[gui-talk] universal design of appliances

[Mike Arrigo]

I was setting up one of my humidifiers last night, and it occured to me 
that adding universal design to appliances such as humidifiers, window 
air conditioners and other similar devices probably could be done quite 
easily if manufacturers were willing to do it. I'm not sure if 
manufacturers have just never thought about this or if they just don't 
think it's worth the effort. For example, to add voice output to the 
humidifier I mentioned, you would not even need to add a full text to 
speech engine, just add recorded phrases, and play them as appropriate. 
In this case, phrases such as warm mist setting, cool mist setting, 
humidity set at 45 percent, mist set at medium, etc. With the 
microcontrolers that are available, I would think this would be fairly 
easy to add, wondder if it will ever happen.