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Ordinary microwaves, when any button is pressed, emit a loud beep to let you know you've done it - and when food is cooked, emit a louder beep to alert you.
This makes it well-nigh impossible to tell when you've pressed a wrong button in the dark - especially on modern touchpad microwaves. In
addition, it's boring.
I propose that microwaves be designed so that each button emits a different noise when pressed - either a different tone of beep, or a pleasant chime, or even the quack of a different species of duck, if you're so inclined. In addition, the "done cooking" indicator should be configurable, like cell-phone ringtones, to play your choice of noises or small excerpts of musical pieces.
This would probably require the addition of a more sophisticated noise-making device than currently used in microwaves, but it shouldn't be difficult to program once that is in place.
You could even have "themed" microwaves:
Phone Emulator: makes the same noises as a dialing telephone when buttons are punched and rings when food is done
Tribal: makes a different drumbeat for each button and does a short percussion piece when food is done
... and so on.
Human Sounds for Appliances
http://www.halfbake..._20for_20appliances
An idea which could be combined with this one - Human Voice would make a nice theme. [gisho, Oct 04 2004]
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I like this idea. We should please ourselves with more music in our lives. I would also suggest that, when your food is ready, the microwave could sing the tune of your choice, only with the words changed (halfbakery style) to something different according to the results of the process. When the time you entered wasn't enough to warm your food, it could sing something like: " ice, ice, gravy" |
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Or the opposite: "Ooops, I burned it again" |
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Users can choose male or female voices for their microwaves. |
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It should add about 1 dollar to the cost of production to add a voice recorder to the microwave. Just have it shout "GET ME OUT OF HERE! I'M MELTING!" |
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So many possibilities - from the tea-kettle whistle to "They would have been wanting to get the food out before it would have been getting cold". |
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The hardware and programming for this would cost about 1/10 of a US dollar per unit. It might be best to have all of the numbers produce a recording of that number - easy to hear what you are doing in the dark. When the cooking is done, it could say something too, maybe "Mary had a little lamb / and with the lamb some green mint jam." |
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Just one more thing to reset when the power goes out. |
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I think it should play music to reflect the food your having as well. |
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"La Cucaracha" for burritos, Opera for pizzas... |
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\\This makes it well-nigh impossible to tell when you've pressed a wrong button in the dark\\ Couldn't you just look at the microwave's display? |
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