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Ask HN: What sub $200 product improved your 2022

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Re: Ask HN: What sub $200 product improved your 2022

#581
post #138

Ordering frozen croissants online. Before going to bed you leave one in the oven. Wake up, turn oven on, hit the shower. When you come out, it's ready to eat = cafe experience at home, coffee and a croissant while checking the news.

If your oven has an electronic timer, it should have a function to finish at time x, so you could even wake up to done ones. Great, for coming home from work to perfectly slow-cooked ribs, for example.

Re: Ask HN: What sub $200 product improved your 2022

#582

A one-hour shopping session with a personal stylist, at about $175. I desperately wanted to break out of my t-shirt/blue jeans habit, but parsing clothes sizes, trying things on, and getting opinions is equal parts sorcery and torture for me. (I'd tried Stitch Fix and felt like it wanted to reinforce my habits rather than break me out of them.) After sending her details about my problems and the kinds of styles I adm…

Could have just gone on a date with a woman lol.

Re: Ask HN: What sub $200 product improved your 2022

#583
I got a retractable screen door for my bedroom door that goes to our back porch. Instead of a swinging screen door it just unhooks and rolls up to the side, and can be pulled back out.

It's great for getting a breeze on nice days, without letting mosquitos in. There was one on the front door when we bought the house, wish I hadn't waited so long as it was super easy to install. Will probably get one for the door to the garage as well this year.

Re: Ask HN: What sub $200 product improved your 2022

#584

An air fryer. It’s really a badly marketed product. Its real utility isn’t that it uses less oil, but that it cooks incredibly fast. Essentially an oven on steroids. It’s made cooking so much easier. I usually toss some boneless chicken in with a light coating of soy sauce and cornflour. While the chicken cooks, I prep a basic Asian sauce on the stovetop. The chicken and the sauce are both done within 10-15 minutes.…

> It’s really a badly marketed product. I think the marketing is really smart. It's positioned as a new category of product. Oven on steroids won't sell because people already own ovens. It has to be a distinct appliance otherwise it's competing against a full sized oven. That's not the comparison you want a consumer to make.

I would absolutely buy a better, faster, crispier oven for $100-$200.

I honestly didn't understand what they were at first and didn't bother to find out.

Re: Ask HN: What sub $200 product improved your 2022

#587
post #6

I work from home - with a 5 minute screensaver with complicated password required by corporate - USB MouseJiggler - https://www.amazon.com/Undetectable-Computer-Simulate-Moveme... Best - Purchase - Ever - !

Does this eventually "wear out" our monitors/displays because now they never turn off. I have expensive monitors and I work from home and keep my laptop always docked. Never turning off the displays makes me wonder if I am rushing them to going bad too soon.

Re: Ask HN: What sub $200 product improved your 2022

#589
post #431

An air fryer. It’s really a badly marketed product. Its real utility isn’t that it uses less oil, but that it cooks incredibly fast. Essentially an oven on steroids. It’s made cooking so much easier. I usually toss some boneless chicken in with a light coating of soy sauce and cornflour. While the chicken cooks, I prep a basic Asian sauce on the stovetop. The chicken and the sauce are both done within 10-15 minutes.…

> Its real utility isn’t that it uses less oil, but that it cooks incredibly fast. > The chicken and the sauce are both done within 10-15 minutes. Normal sized boneless chicken breasts should cook in a pan in about 10 minutes or less, and you really don't need to do anything other than flip them once. If air fryers are convincing people to cook their own fresh food I would say that's a good thing, but I'm still strug…

I poach mine in the microwave with a bit of water, drain, then shred with forks and add salsa/tomato sauce/etc.

Dead simple. Super tasty. 10 minutes, easy cleanup.

Re: Ask HN: What sub $200 product improved your 2022

#590

An air fryer. It’s really a badly marketed product. Its real utility isn’t that it uses less oil, but that it cooks incredibly fast. Essentially an oven on steroids. It’s made cooking so much easier. I usually toss some boneless chicken in with a light coating of soy sauce and cornflour. While the chicken cooks, I prep a basic Asian sauce on the stovetop. The chicken and the sauce are both done within 10-15 minutes.…

I had multiple air fryer models over the years. The stirring functions (a rotating paddle that stirs the food) is an ABSOLUTE GAME CHANGER and a must for me. Unfortunately those equipped with a stirring function come up as expensive. I would love to see a < $100 air fryer equipped with it.

What exactly does the stirring function allow you to do that you couldn't do before?

And which model of stirring air fryer did you end up going for?

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