Another user interface annoyance of mine are low-battery alarms.  I recognize that they can be useful, but I’ve encountered a few that deliver more annoyance than function (like the cell phone that I once had that would beep regardless of the phone’s vibrate settings).

The latest one to annoy me is the pager that I carry for rehab callouts.  It’s a Unication Alpha Elite model.  When the battery gets really low (25% or lower) it will beep once every so often, which is not unexpected.  However, last night at midnight it unleashed a full alert.  When I looked at it the only thing I could infer was that it was complaining about the battery, which was somewhere around 33% according to the meter.  There was no message and nothing was flashing.  It also did this about a month ago just before I changed the battery. 

So, it appears that it’s programmed to alert at midnight every night when the battery is below some preset voltage level.  Which seems designed to cause maximum annoyance.  Why midnight?  Why not just display “low battery” on the display and then go to beeps when it gets really low?  If my pager makes noise at midnight I expect someone to be trying to reach me not a battery problem. 

It seems to me that this is a badly implemented feature that was obviously not vetted by any real users before it was released.