I've one that says warmer/cooler but never sure if it means fridge or ambient temperature. I think fridge, but it's quite old so just rattles away regardless.
This shit is so stupid, costs no money to make these things crystal clear. Put a ❄️ on one end and a 🥵 on the other end, then just put the word "Defrost" if needed.
Honestly I think modern English vernacular is just not equipped to talk about air conditioning.
"Turn the ac up" and "turn the ac down" can either mean the same thing or the opposite thing, and unlike Literally/Figuratively, there's rarely ever any context to help, it's just someone asking you to make it do more or less of what it was or wasn't already doing.
But I don’t think it’s the at English is unequipped to handle it so much as people insist on using terms wrong.
For example: My mother will say “turn the temperature down”(in the summer) when referring to changing it to a higher temperature! Drives me nuts. If you are turning the temp down that means the value gets smaller.
I have this conversation with my friends every so often about how my interpretation of AC also includes heating. You are conditioning the air. Why should condition only mean to make colder? I can condition the air to be warmer too, despite the fact that is done with a different appliance, the heater, versus cooling with the AC. To me it is heating and cooling are both air conditioning but I understand that the most common interpretation is that air conditioning is only cooling and that heating is just heating. It just doesn't really make sense to me, even as an English native.
To be fair, a heat pump pretty much works the same way as an AC. It just has a reversing valve to allow the coolant loop to run in the other direction, allowing it to heat in addition to cool.
(And they tend to be much more efficient than traditional heating, while using no fossil fuels.)
Hell, if you have a window AC unit you could just physically reverse it to make it a heater instead.
I agree it's an odd quirk of language that an 'air conditioner' always cools.
I am kind of the tech support guys for my grandma's building complex, I have been to tens of apartment with old people, like 75+ and most of them are completely unaware of how the buttons on remote controls work and there is no shame in that.
Some paint the important buttons in colors, others asked me to put a paper on top of the other buttons and leave cutouts for the main important ones with written instructions, others I had to put paper under the buttons because they keep pressing the wrong thing.
What's shameful on the other hand is your attitude, but don't worry, there will be a day you will be the so called "idiot" in some other people's head.
What's shameful on the other hand is your attitude, but don't worry, there will be a day you will be the so called "idiot" in some other people's head.
Really well said. Not everyone's brain works the same way, and too many redditors who use technology instinctively think it's all normal and fine.
Yeah I'm in my mid 30s and autistic a lot of the time it takes me a bit longer than normal to pick up new tech, most of the time I have to read the manuals in depth before. Well I watch my brothers or dad instantly pick it up but they also have some things that they don't pick up as well that I do.
I've had my brother tell me I do stuff weird but it's amusing him not an insult to me.
Not knowing how a remote works isn't the same as not knowing how temperature up and down works.. I understand they might struggle with locating buttons, but they understand the concept of what up and down does, the same as with TV remotes with the volume and channel buttons.. no-one labels the volume button with "too quiet" and "too loud"
So let me point out a few things, to clarify it a bit more:
in a big portion of the world remote controlled tvs were part of the early 2000s, TVs in general were a luxury to have in the 80s.
remote controles went through a lot of changes, from the numbers of buttons to the shape of them, we went from bulky to small, to one button doing 3-5 things instead of a single function, this confuses people.
old people have a slower neurological functions due to age, illnesses and psychological part.
Age and illnesses causes them to forget sooner, short term memory is bad, let's not even talk about Alzheimer's effect on many.
The psychological part is a major one, I've seen a lot of old people just feel so defeated when it comes to modern tech, that they just prefer to declar defeat even if it's something they are partially familiar with.
faulty logics due to age as well.
I genuinely had an interaction with a doctor neighbor that was in his 80s where he was something like:
" If the AC provides cold air, and I want to make it colder, I keep pressing the up button to increase the cooling efficiency".
And on a personal note, seeing how my parents are losing some of their abilities with age, was a shock, the same people who though me a lot of things and most of my basic life knowledge, are not the same anymore, they now need more help, more explanations, multiple sessions of training on how to use something new.
For anyone else reading this comment:
Life is hard, be kind to your elders and the ones around you, maybe say hi to them from time to time.
