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A comment on Ask HN: My mother is slowly looking her eyesight, how to prepare?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: My mother is slowly looking her eyesight, how to ... by Natsu on Monday August 28, 2023 @04:44PM (#37300173)
Grandma had a terrible time using the microwave. I eventually found out that there are microwaves that have only two dials, one for power on top, which we left alone, then the bottom one was time. Knowing how far a quarter turn of the dial was in minutes allowed her to still cook things when she wanted to.
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Re:Ask HN: My mother is slowly looking her eyesight, how to ... by eternityforest on Tuesday August 29, 2023 @02:49AM (#37304216)
My microwave has an on button that immediately starts, with a 30 second timer, and if you press it while it's running it adds more time.

If someone is good with tactile stuff the dial might be better though.

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Re:Ask HN: My mother is slowly looking her eyesight, how to ... by Natsu on Tuesday August 29, 2023 @01:23PM (#37311046)
Part of the problem with the flat buttons you touch is that you can't really tell where they are. A dial was much easier for her to understand than trying to manage to remember where a dozen buttons are and what order they're in.

We got the microwave with the dial after she accidentally microwaved something until it caused a fire in there which flooded the room with smoke and was so bad I had to simply throw it out.

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Re:Ask HN: My mother is slowly looking her eyesight, how to ... by ansible on Wednesday August 30, 2023 @11:36AM (#37323773)
If I wanted to use my stove, microwave or dishwasher (all flat buttons), I might try to put a little Sugru on the surface to outline the important ones like the +30 seconds button.
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Re:Ask HN: My mother is slowly looking her eyesight, how to ... by eternityforest on Wednesday August 30, 2023 @11:44AM (#37323882)
They have tactile stickers specifically for this kind of thing, I think they even have different textures a blind person can distinguish
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Re:Ask HN: My mother is slowly looking her eyesight, how to ... by Natsu on Thursday August 31, 2023 @08:55PM (#37345482)
We did that, but the old one didn't have a +30 second button and just had little sticky pads on every button, since you had to use numbers, which didn't make it clear what was what. And some things have 9 at the top, others put it at the bottom, so it's not that hard to forget.

Either way, a physical dial was much easier to use than trying to remember the layout of the number pad, which button is power/cancel/etc.

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