Buzz
Many everyday objects give us the impression that they serve a purpose, but in reality, they don’t do anything, like the hotel room thermostat. It’s simply a placebo designed to make you feel like you have control over the temperature in your room. Now it all makes sense—despite adjusting it, you still feel warm.
There’s no single explanation for why businesses and governments make us believe in these ineffective gadgets. It could be motivated by money, convenience, or flaws in the technology itself. But keep reading—you’ll be amazed by the truths you’ll uncover.
10. Hotel Thermostats
Ever noticed how you adjust the air conditioning in your hotel room but still end up feeling hot? That’s because many hotel thermostats are actually non-functional. They’re just there to give you the illusion of control so you won’t complain to the hotel staff. After all, they’d rather avoid bad reviews on TripAdvisor.
Some hotel thermostats function as both heat and motion sensors. These sensors automatically adjust the temperature based on your activity in the room and the surrounding conditions. Some even deactivate the air conditioning when you leave the room or open a door or window.
To clarify, certain thermostats do provide some level of control, but they usually have preset minimum and maximum limits. You’re unaware of these boundaries, and even if you try to push past them, your room won’t get any hotter or colder. Interestingly, many travelers are now catching on to this thermostat trick and finding ways around it.
While minimizing energy consumption is good for the planet, the primary reason hotels tamper with thermostats is financial. Hotels save money when guests use less energy, and they go to great lengths to control this, since guests typically aren’t concerned with the cost of electricity.
9. Progress Bars
The progress bars that display the percentage or time remaining for a file transfer or download on devices like phones, computers, and tablets don’t actually work as expected. For example, when a progress bar shows 50 percent, it doesn’t mean half of the file has been transferred. In reality, the file could be nearly complete—or not transferred at all.
Progress bars aren’t reliable because downloads and transfers depend on various factors that are beyond the system's control. For instance, Internet speeds and network stability are major factors influencing download times, while the speed of a hard drive determines how quickly a file transfer completes.
Additionally, a hard drive can copy a large file more quickly than it can handle multiple smaller files, even if the total size of the smaller files is less than the large one. This is due to the fact that hard drives spend more time locating and processing multiple smaller files compared to a single large one.
The reason progress bars often don’t reflect true progress is that programmers use milestones instead. They set specific checkpoints for transfers and downloads, updating the progress bar only when these milestones are reached. So, when the progress bar shows 50 percent, it simply means that one of these predefined milestones has been hit.
8. Pedestrian Crossing Buttons
Many of us have probably pressed a pedestrian crossing button, expecting the 'walk' signal to turn on. However, it turns out that not all of these buttons are functional.
Sometimes, the pedestrian crossing button does work, but it can be categorized into three types: one that always works, one that never works, and one that works intermittently.
For the first type, the 'walk' signal won’t appear until a pedestrian presses the button. In the second type, the signal comes on at certain intervals, regardless of whether someone is waiting to cross. In this case, pressing the button has no effect.
The third type is designed to automatically activate the walk light during periods of heavy foot traffic. However, during other times, the button must be pressed in order for the signal to appear.
That said, it can be tricky to tell if a crosswalk button is functional, so it’s always worth pressing it anyway. Alternatively, you could wait and see if the signal activates by itself.
7. Fitness Trackers
Fitness trackers and smartwatches are great for monitoring your heart rate, but if you're looking to track the calories burned during exercise, they're not very reliable.
This issue even affects high-end devices like the Apple Watch, Fitbit Surge, Microsoft Band, and Samsung Gear S2. A 2017 study by researchers from Stanford University School of Medicine showed that these devices are accurate within five percent for heart rate measurements, which is generally acceptable.
However, when it comes to measuring calories burned during exercise, these devices show much higher error margins. The Fitbit Surge was off by 27 percent, which is quite significant. Even worse, the Samsung Gear S2 had an error margin of 93 percent, the highest of all the devices tested.
The reason fitness trackers struggle with measuring calories is because they fail to account for differences in height, weight, and other individual factors that affect how many calories people burn. Instead, they tend to use a generic height and weight for all users, ignoring their actual measurements.
6. Open-Close Buttons On Tube Trains
In London, Tube trains are equipped with 'open' buttons that passengers can press to open the train doors. Some trains also feature a 'close' button, which supposedly allows passengers to close the doors right before the train departs. We say 'supposedly' because these buttons are nonfunctional—the doors are actually controlled by the train drivers.
Until the 1990s, passengers could control the doors themselves. However, train operators discovered that when the driver controlled the doors, trains spent less time at stations. There were also other safety concerns that led to the decision to pass control to the driver.
