To be fair, I work with customers... So he's not too far off in what appears to be 60% of all cases. I literally just had a customer complain about their door getting stuck and not opening properly just to find they had it literally fuckin LOCKED. You can't help these people.
Mine does the exact same thing, and every time I look at it my brain has to stop and process why they labeled it that way. It somehow makes a simple remote feel unnecessarily confusing.
I am kind of the tech support guys for my grandma's building complex, I have been to tens of apartment with old people, like 75+ and most of them are completely unaware of how the buttons on remote controls work and there is no shame in that.
Some paint the important buttons in colors, others asked me to put a paper on top of the other buttons and leave cutouts for the main important ones with written instructions, others I had to put paper under the buttons because they keep pressing the wrong thing.
What's shameful on the other hand is your attitude, but don't worry, there will be a day you will be the so called "idiot" in some other people's head.
Not knowing how a remote works isn't the same as not knowing how temperature up and down works.. I understand they might struggle with locating buttons, but they understand the concept of what up and down does, the same as with TV remotes with the volume and channel buttons.. no-one labels the volume button with "too quiet" and "too loud"
What's shameful on the other hand is your attitude, but don't worry, there will be a day you will be the so called "idiot" in some other people's head.
Really well said. Not everyone's brain works the same way, and too many redditors who use technology instinctively think it's all normal and fine.
So let me point out a few things, to clarify it a bit more:
in a big portion of the world remote controlled tvs were part of the early 2000s, TVs in general were a luxury to have in the 80s.
remote controles went through a lot of changes, from the numbers of buttons to the shape of them, we went from bulky to small, to one button doing 3-5 things instead of a single function, this confuses people.
old people have a slower neurological functions due to age, illnesses and psychological part.
Age and illnesses causes them to forget sooner, short term memory is bad, let's not even talk about Alzheimer's effect on many.
The psychological part is a major one, I've seen a lot of old people just feel so defeated when it comes to modern tech, that they just prefer to declar defeat even if it's something they are partially familiar with.
faulty logics due to age as well.
I genuinely had an interaction with a doctor neighbor that was in his 80s where he was something like:
" If the AC provides cold air, and I want to make it colder, I keep pressing the up button to increase the cooling efficiency".
And on a personal note, seeing how my parents are losing some of their abilities with age, was a shock, the same people who though me a lot of things and most of my basic life knowledge, are not the same anymore, they now need more help, more explanations, multiple sessions of training on how to use something new.
For anyone else reading this comment:
Life is hard, be kind to your elders and the ones around you, maybe say hi to them from time to time.
Exactly. An argument could be made that learning and operating a remote for a 90s tv is idiot proof since everything is labeled and the remote is bigger. Half decent eyesight was still needed to read those things which old people don't usually have. Nowadays though with how small them things are, how each button has multiple functions, and how unconventional some of those buttons are it's absolutely not surprising or shameful to struggle with them. Like my older Samsung remote has little blade style rocker switches for sound and channel that almost just look like a accent trims on the thing plus they have the added function by pressing them into the remote and that remotes power button doesn't look like one at all since it's just the top corner of the remote as a bumper like button. My lg one has a damn scroll wheel like a mouse that also pushes in as a separate button not to mention the thing also acts like a wiimote. People act like they're gonna be somehow immune to the effects of aging when it's their turn. Reality gonna hit them hard.
When you're hot or cold, why should you need to calculate how many degrees should I set, so the thermostat reaches the proper temperature? Come on, nobody knows if 24 ºC is right, or 26 ºC is better.
What we all humans know, is if we're feeling hot or cold. If I'm hot, I press the button that says so, and Mitsubishi engineers, who know much more about CA than me, will decide what needs to be done so I'm not hot anymore.
In fact, I'm sure everybody knows somebody who sets temp to minimum when they're hot, and then set it to maximum (or turn off) 15 min later, when they are cold, and start again. This "I feel" system would be perfect for them.
The button is labeled "I feel..." and then you choose too hot or too cold.
Now that you say it, you're right that OP's picture doesn't show I feel anywhere. I remember having used some Mitsubishi remotes that were properly labeled, you're right this one may be confusing.
I would say a company like Mitsubishi will have done deep user research studies to understand what people actually do with their remotes. I’d guess they likely had people of different ages react to the question “How would you make the room cooler/hotter” and found that more people correctly used this UI than the alternative (temp up/down). Lots of people have opinions on UI, but user research tells us what actually works for the majority.
Ironically, I wish I could get one like this for my mom, she always wants it turned up or down but articulates her request in the exact wrong direction.
Her unit has numbers. I keep saying "do you want six plus" and she says "TURN IT DOWN" and then I am wrong again.
Also, fuck eco mode. I get yelled at because some asshole invented a "not good" mode to beat energy star requirements.
To me "turn down the thermostat" would mean lower temperature while "turn down the AC" would mean less fan speed and not necessarily a change in the set temperature
As a rural rust belter, at least in my house, we say "turn OFF the AC," to raise the temperature in the summer. It never actually gets turned off until early fall. If my wife said turn down the ac I'd probably respond turn down for hwhat
To me up and down are about increasing or decreasing the intensity of a thing, not necessarily temperature. "Turn down __" means to reduce that thing. So "turn down the AC" means to reduce the AC's intensity and it would get warmer as a result. "Turn down the temperature" would mean make it colder.
Eco mode depending on the brand has benefits.
If its a method that tricks the user by increasing the set point, if the user doesn't mind then its a net positive.
If its a method where the compressor cycles less then it really just hurts those who have little patience.
If they didn't, people would not understand how raising the AC would lower the cold. It's like when people didn't understand 1/3 pound burger was more than a 1/4 one.
