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Goodbye non-KISS appliances

willbush.dev

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Re: Goodbye non-KISS appliances

#111

Post by tazjin »

czechdeveloper wrote: post #59
imjonse wrote: post #9

Appliance engineers probably have their equivalent of "Kubernetes and SPA used for no good reason at all and now we can't focus on the actual features"

By now, making UI with (by now not completely) SPA frameworks specifically made for that task is just better developer experience. I won't go back to pretty much html string concation via templates. Why do people keep pretending it's better in any way is lost on me.

It's well understood that the reason people drag in these unnecessary frameworks is often because they prioritise their developer experience over the user experience, and you're just proving the point ;)

For what it's worth, the developer experience is also highly subjective.

Re: Goodbye non-KISS appliances

#112

Post by darreninthenet »

CogitoCogito wrote: post #105
darreninthenet wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really have no idea how to reply to this without sounding like an ass so apologies in advance. Well yeah duh if the door was shut properly every time fridges wouldn't need door or temperature alarms at all (most have an audible one already). But it's called an alarm for a reason, sometimes shit goes wrong and it's handy to know before all the food has been at room temperature all day. We had a freezer door pop open…

Doesn’t a beep from the fridge suffice? That’s an old solution that’s existed for a very long time.

If you're home or not upstairs asleep it's sufficient... it's not a feature that would make me choose the fridge but it's handy when it has it.

Re: Goodbye non-KISS appliances

#113

Post by AndrewDavis »

arter4 wrote: post #52
brodsky wrote: post #25

When we upgraded our appliances, the "smart" or "wifi-enabled" ones were specifically avoided like the plague. "Dumb" appliances - especially fridges, for some reason - are becoming hard to come by, but they do exist. Electrolux, KitchenAid, even LG all make some no-frills models that can save both money and frustration. Hopefully those companies continue serving the "luddite techie" market.

Yes, I agree. I'm not a luddite per se - heck, I make a living out of making stuff talk to one another on a network. But I don't get the appeal, from a customer standpoint, of having all physical objects talk to you or to the Internet. Like, why? I get it when it comes to alarm systems. Being able to get a notification when someone breaks in is nice, because the alarm system is mostly doing its job when you're not at…

Even appliances that aren't internet connected are going down this terrible UX path.

My old washing machine had nobs (dials) you turn. You put the clothes and soap in, close the door and press the button. My preference of type of wash and water temperature were all "saved" by the nob position.

My current washing machine, nob is type of wash, capacitive touch buttons for everything else. Keeping the nob "on" keeps the digital display on and consuming power. And the wash options like temperature, extra rinse etc are all controlled digitally with no memory. Want 60 degrees water? Press the water temperature button 8 times, each with a delay of about 3/4 of a second for it to register before a press works again. It's utterly terrible.

Re: Goodbye non-KISS appliances

#114

Post by tetris11 »

jgrahamc wrote: post #61
msadowski wrote: post #5

I’m about to buy all the appliances to a new place in Europe and could use some more horror stories and learn which brands to avoid. So far I’ve been told to stay away from Samsung ovens. Anyone has any regrets on appliances?

I have had Miele appliances forever and have been very happy with them. My current fridge, dishwasher and dryer are both almost 20 years old. The fridge has never had anything wrong with it, nor has the dishwasher, the dryer needed a new thermostat which I replaced myself. I opted for the simplest models that Miele make.

Miele dishwasher, going strong 3 years now

Re: Goodbye non-KISS appliances

#115

Post by nicbou »

goriloser wrote: post #98
Twisell wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seem even funnier. From my research. The "side by side" standard US frige is what we call in France American fridge because it has two door and look so oversized and fancy compared to the standard fridge in france. The US "french-door fridge" take the oversizing a step further by adding a third door on the bottom of the "side by side" design. We don't even have a name for theses fridges as nobody buy theses, so I…

I wonder if EU fridges are smaller because people buy food more frequently, but in smaller quantities. Because the grocery shops are closer.

We definitely make much smaller grocery trips.

What I don't remember (as someone who left North America) is how we managed to have so much food without wasting all of it.

Re: Goodbye non-KISS appliances

#116

Post by bee_rider »

Twisell wrote: post #75
Solortho wrote: post #32

In France, we have a name for French-door fridges, it's American fridges...

