Except that that article is only about Instant Pot, and this one is (mostly) about microwaves.
I for instance had no idea that a company called Midea existed, much less that it's now a near-monopoly supplier of shitty OEM microwaves to the world. Here's hoping my indestructible Toshiba keeps on ticking, since looks like Midea swallowed them too in 2016.
Interesting, I have a Midea white labeled window air conditioner from Costco and that thing is SUPERB. Extremely quiet, cold, smart, all around just a fantastic device. I wonder why their microwaves are so bad
Inverter microwave ovens do PWM (which I guess doesn't sound as sexy as "Inverter"?) so you get much finer-grained power control than standard microwaves.
Still they don't give you direct wattage control, which perhaps is what you're asking for.
If the new ones are doing PWM (I hadn't heard that's how it works, but have no reason to doubt it), it must be cycling several times per second. It's indistinguishable from having true control over the wattage.
The old cycling on and off, it's full power for several seconds and then off for several. The full power sections are long enough to nuke the shit out of many items. Butter doesn't do well, soup and pizza either, just to name some.
I didn't realize PWM specifically referred to fast cycling. I thought any sort of deliberate on/off pattern to modulate power would be PWM. What you said makes sense though, that the regular microwaves can't lower their power output enough (whatever The mechanism) to be safe for some foods.
It was easy for me to spot the why, so I'll distill it.
Once a market is saturated and business growth can't continue by selling more of the product(see microwaves), growth occurs through M&A(consolidation) or reducing costs(eg: removing the moisture sensor). The author reflects on the microwave market having single supplier Midea as an example of the former, and their removal of the moisture sensor as an example of the latter.
Naturally, the author asks, "what are the incentives that create these behaviors?" They identify the economic structure as the proximal cause of these incentives. Thus concluding that the economic structure that creates microwave markets ultimately concludes in the creation of the shitty microwaves.
The author extrapolates this to the multicooker market a la InstantPot - a bonus predictive why InstantPot will get shitty soon.
The worst part about this article for me is that there is a reason for some people to buy new microwaves. Inverter microwaves (yes, these have been around a while) have become far more broadly available. This is a worthwhile upgrade for many users.
A lot of electric ranges do the same thing, which is incredibly annoying. I mean, the 60 Hz is right there; why are they blasting in 10 second intervals?
If so, relays have significant switching times and limited cycle counts due to arcing - especially under load. Enough that sub-second switching times will wear them out pretty quickly, and also be annoyingly loud.
At the power levels we're talking about for a resistive stove, solid state is expensive. At the voltages we're talking about, it's also not trivial to do in a reliable way using solid state techniques (240V RMS =~ 340V peak).
SCRs are used for industrial stuff with much larger loads than a consumer stove. Regular relays definitely are the wrong thing to use for high speed switching though.
Thanks for the pointer - a quick google showed SCRs in the 30+ AMP 240 volt range (minimum useful for even a small range) at well over $1k. That sound about right?
In addition to everything else people mentioned, high power microwaves tend to cause pockets of steam inside food which explode and make a big mess all over the interior. By dialing down the power level on an inverter microwave, you eliminate the chance of that happening. This did not always work on the old cycling microwaves due to the long duty cycle.
It's a good keyword to search for a microwave that isn't the same $15 hardware as all of the other ones.
I don't care about the variable power, but found an "inverter" microwave without the rotating plate, which cooks evenly without it of course. It has more internal space and is easier to clean.
Yep. We moved house recently so do fall into the articles “no reason to buy one except…”
But when we started shopping we were pleasantly surprised that there had been at least two major developments in the tech since last time I bought one.
First, an inverter gives you actual power-level control instead of the old-fashioned on-off modulation.
Second, flat-bed models have rotating emitters so you no longer need that rotating glass plate to get even application of heat to the food, and can even use square dishes that would be too large to rotate, without risking the usual hot-spots.
Maybe this market isn’t progressing at a rapid pace, but there is some progress.
We ended up with a Sharp flatbed inverter, I think it's a "SM327FHS"
I still wouldn't routinely cook much food in it, but it's been pretty good so far for a microwave, and does defrost better than my old one (more even, less cooking stuff at the edges that you don't want cooked).
Also it fit pretty perfectly in the microwave nook that was already in the kitchen!
Hehe, do report back, I don't think I know myself!
From what little I do understand, there's some sort of rotating emitter arrangement under the flat bed on the bottom of the microwave. Panasonic say -
"In the case of Turntable style microwave ovens, the microwaves were emitted from a fixed antenna that is located on the side of the cavity. These emitted microwave will then bounce around the cavity. With microwave ovens that use flatbed technology, the microwaves are emitted from a rotating antenna located underneath the ceramic base of your microwave oven."
As a chronic comparison shopper, this is a first-world problem that's near and dear to my heart. I think the reason microwaves (and appliances in general) suck is because comparison shopping is so hard.
I wish I could get a list of all microwaves and filter by criteria such as:
- Does the +30 seconds button start cooking immediately, or do you have to also press "start" afterwards?
- Does it beep every 30 seconds after it finishes, and if so can I turn that off?
- Better yet, can I turn the beeping off completely without taking the damn thing apart and desoldering the beeper, and of course in the process risking my life near the high-voltage electronics?
But it's basically impossible to know these things without buying it and opening the box, so there's no competitive pressure pushing manufacturers to make their appliances less annoying, so we all have to live with these little papercuts throughout our daily lives for perpetuity.
I do have to mention that out of all their appliances, I do love their washing machines. I have owned a couple over the last 10 years ant they just keep working.
Biggest annoyance is that it's 1500W so any time I'm microwaving packaged food I have to scale down power to 70-80% to match the wattage on the package.
Breville. They're OK. Which is praise when the competition sucks. I've got their slow + pressure cooker and a coffee machine. Both more expensive and better than the alternatives in their price range, but still with plenty of problems. It's like they give half a shit when manufacturers like De'Longhi give none.
I like the concept, but the rotating turntable for the food and plate is silly. I have a Panasonic NE-1022F (sadly, no longer available) and it rotates the antenna under the floor of the unit.
That approach enables use of a smaller motor, requires fewer moving parts, and makes the interior very easy to clean.
There are a few now, though they're still a minority, we have a Sharp SM327FHS which has the same arrangement - flat bed with a hidden rotating emitter.
Seems good so far.
(It does not have the physical dial though, it has buttons like most other microwaves)
My parents have an ancient one, which they inherieted from a relative decades ago...
It has a button to cycle through the power levels (the typical couple seconds on, couple seconds off duty cycle power levels), and four buttons to set the time: one under each digit (adds one to the digit and overflows to zero), the start button, something for temperature cooking if you have the probe (they don't). Actual buttons, because touch buttons hadn't been invented yet. A total of 8 buttons, plus the door open.
Yeah, my parents have an upside down ceramic pie dish permanently in the microwave which raises the food to be heated up into what seems to be a more favorable area for heating. Before we got that in there, you'd have to do a lot of short bursts and mix / rotate, which is tedious especially when there was about two seconds of off time when starting...
They were like a child's toy; you would spin it a dozen times counterclockwise, and then it would slowly rotate clockwise for the next several minutes. Obviously, it couldn't be battery-powered.
Thinking about it now, it must have had some kind of plastic spring mechanism. Wish I had busted it open and looked.
I think that’s how most “commercial” microwaves work; the food stays put and the element moves. It’s much easier to clean and it (usually) heats the food more evenly.
Commercial microwaves often don't have turntables. What they have - based on observation of a single one I took apart once - is a "scatter wheel" in the roof of the chamber, that spins just by air movement from the cooling fan, and reflects the microwave energy this way and that.
But that produces a stationary pattern (averaged over a rotation). Depending on where your food item is, some spot in it may never actually get high power energy if the overall scatter pattern is weak there. Actually rotating the food through a stationary pattern is likely to provide better coverage.
This is not proved. It is possible to set up an experiment to prove it. But it's reconciled me to the idea of the turntable. Also, consumer microwave turntables have, in my experience, been reliable.
Dare I ask why? Analog dials for time are imprecise, frustrating, and I've seen far more of them break than any electronic component in home appliances.
Very quick and easy to turn it to where I want and precise time isn't very important on a microwave. Idealy the scale wouldn't be linear so that you have more accuracy under 1min and more range available.
Disagree. The perfect amount of time to cook my favorite brand of Hot Dog in the Microwave is exactly 12 seconds. Shorter and it's too cold, longer and it starts to split.
For such a short amount of time, you could count the seconds - or note how far the turntable rotates in that time. Even with a digital dial, I doubt I would take the time to input 12 seconds - I'd just whack the +30 second start and stare at it for 12 seconds.
No, but 10-15 seconds vs 30 seconds is a huge difference in some cases. 15 seconds will take butter from fridge temp to room temp. 30 seconds will take butter from fridge temp to melted.
Much of the progress of civilization has involved tools that turn things from skills which require focus into things that are automated. It frees the mind to focus on other, more important things.
I could also just have an "on" button I have to hold, count seconds in my head, and stop when I think it's done, but thankfully no one is advocating for regressing UI quite that much....yet.
I love how microwaves work, there’s a real art to it. 25 seconds , everything is cold but 40 seconds is boiling.
25x2 seconds , with a very short break in between the two, is not equal to 50 seconds.
Making these numbers “up” but anyone who has used a microwave with skill and attention will understand me.
Also, free tips: 1- put a moist paper towel over pizza and bread to keep it from hardening like a rock later on. 2 - microwave stale bread for a second life.
there are things that I heat for 11 seconds. If it is in there for more than 12 seconds, it starts to overcook. An analog dial is a poor choice in this case.
I have one of these. It's fine but I prefer being able to set exact times for certain things. The perfect middle ground for me is a +30s button that also immediately starts it
Decades ago, my college microwave was an ~800 watt unit that had a large, analog dial, and an actual bell that dinged once (and only once) when it was done. That's it, no other settings. Zero displays, other than the pointer on the dial as it clicked down.
