My wrist watch stopped working the other day. This is certainly not
cool, but it is what set things in motion.
I bought this watch over five years ago and I was very happy with it.
It's an "atomic solar watch", meaning you set it up once and then
never worry about it again. The watch always shows the correct time
(and accounts for nonsense like daylight saving time), because it
synchronizes itself every night. The battery doesn't run empty,
because it automatically recharges itself. This also means you can
actually *use* other features of this watch, such as illumination or
the countdown timer, because you don't have to worry about battery
life.
This is all great, but then it stopped working. Some elements on the
screen would flash in a weird way and none of the buttons worked
anymore.
After a lot of curse words, I opened it, took out the battery, and put
it back in. This helped a bit. The screen stopped flashing. Now the
"please recharge" indicator would show up. Still, none of the buttons
worked, but the manual says that this is normal if the battery is
almost empty. Okay then, let's put it under a lamp and wait for the
next day.
18 hours later, no change.
I opened it again and noticed that the back of the solar panel looked
odd. There were some pins that connect the actual module of the watch
to the solar panel - but the solar panel didn't look like there were
any connectors. It didn't look like copper. Is this a fake? What's
going on?
Some more curse words.
Eventually, I found a video of a guy on YouTube that suggested, "hey,
maybe one of your buttons is jammed." I had another close look at my
watch and, indeed, it was jammed. I un-jammed it and everything went
back to normal immediately.
Now, this is the annoying part. Even after it worked again, I was
ready to give up and buy a *mechanical* watch that you have to wind
yourself, because I was so fed up with "modern technology" that "isn't
supposed to last". On a more serious note, I think it is design flaw
that this button *can* jam.
A couple of YouTube videos later, I saw one that said: "SECRET
FUNCTIONS OF $WATCH!!1!" Yeah, sure. What secret functions could there
be? Does it have a hidden mode where it goes "boop" instead of "beep"?
That would be a nice easter egg but nothing more. Let's have a look
anyway.
That video blew my mind. It turns out this watch has *several
diagnostic modes*. This appears to be undocumented and I never
expected a wrist watch to have something like that, so I didn't even
*begin* to look for it. A watch is a rather "simple" piece of
technology to me and, yes, maybe there are diagnostic modes, but I was
absolutely sure that you'd need a lab and special equipment to access
them.
No, everybody can enter debug mode and it's surprisingly simple: Just
press three buttons at the same time. Depending on which of them you
press, you can test different functions:
-- Do all display elements work? This mode also has sub-screens
showing some internal details. Mine shows the module number and
maybe some internal revision, I don't know.
-- Is the watch able to tune in to specific radio frequencies for
synchronization? This allows you to do a quick test for each
supported transmitter - in normal operation mode, you can only
select a transmitter and then wait several minutes for the sync
to (maybe) complete. You can also test if the whole thing still
works in powersave mode.
-- Does the tilt sensor work?
-- Does the solar panel work?
This restored my faith in the manufacturer. You don't put something
like that in a cheap garbage product that is supposed to last only a
couple of months. It takes time and effort to do this. Most
importantly, if I can verify all by myself that the solar panel still
works, I am much less likely to just assume, "yeah, it's broken, I'll
have to buy a new one." These debug modes *decrease* the likelihood of
people buying new items and thus *increase* longevity. My
interpretation of this is that the manufacturer actually wanted to
make a good, solid product. That, on the other hand, means that I most
likely will buy a new watch from that same manufacturer if the current
one eventually does break down - and it will, nothing lasts forever.
(Yes, in an ideal world, the diagnostic modes should have been
documented.)
I hope I can get my point across. Let me put it another way. These
debug modes are not just some nice fancy bonus. Maybe ... yes, maybe
they are essential and thus missing in almost every other product. Not
just watches. If I buy a product and something goes wrong with that
thing, I want to have a chance of finding out what's causing the
issue. I want to be able to open the damn thing, maybe try simple
stuff like replacing the battery or resets. I want to be able to un-
jam that button. I want to be able to fiddle with it and, in order to
do so, it must tell me what's wrong!
It's also very nice that I can verify if I reassembled the watch
correctly. This is not an overly complex process, but things can still
go wrong.
Oh, and that solar panel? It *does* work. It's not fake and the
battery did not magically last for five years. They just use a
material in there that I didn't know about.
