# Stupidest product design you’ve experienced

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621>\
**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:** 1\
**Showing post:** 1851

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**Author:** ![echoreply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/echoreply/32/3641_2.png) [@echoreply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/echoreply)\
**Post date:** [January 12, 2026, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1851 "2026-01-12T03:46:44Z")

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I recently bought a floor standing humidifier, because the humidity can easily drop below 20% here in the winter, and it’s not possible to add a humidifier to the furnace. I have no complaints about its performance.

However, it does not have anything to indicate how much water is left in the tank. I can understand even a simple floating plastic bead in a tube would make the tank more complex and likely to leak, so I guess forgivable.

What it does do is show a letter on a seven segment LED display to indicate the tank has no water in it. For anyone who has ever been inside a car, what letter would you choose to display when a tank is empty?

No, it shows an “F”.

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