I have one just like it, and the best part is that I just leave the timer wheel set to max, and turn the microwave off by opening doors. I keep the doors just barely open all the time, woth benefit of it starting the moment I close the doors after putting a plate in.
The only button I ever pressed on it is to open doors (mechanical), and once in a while I turn the timer to max (when I notice).
I know what you mean. Sadly, looks like our Panasonic (NN-CF778SBPQ) may be on the way out after a decade of daily service, and I've been trying to find an equivalent with the two knobs. You can adjust power and time while it's still cooking. If something needs more time, a quick twist of one adds more seconds. If something is about to overheat and you want to buy a bit more time while you prep something else, you can twist the other and back off the power from high to warm/simmer/low. Plus it's a combi, so could initially microwave to defrost, then convection cook whilst also gently grilling to toast the top of the foodstuff.
The break room at my last job had a microwave like that: the interface consisted of one big knob, which worked like a wind-up timer. It was the best microwave I've ever used.
Literally all those things are discoverable if you buy in a store.
Edit: I maybe should have clarified "appliance store", rather than big box. But there are three appliance stores within ten miles of me that sell appliances. Not Home Depot, not Wal-Mart. Appliance stores. The refrigerators and ovens and microwaves are all plugged in and you can try any of them. The only thing you can't try is the gas ranges.
Yeah, any appliance store will. Not like a walmart, but also they probably will, at the very least you could buy it and return it, but just go to an appliance store or even lowes. They will have lots of floor models open and active and will help you set up to test anything else you want because the salesmen are paid on commission.
I think people are so conditioned to the modern lack of customer support from companies (or the strict adherence to "policy) that simple things like this are overlooked. Literally just asking them to plug it in before you buy it... is forgotten by most people. If it's not a secice written on a sign then it's must be impossible right?
Are they? Perhaps I'm out of touch with the brick and mortar experience.
The majority of microwaves I've seen at my local department store are in a box, those few models that are on display are not powered.
Even in the highly unusual case that they were powered or within proximity of a free power socket, I think it'd be rather unorthodox to go to the store and test drive a microwave with your instant ramen.
I went to an appliance store. A real appliance store like you're talking about. They told me that all the consumer models are the same. Same hardware, same manufacturer. They only had 2 or 3 to choose from. They said there is basically no point to shopping them, the quality is the same. You can pick stainless, or black or maybe get one that mounts under a cabinet.
Seriously. I used to have a microwave and oven stacked on top of each other. Both had an LCD, and so some horrible PMs somewhere presumably had entire sets of meetings to spec out the clock feature.
The microwave would not function if the time and AM/PM values were not set. (As far as I could tell, there was no way to actually ever see the AM/PM value after setting it!)
So. Every time the power went out, I would be confronted with blinking times on clocks I didn’t even want, and a nonfunctional microwave.
I will never buy a kitchen appliance with a mandatory clock ever again.
I would assume that it usually IS a feature on the top of a list... but then they actually start to work on it, and a new fresh set of young developers get exposed to the nightmarish clusterfuck that is datetimes and networking, and then it eventually gets rejected.
this implies that at some point NTP won't be implemented anywhere because the fresh sets of young developers are too delicate to handle the problems of various older technologies that everything depends on?
A while back I got an Amazon branded microwave w/ Alexa integration. I bought it because it was one of the few I could find in the form factor I wanted, and used the novelty factor to break the tie. The voice activation is useless, but the one thing I love about it is that when the power blinks out it'll get the time from the nearby Alexa & set itself. No more blinking.
I can call myself lucky then, I bought the cheapest uW because all the “fancy” ones were all huge, I believe it is Black & Decker branded, if the clock is not set it will stay in timer mode indicating 0:00 (not blinking) if you press just the start button it will run for 30 seconds it also has an uncomplicated kitchen timer function. It’s small, underpowered and will overheat if run for more than 12min straight but i paid $50 for it.
I bought a Forte brand microwave on Amazon. (I've never heard of the brand). But it has been a good microwave so far. and I was happy to notice that when the clock is not set, the screen just stays blank rather than a blinking 12:00.
Looked up Teka microwaves, they look very fancy. My $50 microwave from walmart from like 2014 does all this haha, but the downside is you can't disable the beep.
The kind of review you're looking for is what Consumer Reports is, (or at least used to be, as I'm not sure of the current state of things,) famous for.
Because it's a paid subscription, and all of the items they review are actually purchased from retail suppliers who have no knowledge that Consumer Reports is the buyer, they can take their time and do very thorough comparisons incorporating tests of real world usability and reliability that are difficult to tabulate and instead have to reviewed like a movie or a book. But I don't know, it's likely the consumer reports type of shopper is such a minor fraction of the market that isn't worth optimizing for them any more.
For those who wish Consumer Reports didn't have the money to buy the products they test and depended on advertising and payola inevitably gaming the reviews instead...
Arguably advertising destroyed the microwave ... and everything else.
I got a CR subscription to look at air filters. For good air filtering you really only need a hepa filter ($20) in front of a fan ($20), but CR only analyses the performance of brand name products ($200).
Not exactly. To be comparable to the good air filter products, you'd want to build a cube of air filters and attach the fan so it pulls air through the cube. Fun DIY project, but it's not for everyone. There's a good YouTube video for it.
HEPA filtration only matters if you have a clean side and a dirty side. Most air filters exhaust clean air into the same room as the intake, so all that matters is clean air delivery rate [0]. It's often possible to get better clean air delivery rate using higher flow through a less restrictive non-HEPA filter.
The removal efficiency of the filter is built in to CADR, so say a MERV-14 filter with higher air flow and a HEPA filter with lower air flow can have the same CADR.
Can you elaborate? I was about to ask are there are concept designs for microwaves, particularly the UI, but other features as well - I'd be interested to see ideas of what microwaves could be.
I don't think the article is correct that the humidity sensor was the last innovation (and actually, how can I tell if a microwave has this, and how is used anyway?) - we also have inverter microwaves recently, as well as combi grill/microwave etc.
EDIT: Oh, I think you meant "Project Farm", the youtube reviewer. Anyway, I'd like to see a 'design farm' for microwave concepts and designs, and appliances in general actually, they all suck.
> Does the +30 seconds button start cooking immediately, or do you have to also press "start" afterwards?
i've seen one where buttons 1-6 immediately start cooking for that many minutes, alongside a +30 button, so that every 30s interval between 30s and 6:30 can be activated in one or two button pushes; fastest nuke in the west
Ours does that. I never touch any of the (indeed useless) Potato / Popcorn / Soup (yes, soup... What?) buttons, but the instant-on time-interval buttons are lovely.
It's "Magic Chef", for those of you who are curious. We didn't buy it (came with the house), and I'm not pulling it off the shelf to look for a model number on the back (I moved the vinegar bottles next to it, and there's no sticker on that side, nor the other, either), but that's a place to start.
Actually, yeah! The "soup" setting nukes it in such a way that you don't get a scolding hot bowl + top layer of soup, while everything else stays cold. (Mostly by spinning the tray and heating it in a burst-like pattern, I think)
I still would rather just cover the dish with another bowl, which achieves a better & faster result.
Huh! TIL. That said, I've heated a lot of soup - without using the "Soup" button, mind - and not experienced the problem you describe.
IANAMS (I Am Not a Microwave Scientist), but observationally it seems to me that bowl material has most to do with microwave results. I have a few bowls (and mugs) I never use in the microwave, because they seem always to get hotter than their contents. Later, I'll try one of them on "Soup" to see if it makes a difference.
No joke, I bought and returned 4 microwaves before I found one that doesn't. I'm picky, and finally found one that does a quick double "beeep beeep" and is done.
Oh, I have a Panasonic NN-GD38 that only beeps once. Sometimes I forget my food in the microwave because of it though. It's the best microwave I've ever had (also the first time I've ever spent so much on one).
Not OP, but most LG microwaves allow to turn sounds off with a special button combination. Even though my model's manual doesn't mention it, I could guess it from other manuals and YT videos.
Most microwaves have a mute setting. Often it’s set by holding 1 for 5 seconds. Varies by brand and model of course. Definitely worth looking up if it bugs ya!
1: The first two times you push it, it sets the timer to 0:30 and starts cooking. The next time, adds 0:30. Each time after that, it adds 1 minute and starts cooking.
2. Reset the timer to 0.
And a door latch which stops cooking.
I don't need power levels, or more precise timing, or any of that other stuff.
What an asinine solution. A button that doesn’t work consistently. How are you going to set 1:30 (which is very common)? Or 55? You’re going to stand there and press that one button 57 times? What about defrosting where you want a low power level? Or soups? Or a hundred other examples. How does having a number pad ruin the experience?
>How are you going to set 1:30 (which is very common)?
Good point. It should add 30 seconds until it gets to 2:00 then do 60 second increments.
>Or 55?
55 minutes is not a thing I ever do with a microwave.
>What about defrosting where you want a low power level?
I already said I don't use power levels. If I want to defrost, I just cook for a few minutes then let it sit for a long time, or use some other method.
>Or soups?
Assuming you mean a tub of frozen soup, I usually cook for 5 minutes, stir, do another few minutes, etc.
> Or a hundred other examples.
There are not a hundred other examples. That's the point. The vast majority of the time I'm heating at full power for short periods of time.
> How does having a number pad ruin the experience?
It doesn't ruin anything. But it costs money to implement.
Power levels are essential to me. I thought all microwave ovens were borderline useless to heat/cook food unless you don't care about how the food comes out. Learning to use power levels really improved the usefulness of the machine.
Particularly for defrosting things and softening butter.
My "favorite" feature on the GE microwave that came with my house: If you cook something then walk away (leaving the food inside) then come back and want to zap it for 30 seconds, you must open and close the door to "Insert Food".
