graceful degradation: the opposite of planned obsolescence

Cool. Very cool. But this nothing to do with planned obsolescence.

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Not this particular example, maybe, but the concept of a device remaining usable in failure runs counter to planned obsolescence.

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- Not necessarily, Apple for example makes interacting outside its ecosystem difficult on purpose for “calculated misery” iirc. It’s like when your boss cuts most of your hours instead of firing you. You don’t get optimal output or the benefit of transparency.
  
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Not necessarily, if the point of failure is the battery connect then this is able to continue until complete failure. It’s the opposite of one way planned obsolescence is done of putting the expected point of failure in a position where it is no longer operable at all or repairable

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What do you mean "nothing to do with"? The title literally says "the opposite of planned obsolescence", which is planning the failure of a device. This is showing the planned continued use of a device when parts of it fails.

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- Planned obsolescence is taking steps to ensure the device fails.
  
  But if I have a device that requires four batteries to function and one of them fails and this causes the device to stop working, that's not planned obsolescence, it's just not graceful degradation. It isn't planned obsolescence because the device isn't useless, I just need to put some new batteries in.
  
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While I see the point they're trying to make, what this person is actually saying is complete nonsense.

Graceful degradation is not the opposite of planned obsolescence they're two completely different concepts with nothing to do with each other.

Graceful degradation is where a product degrades in such a way as to maintain at least some functionality for as long as possible.

Planned obsolescence is where an item is intentionally designed to fail in order to get you to buy the next version.

Completely different concepts.

The actual opposite of graceful degradation, is progressive enhancement.

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Yes, you could have both ideas in the same product: it retains some functionality as it fails, but it fails in a planned way to ensure it's lifespan is short enough.

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And oddly, the example of the flashlight isn’t even an example of either. Support for heterogeneous batteries is a feature, but it’s a stretch to call it “degradation”. It’s not like batteries fail randomly before they run out of juice.

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- The degradation in this case happens in the brain when you're trying to remember which type of batteries you need
  
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I feel like the opposite is your multifunction refusing to scan because it needs ink.

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- vulgar degradation
  
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I'd argue that if you changed the wording of the post "progressive enhancement" could be used to describe the same concept

As in : progressive enhancement is when the more you add batteries to a flashlight the better it works.

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- It hits slightly different though.
  
  For example graceful degradation could be considered when a device can have different components fail but the rest still work.
  
  Progressive enhancement can be considered to be a device with basic functionality with optional add-ons.
  
  It's basically about the base getting less functional, versus the baseline being upgraded. From a certain point of view they are the same thing but realistically they're not.
  
  If I have a device with an optional add-on and I don't actually have that add-on installed, I wouldn't say the device is "degraded", even though technologically it probably doesn't make much difference.
  
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- As opposed to progressive enhancement as the product ages (features added with firmware updates etc.)
  
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Graceful degradation is cool, but progressive enhancement is where it's really at. The difference is that instead of working around the lack of capabilities, you design simple and robust core system, and then improve around it based on available capabilities.

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The proper term isn't graceful degradation, but fault tolerance.

It just describes how many core systems or components can fail before the device itself stops working.

For example, a jet will have multiple redundancies for almost all major systems which allows many of them to fail in the air without causing the plane to crash or force an emergency landing.

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That's how you end up with Frankenstein scope creep.

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- No! Frankenstein is the name of the designer!
  
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- You say scope creep, the client says added value
  
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I'd ask why this isn't in everything but we have capitalism as a system so yeah...

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As someone trained in this field, not everything is a bulb or an LED which can take less power.

Where exactly you want this behavior?

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- Ha! Apple makes your phone completely inoperable if your microphone breaks. Is not just about less power is about keep everything else working as much as possible.
  
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- It was giving an example of a general principle, not suggesting that everything ought to dim lights specifically.
  
  Other examples of similar principles might be:
  
  Taking a little extra care when designing a new building so that adaptive reuse is easier later. That doesn't mean adding up-front cost, but rather things like erring on the side of less specialization when deciding how to lay out the space.
  
  The way they used to print pretty patterns on the cotton sacks animal feed used to come in a century ago, because they knew farmers' wives would make feed sack dresses out of them.
  
  Laying out a new subdivision with its streets on a grid instead of curvy cul-de-sacs, so that it's easier to rebuild individual parcels to higher density or non-residential use in the future without having to raze the entire thing.
  
  Designing a piece of furniture with removable cushions instead of attached padding, so that they can be replaced when they wear out instead of having to reupholster the whole thing.
  
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I learnt about graceful degradation in relation to escalators and how they compare to elevators/lifts. Basically escalators become stairs, whereas lifts become cages.

It's been one of my favourite design concepts, alongside hidden design (design which improves things without being apparent/in your face about it)

Also, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, it's unrelated to planned obsolescence as in it's not about designing things to last, but for a design to be functional even if there's some issue outside the control of the product design. You can get graceful degradation along with planned obsolescence, they're not mutually exclusive.

Reminds me of the differences in design cultures in different companies, though I heard it in relation to countries but idk if that was a stereotype or not. What I heard was about differences in design philosophies towards a similar goal of a good product: one company over engineered their stuff to last a long time, whereas the other company relied on redundancy by putting in a second of anything that was likely to fail in parallel to the original.

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Sometimes escalators also become meat grinders though. Less graceful.

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- Just put your choice of meat on it, still graceful /s
  
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- Meat grinding is still functionality
  
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"Escalators temporarily stairs. Sorry for the convenience."

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Escalators are usually not safe to use when broken. So this is a good example of the idea in a spherical cow sort of way, but not practically.

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- I forgot to mention this was in relation to the lack of electricity, not breaking down
  
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It's too bad that modern websites don't do graceful degradation anymore, let alone progressive enhancement.

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My fleshlight works with a single AAA too 🙁

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Don't put yourself down describing your D-Cell as a AAA

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Thank you for the convenience

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Thanks, Mitch.

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TIL about me_irl ...

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Permanently Deleted

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another way of looking at it is, the system is designed with human needs of the customer in mind first, and the economic needs of shareholders are somewhere farther down the line

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Never heard of this concept before, but I already love it.

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This cannot work since both double and tripple As has the same voltage, and thus does not have a difference in light output. What we'd instead be looking at here is the battery/ies being drained faster the fewer there are of them. But yeah having it work no matter the amount of batteries installed is a neat idea

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Watt are you talking about, don't be so resistant to the idea. Have you tried meditation? Ohmmm

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It could be related to battery position, rather than purely electrical characteristics. The spaces for AA and AAA appear to be keyed for the cell diameter. Since everything is the same, electrically, except for the mAh, you can probably control the LED driver by using basic position sensing on the cell locations with minimal components and efficiency cost. An LTC3090, for example, could be used with relatively simple voltage dividers to adjust the ratio on the Vin and Vctl pins.

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Watt the fuck are you talking about? You might consider being less resistant to the idea.

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Batteries wired in series increase the voltage provided. The example in the OP us just a battery whose LEDs run at anything from 1.5V to 6V and accepts both AA and AAA batteries. It's not a foil to planned obsolescence, it's just smart design. It could still be made with the same design, but purposely use LEDs that die sooner, in which case it's smart design and planned obsolescence.

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I assume there are either voltage sensors to detect which batteries are installed in order to control the light intensity, or there are multiple individual LEDs attached to the individual batteries.

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In case you were wondering: Yes. I'm still a potato. Go away.

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