Woman Explains Easily Ignored Car Button That Was Saving Us Energy All Along

Mason Joseph Zimmer
woman's finger hovering over air recirculation button in car
TikTok | @megansbubble

A woman has recently explained how a car button that most of us ignore works to her TikTok followers and it's opened up a world of energy-saving possibilities.

Not only is is an entirely possible to own something for years without realizing everything it can do, but it's something that happens to most of us all the time. Granted, this is sometimes because largely outdated features kept getting grandfathered into designs over the years, like how that tiny pocket in our jeans is supposed to fit a pocket watch.

But we can often find that the tiny details we overlook in our lives serve some practical purposes. And while this often means that the little things in our lives are quietly helping us unnoticed, it's hard not to kick ourselves when we realize we could have been making things easier for ourselves all along.

And that's why one woman is now filling us in on the function and benefits of one little button in our cars that most of us don't press.

In a video released on July 14, a woman who goes by Megan's Bubble kicked off a series of helpful car tips by showing us this button.

woman's finger hovering over air recirculation button in car
TikTok | @megansbubble

And she explained that this button is for recirculating air inside of your car, but apparently required a follow-up video to further drill down on what that was supposed to mean for her confused audience.

So in that follow-up, she explained that while the button is turned off, the car is taking in air from outside.

Woman speaking in front of diagram of car and picture of her finger hovering over air circulation button in TikTok video
TikTok | @megansbubble

She advised doing this when the car is feeling particularly hot on the inside as the air being sucked in from outside the vehicle will likely help cool everything down.

As Luke Bosdet from the Automobile Association in the UK told Ladbible, "If you don’t know what the recirculation button does and have been blasting the air con to try to cool passengers on the back seat, you’ve been missing a trick and paying for it."

Naturally, Megan also outlined why somebody would want to turn that button on.

woman speaking behind diagram of car in TikTok video
TikTok | @megansbubble

Because while it can be cost and energy-saving to toggle the button off rather than pump the AC when things heat up, turning it on can be helpful when you're stuck in traffic or in an unpleasant atmosphere.

As she put it, "If you're sitting in front of other cars where they're going to be getting all the exhaust and everything sucked into your car, you use this button so that the air inside of the car recirculates and you don't suck in all that bad air."

Megan was soon able to confirm that her video presented some valuable information, as her comments quickly filled with people who never learned what this button did.

And if what she's saying in this video is still unclear as it was for some of her commenters, you can check out the follow-up right here for a more thorough explanation.