This indeed, there is no structured info anyware in even the software land where it's easier to get the info without buying/unboxing, so you can't rely on reviews that takes all those things into account and can't really do it yourself
It seems like you have an amazing talent for reviewing electronics, and that you've identified a kind of review that doesn't exist in the market and people might find valuable!
NYT bought Wirecutter for 30 million dollars so... who knows, there might be a business here.
I subscribed to Australian Choice for one year a few years ago. It sounded really cool, you pay a hundred bucks a year and they go out and buy a bunch of stuff and compare it in an unbiased way.
And it was cool for a while, until I started reading their reviews and comparisons on products I knew a lot about and done my own research on. I found they just missed a lot of things I found really important.
We didn't agree on things I know about, so I had to assume we wouldn't agree on things I did know about!
Yes, but it's much worse than it needs to be. When searching for hard disks on Amazon, if you search for "hard disk 8 tb" for example, Amazon will suggest the following criteria on the left side of the page:
Hard Disk Size
4 TB & Above
3 TB
2 TB
1 TB
501 to 999 GB
321 to 500 GB
121 to 320 GB
Up to 80 GB
Really? What is the point of this? How can it not do better?
Amazons search as you are aware has been notoriously bad for many many years at this point. i find that the diskprices website is very helpful when searching for hard drives on amazon. https://diskprices.com/
If you dont want to use amazon https://www.pcpartpicker.com has a good section to search and compare hard drive sizes/pricing
Thats the reason I just ignore amazon. When, once in a while, I search for something on amazon, it just returns pages of related things. Its worse than Youtube search. They can keep it.
Buy a Panasonic. They seem to care about user experience. Beeps once, +30 starts it, and they're the only one with an inverter, so you can do a true 50% (unless I'm in a huge hurry I always cook at 50% for double the time, and it seems to come out much better).
I have an LG that's an inverter one. I agree though, don't buy a non-inverter model if you care at all about the quality of what comes out of it.
And for the above poster, +30 starts it, it plays a little tune when done, and then every maybe 30s afterwards for 2 or 3 times. Oh, and the turntable rotates at 0.1Hz so a mug's handle is facing the same way it went in after any interval of ten seconds.
i could compare washing machines for a long time before i decide on which on is best suited for my needs ... then again, though, i have used hundreds of different washing machines in my life and i can't remember even single time having been unsatisfied with the cleanliness.
If we're listing things we want to see in a microwave, I would add a knob! Just let me spin a dial to set the time then push that same knob to start/stop. I almost had this with my latest microwave, but alas, you can set the time with the knob and then 'set' the time by pushing the knob. But then you have to do the extra step of pressing a separate 'start' button. Why? why do this?
I feel a bit whiney complaining about such a minor thing. But it does bug me everyday. The sheer senselessness of bad design is infuriating. They will make thousands, maybe millions of these things. Put a bit of time in designing it!
> But then you have to do the extra step of pressing a separate 'start' button. Why? why do this?
Probably some consumer tests showed that people had trouble with rotating the knob without pushing it during rotation. Or, pushing the knob sets the time and now you can set the power by further rotating the knob and then pushing start.
In case it helps, I've run into the same types of problems frequently, and YouTube reviews are a godsend.
Random people actually film themselves unboxing and using the product, and you can watch what buttons they have to press, etc.
Also you can virtually always download the manual as a PDF.
Of course that's not a list, and it takes a lot of work. It's deeply unfortunate -- somebody like Amazon could actually implement the kind of comparison matrix you're talking about, but they're not exactly innovating on the UX front. :(
(Amazon does sometimes show a comparison matrix of 4 products with something like ~6 rows of features for some products, but I think it's created by the manufacturer, so only compares models for that one brand, and doesn't always list the feature you care about either.)
Got a Breville recently, seemed like the only units that weren't the same as every others out there...
Not sure it's more durable, but at least it's super quiet, I can mute beep sounds, I can change time and power while food is cooking, and it's got a stainless interior so there's no cheap paint that'll start falling off after a few months.
Also got a Breville microwave, too the "combi-wave" one or something. Amazingly quiet.
I usually hate all device sounds, but surprisingly this has a reasonably quiet singular bell-like "ding" option, rather than the typical "beep-beep-beep" that drives me nuts.
The only thing that concerns me is the oven modes. It's got this plastic spinner piece that supports the glass turntable that I'm not sure about leaving in, and you can't use the metal tray in microwave mode.
So I just leave it in microwave mode all the time.
My fridge, Drip Coffee Maker and Toast, 3 devices, from 3 different manufacturers all use the same three beeps (same pitch, same time delay between beeps) so its ambiguous to deduce if my toast or coffee is ready or if my fridge door isn't entirely closed. But hey, great component pricing on that beep chip.
I've never understood peoples' obsession with matching appliances for this exact reason. No, I don't want my fridge, microwave, stove, and dishwasher to come from the same manufacturer and make the same noises, thank you very much.
It is not as unlikely as you might think... The cheaper buzzers have a single, preferred frequency (like [0] has 2.4KHz). And engineers like round numbers for time delays.
So I can imagine a spec which says "do a cheapest buzzer on its preferred frequency, 1 second period, 50% duty cycle, 3 times" being independently written in 3 different engineering offices, and multiple devices ending up with identical beeps.
Breville combi whatever, microwave, oven, air frier. But real treat is inverter operation that's half as loud and SOFT CLOSE DOORS and ability to turn off all system sounds. Big quality of life upgrade. Not worth $500.
Man, I got the Breville combo toaster/oven/air fryer/dehydrator thing (name escapes me) back in 2017 and it’s the best appliance I’ve ever had. I use it basically every day in at least one mode; I hardly use our full-sized gas oven at all anymore.
Are you in Australia? Breville in Aus is a different brand to Breville here in the UK (and possibly other places). UK Breville is mostly known for sandwich toasters and fairly cheap commodity kitchen appliances, Aussie Breville seems like a fairly high quality brand, especially with their espresso machines (which are sold over here under the brand name Sage - I have one and love it).
Huh I see that... We get the Australian Breville brand in North America, and while we don't get their full product offering, it's a lot better than what I see on the Sage website.
Domestic brands over here aren't even trying. Build quality is subpar on everything manufactured on the continent, but thankfully designs are pretty simple and parts are readily available.
Our only choice on larger appliances is basically Miele at 2-4x the European MSRP to get anything remotely reliable. Even then the Miele@Home stuff is nothing but a nightmare so far.
I just about got one of those about a year ago until I ran into a ton of complaints about the door latches breaking and them refusing to provide replacement parts to fix them.
I have a Panasonic "Genius" microwave that I actually like quite well. The "inverter technology" does seem to cook more evenly than previous microwaves I've had, and the "air fryer" (not really) mode works very well for a bunch of frozen things that should be a bit crisp on the outside (e.g. samosas or taquitos). Day old fries often come out better than they were when fresh.
Is it an amazing indispensable life-changing invention? No. But does it suck? Also no. The premise of the article is seriously flawed, and comes across as somebody who just didn't like anything but old-fashioned stove cooking (probably by someone else) in the first place.
Yeah I feel the same. I have an LG inverter and it’s absolutely fine. Definitely better than the 70s microwave I grew up with.
I sympathize a bit with those who would like to have physical knobs and simplicity. I’m not a fan of the capacitive touch buttons. They are easy to clean, so I understand why they’re popular, but it would feel nice to just spin a knob to 3:30 and press the start button.
And it was 1/10th the cost of the “good old days” models. I appreciate the cost-cutting that went into my microwave.
I got rid of my microwave several years ago and don't miss it anymore. (It took a while to get used to its absence.) I still have an Instant Pot but use it very rarely, maybe once a month. Investing in a high quality set of pots and pans has made up for it: copper pots for things that need to be heated quickly (e.g. boiling water, which is almost as fast as the microwave in a copper pot) and high-quality cast iron for things that need to be heated thoroughly (e.g. frying, baking). I also own a toaster oven because I'm too lazy to toast bread in the frying pan :) That one is electronic, but you can still get analog toaster ovens I believe.
I got an Instant Pot because so many people I personally know swore by it, and in the end I just don't get it. Maybe I know too many people who live the bachelor/college dorm lifestyle. It does everything pots do, but it's big and heavy and cleanup is a colossal pain.
The problem with any argument over capitalism is that it is responsible for both good and bad.
On the one hand all the innovation and cheap prices are a result of capitalism driven competition.
On the other hand, all the deceptive marketing, addictive vacuous features, vendor lock-in, planned obsolescence and enshitification are also a result of capitalism, which only cares about maximizing profits and return on capital.
As soon as you open the site in Chrome it complains that my browser is stalking me (I know and don't care) and that this site does not work with it. So I closed it. More annoying than my browser's stalking habits is the assumption that one knows best and can decide for others what they should be using. This is the first time I see something like that. Hope it's the last too.
This won't stop an advertiser driven web. Only an alternative approach that maintain provider profits. Adverts exist because we refuse to pay for every service. This doesn't offer an alternative, but presumes to know better by removing user's choice.
If people listened to the author of the web page, it would stop an ad-driven web. Because the world continues to use Chromium skins, we are inevitably going to get some technology that ad blockers won't work on any more. See FLoC, Web Bundles, or Web Integrity.
How do you all use a browser that comes up with these adversarial technologies?
Because on a daily basis, it doesn't affect me. Personally. I don't care. That's the honest answer.
On days I do care, I have my means to be undetected.
When the ads bother me, I switch on the pihole. Some sites don't work with pihole enabled so sometimes it's either off or I create exceptions. But I like Chrome. The convenience I get from chrome is invaluable to me. No other browser can give me that exactly. But all of the above are based on MY decisions. I chose to use X or to ignore Y. When a site decides that for me, well... I just walk away.
