A toaster from 1949 is still smarter than any sold today • Hacker News Board

Re: A toaster from 1949 is still smarter than any sold today

#231

Post by wiether » Sun, Nov 28, 2021, 9:42 AM UTC

pureliquidhw wrote: post #214

Aeolun wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My biggest fear in getting a new washer/dryer is that it starts my wife and I on the same junk treadmill everyone else is on. In my experience, the more expensive washers/driers (e.g. >$1000) are actually higher quality and last 5 times longer than the cheap, or even mid range ones.

I have had the exact opposite experience. The cheap ones with physical buttons and timers last longer and are way cheaper to fix if it does break.

The issue with those products today is that some are more expensive because they include new tech like AI, wifi and crap like that. The core or the product is low to mid range but the adding (useless) tech means that it will be high priced. If you buy a low tech/high range product, you'll be able to serve it easily and it will outlast you.

Re: A toaster from 1949 is still smarter than any sold today

#232

Post by hapless » Mon, Nov 29, 2021, 12:09 AM UTC

truculent wrote: post #212

hapless wrote: post #156

They bury the lede in the last fucking paragraph. The reason this toaster is immensely better than the toaster you have at home is very, very simple: this toaster's 1949 price would be hundreds of dollars in 2021 terms. You can still buy really, truly excellent toasters made for industrial/commercial use, or for the homes of the very rich, and they're quite a lot better than the trash people keep in their houses. And…

This would make more sense if manufacturing hadn’t improved in that time. But isn’t it reasonable to expect the price of these items to have reduced over the past 100 years?

How, exactly, has anything improved in manufacturing?

As a rule of thumb, any time you see a Phillips head or Pozidrive screw, you are looking at a product that was assembled by hand, the way things were done 100 years ago.. If that seems prohibitively expensive for the product you are holding in your hand, well, that is why manufacturing has fled the USA. It's hard to make a $10 toaster if your workers demand reasonable wages.

A Hobart mini-mixer is still made more or less the same way it was in 1935, out of rather similar input components and materials, and it is still assembled in the USA.

We can make electronics a lot cheaper than we did in 1935 (transistors are lots cheaper than valves aka vacuum tubes!) but we can't do that for an electric motor, or for the chassis, or the various tools that attach. Those are all very similar to their 1935 versions.

Re: A toaster from 1949 is still smarter than any sold today

#233

Post by schrijver » Mon, Nov 29, 2021, 2:06 AM UTC

Gigachad wrote: post #86

rob74 wrote: post #78

I can contribute another simple example of a kitchen appliance that didn't necessarily get smarter: the cooking plate! Remember the good old cookers with rotary switches? Those actually had up to seven different stages of heating (see schematic here http://www.herd.josefscholz.de/7Takt/img16.gif )! While the new digital ones are... digital - i.e. they switch the plate on and off repeatedly to produce different amount…

The digital touch screen ones won because they are so much easier to clean. A current model induction stove is a completely flat sheet of glass. You spray some chemical on it and give it a wipe down and its done. No pulling knobs off, working between gaps, etc. And on the switching behavior, I believe that is more related to just how induction cooking works rather than the way you control it. The values on the contro…

> The digital touch screen ones won because they are so much easier to clean. A current model induction stove is a completely flat sheet of glass.

For sure it’s easier to clean, but on the ones I’ve used I find the “buttons” very fidgety because of this flat design. I’d sacrifice some ease in cleaning for the tactile feedback of mechanical buttons or ideally a (stepped) dial.

Re: A toaster from 1949 is still smarter than any sold today

#234

Post by cuddlybacon » Tue, Nov 30, 2021, 1:03 AM UTC

compsciphd wrote: post #193

cuddlybacon wrote: post #59

Since everyone is mentioning Technology Connections (he deserves it, great channel), I want to bring up this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiS27feX8o0 To me, this really shows the sad direction smart appliances have gone in. I would love to see that smart appliances would have continued to evolve in this direction. I don't like the current state of smart appliances, but going back to the absolute basic seems…

without watching the video, just based on the description. is this the smart microwave one?

It's the smart microwave!

Re: A toaster from 1949 is still smarter than any sold today

#235

Post by jonah » Tue, Nov 30, 2021, 1:51 AM UTC

pvillano wrote: post #216

jonah wrote: post #13

I have several of these and can confirm they're awesome and very satisfying to use (when they're working correctly).

>several ?

I inherited my grandmother's and I've picked up a couple at thrift stores over the years. Can only use one at once, but can't pass one up if it's inexpensive for whenever the one I'm using fails...

Re: A toaster from 1949 is still smarter than any sold today

#236

Post by ksec » Tue, Nov 30, 2021, 11:02 AM UTC

throwawaylinux wrote: post #177

hapless wrote: post #156

They bury the lede in the last fucking paragraph. The reason this toaster is immensely better than the toaster you have at home is very, very simple: this toaster's 1949 price would be hundreds of dollars in 2021 terms. You can still buy really, truly excellent toasters made for industrial/commercial use, or for the homes of the very rich, and they're quite a lot better than the trash people keep in their houses. And…

> They bury the lede in the last fucking paragraph. The reason this toaster is immensely better than the toaster you have at home is very, very simple: this toaster's 1949 price would be hundreds of dollars in 2021 terms. From the article it seemed that it's better because it has a radiant temperature sensor rather than a simple timer. Unless you're disputing that and saying it's good for some other reason that would…

Having used the Balmuda toaster, I am willing to bet it is better than the 1940s sunbeam toaster.

Re: A toaster from 1949 is still smarter than any sold today

#237

Post by htrp » Fri, Dec 03, 2021, 8:50 PM UTC

pureliquidhw wrote: post #214

Aeolun wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My biggest fear in getting a new washer/dryer is that it starts my wife and I on the same junk treadmill everyone else is on. In my experience, the more expensive washers/driers (e.g. >$1000) are actually higher quality and last 5 times longer than the cheap, or even mid range ones.

I have had the exact opposite experience. The cheap ones with physical buttons and timers last longer and are way cheaper to fix if it does break.

My Washer/dryer is going on strong.... 17 years later

Re: A toaster from 1949 is still smarter than any sold today

#238

Post by Breza » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 5:48 PM UTC

throwawaylinux wrote: post #177

hapless wrote: post #156

They bury the lede in the last fucking paragraph. The reason this toaster is immensely better than the toaster you have at home is very, very simple: this toaster's 1949 price would be hundreds of dollars in 2021 terms. You can still buy really, truly excellent toasters made for industrial/commercial use, or for the homes of the very rich, and they're quite a lot better than the trash people keep in their houses. And…

> They bury the lede in the last fucking paragraph. The reason this toaster is immensely better than the toaster you have at home is very, very simple: this toaster's 1949 price would be hundreds of dollars in 2021 terms. From the article it seemed that it's better because it has a radiant temperature sensor rather than a simple timer. Unless you're disputing that and saying it's good for some other reason that would…

I recommend the book Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture. The author talks about how the market for consumer goods has been bifurcated into insanely cheap and stupid expensive.