Have you worked in office? There are always people who have no idea how AC works(and not in terms of physics, even what it does and what button to press)
I'd say more than in the past. It really feels like the people are getting dumber, and not event the new generations, older ones seem to genuinely be stupider that 10 years ago.
case and point my mother: 10 years ago she would get mad and worried for texting with people on internet (I was 15). yesterday she showed me a video of woman washing her hair with dish soap claiming how genius it is, she has allergy to most dish soaps. and she was fully serious as she got mad at me for suggesting that it was stupid.
Most of these AC remotes especially from Asian brands (like this Mitsubishi) look like they were awkwardly translated for the US market, no brand from here makes remotes with layouts or fonts anything like this, and the labels are much better.
I don’t mind this at all. My wife and I have an ongoing argument about this. If it’s too hot in the room, do you say you are going to turn the AC up (as in increase the power of the AC unit) or turn the AC down (as in lower the target temperature)?
Look I'm in the UK and have only used AC a handful of times and I genuinely wouldn't be sure whether up was "more heat" or "more cooling" so... I support this.
It feels like a remote designed specifically for people who call tech support and say "my computer is doing a bad thing" instead of describing what they actually want to do
Mitsubishi electric is one of the best Split air conditioner brands out there, but somehow they keep using this weird oddly labeled Remote with the tiny display.
My old Japanese kerosene heater has the same "too hot /too cold" buttons! This remote is also most definitely originally a Japanese model, so I'm guessing this is just an outdated Showa Japan way of labeling buttons buttons.
That’s Mitsubishi for you. My office has had a Mitsubishi CityMulti system with mini splits for almost 20 years now. It’s always been a joke to us about how the buttons are labeled.
I have a mitsubishi with the same "too warm" "too cool" buttons and it honestly makes sense. I'm not American and Japanese electronics and cars are very common where I live, so maybe I'm just used to them or used to multiple styles.
(My remote button has ON/OFF in the correct order though).
Mental models are a really interesting thing. The “too warm” button being a down triangle feels wrong to me because while I am guessing it’s shaped that way to indicate “temp down”, that is counter intuitive to me because I would expect it to be an up triangle because the machine is being turned up higher to work harder to make more cold.
There is a whole science behind things like what order to put the controls for stover burners in to make them most intuitive to most people.
Not really… I’m in Australia and have a different remote with the same symbols. I don’t think it‘s at all infuriating though, not even mildly. Pretty self-explanatory.
Well, they didn't do this on elevators and now people think they need to press the button which shows the elevator where to find them, not where they are planning to go....
EDIT: turned out I have the more "premium" version of AC. There's a mode call "I Feel" and it doesn't show the temperature number. Makes sense for kids or old people where they can just put on the "I feel" mode and press if they feel "too warm" or too "cold". My AC unit can only do 1 degree incremental and 23c is freezing while 24c is inferno level of warm
It is kinda irritating that "turning up the AC" might mean turning up the temperature or making the AC turn on more. You at least know what "too cold" means.
That is easier to understand than many remotes. That have a sun and a snowflake. Now does sun mean you use that if it is hot. Or does it mean to make it hot. Does the snowflake mean press that if it is cold. Or to make it cold.
Not to also forget that the sun also looks quite similar to the snowflake.
I see this remote has it too. But like the thermostat control it also has labels saying what the sun and snowflake mean.
I guarantee this is a translation error. When I lived in Japan, I had almost this exact remote, except it was all Japanese text. At the time I didn't speak much Japanese, so I used google translate, and it came out very similar to this.
Once when I was a teenager my older sister asked if I could turn the air conditioning "up" in her house a day before she came back from vacation so she could come home to a cool home. I was a dumbass and pressed the "up" button. That up button was the overall temperature. So she actually came back to a sweltering house.
Got the same one. I get what they are trying to do, but that’s not the way people think. While they may say the problem - ‘it’s warm in here’ - they are looking for a solution - ‘I need to make it colder’. The buttons need to offer a solution.
This has to be from that one country that has to label everything even the obvious because people are ugh, interesting. From obvious safety warnings to traffic signs, everything labeled.
At least the text is pretty easy to understand tho I'm very concerned for the near future given the global decrease in literacy rates..
nvm, this remote is global, people posted pics of this remote in Scientific Degrees
It's understandable even if they're implementing it backwards IMO. It'd be much better to label the temp-down button "cooler" and temp-up "warmer" instead of this.
If you've ever heard "turn the air conditioner down" and wondered if the speaker wanted it cooler or warmer (do they want the temp lower or for the air conditioner to run less?), that's the problem with just up/down buttons without context, and on a remote it might not obviously be adjusting the thermostat.
This is better though. "Too warm" and the arrow points down so irs obvious that pressing it is what youd do when its too warm AND that pressing it lowers the temperature
I've seen the same design with an extra - or + on the buttons as well for tactile feel and extra labelling
Honestly, how else would they accurately convey what each button does without causing confusion?
You have arrows, you have symbols, you have numbers telling the temperature... And you have the text. What's infuriating about it? It you still get confused you are the dumb one.
I with it so amusing that Mitsubishi designed an AC remote back in the 2000s and hasn´t change the button layout for decades, but manged to make it more confusing with these labels.
Old people tend to loose the sense of symbolics. My grand ma' doesn't even know anymore what green means. She might try to answer the phone pushing the red button if she feels like it.
This is interesting because we all are trained in a minimalist technical signaling. This is a more natural language style. Imagine giving a standard remote to a person in 1890, it's not that easy to figure it out. On the same idea the first iphone had its icons for apps representing the action very graphically. A camera was looking like a camera, also a notepad and so on. Later all icons and elements have been minimized to it's basic shapes when the function is already ingrained in the users workflow.
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u/Mondiaal111 5h ago
It even says OFF/ON instead of ON/OFF