These are bad analogies. I can block ads on the net and still use chrome. I can choose whether ads bother me or not. I can choose if I want/agree to be tracked. My choice doesn't hurt anyone. You want to fight the ads - take on the ad networks. Provide an alternative. Without an alternative it's just a cardboard sign with some text.
If you emit CO2, you are hurting everyone else. If you participate in a web browser monoculture, you allow one company to own the web, therefore hurting everyone else. Please don't absolve yourself of the harm you are causing those of us that don't want to be under Google's thumb.
I exhale co2. Should I stop breathing? Should we stop using cars all together? Stop flying? Stop using computers?
Sorry but I don't operate in that absolutist way. Existence is not always fair, and it's not always without harm. Everyone has a footprint on their environment. Nobody is without one.
Say you stopped an ad driven web - what do you think will remain when nobody can afford to run anything at scale anymore? Would you be ok paying to use the web? I know I wouldn't.
What are you referring to by "at scale"? Can you give some examples?
I would also like to understand why you think web has to change. Why can't the ad networks change by not allowing tracking in ads, or make ads bearable to look at? I don't need an ad moving on a web page. Newspapers have gotten this right for centuries. I can look at a newspaper all day and not get frustrated, but I can't do that on the web because I have to worry about content moving on my screen or privacy.
At scale - Facebook, google, OpenAI, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
Regarding ads - Don't get me wrong - I hate obnoxious ads, i dislike moving ads, and noisy ads and colourful ads and ad-sites that farm content from other sites to show ads etc. And I think the more obtrusive they get they just harm themselves in the long run. But, I also appreciate that for most content outlets this is the only way to support themselves (except my last example - that has no excuse).
And regarding tracking - personally if I am to see ads, i rather them be relevant at least, and not random. When asked if I want to be tracked or see random ads, i select the former. purely personal preference.
And also: pihole. Seriously. I turn it on and the ads disappear. The net is clean and faster on all devices in the house.
The internet doesn't have to be commercialized. Content like this would exist just fine without profits.
"Adverts exist because we refuse to pay for every service"
No, adverts exist largely because of poor quality content that ranks high in google and does everything possible to give readers the least amount of information in the slowest way possible. I would gladly pay to visit websites that shared a common ethical framework for cost sharing.
Content like that will exist, and have existed before. But large scale operations will not. Search engines, LLMs, social networks. They need a lot of money to run at scale. LLMs charge a subscription. Kagi is doing search engine which is paid (and not bad). If they all started charging pretty soon we'll be paying through the nose for everything. Ads offset that. I pay Spotify, Amazon, OpenAI, Netflix, Diskey, and I'm considering paying Kagi. But I can't pay every single content provider I use... it will never end. I accept the ads where I can and pay where I cannot. I have a choice sometimes and I exercise it. I. Not some content site that makes the choice for me. That is my only point here.
Google doesn't need to exist. Google exists primarily to serve ads and websites with ads. Google is actively harming the internet by existing, not enhancing anything.
Funny, since this is something that HN recommended websites begin doing after Google began pushing WEI [1]. Your frustration is intended in this case, the theory being that you'll be pestered into switching browsers. Annoying for some but you have to respect it in a way, what with how it's giving Chrome a taste of its own medicine.
When you said HN recommended, initially I read "YC & HN admins" recommended, but you meant "some people on HN".
Look, I respect activism of this kind. But direct it where it's meaningful. It's not that I found not being able to comfortably read a lukewarm article about microwaves is the end of the world. The title on HN might as well have been about that "chrome blocker" because that was the actual story here. In the IE days people were furious when sites were only "optimised for IE".
No idea, it seems to cook things pretty evenly, but if I'm say pre-cooking potatoes for 6 minutes before frying them, I do manually turn every couple minutes to be sure. If you want a turntable this is not the one for you, but the ease of the turn-and-it's-on UX destroys any other concern here for me.
Instant Pot died primarily due to private equity greed, not because of Instant Pot reliability.
In 2017, Cornell Capital bought the company for a total $500M of which $300M was financed by debt. Then 4 years later in 2021, it refinanced and added on debt, bringing the total debt to $535M. $245M was immediately paid out to shareholders as a dividend. Cornell Capital got paid back all the cash it invested in the company's acquisition, and then some. In 2023 due to high interest rates the company was no longer able to service its debt, costing the company ~$50M a year, and the company had to file Chapter 11.
The debt likely wasn’t a normal bank, and the interest rate was likely quite high. The parties making the loan were likely fully aware of the risk and thought the interest rate appropriate compensation.
2. Is there any evidence that's ever the case from PE firms? Startups fail all the time, but I wouldn't characterize them as "knowingly take a loan you have no intention of paying back"
Wow... I have heard this story so many times. Question is how do you get $300M debt which probably everyone involved knew that it would be written off in short order?
Well, my instant pot is a piece of junk. I got it ca. 2019 to replace my worn out rice cooker, and within 2-3 years the control dial failed. Now I have to spin the dial at a wide range of speeds while various pushing on, pulling on, and whispering incantations to the stupid thing. Worth making extra waste to replace? No, but it sure makes me mad that I need 90 seconds to set the cook timer.
Mine seems to detect burning about 3 mins into pressure cooking (which stops the heat). I’m fairly certain nothing is actually burning, but even if it is, there seems to be no amount of liquid I can add to get it to stop.
The best microwave I've ever used was probably from the early 80s. It was in my maternal grandparents' house.
The controls were two knobs. There were no other controls. No start button. No open-door button. Both knobs felt Very Serious. There was no spinny platter thing, but it didn't seem to really do any worse than the new ones with it—but it was easier to clean. It was pretty big for a microwave.
One knob was power. One knob was a timer. You turn the timer knob to start it. It physically ticks down until it dings (real bell, not a speaker) and stops. You pull the (heavy) handle on the door to open it. It's secured with (I suppose) one or more of those mechanisms where a flared tab goes between a pair of little wheels, so it's secure unless you pull fairly hard, no need for a release button.
It was still mounted in the exact same place and working just as well as it did in the 80s and 90s, when my grandma moved out to live with my parents in the 2010s.
I've seen a few kinda similar models on offer, but they're expensive and without feeling one in person I really doubt they're actually as good.
(A bunch of the finishes on their very-modest poor-rural-town house—outlet and switch cover plates, some of the trim, the front door, the storm doors of all things, and the doorbell, were all luxury-tier by modern standards—some of those, I've never seen anything as good on any house built since 1970 or so, and I've been in some "nice" ones; some stuff's simply gotten worse, and I tell you what, the solid feel and butter-smooth action of some of those things really did make life better)
I also remember our microwave as a kid had a power level knob. Now that property is hidden behind some combination of pressing 5 different beeping buttons that I never use
I'm fine with digital entry for time (30 vs 45 seconds can be a big deal when heating up your coffee), but just have a knob for the power level. Every single microwave seems to have a different way of selecting power, when a knob would be so easy.
I actually have one the the Panasonic microwaves whispered about at the end of the article, and it's been the best microwave I've ever owned. "Panasonic NNSC688S Mid-Size 1200W Inverter Microwave Oven, 1.3 Cuft, Black Stainless Steel" which Amazon sells for CAD$300, although I see one used is available for $180 - a steal, IMHO.
The key word in the description is "inverter". I am very much in the pro-inverter camp. In an inverter microwave, power is supplied through an inverter circuit to supply a steady and constant amount of power throughout the cooking time without cutting in and out. So if you select 50% power, the microwave will deliver 50% power throughout. Inverter microwaves are also more energy efficient than standard microwaves.
I've also got one, although mine is the larger NN-SN946W model.
It has had one odd behavior that has me quite puzzled.
I was regularly having for breakfast a microwaved frozen breakfast sandwich and a couple hash browns cooked in a toaster. The hash browns took 10 minutes, and the breakfast sandwich 1 minute.
I'd program the microwave for a 9 minute timer stage, followed by a 1 minute cooking stage, and then start the microwave and drop the hash browns in the toaster.
I could then go do other stuff and when I heard the microwave beep I'd know it was time to go take the hash browns out of the toaster.
This worked great for weeks, then one morning the microwave would not start.
Some experimenting showed that it would still start as long as the first stage was not a timer stage of a multi-stage program was not a timer stage. E.g., cook stage + timer stage was fine. Cook + timer + cook was also fine, so it wasn't that timer stages could not precede cook stages. Timer only was fine, too.
This is not an internet-connected device, so it wasn't some sort of stealth firmware update. Reset didn't help, and neither did unplugging it overnight.
It was this way for a couple days (as a work around I'd do 1 second cook + 9 minute timer + 1 minute cook)...and then it started working normally again and has continued working normally ever since (about two years since the glitch).
I can't even come up with a reasonably hypothesis to explain this.
First: kudos for RTFM and learning that you could batch operations. Honestly, you might have inspired me to do it, too. Isn't it funny that a microwave with a local wifi network and the ability to run JS/Lua/whatever scripts would be exponentially more useful than "smart" features?
I agree, what you are describing is thoroughly bizarre. When you say that it wouldn't start, do you mean that it wouldn't let you hit the start button at all, or that the timer would run out and then nothing would happen?
The only thing I can think to ask from a debugging perspective is whether there's someone in your home who was using a mode last thing before bed that would have set it in an uncertain state?
Heck, even the moisture sensor, or whether someone opens the door on the last second of a cook before a beep could leave some register in an uncertain state.
A "breakfast sandwich" is usually a food item containing eggs (pre-cooked, scrambled or fried), cheese, two slices of bread, and possibly sausage or bacon. The other ingredients are placed between the slices of bread, often this bread is some sort of roll but it may also be a pastry like a croissant. Miscellaneous foods placed between two slices of bread is known as a "sandwich", and the first meal of the day is known as "breakfast". So a "breakfast sandwich" is a sandwich containing foods typically eaten at the first meal of the day!
