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Comment by techdmn | Hacker News Reader

Certainly not the first to mention this, but see also: microwaves. I worked at a restaurant that had a microwave with precisely one input: a timer dial. To start the microwave, you turned the dial to the desired time. To stop the microwave, you open the door (ok, that's two inputs). To add time, you turned the dial further. It didn't beep a million times either.

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I had a microwave from the 1990s that had one power level dial and one timer dial. That interface was the best I've ever used. It took two seconds to start the heating process after I knew what power and time I wanted.

If I could get a modern inverter based microwave oven with a two-dial interface I would love it. I just want the basic power and time controls to be fast and tactile. I'll happily give up sensor based cooking and the other extras in exchange for that.

My beef with power level settings on microwaves is that they usually don't tell you what they mean. Say I want to microwave something in my 1250 watt inverter microwave but the instructions are based on an 800 watt oven. What power setting in closest to 800 watts?

All the manual tells me is there are 10 power settings, 10 is full power, and 3 is best for defrosting. It would be nice if it said something like "When following instructions written for an 800, 1000, 1100, or 1200 watt over use power level 7, 8, 9, or 10 respectively".

I did some measurements of heating water on my Panasonic inverter microwave, and based on that it looks like the power levels 1-10 are roughly 140, 230, 300, 380, 620, 720, 800, 960, 1140, and 1250 watts.

I prefer my microwave. I often just press the "Reheat" button once and its practically always perfectly cooked. It'll even suggest turning or stirring if it thinks it needs it, which is usually only for large things.

I don't even have to think about how far to turn the dial.

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