# 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:** 51
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2023, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1001 "2023-12-12T18:41:41Z")
Yep. Our 2 dogs are still acting a little freaked out today. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2023, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1002 "2023-12-12T18:48:10Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > Apparently, unlike smoke detectors, CO detectors have a limited lifespan. NFPA recommends a [10-year maximum life](https://www.securitysales.com/news/nfpa_smoke_alarms_need_replacement_every_10_years/) for smoke detectors. ---
**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:** [December 12, 2023, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1003 "2023-12-12T19:08:11Z")
Yeah, but that’s just a recommendation to insure the electronic components are all in good working order. A smoke detector isn’t going to just stop working when it hits the 10 year mark as long as the battery is good\*, unless it’s actually broken; a CO detector will literally not work anymore when it gets used up. \*I know, many smoke detectors nowadays come with a non-replaceable 10 year battery. ---
**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:** [December 12, 2023, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1004 "2023-12-12T19:28:04Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > many smoke detectors nowadays come with a non-replaceable 10 year battery. As required by fire codes in many states. Which was news to me the first time I encountered this annoyance. Why no silencing reminders and no replaceable batteries? Because too large a fraction of the public will keep silencing the alerts until the batteries are dead for good, then never replace them. “Stupid and lazy” is why we can’t have adult things; only things designed to be child-compatible for all the 30yo children amongst us. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2023, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1005 "2023-12-12T19:39:56Z")
The last few posts explain a lot. Thanks! I’ve ordered a replacement detector and will toss the one that kept bugging me no matter how often I changed the battery. ---
**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:** [December 12, 2023, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1006 "2023-12-12T19:41:41Z")
I have a friend who’s smoke detector had been beeping for over a year. ---
**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:** [December 12, 2023, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1007 "2023-12-12T19:43:43Z")
Evidently your friend owns neither a ladder nor a shotgun. One or the other of those tools can silence any smoke detector ever made. 😉 ---
**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:** [December 12, 2023, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1008 "2023-12-12T19:49:01Z")
She’s a hoarder. If she had a ladder, she probably couldn’t position it correctly to get to the smoke detector, and she’s too unfit to use a ladder anyway. She’s also too embarrassed by the mess to have someone come in the house to fix it. I’ve offered, but she lives across town (which is a **long** way in Phoenix). Whenever we talk, I can hear it beeping in the background… ---
**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:** [December 12, 2023, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1009 "2023-12-12T19:51:36Z")
Ouch. That beeping is crazy-making and with a person who’s already on shaky mental ground that is double plus ungood. Best wishes for a good outcome, but I’m not optimistic. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2023, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1010 "2023-12-12T20:17:18Z")
Step stool and a 9 iron to get at the one in the bedroom. Cathedral ceiling and all. ---
**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:** [December 12, 2023, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1011 "2023-12-12T20:26:13Z")
I had one in the top of a stairwell trunk once. No great place to put a ladder; neither the top end nor the bottom end. Plus the real impressive potential kinematics of any fall left me real cold about the project. I semi-seriously considered the shotgun approach since it was pretty well out of the normal field of view up there. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2023, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1012 "2023-12-12T20:33:43Z")
> [@DesertDog](#): > > What I don’t like are speedometers that have absurdly high top ends Wasn’t there a bit thing years ago where the us car makers admitted that the top speeds posted in all but a select few were a crock of bull? i remember lawsuits and such being discussed because people actually thought their escorts could really achieve 120 mhp… ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2023, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1013 "2023-12-12T21:10:32Z")
If it’s an ionization smoke-detector eventually the Americium-241 will decay to where it won’t work. But if my math is right, it takes about 65 years to get down to 90% of the original amount of radioactive material. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2023, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1014 "2023-12-12T21:12:29Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Step stool and a 9 iron to get at the one in the bedroom. Cathedral ceiling and all. Yeah. When we remodelled our GC moved mine from waaaaay up on the cathedral ceiling down to where I could reach it on a safe stepladder (safe for me – with bad arthritis in my knees). ---
**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:** [December 12, 2023, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1015 "2023-12-12T21:18:06Z")
> [@carrps](#): > > When we remodelled our GC moved mine from waaaaay up on the cathedral ceiling down to where I could reach it on a safe stepladder (safe for me – with bad arthritis in my knees). I thought fire codes require detectors within a short distance of the ceiling? ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2023, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1016 "2023-12-12T21:22:37Z")
It passed inspection. But seriously. I don’t own a 20 ft ladder. Am I supposed to hire a handyman to change a battery? ---
**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:** [December 12, 2023, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1017 "2023-12-12T21:30:03Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > > [@DesertDog](#): > > > > What I don’t like are speedometers that have absurdly high top ends > > Wasn’t there a bit thing years ago where the us car makers admitted that the top speeds posted in all but a select few were a crock of bull? i remember lawsuits and such being discussed because people actually thought their escorts could really achieve 120 mhp… IIRC for a while in the late 1970s - early 1980s the top speed on speedometers in the US could not exceed 85 mph. It probably coincided with the era of the 55 mph national speed limit. And that was probably a pretty reasonable top end for most cars of that era. When they were filming _Back to the Future_ the prop department had to make a fake speedometer for the DeLorean to show it hitting 88 mph, because the DeLorean’s actual speedometer only went up to 85. Although I have my doubts as to whether a DeLorean could even go that fast. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2023, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1018 "2023-12-13T00:45:17Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Step stool and a 9 iron to get at the one in the bedroom. Cathedral ceiling and all. Or a rickety 12-foot stack of old newspapers and magazines… ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2023, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1019 "2023-12-13T15:00:43Z")
Play it where it lies. Hope you got a good wack at it. I also have cathedral ceilings. I had one that I had to drag an extension ladder out to get to. Lots of fun in the dead of winter. Note I ‘had’ one. No more. My hearing is quite bad. It’s my wife that alerts me to them. We have… I donno 5 of them scattered around. I have a hell of a time figuring out which one needs a battery. ---
**Author:** ![Al128](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/al128/32/16541_2.png) [@Al128](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Al128)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2023, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1020 "2023-12-13T15:32:02Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#): > > Figures. It’s got to be some kind of timer in the alarm, I refuse to believe both sensors used up their chemicals at such a similar rate that they both started chirping within an hour of each other 5 years after they were installed. are those made by HP or Epson? (that would explain a few things … [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621.md?page=50) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621.md?page=52)