A "frozen" food is one that has been frozen, usually sold from the "frozen foods" aisle of a grocery store. Sometimes people will prepare meals in advance and then freeze them for storage. These items must be "defrosted" before eating, usually also heated to a desired temperature. This takes substantially less time than making the meal from scratch.
A "frozen breakfast sandwich" is a "breakfast sandwich" which has been pre-prepared, and then frozen. That saves the eater time & effort in the morning, since they only have to heat up the sandwich before eating, not go through the whole process of frying the egg, cooking the bacon, assembling it into a sandwich, & heating that. Even if the eater is also the preparer, it still saves time in the morning (at the expense of preparation time on a different day). For people who don't like getting up early or with long commutes, having pre-prepared frozen breakfast sandwiches can be a significant benefit.
I love it when people react to convenience foods a) as though they have no idea what you're talking about b) that you're just lazy because you don't just do 27 steps in 3 three minutes with ingredients that cost more and expire quickly if you're single while dirtying 3-4 bowls and pans and c) as though you aren't well aware that it's probably not the best for you, if you eat them every day.
I also have a Panasonic Microwave, in my case I went with the 2.2 cubic feet NN-SE982S. It replaced an older 2.2 that died after about 6 years of heavy usage lol.
I LOVE those machines. The inverter is great because it doesn't make the lights dim periodically lol.
I have another version of the same model (NNSC669S) and while I think it was one of the best options available today, I hate it compared to the old Sharp microwave (with a MFR date of 1994!) I had before. I just hate interacting with it, the buttons are difficult to push and the way it makes you enter in things is backwards to what makes sense.
I'm not entirely convinced about the longevity either, the turntable of the first one I received was DOA and I had to get it replaced.
Lodge and Pyrex are probably not the best examples - Lodge cast iron has gone down the tubes recently, making thinner pans with worse factory coatings, and Pyrex switched away from the high quality borosilicate glass they had used for decades to a cheaper formulation recently.
Patagonia has even lowered their standards somewhat - I know a guy who bikes to work every day in Seattle and has used the same Patagonia waterproof panniers for something like 15 years, and I would be willing to bet that new ones are more cheaply made and less waterproof, while costing more.
Didn't Pyrex move to some cheaper glass formula? I don't use cast iron, but I heard that Lodge quality has declined a lot in recent years?
Patagonia also isn't particularly high quality (I own dozens of their clothes because I like their environmental activism, but many fray out of the bag, fit poorly, have crappy zippers, etc.). Arcteryx and European brands often make much higher quality clothing. Patagonia's on par with REI store brand clothing, IMO. But at least now they're wholly owned by a nonprofit!
I'm not sure any company can avoid this fate long term if they need to keep growing.
And these days, with everything from electronics to materials science to coatings to additives all changing so fast, maybe fast and cheap and easily replaceable is just what the market bears, for consumer and manufacturer alike?
> I'm not sure any company can avoid this fate long term if they need to keep growing.
I wonder why “if they need to keep growing” is so important to literally everyone? I’d die for a meaningful business that predictably spit out cash due to extreme customer loyalty. Why did growth itself become the prize everyone reaches for?
> Why did growth itself become the prize everyone reaches for?
That's literally capitalism. The hamster wheel. A closed loop.
If you take out a loan from a bank, the bank expects 5% annual return on that loan. Where do you get the additional 5% that you owe? You need to take it from someone else (who themself took out a loan, maybe even from the same bank).
While the bank can and will almost literally create (digital) money from thin air.
> If you take out a loan from a bank, the bank expects 5% annual return on that loan. Where do you get the additional 5% that you owe?
This has a lot of implicit assumptions which don’t hold true in reality. The 5% would have to be the same as the return on equity prior to the loan, and the loan would have to be for the full amount of the equity.
What I said above is that you can have a stable business with a decent return without needing to grow the business.
Say you have a business with $10 million in sales, and a net profit margin of 15%, so you take out $1.5 million per year. In my mind this is a great business.
1. To your specific point re a loan, this could easily support a $4 million load at 8% without demanding the underlying business grow revenues at all.
2. Lots of people would be tempted to grow the top line to $100 million even if net margins shrank to 5%. This is the point I don’t understand. Is it just greed? The consequence is that, in the aggregate across the economy, businesses and people rarely become businesses like OP points out and usually end up doing a lot of shitty things that destroy any lasting brand value or loyalty. I’m looking at Google Search and Facebook, and a million other businesses in and out of tech when I say this.
I feel there's some thread that links the USPTO, Treasury, and FTC on guaranteeing the integrity of the dollar and commerce. We don't have a gold standard and the OPEC cartel is a weak substitute. It is some basis for the dollar that in the year 2020 an Intant Pot costs $150 and is designed and manufactured to certain specs and quality. If you look across the economy at all examples of this perhaps it's possible to create a new peg for the USD. Maybe that could even be accomplished without "blockhain" or "AI" :) and just USPS mail-in satisfaction surveys/warranties of some sort tied to corporate lending/insurance.
Terrible management, and the people in charge probably never lost a dime personally for their poor decision making. No reason a company making a product like the instant pot can't stay in business as long as people want the product. After the initial release when everyone wants one, it should reach a steady state where sales reflect the number of instant pots going out of commission due to damage, wear and tear, etc, and the growing population. Plenty of businesses like that exist and do just fine, like selling toilet paper.
I'm not an advanced or regular microwave user (try keeping a straight face while talking like that about microwaves lol, but I use it maybe once or twice a month averaged over the year) but frankly I don't see any performance issue with my cheap microwave compared to what one could expect from a microwave. Put food in, wait 4-5 minutes, food comes out hot.
What infuriates me are vacuum cleaners. To make them more "eco-friendly" it's even regulated in the EU now that vacuum cleaners may not use more than 900 watts. But it's not like vacuum cleaner technology has improved tenfold since I had my good old 1500 watts vacuum cleaner in the 2000s (rip). So how did they achieve this magic? Well, new vacuum cleaners don't vacuum for shit, that's how.
This is like a textbook example of Louis CK’s adage “everything is amazing and nobody’s happy.”
Microwaves are great. Amazon will have a Farberware or RCA for $70 to my home in two days - including shipping!
What exactly is the problem? No one has ever used them to do anything other than heat things up. I was a child of the 80s. No one ever used these supposed features the post complains are disappearing.
Instant Pot. Introduced millions to pressure cooking. Pork shoulder or brisket in 30m instead of 3 hours. Same for beans. Mine stopped working after several months and I called the company. They sent me a new one, actually a nicer model than the old, for free, that week. And told me to throw the old one out. Years later it’s working great.
Who cares if the company went bankrupt? Yes private equity seems to suck but guess what, you can still buy a cheap great Instant Pot.
Then he has the nerve to complain about capitalism, the reason we have this stuff. Does the author think in the Soviet Union it was easy to get a microwave? Does the author think communist citizens lucky enough to own microwaves had all the features they could want, and could be one tenth as picky as he is?
Please tell me in what system other than capitalism you get to publish your nitpicky complaints about your abundant selection of consumer electronics to the world at the click of a button, on your computer or phone or tablet, that you own and hook up to your broadband internet which is readily available to your heated and cooled home, in one of the most prosperous countries on earth, so you can sneer at capitalism, which literally is the reason you have all this.
What a bizarre post.
In summary, not every microwave sucks, and instant pot isn’t dead.
I don't think you read the article and are probably new at life, or just out of touch.
Microwaves should last for decades, this is the same type of thing that you may have heard your parents complain about "I had a can opener that I got from my mother and it just broke, the five new ones I bought same price all broke within a year".
There is really nothing complex about one. It's a timer connected to some voltage equipment and a couple transformers. But, the way you make it, fused steel, well oiled joints, cheap copper wire barely within tolerance or thick wire able to withstand 2x the amperage, varies wildly. As demand goes up, you build fancy microwave factories with expensive well tested molds that can churn out hundreds of thousands of them...until demand goes down and paying for maintenance and power at the factory no longer make sense, let alone having anyone staff the place or prevent looting and squatting.
So you cut corners and your microwave is made of plastic, every time you use it it fries its own cheap water based glue, and the thing falls apart every 6 months.
That's what he's complaining about. Yeah, capitalism works great assuming constant or increasing demand, but it's really bad at financial planning or literally anything else, and then it creates garbage and human suffering.
I think probably the microwaves in the Soviet Union still probably last decades, because unlike the American ones, there were still people willing to buy and or repair their own. Sure they might be "trash" in build quality, at some point in history, but what matters is not all money.
> every time you use it it fries its own cheap water based glue, and the thing falls apart every 6 months.
Which brand has this happened to for you? I've never seen this, but I've only ever had a supermarket own brand which will just be Midea and a Panasonic.
> but what matters is not all money
Then buy a commercial one which last longer and cost more.
1. This was an illustration of how to make an exceptionally cheap microwave that will work a bit before it fries. I don't often buy microwaves (I'm lucky and have an old one), I'm sure you could find something in China like this, though.
2. Not reasonable for most people. Yeah, sure buy everything at $$$$, just sacrifice a life/kids/house. Good luck not going into life-long debt/slavery at 40k$ a year.
Where do you get this? Microwaves do not fall apart every six months. I had one that we had to replace after 4 or 5 years because we didn't clean the spills enough. We liked the quality enough we replaced with the exact same model.
You mention you think I'm young even though I said I was a kid in the 80s. I think it's actually young people who tend to romanticize old stuff. Those old microwaves were not miraculously better quality. The ones still alive today are, this is survivor bias.
The old ones were generally fine, the new ones are generally fine. They break eventually, implements exposed to the mess of cooking (liquids, steam, caked on grime) tend to, unless you maintain them, which guess what, no one does. We don't really have the time.
The best evidence that the quality is fine today is that, by the article's own testimony, people stopped improving them. If they really sucked someone would go in and make a better one and make a bunch of money. There's a reason no one is doing that.
