Magnificent engineering to solve a stupid non-problem. Sigh.
Juicero Is Shutting Down
121–130 of 413 posts
Re: Juicero Is Shutting Down
#122I think they went about getting to market wrong. They should not have targeted end consumers with their equipment. They should have went after the convenience store market using the soda dispenser/automated latte/vending machine/icee making business model. Basically convince the store owner to have some refrigerated space dedicated to the pouches and then put the machine nearby for the customer to make their own juic…
The trouble is, I've always thought Juicero was a bank shot for digitized food in general. If that's the case, they needed to be serving consumers not businesses. The concept of food that's uniquely tagged and tracked from origin to consumption is pretty attractive - makes contamination a breeze to trace back, keeps you from cooking with rotten food since the machine knows to reject it, and it could automatically tra…
> keeps you from cooking with rotten food
If only we had some kind of olfactory or optical equipment stuck on the front of our faces that could help determine the rottenness or mouldiness of food.
Failing that, perhaps producers of packaged food could use some kind of common standard system to inform consumers of the date by which the food should be used by, or before which it might be at its best.
Re: Juicero Is Shutting Down
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's "digitized food"? Does every single one of my strawberries come with a bar code on it? Or does everything come in Juicebro style pouches?
Agafia is a hermit surviving in the Russian wilderness for 70 years. I recommend the RT report on her because they do not try to force a conclusion to the contact. She is afraid of barcodes even though she barely has any contact with other people. During the last world war humans were assigned serial numbers for efficient tracking and resource allocation and extermination. Agafia and her people ran away from several…
Hmm... Whats this entirely detailed sensor that has ALL my access/identity/sentiment/social data on it - where I am required to pay a monthly fee for, and life in modern society will basically stop if I dont have one? The one where I am expected to follow and celebrate every release of one with far more tracking/identifying/documenting features -- and then spend more money on upgrading my tracker?
You know - the one where governments and police departments have equipment to fool the device to connecting to just them so they know exactly where I am?
That next logical step of Agafia sounds ludicrous!
Re: Juicero Is Shutting Down
#124120 million USD in funding and such a spectacular failure because of one article. This whole episode goes on to show the power journalists have. I know the sales number were bad but with so much money the founder could have bought the market or pivoted but with no coming back from the PR disaster the investors most likely just wanted their money back.
Re: Juicero Is Shutting Down
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
How would tracking the food from origin to consumption allow the machine to reject rotten food? Things going rotten are not that predictable, even if you know exactly when and where it was packaged.
If it knows when and where for everything about an ingredient, it probably also knows the tagged expiry/best-before. It's easy to play it safe and just reject everything past expiry, even if it need not actually have gone bad. And consumers who prioritize contamination safety (not everyone believes expiry dates, but many do) can respect that. There are cases where something can go bad before its expiry date, due to i…
Expiration dates are more for best taste rather than food safety. You're able to tell when fruits/veggies go rotten with your eyes, nose, and mouth.
Re: Juicero Is Shutting Down
#126I think they went about getting to market wrong. They should not have targeted end consumers with their equipment. They should have went after the convenience store market using the soda dispenser/automated latte/vending machine/icee making business model. Basically convince the store owner to have some refrigerated space dedicated to the pouches and then put the machine nearby for the customer to make their own juic…
Thing is, nothing about the Juicero is fresh squeezed. It's mostly masticated fruit pulp, that is squeezed out of a bag. That juice company you mentioned, is actually freshly squeezing juice. Juicero was complete nonsense from start to finish.
It's like... 70% fresh squeezed. The fruit is chopped up into smaller pieces, so for the most part there isn't much difference, and it is very new fruit. But to the target demographic 70% might as well be 0%.
Re: Juicero Is Shutting Down
#127Are they shutting down using a super-complicated completely over engineered method of shutting down, or the regular way?
They're starting a web site called GoFireMe.com, to crowd source their layoff packages.
Re: Juicero Is Shutting Down
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
We should probably split hairs here. I would love for all of my appliances to be networked -- just not on the public internet. - Preheat the oven as I'm driving home - Alert me when my laundry/dishes are done - Alert me if my air filter needs replaced. - Manage my AC/Heating for maximum energy efficiency. - Real time energy usage monitoring. - Turn on/off lights when I arrive/leave.
Assuming you have a dynamic ip this won't be possible without a cloud service.
There's absolutely no reason why everyone who wants one shouldn't have a static block of IP(v6) addresses. If they're hard to get, that's an ISP problem rather than anything else.
Re: Juicero Is Shutting Down
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
We should probably split hairs here. I would love for all of my appliances to be networked -- just not on the public internet. - Preheat the oven as I'm driving home - Alert me when my laundry/dishes are done - Alert me if my air filter needs replaced. - Manage my AC/Heating for maximum energy efficiency. - Real time energy usage monitoring. - Turn on/off lights when I arrive/leave.
Assuming you have a dynamic ip this won't be possible without a cloud service.
We have IPv6, everyone has practically infinite amount of public (and hopefully static, unless ISP did a major fuck up) IP addresses these days.
Re: Juicero Is Shutting Down
#130It is a shame that Juicero could not develop a product with a lower price point that could reach a much broader marketplace. With the initial price point they should have clearly seen that their customer pool was going to be smaller than that of a lower cost product. It seems that they did not have enough time and money to right their ship. It is sad to see a dream die even if you don't agree with the product or busi…
I don't think the price point per se is an issue, people happily pay over 400 for a quality juicer. But the kind of person who does that probably wants the full experience, chopping the vegetables etc. This experience just seems too similar to just buying high quality juice in the shop. I know this model works for coffee, but there the prefab alternative is not an option.
I think the "full experience" you speak of is getting fresh juice rather than some pre-oxidized slurry in a bag.
And shame on the VCs for not using their heads. You can't get a half pint of juice out of a pint bag of fruits and veggies.
Which reminds me of my brilliant idea of making fresh squeezed lemonade for our wedding guests. I had to cut a whole 25lb box of lemons in half and then press them into the Kitchen Aid to get about two quarts of juice. It took me hours and a lot of elbow grease to do that.