What Is That Little Red Switch?

I see this question come up frequently on the Newmar Facebook groups and on the Newmar Owner’s Forum on iRV2: what is that little red switch?

I have been posting a bit of a series on the various buttons, switches and controls on our Newmar coach, focused primarily on the more mysterious controls. Some are easy, some are complicated, some are just odd.

Today? An easy one. Mysterious yes, but an easy control.

Here is the little red switch at the very left of our front dashboard:

Newmar often ignores best practice automotive design principles. The switch is not labelled leaving the operator to guess at its purpose. No letters to hint at its function. No symbol to convey its purpose. But the choice of the colour red is an interesting one.

If you press the switch up, presuming the coach is running, the switch lights up. It becomes a brighter red switch.

Red is generally a colour that indicates to the operator that something is wrong. Or that you should stop doing whatever it is you are doing, like aimlessly pressing this particular switch.

If the red light indicates that something has been activated, you won’t know what that something might be as nothing appears to happen. Except, of course, that you made the red switch light up.

Perhaps using this symbol on or underneath the switch might have been helpful:

The defrost symbol is widely used in the automotive industry. Pressing such a switch will activate a defrost.

The little red switch in our coach? It is a defrost switch. The colour red must imply heat and its position beside the mirror controls, also unlabelled, could help the owner to recall its function in the future.

That switch activates the mirror heat.

Another mystery switch resolved.