I have a microwave built in 1983. During a lightning storm a few years ago the little buzzer thing crapped out and now it's so quiet you can only hear it go off if you're standing right next to it and there's no other noises in the room.
Imma gonna cry when that thing finally bites the big one.
Ya I'm super impressed with it. I bought it second hand in 1992, and the only thing I've ever done is replace the light once when it burned out in 1998 or so.
Meanwhile my ex mother-in-law goes through a microwave every couple years.
Recently found out that you could turn the sound volume to zero on mine. Actually life changing to the point that I'm commenting that you should check yours as well.
Its like every manufacturer conspired to create the loudest door mechanism, the most agressive beeping tone, the least haptic input panel, the hardest to clean interior, and when discussing a standard for how to do low power or defrost cycles, decided that the only standard was that everyone had to do it slightly differently.
I'm particularly fond of the design choice to activate childlock if you press the cancel button twice, which results in every public microwave at my uni getting locked accidentally on a regular basis. Handy for me cause I know how to unlock them so theres always some free ones
Holding the number 2 for a few seconds typically does the trick, some newer ones have screens with menu settings, some cheap ones like mine don’t have that feature at all so you take it apart and remove the speaker or live with the signal fires being lit at 3 am
my friend in high school had a parrot that would mimic the microwave beeps all day. They had muted the microwave years ago, but he still remembered and still did it every day
Won't it beep if you press the stop button? I suppose that's better than the multiple beeps of the finished signal. Even better, first thing I do with a new microwave is figure out how to turn off the sound. Obnoxiously loud beeps and obnoxiously bright LEDs are such common annoyances in appliances. I wish they'd design away from those or at least always provide options to reduce/remove them.