At least microwaves with digital controls actually have full numpads. Every digital-control oven I've ever had the misfortune of using only has increment/decrement buttons. Want to set the oven to 450F? Have fun pressing the increment button twenty times for five degree increments starting at 350F. It's an abomination.

The best microwave I've ever used didn't have any numpad at all. Instead, it has a horizontal sliding touch pad. It sounds stupid, but it works SO WELL. Move your finger slowly and it increments one second at a time, move it quickly and it jumps faster. On the front there are only two buttons (stop/clear and start/+30sec) and the touch slider and screen.

If you open the door there are a few more buttons for setting power levels and a timer, and the only useful preset button (popcorn), but none of the useless ones.

This LG NeoChef model: https://www.lg.com/ca_en/microwave-ovens/lg-LMC1575BD

Just got one of these, and after an initial learning curve agree it is super intuitive (now) and works really well.

This is such a weird thing that we accept as normal. Completely agree it's absurd that on the microwave we have a numpad and on an oven we have up/down arrows with an arbitrary starting point (mine is 350 degF).

I'm on my phone, so it's a bit difficult to look up, but 350 isn't actually arbitrary. It's a temperature that is hot enough to allow you to get a maliard reaction without being so hot that you easily burn food.

350 degF might not be so arbritarily chosen, it's probably a good starting point, then the user would only have to press down or up a few times to reach the cooking temperature they want for their food.

Every digital control oven I have ever used continued to increment or decrement as long as you held the appropriate button down. No need to press the button twenty times. Some of them even increased the rate of increase/decrease the longer you held the button down.

Yes, but that's nowhere near as simple nor effective as a turn dial.

This is just another example of the brain-dead designers and coders running around ruining the world.

It sounds extreme to say, but I suspect quite a few of them have blood and misery on their hands, because some poorly designed control cascaded in effect and caused a catastrophe elsewhere. It's easier to imagine with medical equipment than microwaves, but its still putting someone's desire to write fancy control algorithms over a simpler more effective design.

Start out by punching any jackass insisting everything be digital, you will go a long way to solving the problem of bad designers.

Oh yeah and the button will probably give out after 3 years, at which point you have to replace the entire "timer" (control panel PCB), which is about half the price of the oven.

I selected our oven specifically because of the sensible analogue controls (large knobs) for selecting the function and temperature.

https://www.fisherpaykel.com/au/cooking/ovens/contemporary-o...

My oven has a rotary encoder on it for temp adjustment. It works pretty well.

My oven has a numpad. I punch in the temperature I want. It's great! GE Profile dual oven circa 2000.

Yeah. It's one thing that does not need improving.

My parents bought a new microwave with all kinds of fancy digital features that nobody uses 99% of the time. In addition to being really difficult to use, it also makes a very loud BEEEP on every button press. Insanity.

Beeping appliances is one thing I can't stand. They're always too loud and rarely offer any adjustment or mute functionality.

I got a new microwave recently. It beeped on every button press, 5 beeps after a cook cycle, no way to mute (yeah, I checked). Within a day of owning it I took it apart and ripped the beeper off the board. Problem solved.

Some day we’ll collectively learn to replace all the crude beeping with less abrasive, natural sounds like the gentle and informative clicking of the iPod’s touch wheel. Think the crunch of a fallen leaf, the satisfying zip of a sweater, the subtle scrape of a ceramic mug being hastily lifted—distinct and deliberately applied to build conventions like we have with e.g. red/green colors. Shrill beeps will be the tell that dates an antique.

I recently went on a crusade to pull the piezo buzzers out of all my UPS... because, when the power's out, i don't need a sound to tell me, do i?

Weren't you worried about damaging the microwave shielding?

Not at all.

In my experience (3 out of 3 microwaves that I tried this on), there is usually an options or settings menu that lets you turn off the beep.

I have a €400 microwave and it’s great. It has one big rotary button that will set the time, press start and it goes. You don’t need any of the other buttons to simply microwave stuff. What those buttons do give me is an oven and steamer. It’s not my main oven but having an extra oven can be convenient and the steamer function is great. Zero effort perfect rice every time. Toss some veggies and spices on a tray, steam for a couple of minutes and you have an easy, healthy and tasty side dish.

Another great feature is that it doesn’t have a rotating platform, I have square plates so that’s also super convenient.

I get buying a simple microwave if that’s all you need it to do, but don’t dismiss the models with more bells and whistles, they have their place as well.

I've never understood why microwaves have an alarm that can't be disabled. They actually make me angry every time I fail to stop it manually at <10s.

On the other hand, I used to have a microwave with a "nag timer" that would continue nagging you until you took your food out.

Saved (fallible) me from a lot of cold meals.

My current microwave doesn't have that and in ascending order of silliness I have 1) forgotten food and eaten it cold 2) gotten hungry and gone to heat up something only to find there was something already in the microwave 3) (worst) opened the microwave to find something there from the night before.

Why wouldn't you just reheat the food if it was cold?

I have a cheapo digital that suits my needs well enough. It is ancient and keeps working, which is all I ask of it.

But the UI is utterly absurd. The default presentation is to select timer or cook. Who uses a timer anywhere nearly as much as the cook function? It is like a car always first asking if you'd rather drive or pop the hood.

One more button press has never been enough to annoy me anywhere nearly enough to replace it. But I wonder how many times I've pressed it.

Interestingly enough, many commercial microwaves are like this, with detents at 1 minutes increments. Being able to load and set a microwave in under 5 seconds without paying much attention is really crucial in a busy kitchen.

I went the opposite way and bought a $240 Panasonic commercial microwave, because I also wanted it to last. It's just a little big.

I have never seen or even heard of a microwave breaking.

Consumer level microwaves in shared areas, like in workplaces or schools, tend to break real fast. I've seen some not last a year.

my parents have gone through about 4 microwaves in the last 15 years. the one before that they had for about 15 it was only replaced because the dial broke off while they were moving.

Yep, our current microwave actually has a really well thought-out digital interface. Probably the best digital microwave interface I've ever seen. Still inferior to the analog twist-knob on the one we had when I was a kid.