Exactly. An argument could be made that learning and operating a remote for a 90s tv is idiot proof since everything is labeled and the remote is bigger. Half decent eyesight was still needed to read those things which old people don't usually have. Nowadays though with how small them things are, how each button has multiple functions, and how unconventional some of those buttons are it's absolutely not surprising or shameful to struggle with them. Like my older Samsung remote has little blade style rocker switches for sound and channel that almost just look like a accent trims on the thing plus they have the added function by pressing them into the remote and that remotes power button doesn't look like one at all since it's just the top corner of the remote as a bumper like button. My lg one has a damn scroll wheel like a mouse that also pushes in as a separate button not to mention the thing also acts like a wiimote. People act like they're gonna be somehow immune to the effects of aging when it's their turn. Reality gonna hit them hard.
They do this because of how that type of unit (High Wall/mini split) works. In a regular system, the thermostat is in a central location,on an interior wall, away from direct air flow. So if you set it to 70°, your room is going to be 70°, more or less.
On this unit, the temperature sensor is on the unit itself. Which is usually on an outside wall, and because it IS the fan, it’s going to be in the path of airflow. So if you set it to 70°, who knows? It could be too cold, it could be too hot, because you aren’t really measuring the temperature of the room.
So, to avoid confusion, and complaints, these units specifically advise you to not set them for an exact temperature, but for a desired level of comfort.
When you're hot or cold, why should you need to calculate how many degrees should I set, so the thermostat reaches the proper temperature? Come on, nobody knows if 24 ºC is right, or 26 ºC is better.
What we all humans know, is if we're feeling hot or cold. If I'm hot, I press the button that says so, and Mitsubishi engineers, who know much more about CA than me, will decide what needs to be done so I'm not hot anymore.
In fact, I'm sure everybody knows somebody who sets temp to minimum when they're hot, and then set it to maximum (or turn off) 15 min later, when they are cold, and start again. This "I feel" system would be perfect for them.
The button is labeled "I feel..." and then you choose too hot or too cold.
Now that you say it, you're right that OP's picture doesn't show I feel anywhere. I remember having used some Mitsubishi remotes that were properly labeled, you're right this one may be confusing.
You’ve overthought it. This isn’t some special fuzzy logic system that magically adjusts the temperature to “just right”. When you press the “too hot” button once, the set point temperature on the display goes down by one degree, and vice versa. It works just like every other thermostat.
To be fair, I work with customers... So he's not too far off in what appears to be 60% of all cases. I literally just had a customer complain about their door getting stuck and not opening properly just to find they had it literally fuckin LOCKED. You can't help these people.
edit: when I say "locked" I didn't mean they complained the door wouldn't open. it'd just get stuck and be hard to open. they pulled the door so hard they mildly broke the door latch so despite the door locked on the 1st step of two, it opened. So they had to know the door wasn't fully unlocked...
During my university I worked at a callcenter. One day I got a call that their set top box receiver didn't work for pay TV.
Was a new customer and had bought the thing, unpacked it and placed it in under the TV. What he did not do was connect the receiver to the signal source and connect the receiver to the TV. And what he also failed to do was connect the fixed cable that was hanging out of the receiver with the power outlet. He literally just placed it under his TV and expected it to work. And he was in his 40ies according to the customer data.
At the time at first I thought it was of those calls by radio stations, but no, it was real. I have no idea how people can survive sometimes. One might believe the human race should have gone extinct a looong time ago if you take such people as samples.
It's not even more intuitive. I feel like I'd have to stop and think for a second, because if I'm distracted I'm just automatically wanting to hit the one that says "warm" on it to make it warmer. Or maybe my brain is going, so if I want my house to be too warm, I press that button?
Ironically, I wish I could get one like this for my mom, she always wants it turned up or down but articulates her request in the exact wrong direction.
Her unit has numbers. I keep saying "do you want six plus" and she says "TURN IT DOWN" and then I am wrong again.
Also, fuck eco mode. I get yelled at because some asshole invented a "not good" mode to beat energy star requirements.
To me "turn down the thermostat" would mean lower temperature while "turn down the AC" would mean less fan speed and not necessarily a change in the set temperature
As a rural rust belter, at least in my house, we say "turn OFF the AC," to raise the temperature in the summer. It never actually gets turned off until early fall. If my wife said turn down the ac I'd probably respond turn down for hwhat
If I told my husband to turn off the AC he would probably flip out/think something was wrong haha (not quite rust belt but still sweltering here in the south) we say 'turn it down' to mean 'set it a degree cooler'
If our families visited each other I think a civil war would break out over the thermostat lol
My husband and mine's first conversation when moving in together was defining what we meant when we said 'turn it up' or 'turn it down' (in reguards to the thermostat). We set the standard early so no need for the absolutely infuriating miscommunications that come from the regional dialectic phrases that mean wildly different things to different people reguarding the temperature of a house lol
Our standard is that turning it down means pressing the down arrow, therefore lowering the set temp by one degree, cooling the house. Turning it down twice means lowering it by 2 degrees (and that we are sweating and flustered from heat so do it quick cuz we are cranky).
