Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Juicero Is Shutting Down

fortune.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 413 posts

Re: Juicero Is Shutting Down

#341

Post by zemvpferreira »

petra wrote: post #77
nickparker wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think the future of food is different - it's about restaurant quality meals, for cheap, large selection, with zero effort. maybe via online ordering, maybe Whole-foods/Walmart. And you may need some fancy oven like combi-oven or solid-state microwave. And even if we're talking cuts of meat, i think technology like MATS(microwave assisted thermal sterilization) may give you high quality meat that doesn't spoil for v…

This is as good a time as any to plug my company, Mellow: www.cookmellow.com (that's our exact value prop)

Re: Juicero Is Shutting Down

#342

Post by jakobegger »

nikanj wrote: post #339
epipping wrote: post #338

After watching their promo video at the top of the page, I'm left wondering two things: - If the machine takes away all my liberty (I cannot use it on my fruit and vegetables) and even their packs need to be refrigerated and stay good only for 8 days, can't I just buy the resulting juice and put it in my fridge? (If I left the bottle closed, that would last equally long). So what do I gain? - They're using QR codes t…

You gain the prestige of saying "you want a fresh-squeezed juice?" to your guests. Keurig grew HUGE in large part thanks to the appearance of higher class it brought to ordinary homes and offices. Instead of fooling with tools, you click a button on a sleek looking SV futuremachine, and presto. Humans are weird, and this is a very good marketing strategy.

I'm not familiar with Keurig, but I assume it is similar to Nespresso?

Nespresso became extremely popular because:

1) The machines are very cheap (compared to other espresso makers)

2) They take a fraction of the time to prepare coffee (compared to other methods)

3) They are extremely easy to clean

4) Capsules have a long shelf life, you can get them in small quantities, so it doesn't matter if you drink 3 cups of coffee per day or 3 cups of coffee per month.

5) They have really fancy stores in top locations where they sell their capsules

Everything about Nespresso is convenient and feels great. There is no DRM, because that would not be convenient.

The only thing that's convenient about the Juicero machine is that it is easy to clean. Everything else about it, from the short shelf live to the subscription pricing, to the long time it takes to make juice, is just inconvenient. The DRM and Wifi requirement is just stupid.

Re: Juicero Is Shutting Down

#343

Post by Devthrowaway80 »

esaym wrote: post #103
fsckin wrote: post #14

AvE tore one of their machines down awhile back[0]. It's so over engineered, I was wondering how they'd ever make money back with their business model. [0] https://youtu.be/_Cp-BGQfpHQ

wow great video! Just wasted half a days work just watching that channel's stuff :/

Likewise. That channel might be the most Canadian thing ever to exist - got a little homesick just watching it.

Re: Juicero Is Shutting Down

#344

Post by ericd »

ra1n85 wrote: post #296
ericd wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Odwalla/Naked Juice?

For Odwalla/Naked juice: Do you pay 8 dollars per bottle, need to wait for it to arrive in the mail, pay $400 for the juice press to make it, and get locked into a single product for all of your "fruit juice needs"? The last 3 words make this all the more stupid.

You don't need to convince me that juicero was stupid and unnecessary, just saying there's an analogue to gp's example in that there are already fairly expensive ($4/bottle) juices out there showing that there's a market for juice. There are also much more ridiculously priced juices, including, yes, $8 juices. I'm not the target market for those, but they exist at cafes and some other grab and go type places and have for a bit, so there must be at least a small market for overpriced juice.

Re: Juicero Is Shutting Down

#345

Post by gambiting »

nikanj wrote: post #339
epipping wrote: post #338

After watching their promo video at the top of the page, I'm left wondering two things: - If the machine takes away all my liberty (I cannot use it on my fruit and vegetables) and even their packs need to be refrigerated and stay good only for 8 days, can't I just buy the resulting juice and put it in my fridge? (If I left the bottle closed, that would last equally long). So what do I gain? - They're using QR codes t…

You gain the prestige of saying "you want a fresh-squeezed juice?" to your guests. Keurig grew HUGE in large part thanks to the appearance of higher class it brought to ordinary homes and offices. Instead of fooling with tools, you click a button on a sleek looking SV futuremachine, and presto. Humans are weird, and this is a very good marketing strategy.

