I'm sympathetic, in that I can easily see a situation where they were given constraints that kind of forced this. Still more than a little eye opening to see it actually built.
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BTW It's not uncommon these days that enshitification causes products to fail at their primary function. See the original Google Nest thermostat failing to turn on the heat without an internet connection. There have been several others, but I don't remember them. It's sad when a mechanical mercury switch has better up-time than fancy tech.
I’ve always wondered how they came to shoot themselves in the foot like that - any basic consumer or journalist test would have flagged that.