Young or out of touch. Either just bought a microwave and it hasn't failed yet or old and have one that's lasted 5-8 years and don't have a new crappy one yet.
>The best evidence that the quality is fine today is that, by the article's own testimony
Anecdotally, modern appliances tend to break after only a couple years (based on reports I hear from friends co-workers, etc.). More cheap shit from China/etc. (my fridge drawers are plastic and snapped about 8 months into usage, something that should have a 13-14 year lifespan, and of course, is out of warranty already).
Trying to produce a chart of microwaves bought and produced in 2020 and how long they've lasted is much harder, and honestly you're bullshitting at least as much if not more than me here - plugging your ears and pretending everything is fine is less honest and not at all observant. Combining the facts I do have (actually decreasing lifetimes over a decade) and people complaining more, and an effective monopoly due to capitalism, I would say the reasonable conclusion is that actually no, microwaves today are not generally fine.
> There's a reason no one is doing that.
The reason is not what you think it is. Nobody owns microwave makers or microwave factories, so people just generally accept gradually shittier shit. People buying things is not people being happy with what they bought. There's a big big difference. Inflation remains at an all time high and people are pretty pissed about how much everything costs already - the system has already started to fail.
> If they really sucked someone would go in and make a better one and make a bunch of money.
Sure, if there are some millionaires with money to spare maybe they'll make some cheap reliable microwaves. But they won't make a ton of money. And since, nobody's interested in making reliable microwaves, and they have other things they are interested in doing (due to capitalism), microwaves continue to get shittier and shittier.
This is the whole point of the article, which maybe you'd have grasped if you weren't all "and they dare to question capitalism those damn dirty hippie socialists".
I moved to a new place around 8 years ago. In my kitchen, I have all the usual kitchen essentials, and perhaps even some less common items, such as a Cappuccino machine.
But I don't have a microwave and never consider buying one. I used to live without it. When I order fast food, couriers usually deliver a warm meal to me. When I buy prepared food at a local grocery store, I always ask the salesperson to reheat it right in their microwave at the store. When I cook food at home, it will be hot. If I leave something in the fridge, it's not a big deal for me to eat it chilled later. Chilled food does not lose its nutritional value anyway.
The reason I decided to live without a microwave is that I can't find a device without any built-in smart-scheduling functions; instead, I want one that would offer me complete manual control.
What I really need is a device with three simple features:
1. A manual knob to control the microwave power generator output.
We don't like our LG microwave capacitive-only buttons or the periodic "I'm done!" cute chime, but it works and I use it multiple times a day, because I mostly eat cooked grain and pulse sprouts plus vegetables (vs GERD, and because I like fiber), and a microwave with inverter is the best way to quickly cook this and beets, for example, without boiling over. I set it to 30-40% power (of 1100W max) and increase the time accordingly. My feeling is that low power longer time gives the heat energy time to propagate and minimize hotspots. I stir it all once partway through, often when I add the zucchini or other quicker-cooking veg.
We use our InstantPot daily, too, for all sorts of foods and especially steel-cut oats or oat groats, scheduled to be ready in the morning.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 296 ms ] threadhttps://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/06/insta...
I for instance had no idea that a company called Midea existed, much less that it's now a near-monopoly supplier of shitty OEM microwaves to the world. Here's hoping my indestructible Toshiba keeps on ticking, since looks like Midea swallowed them too in 2016.
https://www.midea-group.com/our-businesses/smart-home/toshib...
However, some companies (like Panasonic) still make their own high-end microwaves.
Still they don't give you direct wattage control, which perhaps is what you're asking for.
https://www.techlicious.com/review/microwave-ovens-with-inve...
The old cycling on and off, it's full power for several seconds and then off for several. The full power sections are long enough to nuke the shit out of many items. Butter doesn't do well, soup and pizza either, just to name some.
I didn't realize PWM specifically referred to fast cycling. I thought any sort of deliberate on/off pattern to modulate power would be PWM. What you said makes sense though, that the regular microwaves can't lower their power output enough (whatever The mechanism) to be safe for some foods.
This analysis misses a LOT of economic factors.
As well as corporate control factors.
Once a market is saturated and business growth can't continue by selling more of the product(see microwaves), growth occurs through M&A(consolidation) or reducing costs(eg: removing the moisture sensor). The author reflects on the microwave market having single supplier Midea as an example of the former, and their removal of the moisture sensor as an example of the latter.
Naturally, the author asks, "what are the incentives that create these behaviors?" They identify the economic structure as the proximal cause of these incentives. Thus concluding that the economic structure that creates microwave markets ultimately concludes in the creation of the shitty microwaves.
The author extrapolates this to the multicooker market a la InstantPot - a bonus predictive why InstantPot will get shitty soon.
> what can we learn from this? i don't know. capitalism will destroy everything it touches.
It's not like microwaving gives great texture or browning to begin with?
[https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/279752/why-a...]
If so, relays have significant switching times and limited cycle counts due to arcing - especially under load. Enough that sub-second switching times will wear them out pretty quickly, and also be annoyingly loud.
At the power levels we're talking about for a resistive stove, solid state is expensive. At the voltages we're talking about, it's also not trivial to do in a reliable way using solid state techniques (240V RMS =~ 340V peak).
I don't care about the variable power, but found an "inverter" microwave without the rotating plate, which cooks evenly without it of course. It has more internal space and is easier to clean.
But when we started shopping we were pleasantly surprised that there had been at least two major developments in the tech since last time I bought one.
First, an inverter gives you actual power-level control instead of the old-fashioned on-off modulation.
Second, flat-bed models have rotating emitters so you no longer need that rotating glass plate to get even application of heat to the food, and can even use square dishes that would be too large to rotate, without risking the usual hot-spots.
Maybe this market isn’t progressing at a rapid pace, but there is some progress.
I still wouldn't routinely cook much food in it, but it's been pretty good so far for a microwave, and does defrost better than my old one (more even, less cooking stuff at the edges that you don't want cooked).
Also it fit pretty perfectly in the microwave nook that was already in the kitchen!
Now that's interesting, how do they work - is it a rotating waveguide? I see an hour or two of web 'research' ahead.
From what little I do understand, there's some sort of rotating emitter arrangement under the flat bed on the bottom of the microwave. Panasonic say -
"In the case of Turntable style microwave ovens, the microwaves were emitted from a fixed antenna that is located on the side of the cavity. These emitted microwave will then bounce around the cavity. With microwave ovens that use flatbed technology, the microwaves are emitted from a rotating antenna located underneath the ceramic base of your microwave oven."
I wish I could get a list of all microwaves and filter by criteria such as:
- Does the +30 seconds button start cooking immediately, or do you have to also press "start" afterwards?
- Does it beep every 30 seconds after it finishes, and if so can I turn that off?
- Better yet, can I turn the beeping off completely without taking the damn thing apart and desoldering the beeper, and of course in the process risking my life near the high-voltage electronics?
But it's basically impossible to know these things without buying it and opening the box, so there's no competitive pressure pushing manufacturers to make their appliances less annoying, so we all have to live with these little papercuts throughout our daily lives for perpetuity.
- The buttons don't give have tactile feedback.
- Setting time is very confusing.
- You have to press multiple buttons just to start.
- If you want to cancel/clear timer, you have to press multiple buttons again.
I've concluded that Samsung products are just generally dogshit.
Unfortunately it was one of the most expensive ones in the stores: https://www.breville.com/us/en/products/microwaves/bmo850.ht...
Biggest annoyance is that it's 1500W so any time I'm microwaving packaged food I have to scale down power to 70-80% to match the wattage on the package.
That approach enables use of a smaller motor, requires fewer moving parts, and makes the interior very easy to clean.
Seems good so far.
(It does not have the physical dial though, it has buttons like most other microwaves)
It has a button to cycle through the power levels (the typical couple seconds on, couple seconds off duty cycle power levels), and four buttons to set the time: one under each digit (adds one to the digit and overflows to zero), the start button, something for temperature cooking if you have the probe (they don't). Actual buttons, because touch buttons hadn't been invented yet. A total of 8 buttons, plus the door open.
Anyway, no turntable there.
But I sure loved the fine grained time and power control. Figure out the setting put once and then it is unattended perfection every time.
Thinking about it now, it must have had some kind of plastic spring mechanism. Wish I had busted it open and looked.
https://www.amazon.com/Nordic-Ware-Microwave-Micro-Go-Round-...
But that produces a stationary pattern (averaged over a rotation). Depending on where your food item is, some spot in it may never actually get high power energy if the overall scatter pattern is weak there. Actually rotating the food through a stationary pattern is likely to provide better coverage.
This is not proved. It is possible to set up an experiment to prove it. But it's reconciled me to the idea of the turntable. Also, consumer microwave turntables have, in my experience, been reliable.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/boil-on-troubled-waters/
The turntable's motion ensures the water is somewhat "disturbed" and minimizes superheating.
...which is far easier and more consistent than trying to counting seconds in my head.
It's also more repeatable and transferrable when someone else is cooking the same thing and asks me how long I heated it for.
My toaster oven has a dial, I have no idea of the values, just how far I turn from muscle memory. I love it
It's a skill like any other, which of course has vanished, much like reading maps and math in head.
I could also just have an "on" button I have to hold, count seconds in my head, and stop when I think it's done, but thankfully no one is advocating for regressing UI quite that much....yet.
I love how microwaves work, there’s a real art to it. 25 seconds , everything is cold but 40 seconds is boiling.
25x2 seconds , with a very short break in between the two, is not equal to 50 seconds.
Making these numbers “up” but anyone who has used a microwave with skill and attention will understand me.
Also, free tips: 1- put a moist paper towel over pizza and bread to keep it from hardening like a rock later on. 2 - microwave stale bread for a second life.
1x120 seconds means it's completely cold in the middle, but molten lava at the sides and even the dish is too hot to touch.
1x30-45 seconds, mix with spoon, 1x30-45 seconds and it's just right.