Except that Keurig/Nesspresso/Tassimo machines actually make coffee using ground beans. It's a convenience thing, sure, but they are roughly the same as an espresso machine that you don't have to fill up yourself. Juicero was squeezing juice out of a pack. It could come in a bottle and you could pour it yourself, the product would be exactly identical.

Re: Juicero Is Shutting Down

#346

Post by eh78ssxv2f »

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #325
eh78ssxv2f wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wouldn't want to have my oven on when I am not home- it might just be me but it seems dangerous to leave a hot oven unattended. Well, then you are in the market for an IoT oven that is connected to your phone and car. A device that can continuously track your phone and car location, and turn off the networked oven if you are outside the house.

Why? Just carry a dongle and when that is not in the vicinity of the house switch of certain circuits. What do you need the internet for?

> Just carry a dongle

The problem is nobody wants to carry a dongle. Also, localizing the dongle inside the house is not as straightforward. Would the users need to put one dongle-detector in each room? one near each exit? If it has long transmission range, then it would probably be big/heavy due to larger batteries.

Re: Juicero Is Shutting Down

#347

Post by Grustaf »

jakobegger wrote: post #342
nikanj wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You gain the prestige of saying "you want a fresh-squeezed juice?" to your guests. Keurig grew HUGE in large part thanks to the appearance of higher class it brought to ordinary homes and offices. Instead of fooling with tools, you click a button on a sleek looking SV futuremachine, and presto. Humans are weird, and this is a very good marketing strategy.

I'm not familiar with Keurig, but I assume it is similar to Nespresso? Nespresso became extremely popular because: 1) The machines are very cheap (compared to other espresso makers) 2) They take a fraction of the time to prepare coffee (compared to other methods) 3) They are extremely easy to clean 4) Capsules have a long shelf life, you can get them in small quantities, so it doesn't matter if you drink 3 cups of co…

The fact that anyone can make a sort of decent cup of coffee with a nespresso is also important.

Additionally, the taste benefit of nespresso over instant coffee or something similar is probably much higher than juicero over the best bottled juice.

Re: Juicero Is Shutting Down

#348

Post by GuiA »

cabaalis wrote: post #218
theDoug wrote: post #166

Founder seems to be having a good time at Burning Man the day his company shuts down.[1] [1] https://www.instagram.com/p/BYaIlV4jFb5/?taken-by=dougevans

I suppose I'm not the target demo. But I'm not too interested in buying anything from the man in this video.

You most likely have put money in the pockets of many people who have behaved just like the man in this video.

Re: Juicero Is Shutting Down

#349

Post by linker3000 »

wlievens wrote: post #337
Spivak wrote: post #104

Earlier 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.

Of those, only real time energy usage monitoring is really interesting, I think.

I bought an 'Owl' energy clamp and display from the discount bin at a local hardware store - about £13 ISTR. I made a copy of the rflink (Arduino-based 433MHz rf sniffer/decoder: https://diyprojects.io/how-build-rflink-433mhz-radio-home-ga... - about £20 including ESP8266 wifi link) that decodes the signal from the Owl, my wireless doorbell and that of an outdoor temp/humidity sensor (£6 from Banggood). The board can also send control signals to the rf-enabled mains sockets I have collected over the years (for lights and home appliances).

It's all managed by a raspberry Pi (About £20). The system can also pick up my wireless doorbell, and I am about to add temperature sensors and relays (£25) to my central heating system so everything is automated and controllable from Node-Red and a Web interface. Overall, I will have a private home control system for under £100 and I can view and manage it from my laptop or a VPN link from my phone.

Re: Juicero Is Shutting Down

#350

Post by JimDabell »

kuschku wrote: post #274
JimDabell wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That "Beats" teardown was with a counterfeit pair of headphones. Even so, I don't think a large difference between the BOM and the price the consumer pays is necessarily a ripoff. There's more to a product than simply how much it costs to manufacture.

> Even so, I don't think a large difference between the BOM and the price the consumer pays is necessarily a ripoff. Actually, in some jurisdictions, if that difference goes over 12.5% of the paid price, and the customer is not specifically informed about this (and about potential cheaper competitors), the contract is not valid.

I've not heard of that before. Where is this?
Post reply on HN