Live data from Hacker News

Goodbye non-KISS appliances

willbush.dev

381–390 of 499 posts

Re: Goodbye non-KISS appliances

#381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I have no idea" but I have strong negative opinions. Designed to impress who? You can't tell a SZ fridge by looking at it, there are usually no labels. I know of a few professional chefs who buy these fridges, does that mean they are just buying them to impress?

I’d say if you’re a professional chef, that’s a little more understandable — it’s your livelihood. But this discussion is more around what average people are looking for (e.g. smart vs. dumb appliances), and not so much about commercial appliances that most people aren’t the target consumer for. Re: impressing people and the lack of labels, just looking at images of SZ refrigerators, these are clearly distinguishable…

Multiple from two different homes, the sub zeros were the age of the house and still going strong.

I avoid LG/Samsung because of the countless articles here an other places were people complain about the quality of appliances, but yet the mass majority of [different] people still buy these crappy appliances with touch screens and glossy finishes.

My point is that these appliances do exist, no feature, long lasting, easily reparable, expensive. People do not want to pay for them as much as HN says they do. For a bunch of smart Engineers I don't understand why this is difficult to grasp. If you want quality, you have to pay for it.

Re: Goodbye non-KISS appliances

#382
My first home (~2010) had no fridge so I bought a new Samsung it was about $3k, nothing smart about it, it just looked nice and had a freezer at bottom and an ice dispenser on the door. Within the next 3-5 years I had spent another $3-5k on repairs and eventual replacement with another similar looking/capable fridge by another similar manufacturer. It followed same similar timeline to its end. The ROI and reduced hassle factor of just buying a Subzero made sense for me on the third fridge. I know several people that have 30 year old ones that just don’t fail. So far so good but we’ll see how it lasts.

Re: Goodbye non-KISS appliances

#383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American food is fun, we took everybody else’s food and then deep fried it. How could someone not enjoy it, right?

Scotland has Americans beat on that respect. Deep fat fried mars bars and pizzas, you name it.

We deep fried water

Re: Goodbye non-KISS appliances

#384

My first home (~2010) had no fridge so I bought a new Samsung it was about $3k, nothing smart about it, it just looked nice and had a freezer at bottom and an ice dispenser on the door. Within the next 3-5 years I had spent another $3-5k on repairs and eventual replacement with another similar looking/capable fridge by another similar manufacturer. It followed same similar timeline to its end. The ROI and reduced has…

Ice dispenser in the door is apparently a huge risk factor for fridge failure. The ice making machinery either being in the non-frozen section, and/or having some mechanical components passing through the insulating door, makes it struggle. People love it, but bad idea.

The fridge that was in my house when I bought it (recently) has an ice maker fully contained in the freezer at the bottom, you have to open the freezer section fully to get at it. Apparently that can work fine.

Just some tips for the future :)

Re: Goodbye non-KISS appliances

#385
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That dryer will probably use a shocking amount of power. Depending on local power costs a modern compressor dryer will easily pay for itself in a couple of years compared to sticking with the old one.

Yeah, I did the maths with a heat pump drier and found it would pay for itself in electricity savings in a couple of years. And that was before the cost of electricity in the UK tripled. It uses something like 1/4 of the electricity per load, and because it's unvented all the heat remains in the building envelope.

I have to run my heat pump dryer for about 20-30% longer, though. They seem to just think they can get away with gaslighting you about how long it takes to dry clothes. Even on "extra dry" the clothes often aren't dry.

It's a fairly decent one, AEG. rrp was ~£650 IIRC

Re: Goodbye non-KISS appliances

#386

My first home (~2010) had no fridge so I bought a new Samsung it was about $3k, nothing smart about it, it just looked nice and had a freezer at bottom and an ice dispenser on the door. Within the next 3-5 years I had spent another $3-5k on repairs and eventual replacement with another similar looking/capable fridge by another similar manufacturer. It followed same similar timeline to its end. The ROI and reduced has…

Ice dispenser in the door is apparently a huge risk factor for fridge failure. The ice making machinery either being in the non-frozen section, and/or having some mechanical components passing through the insulating door, makes it struggle. People love it, but bad idea. The fridge that was in my house when I bought it (recently) has an ice maker fully contained in the freezer at the bottom, you have to open the freez…

Yeah I agree, when I bought the subzero they didn’t even offer ice in the door on any models. Likely to maintain their reputation of low maintenance

Unfortunately in my house the kitchen appliances are on display and so “need” to look nice. If I were to build a custom house, I’d just hide all the appliances and buy the $500 basic white fridge like I have in my garage.