I still miss it.
The dials feel cheap, but it's fine.
I was tired of pushing buttons and setting clocks. I don't want everything to be a gizmo.
The only button I ever pressed on it is to open doors (mechanical), and once in a while I turn the timer to max (when I notice).
Edit: I maybe should have clarified "appliance store", rather than big box. But there are three appliance stores within ten miles of me that sell appliances. Not Home Depot, not Wal-Mart. Appliance stores. The refrigerators and ovens and microwaves are all plugged in and you can try any of them. The only thing you can't try is the gas ranges.
This is the world we built shopping for price.
The majority of microwaves I've seen at my local department store are in a box, those few models that are on display are not powered.
Even in the highly unusual case that they were powered or within proximity of a free power socket, I think it'd be rather unorthodox to go to the store and test drive a microwave with your instant ramen.
Not at the appliance stores near me.
The microwave would not function if the time and AM/PM values were not set. (As far as I could tell, there was no way to actually ever see the AM/PM value after setting it!)
So. Every time the power went out, I would be confronted with blinking times on clocks I didn’t even want, and a nonfunctional microwave.
I will never buy a kitchen appliance with a mandatory clock ever again.
I fired off an E-mail to Siemens, stating that there was ONE feature which could tempt me into granting it access: NTP support.
Much to my surprise, I got an enthusiastic reply from an engineer stating that this would be rolled out in a future firmware update.
Fingers crossed.
I hadn't thought of that. I'll add that to my list of reasons why I will not buy an appliance that wants to connect to a network.
- Electronic, unfortunately. No time/power dials, in favor of a menu system from hell, but
- One button press to start (max power, 30s);
- After starting, there's a button to add 30s;
- It only beeps twice after finishing, then shuts up.
It's often some combination of holding down 1, 2, or 0 for a few seconds to change those modes.
Because it's a paid subscription, and all of the items they review are actually purchased from retail suppliers who have no knowledge that Consumer Reports is the buyer, they can take their time and do very thorough comparisons incorporating tests of real world usability and reliability that are difficult to tabulate and instead have to reviewed like a movie or a book. But I don't know, it's likely the consumer reports type of shopper is such a minor fraction of the market that isn't worth optimizing for them any more.
For those who wish Consumer Reports didn't have the money to buy the products they test and depended on advertising and payola inevitably gaming the reviews instead...
Arguably advertising destroyed the microwave ... and everything else.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corsi–Rosenthal_Box
(Quite possibly what you meant; I just found “in front of” easy to interpret in either way)
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_air_delivery_rate
The Wikipedia article does not discuss the 2 (different!) methods of calculating CADR but this does: https://frdmtoplay.com/nagivating-air-purification/
I don't think the article is correct that the humidity sensor was the last innovation (and actually, how can I tell if a microwave has this, and how is used anyway?) - we also have inverter microwaves recently, as well as combi grill/microwave etc.
EDIT: Oh, I think you meant "Project Farm", the youtube reviewer. Anyway, I'd like to see a 'design farm' for microwave concepts and designs, and appliances in general actually, they all suck.
i've seen one where buttons 1-6 immediately start cooking for that many minutes, alongside a +30 button, so that every 30s interval between 30s and 6:30 can be activated in one or two button pushes; fastest nuke in the west
It's "Magic Chef", for those of you who are curious. We didn't buy it (came with the house), and I'm not pulling it off the shelf to look for a model number on the back (I moved the vinegar bottles next to it, and there's no sticker on that side, nor the other, either), but that's a place to start.
Actually, yeah! The "soup" setting nukes it in such a way that you don't get a scolding hot bowl + top layer of soup, while everything else stays cold. (Mostly by spinning the tray and heating it in a burst-like pattern, I think)
I still would rather just cover the dish with another bowl, which achieves a better & faster result.
IANAMS (I Am Not a Microwave Scientist), but observationally it seems to me that bowl material has most to do with microwave results. I have a few bowls (and mugs) I never use in the microwave, because they seem always to get hotter than their contents. Later, I'll try one of them on "Soup" to see if it makes a difference.
No joke, I bought and returned 4 microwaves before I found one that doesn't. I'm picky, and finally found one that does a quick double "beeep beeep" and is done.
I leave it enabled though because it is not continuous and has like a TADA.WAV kind of vibe. So happy!
1: The first two times you push it, it sets the timer to 0:30 and starts cooking. The next time, adds 0:30. Each time after that, it adds 1 minute and starts cooking.
2. Reset the timer to 0.
And a door latch which stops cooking.
I don't need power levels, or more precise timing, or any of that other stuff.
"Why does not everyone have the same opinions and preferences as I do?!"
Please be nice. This isn't Reddit.
> A button that doesn’t work consistently.
A button that is context-aware.
>How are you going to set 1:30 (which is very common)?
Good point. It should add 30 seconds until it gets to 2:00 then do 60 second increments.
>Or 55?
55 minutes is not a thing I ever do with a microwave.
>What about defrosting where you want a low power level?
I already said I don't use power levels. If I want to defrost, I just cook for a few minutes then let it sit for a long time, or use some other method.
>Or soups?
Assuming you mean a tub of frozen soup, I usually cook for 5 minutes, stir, do another few minutes, etc.
> Or a hundred other examples.
There are not a hundred other examples. That's the point. The vast majority of the time I'm heating at full power for short periods of time.
> How does having a number pad ruin the experience?
It doesn't ruin anything. But it costs money to implement.
For something like popcorn with a set time (2 min 20 s is perfect on ours, 10s too much and it burns), it's twist the dial then press start.
Four buttons: Microwave, Defrost, Stop, Start.
Defrost is 40% power. It is a flatbed, so no turntable to clean.
and I would argue these are two of the major reasons to use a microwave
Particularly for defrosting things and softening butter.
This indeed, there is no structured info anyware in even the software land where it's easier to get the info without buying/unboxing, so you can't rely on reviews that takes all those things into account and can't really do it yourself
NYT bought Wirecutter for 30 million dollars so... who knows, there might be a business here.
And it was cool for a while, until I started reading their reviews and comparisons on products I knew a lot about and done my own research on. I found they just missed a lot of things I found really important.
We didn't agree on things I know about, so I had to assume we wouldn't agree on things I did know about!
https://www.choice.com.au/
Yes, but it's much worse than it needs to be. When searching for hard disks on Amazon, if you search for "hard disk 8 tb" for example, Amazon will suggest the following criteria on the left side of the page:
Hard Disk Size
4 TB & Above
3 TB
2 TB
1 TB
501 to 999 GB
321 to 500 GB
121 to 320 GB
Up to 80 GB
Really? What is the point of this? How can it not do better?
If you dont want to use amazon https://www.pcpartpicker.com has a good section to search and compare hard drive sizes/pricing
And for the above poster, +30 starts it, it plays a little tune when done, and then every maybe 30s afterwards for 2 or 3 times. Oh, and the turntable rotates at 0.1Hz so a mug's handle is facing the same way it went in after any interval of ten seconds.
my conclusion: it often doesn't really matter.
I feel a bit whiney complaining about such a minor thing. But it does bug me everyday. The sheer senselessness of bad design is infuriating. They will make thousands, maybe millions of these things. Put a bit of time in designing it!
</end rant>
Probably some consumer tests showed that people had trouble with rotating the knob without pushing it during rotation. Or, pushing the knob sets the time and now you can set the power by further rotating the knob and then pushing start.
Random people actually film themselves unboxing and using the product, and you can watch what buttons they have to press, etc.
Also you can virtually always download the manual as a PDF.
Of course that's not a list, and it takes a lot of work. It's deeply unfortunate -- somebody like Amazon could actually implement the kind of comparison matrix you're talking about, but they're not exactly innovating on the UX front. :(
(Amazon does sometimes show a comparison matrix of 4 products with something like ~6 rows of features for some products, but I think it's created by the manufacturer, so only compares models for that one brand, and doesn't always list the feature you care about either.)
Would that be valuable, though? Could Amazon do this in a useful and non-manipulative way? I have doubts.
My current one is:
Press cook time, 1, 0, 0, start. Too long.
So for 1 minute it is faster to do +30, +30, as that immediately starts.
Their thermoses are so amazing. In fact, they’re so good that I often have to keep the lid open cuz my coffee stays too hot for too long.
I usually hate all device sounds, but surprisingly this has a reasonably quiet singular bell-like "ding" option, rather than the typical "beep-beep-beep" that drives me nuts.
The only thing that concerns me is the oven modes. It's got this plastic spinner piece that supports the glass turntable that I'm not sure about leaving in, and you can't use the metal tray in microwave mode.
So I just leave it in microwave mode all the time.
So I can imagine a spec which says "do a cheapest buzzer on its preferred frequency, 1 second period, 50% duty cycle, 3 times" being independently written in 3 different engineering offices, and multiple devices ending up with identical beeps.
[0] https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/pui-audio-inc/AT-...
Highly recommend
Domestic brands over here aren't even trying. Build quality is subpar on everything manufactured on the continent, but thankfully designs are pretty simple and parts are readily available.
Our only choice on larger appliances is basically Miele at 2-4x the European MSRP to get anything remotely reliable. Even then the Miele@Home stuff is nothing but a nightmare so far.
Is it an amazing indispensable life-changing invention? No. But does it suck? Also no. The premise of the article is seriously flawed, and comes across as somebody who just didn't like anything but old-fashioned stove cooking (probably by someone else) in the first place.
I sympathize a bit with those who would like to have physical knobs and simplicity. I’m not a fan of the capacitive touch buttons. They are easy to clean, so I understand why they’re popular, but it would feel nice to just spin a knob to 3:30 and press the start button.
And it was 1/10th the cost of the “good old days” models. I appreciate the cost-cutting that went into my microwave.
Microwaves are better in countries with less capitalism?
They literally gave an example of how when people were buying them, there was a lot of innovation. That was capitalism too, right?