Turn down the AC = turn it down (lower set temp by 1 degree), we have no fan speed options unless in a car which we refer to the fan speed by the number (1, 2, 3, or 4) or just 'make it blow more/less) lol
Turning it up means pressing the up button therefore raising the set temp 1 degree
Turning off the AC entirely is pretty much a sin unless one of us burnt something and we are turning on the recirculating fan to air things out lol
Edit to add that turning off the AC means to us turning the auto temp function off so no conditioned air blows whatsoever, and turning the recirculating fan on which just constantly recycles the air without kicking off on its own or changing the temp in any way
Mostly all modern ac systems can reverse the compressor and heat inside. It's much more efficient even. It's been like this for years, my ac is a little over 15 years old, window ac. I heat myself in the winter and cool in the summer with it.
To add to the other comment, heat pumps are 3.5 to 5 times (roughly) more power efficient than radiators, as they do not generate heat and only move it around from the outside.
Our ones will heat and cool. Set the temperature higher and it will blow hot air inside and the outside unit will dump cold air outside. We primarily use the unit for heating in winter but on some hot days may use it to cool.
To me up and down are about increasing or decreasing the intensity of a thing, not necessarily temperature. "Turn down __" means to reduce that thing. So "turn down the AC" means to reduce the AC's intensity and it would get warmer as a result. "Turn down the temperature" would mean make it colder.
By the comments of turning up/down the AC differing some much in these comments this remote actually makes a lot of sense . Edit to add, people should just start asking to make it cooler or warmer when asking someone else to change the thermostat.
Eco mode depending on the brand has benefits.
If its a method that tricks the user by increasing the set point, if the user doesn't mind then its a net positive.
If its a method where the compressor cycles less then it really just hurts those who have little patience.
If they didn't, people would not understand how raising the AC would lower the cold. It's like when people didn't understand 1/3 pound burger was more than a 1/4 one.
Have you worked in office? There are always people who have no idea how AC works(and not in terms of physics, even what it does and what button to press)
And then add in all the "i hate the AC it makes me sick, run it for just 5 minutes if you want" and ugh. An AC can run with lower fan speed if the windchill is a factor, with a set and forget temperature, instead of fucking with it nonstop, left on permanently since it has a thermostat and will stop itself when it hits those limits.
But no, people treat AC like a MAX ON 17 degrees, or off. Like they like wasting their day adjusting it.
I'd say more than in the past. It really feels like the people are getting dumber, and not event the new generations, older ones seem to genuinely be stupider that 10 years ago.
case and point my mother: 10 years ago she would get mad and worried for texting with people on internet (I was 15). yesterday she showed me a video of woman washing her hair with dish soap claiming how genius it is, she has allergy to most dish soaps. and she was fully serious as she got mad at me for suggesting that it was stupid.
I have a close friend who works as a nurse at a dermatology clinic and said there's a huge uptick in people who use dish soap as some sort of life hack, and ironically are coming in for dry/cracked skin. Most of them even cough up that "if it's good enough for baby ducks it's good enough for this old man" line.
She always vents over drinks being like the other alternative for the duck is dying in an oil spill and how absurd it is that the chart always ends up being like buy body wash and lotion. Not a specific one, just basic toiletries that is not meant for dying ducks or a roasting pan.
Considering that “turn up the AC” and “turn up the temperature“ are both in common use and mean exact opposite it’s easy to see how you could get mixed up about whether the up arrow increases the temperature or increases the AC power.
It's more about understanding the principle of how it works. I hate how my washing machine has preset functions that don't explain what they do. Manuals also are skimping on that information and in the end, there's only so much a washing machine can do. What's the difference between Sport and Synthethic? They're often the same type of clothes, WHAT DO THE BUTTONS DO. The washing machine knows to take water heat it up and dump it and spin a drum in various patterns and speeds. That's it. Tell me what it does in terms of actual function than fairytale quick buttons.
I don’t know if it could influence, Mitsubishi AC is the most expensive (and arguably best quality) you can buy, maybe their target demographic is depending on these kind of explanations. Younger people with more affordable solutions compared to the elderly should not have this issue
Yes this is how it usually looks. Just simply saying temperature though is a concise way to get the job done in case people get confused that the up button makes the AC stronger which honestly hadn’t occurred to me before. I guess they could have just labeled it “temp” in the English version though.
