How to overengineer a door handle

When was the last time you didn’t know how to open a car door?

It used to be simple: pull the handle, and it opened. Easy. But lately, some carmakers seem to think that isn’t high-tech enough.

Now, in many new cars, the process goes like this – press a button, wait for the handle to extend, then pull. A tiny extra step, but one you have to repeat every single time.

It feels like another case of “innovation” for the sake of it. A way to make something look futuristic, charge a bit more for it, and even make more money when it breaks later.

We keep adding layers to things that once worked perfectly well – more steps, more systems, more points of failure.

Technology used to simplify life. Now it often feels like effort disguised as progress and complexity disguised as innovation.

Sometimes I wonder – if we can’t keep a door simple, what chance do we have with everything else?

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