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Comment by keiferski | Hacker News Reader

The old joke seems relevant here:

"I like escalators, because an escalator can never break; it can only become stairs. There would never be an escalator temporarily out of order sign, only an escalator temporarily stairs. Sorry for the convenience."

- Mitch Hedberg

As much as possible, smart tech should be operable mechanically. This seems fairly easy to do with electrical things like light switches.

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Stockholm recently had to shut down a huge new train station for months, because it turned out that the escalators would break down and start going in reverse.

"in reverse" is a bit of an understatement for freefall.

Freefall is just as bad for the escalator that's supposed to be going down.

Oh wow. I had no idea that was even a thing. That's terrifying.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s0xwAYv6KKY

Sure, but that failure is on the end of the spectrum. For electronics it'd be: Online and working / Offline and core functionality is working / Battery fire

A minor example in my house that makes a massive difference during winter storms where we lose power: my gas fireplace is electronically, remotely controlled. Except you can manually start it up if needed. Makes the basement super cozy even if the furnace can't run.

Except escalators never merely become stairs; they are blocked off, torn apart, and under maintenance, making them unusable for weeks at a time here in Massachusetts -- presumably because a malfunctioning escalator could be seriously dangerous.

Having a usable fallback to smart tech's smartness is nice, but it can propose complications (and dangers) the manufacturer doesn't want to deal with because making the gear to deal with them then becomes cost prohibitive. The best thing is dumb tech, to which smartness can be added if desired by the user.

That's not a problem with escalators, that's a problem with your liability laws and regulations.

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