Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This purchase was to replace another Sunbeam mattress pad that did not work so well after only 3 months of use (poor heating). I have several issues with this new heating pad design: 1) Jut like the previous pad, the cords between the two controls are not long enough for the controls to comfortably rest on the night tables without slipping. As a result the cords aren't resting on the floor behind the bed, and their weight pulls the two controls unless you secure them with something, such as going around a lamp or clock radio. But then it's not long enough on the other side. If the designers had added another foot and a half or more of wire on each side, this problem would disappear. 2) The buttons on the controls are extremely clicky, i.e. noisy. For something that is to be used in a bedroom where two people sleep, it is extremely irritating that they make so much noise when pressed. I suppose it never occurred to the designers that a couple does not necessarily go to bed at the same time. Silent buttons do exist, so there is no excuse. 3) There is no indication that the unit is on after the control's display turns off. Again, when in complete darkness, you can't tell if it's on or off since the display is completely dark and there is no other light on the control, let alone reading what setting is on. 4) When you press any button on the control, the display lights up so bright that it illuminates the entire ceiling of the bedroom. Again, for a product that is supposed to be used at night, they should have included a light sensor to adjust the brightness. The display's current brightness is meant for a room where the light is on, not for a dark room when someone else is already sleeping. 5) The buttons on the control are too close to each other and that makes it difficult to differentiate them by touch because there is no tactile feedback. The above reveals that the designers did not have their thinking cap on when they designed their product. This is NOT the first time by any means that I find glaring design snafus in any type of product. Examples abound: - a humidifier where the water container has sharp angles (collecting dirt), making it hard to clean, where it should have been rounded angles (not an issue with molded plastic). - a salad spinner that can't be disassembled, making it impossible to clean where the water goes - a printer where the touch display is so small that you can't press your finger on the right control and keep doing something you don't want to do. - a car dashboard that has a shiny texture, reflecting itself onto the windshield on sunny days - and on and on and on. I can give you plenty of similar examples. My engineering background, coupled with the fact that I have designed computer user interfaces for a living in the past, makes me super sensitive to this kind of issues. It is as if the designers never actually used their own product. If they had, they would have immediately noticed the shortcomings of their design. The above being said, the pad heats well, and fairly quickly. We will see whether that lasts. The previous one worked well for 3 months (February to April), but when I tried to use it again in the following fall, it would not heat up as much as it used to, and quickly got worse. By then it was too late to return something purchased in February. This time around, I didn't make that mistake and bought it in the Fall. We shall see.