If we are old man ranting here....I want in.
Here in Norway, the morons decided to shut down FM radio, though like 7 of 10 automobiles only have FM. So millions of perfectly good FM radios are suddenly junk. Plus you either spend a fortune at the dealer getting upgraded, or else buy a Mickey Mouse adapter, with wires hanging around, etc. to convert.
There is a weird thing with the DAB+ broadcast... I've heard several songs where there must be cancellation, like LED Zep "whole Lotta Love" where lead guitar is totally buried. It's just crap.
But THAT isn't the rant.
So my wife bought me a replacement clock radio, as mine is FM, so a DAB clock radi, for Xmas.
So I check it out. Has lots of alarm settings (weekday, weekend, one time, etc.) but you have to hit power (so radio is playing) another knob, then turn the other knob to choose alarm, go through ALL settings (if it is just to set the alarm for the next morning you have to know the date, to set it for next day if before midnight).
You can't see what time the alarm is currently set to without going through the whole thing with two knobs, and menu driven where if your timing is off the same action to see/set alarm now toggles between DAB and FM, or preset station setting, to set it..
Plus I need my glasses to read it..and the menu is complex to get to.
So if, as often happens, my wife goes to bed before me, when I go in and want to check what time the alarm is set to, or change it, I have to turn the radio on, which she is often very happy about. It had to be on to set/check alarm time.
Then too, we noticed that the LCD display is BRIGHT. I am not kidding that it lights up the whole room. Now if you look directly at it it seems low level lit, but move a little to the side and it is totally lit up the whole 2x3" LCD display, and this is what lights up the room. Looking into the poorly written instructions, I had a glimmer of hope reading that there were three light display settings. Unfortunately, it was already on the second setting (first is even brighter....I could read in bed from it, really the second setting too if I squint) but the lowest setting...pure genius. It is totally black. No clock to read, no nothing, black hole.
This was a hitachi, I've looked just briefly around at DAB alarm clocks and see that many have LCD so pretty sure they would have the same problem. Also don't they get that one wants to check the alarm time setting sometimes? By pushing a dedicated button? Or even, God forbid, set a new time without blaring John Philips Souza marches at 120 db?
Have these engineers made a clock radio and never van tried it out in a dark room? Have they ever seen a clock radio? They have competition with smart phones now, and it isn't looking good for them. And they are not cheap.
This is just one thing, but I see this kind of thing all the time now..