It seem even funnier. From my research. The "side by side" standard US frige is what we call in France American fridge because it has two door and look so oversized and fancy compared to the standard fridge in france. The US "french-door fridge" take the oversizing a step further by adding a third door on the bottom of the "side by side" design. We don't even have a name for theses fridges as nobody buy theses, so I…

We do have a thing in the US called a micro fridge. College students will often get one for their dorm rooms.

For the biggest fridge you describe, the extra space is usually a freezer. If you are going to have a freezer anyway, it seems like an overall savings to include it in the fridge. If you don’t have a freezer, you won’t have any icecream, and then is life really worth living?

Re: Goodbye non-KISS appliances

#117

Post by issung »

He seems to note that the fridge is french-door a hell of a lot, does this actually impact the cooling mechanics, making them more complicated and prone to break? Or is it just a coincidence all of the overly complicated fridges happen to be french door because they look "fancier"? Fridge experts please weigh in.

Re: Goodbye non-KISS appliances

#118

Post by arter4 »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #102
arter4 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I agree. I'm not a luddite per se - heck, I make a living out of making stuff talk to one another on a network. But I don't get the appeal, from a customer standpoint, of having all physical objects talk to you or to the Internet. Like, why? I get it when it comes to alarm systems. Being able to get a notification when someone breaks in is nice, because the alarm system is mostly doing its job when you're not at…

If you have an image of the fridge you could have GPT vision interpret it and offer you recipes or what is missing. I personally like the idea of smart home things and everything connected. It feels like it opens up so many possibilities or ideas. Do I need it for survival? No. But I do like the idea and how it triggers my imagination.

>you could have GPT vision interpret it and offer you recipes or what is missing

What is missing and what I should buy are different things. If my fridge has yogurt, bacon and some hamburgers, you might say "well, you are missing eggs". Except maybe I don't want eggs. I may be even allergic. Or maybe I like eggs but I'm in some low-protein diet for whatever reason.

The goal of a fridge is not to have literally everything, is to store everything you think you need for some days.

As for recipes, yes, that's more creative, but I guess I would just actively Google that (or even use an old fashioned recipe book!) if I were looking for original recipes. Of course, you can also ChatGPT it, but the direct fridge -> ChatGPT interaction is a bit weird because maybe I don't want original recipes or maybe I'm going to eat out.

So a hypothetical (?) app that sends me notifications about what recipes ChatGPT suggests by looking at my fridge wouldn't be very appealing unless you're always looking for new recipes. If you're mostly cooking ordinary things, continuous "You could cook X" would count as spam, much like a lot of people skip (or try to skip) ads on Youtube and ignore random "buy this at 70% discount" emails. And if you're that passionate about new recipes I guess you're probably interested in cooking and don't need the fridge to tell you what's missing.

Re: Goodbye non-KISS appliances

#119

Post by nicbou »

rentseekingb wrote: post #54
jamiek88 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything that doesn’t involve coolant bleeding can easily be done yourself or by a handy pal via the university of YouTube.

1000x this. I’ve started to learn how to do everything myself via YouTube. Am I an expert? Heck no. Can I do a dang reasonable job for easily 1/10th the cost? Sure seems to be true.

It's not just the cost, but the hassle of booking someone else to fix your stuff. The same is true with all self-repairs.

Re: Goodbye non-KISS appliances

#120

Post by arter4 »

darreninthenet wrote: post #109
arter4 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but how often do you experience power outages or other things that lead to weird temperature changes? I think in the last 15 years it only happened to me once. And how often does a fridge door open on its own? Most people don't need other people (or things) to remind them that they should tie their shoes before getting out. If you don't need that, I assume you know you should close the fridge door.

Probably a tiny handful of times? And would it have been useful? Yes of course it's useful to get a warning when you're not at home or upstairs in bed. I didn't say it was a life changing critical feature, I said "handy". We had a freezer door pop open overnight once... it was because one of the drawers wasn't quite shut properly, all was good for hours after closing it and then suddenly it popped open when we were i…

I'm not saying it is not useful, nor am I making a point about "survival" (also because people have survived long before fridges were even a thing).

I'm saying it can be useful, but only very rarely.

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