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Goodbye non-KISS appliances

willbush.dev

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Re: Goodbye non-KISS appliances

#81

Post by arter4 »

darreninthenet wrote: post #72
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…

Fridge/freezer one is handy for temperature and door open alarms

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.

Re: Goodbye non-KISS appliances

#82

Post by finaard »

rglullis wrote: post #66

I do not consider myself a Luddite, but the more I hear stories like that the more I feel validated in my "do not rely on anything that I can not fix it myself" principle. We are past the point where you can not buy a "dumb TV" anymore or to do so you need to pay an absurd premium. The next in line are our home appliances. Your fridge, your vacuum cleaner, your clothes iron... everything will be built in a way that m…

Almost 10 years ago - when I bought our current 50" TV - one reason was that large computer screens were unaffordable, bad to look at from angles, or both. I recently checked, and seems nowadays you'd be able to get decently large 4k-screens at similar cost than a TV. Just add a PC or whatever media players you want.

Re: Goodbye non-KISS appliances

#84

Post by wirrbel »

jabits wrote: post #42
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?

We bought all new appliances for a kitchen remodel about 1.5 years ago, everything pretty nice, mostly LG. Even after this time I am still in love with the LG fridge, glass door, two kinds of ice, middle drawer chill or freeze. It’s pricey but I’ve never marveled over an appliance this much.

Glass door? How much energy does it need?

Re: Goodbye non-KISS appliances

#85

Post by computator »

neilv wrote: post #55
aartav wrote: post #34

For the most part I agree with this, over engineered feature creep is really just horrible stuff. I never need a fridge with wifi and I absolutely swear that that anything more than auto-off is a waste in a coffee machine. But I think the "Other appliance anecdotes" part suggests that the author has very different requirements than I do. I grew up without a garbage disposal, but its a huge convenience to have one. Al…

On the garbage disposal, I've heard that water treatment facility managers hate them (or at least one does), because it encourages people to put through food waste. I've also heard landlords say garbage disposals are a net-negative for maintenance visits: disposal-related problems are more costly than the occasional clog because someone put down something the disposal would've stopped. Also, in multi-tenant buildings…

> garbage disposal ... encourages people to put through food waste

That's like saying bicycles encourage people to ride bicycles. It's supposed to encourage it. That's the literal purpose of a garbage disposal unit: "a device that shreds food waste into pieces small enough—generally less than 2 mm (0.079 in) in diameter—to pass through plumbing."[1]

> Some people create blockages for the entire stack or more

I don't know how that could happen since if you put something into a garbage disposal unit that can't be shredded to tiny particles, then it's the garbage disposal unit itself that will get clogged, not the pipes or drains. Whatever gets through the garbage disposal unit is going to be less than 2mm in size, and generally much smaller and liquified. If you're referring to oil or grease buildup in pipes, that is irrelevant to the use of a garbage disposal unit since people can and do pour oil or grease down the drain whether they have a garbage disposal unit or not.

In my opinion, a garbage disposal unit is an under-appreciated and supremely useful kitchen appliance, and extremely environmentally friendly (see the brief Wikipedia explanation[2]).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_disposal_unit

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_disposal_unit#Rational...

Re: Goodbye non-KISS appliances

#87

Post by ljf »

userbinator wrote: post #78
ljf wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot speak for that fridge as I don't know the energy usage. But the sad fact is that often buying a brand new machine will pay for itself in only 2 or 3 years over a 'free' older fridge or freezer (at least here in the UK). I have a 'keezer' - a chest freezer I run at fridge temps to store and serve homebrew beer. Buying a new A+ rated chest freezer cost me £199 but only costs £35 a year to run. A friend scored…

Did he clean the condenser and replace the door seal? Dirty/clogged condensers and leaky door seals have a huge effect on efficiency. Also, if his is not a chest freezer, that's another big difference --- a chest freezer is inherently better if opened often, since the cold air stays at the bottom, whereas in an upright one, it spills out.

Yes another chest freezer - and yes that usage is pretty good for a freezer of that age - when I've tested other brewers set-ups they can be even worse (but that is often when they've clad them in wood - looks cool but stops the freezer cooling properly...)

I'll get them to check it is clean, but I'll assume it is as he's pretty on top of that sort of thing.

Re: Goodbye non-KISS appliances

#88

Post by JimDabell »

This is something I’ve specifically noticed in relation to televisions. Televisions used to be primarily hardware-driven. The functions worked reliably even if they were limited. Then things changed so that televisions are now primarily software-driven, but the software still seems to be written by developers working in the hardware industry, not the software industry. They have terrible quality problems.

Before, it didn’t matter because the feature set was so limited that software bugs were make or break. If you can’t decode a signal or change a channel, it’s not getting shipped. But now, where there’s an entire OS, GUI, applications, network access, etc.? Now there are vast areas where a million mistakes can be made and shipped. The software industry is (relatively) well-equipped to deal with this. The hardware industry is not. So they ship garbage quality over and over again.

That’s not even covering the perverse incentives vendors have to make their products cheaper and make up for it with spying, adverts, etc. That just compounds the problem.

Re: Goodbye non-KISS appliances

#89

Post by mosselman »

I first felt impressed by the note taking, but the more I read, the more I felt it is not very keeping it simple. Thinking back in some shitty fridges we’ve had, I have a good feeling about which ones were shit and which were good. I don’t need to keep notes on this.

For other parts of life this is great though: keeping track of what is going one with some friends I don’t often see or distant relatives.

Impressive.

Re: Goodbye non-KISS appliances

#90

Post by _kb »

The descent into feature laden, landfill destined shite is a seemingly universal trend. It's the same across appliances, TV's, computers and wider 'consumer tech' and extends to cars, footwear, and (at least in Australia) homes.

Minmax'ing cost and marketable shiny features over literally every measure of quality, usability, repairability, and longevity is abhorrent. It's an accelerating arms race to the bottom.

I can only hope we reach point where the market segments and opens space (with sufficient demand) so that more people and companies can focus on making sane, well designed, simple things again.

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