, then “people have heard” is meaningless. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2026, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/2210 "2026-07-01T17:36:47Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > What happens to me when drying sheets is the whole thing balls up, usually in the fitted sheet. It happens I’m drying sheets right this instant minute. Happens every Wednesday noonish. I always dry the flat sheet & pillowcases together while the fitted sheet is left draped over the back of a couple of chairs. Takes ~30 minutes on timed dry to get those 3 items completely dry and no clumping. Then I pop the partly air-dried fitted sheet alone into the dryer for 10 minutes timed dry. After that 10 minutes it’s rolled itself into a coil. So reach in, swap the end of the coil at the rear of the dryer for the end of the coil at the front of the dryer & repeat the 10 minutes’ timed dry. Over that interval it’ll unwind itself, then rewind itself the other way. Leaving what was the inside of the coil as the outside. The net effect is to dry the whole thing evenly. At the end of that second 10 minutes, do the same thing again: swap the coil ends & run a third round of 10 minutes. Viola, in 1 hour total all the sheets are fully dry. Which is about how long they’d take if done all together and if by magic they didn’t roll themselves up inside the fitted sheet. That hour is also just about exactly how long the next washer load takes to wash. So no wasted time other than having to fiddle with the dryer 4 times to dry the set of sheets. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2026, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/2211 "2026-07-01T23:42:38Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > I always dry the flat sheet & pillowcases together while the fitted sheet is left draped over the back of a couple of chairs. Takes ~30 minutes on timed dry to get those 3 items completely dry and no clumping. Yes, this is the way. If your dryer (or washer) is clumping, twisting, or otherwise mechanically not moving the clothes well, the underlying problem is too much in the device. Don’t put too many things in at once. And do problematic articles separately. ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2026, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/2212 "2026-07-02T02:38:25Z")
> [@GESancMan](#): > > Yeah, my ear buds were ridiculous. Touching them in any way would have all kinds of unpredictable effects. My first two pairs of ear buds were touch sensitive. The first pair were fine because they stayed put in my ears, but then I lost one. The second pair would shift around our fall out no matter what size gasket I used, and I was constantly skipping forward or back or changing volume. I finally bought a pair that has both ear loops and physical buttons for play/ pause and answer phone. They’re great. ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2026, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/2213 "2026-07-02T17:49:04Z")
Ok, maybe this isn’t “stupid”, but it is mildly annoying to me. I had been watching _Corner Gas_ on Prime Video. Except as of a few weeks ago Corner Gas is no longer included with Prime. It is, however, still on Peacock. Ok, fine, I actually get Peacock for no extra charge with my internet service, I just never activated it before because there wasn’t really all that much I wanted to watch there until now. So I activated Peacock and picked up watching Corner Gas where I’d left off. Then a week later I came back and selected it from my “continue watching” list. Except it didn’t play the next episode after the last one I’d watched. Instead it started playing Episode 1. I get it, as far as Peacock knows I haven’t watched that episode yet. But I think there should at least be a setting to tell it to start where I left off rather than playing what it thinks is the first “unwatched” episode. Or at least a way to manually mark those episodes as watched. But I cannot find such a setting. So I guess every time I want to watch Corner Gas I have to scroll through all the episodes to the next one myself. The thing is, other streaming services have figured this out. I watched the first several seasons of _Bob’s Burgers_ on actual broadcast television when they first aired, and then I started watching it on Hulu after I cut the cord. And Hulu knows to play the next episode, not S1E1, even though Hulu considers that episode “unwatched”. ---
**Author:** ![Ancient\_Nerd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed655f/32.png) [@Ancient\_Nerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ancient_Nerd)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2026, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/2214 "2026-07-02T19:03:39Z")
A set of headphones that I use for remote work meetings. When you first turn it on, it tells you whether the battery is full, medium, or low. The time when you need that information is when you turn the headphones off. If the battery is low, I will charge it. If I’m using the headphones for a meeting, the wire is too short and gets in the way. Having them on for the meeting may have drained to battery to the point where it now needs charging. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2026, 10:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/2215 "2026-07-03T10:23:26Z")
I had to do an online test to verify my identity. It involved taking a selfie with the phone in my camera. The instructions told me to take off my glasses and hold the phone in front of my face. Then there was text on the screen telling me something, probably to move the camera closer or farther away. I don’t know; couldn’t read it without my glasses. ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2026, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/2216 "2026-07-03T20:50:34Z")
Funny, my laptop doesn’t recognize my face when I’m wearing contacts (which I rarely wear). ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2026, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/2217 "2026-07-04T14:18:30Z")
Do you mean that it only recognizes you when you’re wearing glasses, or that it can tell the difference between contacts and no contacts when you’re not wearing glasses? ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21906_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2026, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/2218 "2026-07-04T15:53:21Z")
I’m not going to wade thru 2000+ posts, so forgive me if I repeat someone else, but my vote is for powered recliners. Oh, it seemed like a good idea when we bought them. Then I was reclining comfortably when we had a power outage. Getting out was less than graceful and potentially injurious. And even when power is not lost, going from reclined to not-reclined takes a _loooooong_ time when you suddenly need the toilet. When it finally dies, it will be replaced with a regular manual style. Wonder if I can retrofit it now?? ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2026, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/2219 "2026-07-05T00:51:50Z")
My grandfather had one of those when I was a kid. He didn’t get it because he needed it, just because he liked gadgets like that. After playing around with it and trying to climb out of it while it was in the reclined position, I remember thinking that they seemed like a bad idea. If you need one of these to stand up, you’re going to be stuck if the power goes out. IMO, those should be required to have some sort of a quick release. A button you can push or a pin you can pull out or something that drops the foot rest. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2026, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/2220 "2026-07-05T05:45:26Z")
I bought a jar of whole nutmeg, like this: [![](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSlM1XNCQ9hGrTsNi8WlM-_I7know9Xz3UXhUJ3mtvr5Q&s=10) ](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSlM1XNCQ9hGrTsNi8WlM-_I7know9Xz3UXhUJ3mtvr5Q&s=10) When I unscrewed the cap, it had one of these on the top of the jar: [![](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQHAhsW8pgS7-2ahmy1v8w-g-gVBFF3sgMPVHaHSAuL6G00ofJl3GSJbrQ&s=10) ](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQHAhsW8pgS7-2ahmy1v8w-g-gVBFF3sgMPVHaHSAuL6G00ofJl3GSJbrQ&s=10) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621.md?page=110) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621.md?page=112)