hobs, knobs, miele product quality

I have just failed to make myself beans on toast in my own house, because I can not operate the hobs.  It's a flat surface touch interface.  I held the on thing and a red light appeared by the key.  Does this mean it's locked?  Usually I press a touch button for the hob I want, and then gradually plus until it goes up to whatever number between 1 and 15.  Now, not.  Just the key.  Tried long presses on the key and other buttons, and short presses, and can't work out how to unlock it.  Why would anyone buy anything with a user interface this bad?

Last week, I was in a kitchen showroom, and we were looking at a new kitchen for some office space.  They were showing off this whizzy one.  I tried to turn a hob on.  I genuinely tried, trying to get it to work.  I failed.  It wasn't due to induction and pan detection.  It was due to a complicated user interface.  The salesman tried to tell me how to do it, and I said please don't, if the interface isn't discoverable / intuitive / universal, then we should not select those hobs for purchase.  He said you can easily learn how to do it from the manual.  I said I don't want it.

By the way, in the same showroom we tried some whizz-bang Neff oven which was conspicuously lacking a temperature knob.  On the touch interface, we selected something that seemed like it was going to heat up the oven, to say 180 deg C.  A little counter started counting up and seconds later, it announced it had got to temperature.  Wow, that was fast.  We felt inside.  Stone cold.  It has showroom mode, meaning it fakes it.  The real heating up would be nothing like that fast.  This is just as fake as Volswagen's thing.

The hob back at home, which isn't letting me heat my beans, is Miele.  In the last few months, I have had a Miele oven trip the mains at an apartment, whenever it is switched on.  I have had a Miele washing machine fail by making the clothes slightly wet in patches and then freaking out and beeping and saying E, every time I try to do a load of laundry in it.  I have had another Miele washing machine refuse to give me access to my own laundry, getting in a huff when I tried to cancel a cycle, and keeping my clothes locked inside into the next day, at which I had to give up and take a crowbar to it.  Obstinate washing machines, that presume to decide when not to give the owner access to their laundry, are irritating enough already, but this Miele took it to a new level.

Again, it seems like the deindustrialisation of Germany is appropriate.  Perhaps the design, not just the manufacturing, should now be done by the Chinese instead of the Germans.

Previous to all this, I just knew Miele as the manufacturer of good vacuum cleaners that worked reliably.  I now know them as being rubbish at ovens, hobs, washing machines, and presumably all other categories except vacuum cleaners.