51–60 of 87 posts
Family had a Braun Mixer type 4142 when I was growing up and I used to marvel at the design. Clean lines, subtle curves, the stark simplicity of the dial. Had no idea who Dieter Rams was and his design legacy at Braun. Bought a Braun Aetlier 1 Stereo as a collectors item much later in life, to pay homage to Rams. A thing of beauty that now is a centerpiece, sitting next to the NeXT Cube.
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> [...] they shared the fate of all European household appliance manufacturers — increasing competition from Asian companies, so by the 1990s, Braun was dead. Miele and Bosch etc are still going strong. So I'm not sure what you mean by 'European household appliance manufacturers': they have faced the competition from Asian companies and survived.
> "Miele and Bosch etc are still going strong." Not to mention Phillips, Electrolux (still the world's 2nd largest appliance manufacturer after Whirlpool!), and relative newcomers like Dyson.
This is about the old Braun. The new one is the usual Chinese garbage. Not that different from Philips or Bosch though, this stuff just breaks so much faster than what I was used to two decades or more ago.
I got enamoured by their wrist watch reissues, got one for myself and another model for my wife. In one watch hands weren't aligned to tick marks and another had hands simply detached themselves from the axes and now hang limply pointing at 6.
I guess it could qualify as an art project of some sort, uber-minimalizm in both design and function, but that's not really what I bought it for.
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> "Miele and Bosch etc are still going strong." Not to mention Phillips, Electrolux (still the world's 2nd largest appliance manufacturer after Whirlpool!), and relative newcomers like Dyson.
Philips is not exactly a European household appliance manufacturer, they've sold off most of that and moved into health tech.
..and are knowingly selling, among other things, highly defective CPAP devices.
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Sold to Gilette in 1967, expansion into many different areas after. Then, I guess their story is not really unique, they shared the fate of all European household appliance manufacturers — increasing competition from Asian companies, so by the 1990s, Braun was dead. After Procter & Gamble bought them in 2005, it now mostly exists as a brand to be licensed (everything other than shaving and electric toothbrushes).
They have good clocks, still. Not sure who manufactures them. They have a clock-specific website, braun-clocks.com, that shows P&G as the registrant.
I’d love to read an account of the ‘fall’ of Braun. Through my adult life, basically the only thing it makes that are still ubiquitous are electric shavers - which are great shavers, but hardly icons of design. Was there internal drama that led to this contraction in the diversity of what they made? Did it happen fast or slow? I feel like there must be a good story in there.
Pretty much what happened more broadly. Brands got sold off to companies making goods in Asia for lower prices. Consumers mostly not willing to pay 2x to 3xand it’s often not even clear if the higher prices are worth the premium.
I'm into coffee, and Timemore products are cleaner and overall better at what I want than from european or US brands.
Same went for MUJI, who were never really cheap outside of Japan (and were just middle priced even domestically) but kept a foothold thanks to better and cleaner design.
Increasingly Xiaomi's household products are also coming into that niche. Still daily using their driver set after 5 years.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "Miele and Bosch etc are still going strong." Not to mention Phillips, Electrolux (still the world's 2nd largest appliance manufacturer after Whirlpool!), and relative newcomers like Dyson.
Philips is not exactly a European household appliance manufacturer, they've sold off most of that and moved into health tech.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pretty much what happened more broadly. Brands got sold off to companies making goods in Asia for lower prices. Consumers mostly not willing to pay 2x to 3xand it’s often not even clear if the higher prices are worth the premium.
At this point it not even for lower prices. I'm into coffee, and Timemore products are cleaner and overall better at what I want than from european or US brands. Same went for MUJI, who were never really cheap outside of Japan (and were just middle priced even domestically) but kept a foothold thanks to better and cleaner design. Increasingly Xiaomi's household products are also coming into that niche. Still daily us…
IMO Xiaomi, more than Apple carries on Braun legacy. Relatively well designed, performant, and accessible (cheap) consumer goods. No one else is even trying to build out an ecosystem like Xiaomi with underlying design language.
Muji has some nice kitchen stuff/home appliances in Asian market, but they're expanding their portfolio very conservatively. Bonus for designing a Muji house filled with Muji goods. Wish I can order that from a Sears Catalogue.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Philips is not exactly a European household appliance manufacturer, they've sold off most of that and moved into health tech.
Nah bruh. Philips and Electrolux are mostly just name brands today that license their badges to be placed on goods from OEM Chinese or Turkish appliance makers.
With Phillips its more complicated because they've spun off many of their divisions into separate companies, such as the lighting division into Signify NV. So Signify now makes the Phillips Hue lighting products under license. But it's not like they're licensing the brand out to random companies - they're companies that were previously part of Phillips itself.