Around the House

#47 · Press a recessed reset button

Reach a pinhole reset on a router or device with the pointed tip. Satisfying in a very specific, nerdy way.

Routers, printers, smart plugs and half the gadgets in the house have a reset button sunk in a pinhole, on the assumption you own a paperclip. A chopstick tip tapers through roughly the same range of diameters and is a great deal easier to hold steady for thirty seconds.

How to do it

1. Find the hole - usually marked 'reset', often on the underside or back.
2. Check the manual for what you're actually triggering. On many routers a short press reboots and a long press wipes every setting including the wifi password.
3. Push the chopstick tip in until you feel the button click.
4. Hold for exactly as long as the manual specifies, watching the status light.
5. Release, and leave the device alone for a full two or three minutes while it restarts.

Why it works

Recessed buttons exist so they cannot be pressed by accident, and manufacturers size the recess around a straightened paperclip. A chopstick tapers continuously from about 2mm to 5mm, so somewhere along its length it fits almost any reset hole - and unlike a paperclip it doesn't bend when you push.

If it isn't working

• No click and nothing happens: you may be in a vent hole rather than the reset. Look for one that's a single, deliberate hole.
• The tip is too fat to enter: sand it down, or use a straightened paperclip for the very fine ones.
• The device resets but the problem returns: a factory reset rarely fixes a hardware or line fault. Check with the provider before you reconfigure everything.

Tips & warnings

• Sand a splintered tip before use. Bamboo splinters left inside a reset hole are genuinely annoying to extract.
• A snapped half-chopstick is much easier to control than a full-length one.
• Write your router's wifi password down before any long press. People forget this every single time.