You get in a lift (elevator), press the '4' button - then realise that you actually wanted '5'. Instead of having the lift stop at the 4th floor, the doors open, everybody waiting in an embarrassed silence, the doors close and the lift proceed to the fifth floor, why not have the lift buttons toggle, so that you'd be able to press the '4' button again to deselect it?
-- hippo, Nov 23 2000

(?) You can cancel calls http://www.arkel.co...03&url=01&no=5&pr=2
[anyman, Jun 23 2008]

(?) Elevator Hack http://www.realtechnews.com/posts/1604
Elevator 'express mode' [kuupuuluu, Jun 23 2008]

Incase someone in a hurry deselects your floor so the lift will skip onto theirs, I know I would.
-- imagooAJ, Nov 23 2000


As of 1987, the elevator in Ogg Hall at UW Madison had this "feature": if the elevator was stopped at a floor, you could deselect any other floor by pushing its button simultaneously with the button for the floor at which the elevator was stopped. I don't know whether this behavior was designed in intentionally, or whether it was an unintentional but interesting side-effect of the way the buttons were interconnected?
-- supercat, Dec 22 2000


FYI : Some 90's version elevators, either pressing 3 buttons or more at a time or that button you want to deselect many times can work.
-- mailer_daemon, May 19 2001


Baked and still around. The brand new elevator in my office building allows you to deselect a floor by pressing the (modern touch-sensing) button twice. Not too much call to use it, and we only have six floors. I can see this coming in most handy for when pranksters press all the buttons just before they get out.
-- ejs, May 21 2001


brilliant idea, wish I'd thought of it.
-- neilp, Dec 21 2004


I hate pressing the wrong button, then waiting for all the others in the lift to give me 'the look' when I don't get out there.
-- wagster, Dec 22 2004


Apparently you can 'hack' into an elevator express mode by pushing two buttons simultaneously. (see link)

Can't say I can verify this though.
-- kuupuuluu, Jun 23 2008


//Incase someone in a hurry deselects your floor so the lift will skip onto theirs, I know I would.//

Uh, I wonder if [imagooAJ] gets beaten up often? I'm a pretty passive, don't-do-harm kinda guy most of the time but someone blatantly f*cking with me like that might provoke a reaction, of sorts.

[+] for the idea.
-- Custardguts, Jan 11 2010


Bun for the links.
-- RayfordSteele, Jan 12 2010


Baked, with an example in the Mitsubishi elevators in the GR Solaris hotel in Cancun, Mexico. My kids had all kinds of fun after discovering this feature.
-- swimswim, Dec 16 2013


A (slightly) related idea I had while in an elevator recently: when some-one waiting for a lift presses a call button, the lift (that the system designates to stop for them in the case of multiple lifts) has that floor button light up, so you (on the lift) know that it's going to stop & can make space if needed.
-- neutrinos_shadow, Jun 07 2023



random, halfbakery