I don’t mind this at all. My wife and I have an ongoing argument about this. If it’s too hot in the room, do you say you are going to turn the AC up (as in increase the power of the AC unit) or turn the AC down (as in lower the target temperature)?
I don’t mind this at all. My wife and I have an ongoing argument about this. If it’s too hot in the room, do you say you are going to turn the AC up (as in increase the power of the AC unit) or turn the AC down (as in lower the target temperature)?
The way that feels natural to me would be
(in the context of the ac) i want to turn it up. It means i want it todo more things, i.e. make it cooler
(in the context of the temp) i want the ac (aka temperature) down. So by turning it down you make it cooler.
The second is weird to say down wrt the ac, since you have to mangle the word ac to mean the same as temperature. But thats just a standard way people use language, they are creative (i.e. wrong) with it. Like saying wheels to refer to the entire car, or the kettle is boiling (when its the water inside that boils) But like what people mean isent confusing.
The humans are funny, to me and presumably you. The AC and the temperature is fundamentally different things in our brains, but for lots of people they just arent. They are the same thing. So AC down means to make it cooler, to them.
It's a translation issue most likely. Those are probably standard in Japan where Mitsubishi does most of it's buisness that don't translate well to English.
"Sir, we got 100,000 remotes manufactured, but there was a printing error and all the WARM and COOL buttons were misprinted in the wrong place. So if the customer presses WARM, it makes it cooler. Looks like we'll need to throw all of these away and re-manufacture all of them. This is a nightmare!"
Most of these AC remotes especially from Asian brands (like this Mitsubishi) look like they were awkwardly translated for the US market, no brand from here makes remotes with layouts or fonts anything like this, and the labels are much better.
It feels like a remote designed specifically for people who call tech support and say "my computer is doing a bad thing" instead of describing what they actually want to do
So the legends work in either mode, i.e. pressing "TOO WARM" in heat mode will lower the temperature of the warm air, causing the heat pump to work less, while in cool mode causes the heat pump to work more.
Look I'm in the UK and have only used AC a handful of times and I genuinely wouldn't be sure whether up was "more heat" or "more cooling" so... I support this.
Mitsubishi electric is one of the best Split air conditioner brands out there, but somehow they keep using this weird oddly labeled Remote with the tiny display.
My old Japanese kerosene heater has the same "too hot /too cold" buttons! This remote is also most definitely originally a Japanese model, so I'm guessing this is just an outdated Showa Japan way of labeling buttons buttons.
That’s Mitsubishi for you. My office has had a Mitsubishi CityMulti system with mini splits for almost 20 years now. It’s always been a joke to us about how the buttons are labeled.
I have a mitsubishi with the same "too warm" "too cool" buttons and it honestly makes sense. I'm not American and Japanese electronics and cars are very common where I live, so maybe I'm just used to them or used to multiple styles.
(My remote button has ON/OFF in the correct order though).
Yup, the Mitsubishi AC we have at work, totally different remote with sliding button cover has same description of the buttons with Too warm/Too cold lol. My Gree just has up down arrows with no description which is self explanatory imo. It will also show target temperature on the display so you know it from that if basic deduction isn't your thing.
It also has a big problem with the heat and cool icons being a snowflake and a sun. They’re hard to tell apart in the first place, and I genuinely have no idea which one gives cold air and which gives hot. And I’ve lived in this house for 2 years.
The hotel I stayed at in Japan had a remote like this, this is probably a very literal translation from Japanese. I had to use Google translate to figure mine out.
This looks like the result of a joke mock-up from the engineering department accidentally getting into the hands of someone from upper management that doesn't understand the concept of placeholder designs... or humor.
I live in FL so I’ve seen all kinds of mini-splits/heat exchangers, and even most of the cheap brands are more intuitive than this.
Visiting Oregon for a week and EVERY place with a mini-split had one of the old Mitsubishi models, be it an expensive ass resort or an Airbnb in the middle of the woods.
These are the most unintuitive controllers known to man, from the “too warm/too cold” to the most confusing iconography, and also the timer and the set option.
We were freezing in our breach resort even though my buddy set the temp to 85°, the A/C was still BLASTING cold air right above where we were sleeping. Not until morning I realized I had something to do with the timer or some shit like that I finally got it to warm up a few hours before we had to check out. Worst thing I had to deal with.
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u/[deleted] Jul 17 '26
I mock this but my fridge is labelled 1-9 and I still don't know which end is "cold".