Had to reset the stove!

[LCHIEN]

We' got one of those nice Jenn-Aire ceramic glass (radiant, not induction) cooktops with touch controls so its easy to clean and looks good without all the grease traps that make them look used after a while. Had it for probably 10 years.

Today my wife asked me to lock the touch controls as it was giving her trouble. Normally it has a lock button you touch for 6 seconds and it lights a "LOCK" LED and disables all the burner controls for safety.

I tried but none of the touch controls was responding.
I eventually went to the garage and threw the double pole 40 A breaker for 15 seconds, then back on, and then went back in and it worked normally.
Who the heck ever has to reset a stove?
I thought stuff like that was reserved for recalcitrant modems, PCs, TVs and smartphones.
If I'm not around how is she ever going to figure that out?

On another subject about 2-3 weeks ago they came through the neighborhood burying optical fiber boxes along the street easement with access boxes every two houses. I signed up but the Fiber to the curb guys stood me up for my installation appointment Friday. Supposed to be 2 GB/S service for less money than my very slow ADSL.

[Slik Geek]

The appliance developer must have thought it too expensive / unnecessary to put in a "watchdog timer", such that if the processor "hung", it would be restarted. Perhaps what happened was that there was a "value analysis", where they shaved a few pennies of manufacturing cost and removed the watchdog capability since it wasn't a "core function". Given the safety implications: a processor controlling cooktop burners; one would expect a robust safety implementation that would ensure the processor recovers if it isn't doing everything it is supposed to be doing.

It might also be an instance of finding a really cheap contract developer. I spent over a decade working for a company that provided contract development services. One of my frequent tasks was rescuing designs from "cheap" developers. On one occasion, we helped a company work out the requirements for a new product. They paid us to write the specification. Then we bid on the development while their purchasing department pursued other options. Purchasing ended up selecting a developer that was willing to do it for 1/3 of our bid. The product manager discussed this with us. He was suspicious that this source wasn't capable. He shared their technical proposal and I pointed out some "red flags". He was overruled by his purchasing department - after all, they were "experts" at acquiring goods and services. I told him that we would be ready to help if/when the development went poorly.

Some months later he contacted us. The cheap contract developer had failed miserably. They had underestimated the effort and complexity, and they lacked competence to complete the design. He showed us their "prototype". It was a mess. His purchasing department had paid them a bunch of money for the useless, failed design. We ended up developing their device successfully for them - but had to start from scratch. Their purchasing department had "saved" money by taking the cheap route and then having to pay again for the development. I experienced similar situations repeatedly.

[LCHIEN]

And in addition the Purch dept also delayed market entry by several months, possibly missing the windows of opportunity like seasonal sales.

[twistsol]

The control panel on our wall oven stopped working when it was a few months old and I had to do the same thing. After half a dozen trips to the basement to reset it, I pulled out the manual and there is a Whirlpool app that can control the oven so we could turn it on and off via our phones and WIFI even if the control panel wasn't responding. Customer service told me the new about the issue and a couple of weeks later they put out a software patch that resolved the problem.

I thought the Wifi idea was stupid for an oven, Then I was able to preheat the oven from the take and bake pizza place and it was ready to go when I got home.

[capncarl]

I like the refrigerator app. Nothing like getting notifications from your refrigerator!

The air/heat controller for my Big Green Egg finally failed so I purchased the next generation replacement for it. It was “wifi enabled”, that might be ok if you have a good wifi. My Egg is just barely in range so it worked a little bit. I loaded the app and had everything working but after I moved the device outside it wouldn’t work so I boxed it up and took it back for a refund. The dealer sold it. Now I get alerts on my phone that my grill is over temperature or the meat is done. I’ve notified the manufacturer of the device…. It’s taken them over a year to remove me from the control rights.

[Slik Geek]

I thought WiFi seemed silly myself - but you make a good point. Got a kick out of capncarl's Big Green Egg story...