Some mischievous passengers enjoyed pressing the 'close' button while others were still trying to board. One such incident ended in tragedy when a boy got stuck in the door and was injured. As a result, some trains had their buttons removed during refurbishments.
5. Sunscreen
Sunscreens have one primary purpose: protecting us from the harmful ultraviolet rays of the Sun. However, a study by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) shows that they fail significantly at this. Only one out of every four sunscreens actually works as promised.
EWG conducts yearly evaluations to assess the effectiveness of sunscreens. In 2017, the group revealed that just 73 percent of the 880 sunscreens they tested performed as claimed. The rest either didn’t work or contained ingredients that could potentially cause more harm than good.
The EWG found that most sunscreens failed to protect users from both ultraviolet A and B rays. Additionally, some manufacturers falsely advertised their products as having a sun protection factor (SPF) higher than 50—implying superior protection—while the actual SPF was much lower. This misleading labeling could cause users to overestimate their level of protection.
4. Ultrasound Mosquito Repellents
Ultrasound mosquito repellents have been available for several years. These small, portable devices emit ultrasonic noise that supposedly drives mosquitoes away. Sometimes, these repellents come in the form of phone apps that produce an annoying buzzing sound to keep mosquitoes at bay.
The devices and apps are ineffective. The idea that ultrasonic sounds can drive mosquitoes away has been around for more than 40 years. A popular belief is that the ultrasonic noise mimics the sound of dragonfly wings, causing mosquitoes to flee.
This theory seems plausible because dragonflies are natural predators of mosquitoes. However, it's incorrect since the ultrasonic sounds used in repellents are around 15 kilohertz, whereas dragonfly wings produce sounds between 20 and 170 hertz. Moreover, mosquitoes don’t run from the sound of dragonfly wings.
Another claim is that the sound imitates the mating call of a male mosquito. The reasoning is that female mosquitoes, often carrying eggs, would avoid mating. However, this is also false. Male mosquitoes’ wingbeats reach around 700 hertz, far lower than the 15 kilohertz emitted by these ultrasonic devices and apps.
Additionally, there’s little evidence to suggest that female mosquitoes are disturbed by the sounds of male mosquitoes or any other noise. Nonetheless, this myth persists. In fact, a Brazilian FM station once aired ultrasonic sounds on its broadcast, hoping to drive mosquitoes away from its audience.
3. Sports Drinks
Sports drinks are often marketed as a must-have for athletes. Nowadays, advertisements encourage sportspeople to consume them mid-exercise to avoid dehydration and replenish electrolytes.
However, most people would be better off simply drinking water. Sports drinks are mostly just flavored water with added minerals, sugar, and artificial coloring. The minerals typically include sodium and potassium, which are what we call electrolytes.
For starters, drinking too much liquid—whether water, sports drinks, or anything else—can lead to overhydration. This condition often results in hyponatremia, where the sodium in the blood becomes too diluted due to excessive water intake.
No marathon runner has ever died from dehydration, but by 2012, 16 marathoners had passed away due to overhydration and hyponatremia, with over 1,600 others hospitalized. That being said, sports drinks are beneficial for athletes engaging in high-endurance exercises lasting over an hour. The average person doing basic workouts should stick to water.
2. Office Thermostats
Hotel thermostats aren't the only ones that fail to live up to expectations. Office thermostats often don’t work either. Estimates on how many office thermostats malfunction vary widely, with figures ranging from two to 90 percent. Interestingly, many offices originally had functional thermostats, but they were removed because employees couldn't agree on the ideal temperature settings.
Much like hotels, tenants began calling the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) companies responsible for office air conditioning to complain that the preset temperatures were either too hot or too cold. The complaints decreased once HVAC companies began sending out fake thermostats to offices.
1. PC Cleaning Software
Have you ever stumbled upon premium PC cleaning software that claims to speed up your computer and restore its original performance? These programs don’t work either. In fact, they have a poor reputation in the tech world and are often likened to digital snake oil.
These third-party cleaning programs are frequently designed to create the illusion that they are effective, when in reality, they aren't. They often detect non-issues and present them as problems. For example, many of them identify browser cookies and temporary files as being detrimental to computer speed, despite having no real impact.
Many PC cleaning software programs tend to blow smaller issues out of proportion, making them appear more serious than they really are. Most operating systems come with built-in cleaning tools that perform just as well if you ever need to clean your computer. Best of all, these tools don’t require any extra spending.