Re: Goodbye non-KISS appliances

#387
post #307

WRT washers/dryers it makes more sense to buy a refurbished one from Craigslist. There are folks who buy and fix old units as a side hustle and the ones I’ve bought from them are wayyy cheaper and run so much better than any newer unit I’ve owned.

Yeah my current washing machine is a refurbished old school top loader. Easy to install, wash cycle is 45 min, gets clothes super clean. It's definitely not water efficient but at least it doesn't take 3 hours to actually clean your clothes. Who's got time for that? I can get 6 loads of laundry done leisurely on a Sunday.

Re: Goodbye non-KISS appliances

#388
post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly you are just describing to me more exciting features. The correlations with potential illnesses, etc. Have all of your data piped into single location to use AI to improve your health.

you’re continuing to look at everything from a perspective of an altruistic product to consumer relationship and not the reality the other commenter is trying to describe. yes it’s an “exciting feature” if your AI fridge can know that you’re pregnant and not recommend recipes that contain certain ingredients. what the other person is alluding to is that the data it has about you specifically will not stay contained b…

FWIW, that's exactly what I meant.

The thing about data, unlike many common objects (ignoring 3d printers), is that you can easily copy data you control. So the fact that the fridge tells you "as an additional comfort in your pregnancy, I would add X" (if it even says that clearly) does not mean it also don't send data to other people.

Again, this is not a science fiction example. Many companies have successfully sent personal data to other companies or leaked that somehow to the Internet.

Personally this still makes me uncomfortable, even if I know this cannot be 100% avoided in today's world. So if I can avoid volunteering additional data to some company in exchange for voice activated lights, I'm happier. Maybe it's just me, though... but probably not.

Re: Goodbye non-KISS appliances

#389

It's very fun to get angry at appliance makers - but if they actually made the appliances that we think they should, they would go broke because nobody (except a few of us) would buy them. This is how these newer "smart" appliances started taking over in the first place. As evidence, check out some of the manufacturers that do make higher-quality dumb appliances, like Subzero and Speed Queen and notice how little con…

Right. People seem to not want inflation to apply to appliances.

E.g. a decent toaster in 1984 in the UK was about £18. That's £72 now. Only posh people spend £72 on a toaster. Most people I imagine want to pay no more than £40.

Microwaves were around £200. That's £805 now. Nobody is spending £800 on a microwave.

Re: Goodbye non-KISS appliances

#390
post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly you are just describing to me more exciting features. The correlations with potential illnesses, etc. Have all of your data piped into single location to use AI to improve your health.

you’re continuing to look at everything from a perspective of an altruistic product to consumer relationship and not the reality the other commenter is trying to describe. yes it’s an “exciting feature” if your AI fridge can know that you’re pregnant and not recommend recipes that contain certain ingredients. what the other person is alluding to is that the data it has about you specifically will not stay contained b…

I should be able to decide that I don't care about this type of privacy. Sure there are people out there that could be harmed by this. I don't believe in the argument that you can't have a market with both ways, one where you can't opt in and other where you can. I should be able to choose to give my medical data to companies if there are ways to improve my lifestyle and quality from that. And to me that is exciting. I have been lucky to be born in a place where religion and other things like that don't matter. I see a lot of problems and ways life could be optimised. I notice daily how I spend so much time constantly on things that could just be automated away. And it is horrible knowing I am spending so much time on that.

We live in this World for a very limited time. If things can be automated, they should so we can choose exactly what we want to do with this time.

Post reply on HN