In fact, if there is any innovation do be had here, it’ll only happen because of monetary motivations.
On the one hand all the innovation and cheap prices are a result of capitalism driven competition.
On the other hand, all the deceptive marketing, addictive vacuous features, vendor lock-in, planned obsolescence and enshitification are also a result of capitalism, which only cares about maximizing profits and return on capital.
How do you all use a browser that comes up with these adversarial technologies?
On days I do care, I have my means to be undetected. When the ads bother me, I switch on the pihole. Some sites don't work with pihole enabled so sometimes it's either off or I create exceptions. But I like Chrome. The convenience I get from chrome is invaluable to me. No other browser can give me that exactly. But all of the above are based on MY decisions. I chose to use X or to ignore Y. When a site decides that for me, well... I just walk away.
And I don't bother with a retirement fund because I make enough money for my needs right now so why care about the future.
I would also like to understand why you think web has to change. Why can't the ad networks change by not allowing tracking in ads, or make ads bearable to look at? I don't need an ad moving on a web page. Newspapers have gotten this right for centuries. I can look at a newspaper all day and not get frustrated, but I can't do that on the web because I have to worry about content moving on my screen or privacy.
Regarding ads - Don't get me wrong - I hate obnoxious ads, i dislike moving ads, and noisy ads and colourful ads and ad-sites that farm content from other sites to show ads etc. And I think the more obtrusive they get they just harm themselves in the long run. But, I also appreciate that for most content outlets this is the only way to support themselves (except my last example - that has no excuse).
And regarding tracking - personally if I am to see ads, i rather them be relevant at least, and not random. When asked if I want to be tracked or see random ads, i select the former. purely personal preference.
And also: pihole. Seriously. I turn it on and the ads disappear. The net is clean and faster on all devices in the house.
"Adverts exist because we refuse to pay for every service"
No, adverts exist largely because of poor quality content that ranks high in google and does everything possible to give readers the least amount of information in the slowest way possible. I would gladly pay to visit websites that shared a common ethical framework for cost sharing.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36877524 - Quick example from a search.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074RCGYLB
ONE dial. One. Zero buttons. Perfect.
It does not have a turntable, but it's never needed one.
In 2017, Cornell Capital bought the company for a total $500M of which $300M was financed by debt. Then 4 years later in 2021, it refinanced and added on debt, bringing the total debt to $535M. $245M was immediately paid out to shareholders as a dividend. Cornell Capital got paid back all the cash it invested in the company's acquisition, and then some. In 2023 due to high interest rates the company was no longer able to service its debt, costing the company ~$50M a year, and the company had to file Chapter 11.
2. Is there any evidence that's ever the case from PE firms? Startups fail all the time, but I wouldn't characterize them as "knowingly take a loan you have no intention of paying back"
When it's $300 million the bonuses can be kind of sizable, so everyone else including the shareholders, be damned.
The shareholders don't find out until it's too late.
The controls were two knobs. There were no other controls. No start button. No open-door button. Both knobs felt Very Serious. There was no spinny platter thing, but it didn't seem to really do any worse than the new ones with it—but it was easier to clean. It was pretty big for a microwave.
One knob was power. One knob was a timer. You turn the timer knob to start it. It physically ticks down until it dings (real bell, not a speaker) and stops. You pull the (heavy) handle on the door to open it. It's secured with (I suppose) one or more of those mechanisms where a flared tab goes between a pair of little wheels, so it's secure unless you pull fairly hard, no need for a release button.
It was still mounted in the exact same place and working just as well as it did in the 80s and 90s, when my grandma moved out to live with my parents in the 2010s.
I've seen a few kinda similar models on offer, but they're expensive and without feeling one in person I really doubt they're actually as good.
(A bunch of the finishes on their very-modest poor-rural-town house—outlet and switch cover plates, some of the trim, the front door, the storm doors of all things, and the doorbell, were all luxury-tier by modern standards—some of those, I've never seen anything as good on any house built since 1970 or so, and I've been in some "nice" ones; some stuff's simply gotten worse, and I tell you what, the solid feel and butter-smooth action of some of those things really did make life better)
The key word in the description is "inverter". I am very much in the pro-inverter camp. In an inverter microwave, power is supplied through an inverter circuit to supply a steady and constant amount of power throughout the cooking time without cutting in and out. So if you select 50% power, the microwave will deliver 50% power throughout. Inverter microwaves are also more energy efficient than standard microwaves.
It has had one odd behavior that has me quite puzzled.
I was regularly having for breakfast a microwaved frozen breakfast sandwich and a couple hash browns cooked in a toaster. The hash browns took 10 minutes, and the breakfast sandwich 1 minute.
I'd program the microwave for a 9 minute timer stage, followed by a 1 minute cooking stage, and then start the microwave and drop the hash browns in the toaster.
I could then go do other stuff and when I heard the microwave beep I'd know it was time to go take the hash browns out of the toaster.
This worked great for weeks, then one morning the microwave would not start.
Some experimenting showed that it would still start as long as the first stage was not a timer stage of a multi-stage program was not a timer stage. E.g., cook stage + timer stage was fine. Cook + timer + cook was also fine, so it wasn't that timer stages could not precede cook stages. Timer only was fine, too.
This is not an internet-connected device, so it wasn't some sort of stealth firmware update. Reset didn't help, and neither did unplugging it overnight.
It was this way for a couple days (as a work around I'd do 1 second cook + 9 minute timer + 1 minute cook)...and then it started working normally again and has continued working normally ever since (about two years since the glitch).
I can't even come up with a reasonably hypothesis to explain this.
I agree, what you are describing is thoroughly bizarre. When you say that it wouldn't start, do you mean that it wouldn't let you hit the start button at all, or that the timer would run out and then nothing would happen?
The only thing I can think to ask from a debugging perspective is whether there's someone in your home who was using a mode last thing before bed that would have set it in an uncertain state?
Heck, even the moisture sensor, or whether someone opens the door on the last second of a cook before a beep could leave some register in an uncertain state.
There's no one else in the house (that I know of...).
I googled it and it looks like... a regular sandwich that needs to be put in the oven for some reason?
A "frozen" food is one that has been frozen, usually sold from the "frozen foods" aisle of a grocery store. Sometimes people will prepare meals in advance and then freeze them for storage. These items must be "defrosted" before eating, usually also heated to a desired temperature. This takes substantially less time than making the meal from scratch.
A "frozen breakfast sandwich" is a "breakfast sandwich" which has been pre-prepared, and then frozen. That saves the eater time & effort in the morning, since they only have to heat up the sandwich before eating, not go through the whole process of frying the egg, cooking the bacon, assembling it into a sandwich, & heating that. Even if the eater is also the preparer, it still saves time in the morning (at the expense of preparation time on a different day). For people who don't like getting up early or with long commutes, having pre-prepared frozen breakfast sandwiches can be a significant benefit.
I LOVE those machines. The inverter is great because it doesn't make the lights dim periodically lol.
I'm not entirely convinced about the longevity either, the turntable of the first one I received was DOA and I had to get it replaced.
- Subscription service?
- Annual government funding?
- Annual private funding for "best product in category"?
Also how are some companies who make long-lasting tools which are apparently good quality (such as Lodge, PYREX, Patagonia) seemingly doing just fine?
Patagonia has even lowered their standards somewhat - I know a guy who bikes to work every day in Seattle and has used the same Patagonia waterproof panniers for something like 15 years, and I would be willing to bet that new ones are more cheaply made and less waterproof, while costing more.
Patagonia also isn't particularly high quality (I own dozens of their clothes because I like their environmental activism, but many fray out of the bag, fit poorly, have crappy zippers, etc.). Arcteryx and European brands often make much higher quality clothing. Patagonia's on par with REI store brand clothing, IMO. But at least now they're wholly owned by a nonprofit!
I'm not sure any company can avoid this fate long term if they need to keep growing.
And these days, with everything from electronics to materials science to coatings to additives all changing so fast, maybe fast and cheap and easily replaceable is just what the market bears, for consumer and manufacturer alike?
I wonder why “if they need to keep growing” is so important to literally everyone? I’d die for a meaningful business that predictably spit out cash due to extreme customer loyalty. Why did growth itself become the prize everyone reaches for?
That's literally capitalism. The hamster wheel. A closed loop.
If you take out a loan from a bank, the bank expects 5% annual return on that loan. Where do you get the additional 5% that you owe? You need to take it from someone else (who themself took out a loan, maybe even from the same bank).
While the bank can and will almost literally create (digital) money from thin air.
This has a lot of implicit assumptions which don’t hold true in reality. The 5% would have to be the same as the return on equity prior to the loan, and the loan would have to be for the full amount of the equity.
What I said above is that you can have a stable business with a decent return without needing to grow the business.
Say you have a business with $10 million in sales, and a net profit margin of 15%, so you take out $1.5 million per year. In my mind this is a great business.
1. To your specific point re a loan, this could easily support a $4 million load at 8% without demanding the underlying business grow revenues at all.
2. Lots of people would be tempted to grow the top line to $100 million even if net margins shrank to 5%. This is the point I don’t understand. Is it just greed? The consequence is that, in the aggregate across the economy, businesses and people rarely become businesses like OP points out and usually end up doing a lot of shitty things that destroy any lasting brand value or loyalty. I’m looking at Google Search and Facebook, and a million other businesses in and out of tech when I say this.
Spoke too soon
What infuriates me are vacuum cleaners. To make them more "eco-friendly" it's even regulated in the EU now that vacuum cleaners may not use more than 900 watts. But it's not like vacuum cleaner technology has improved tenfold since I had my good old 1500 watts vacuum cleaner in the 2000s (rip). So how did they achieve this magic? Well, new vacuum cleaners don't vacuum for shit, that's how.
Miele and Lindhaus are also good.
Yes I have a Miele which is decent but not as good as my previous one from before the regulation (also a Miele that died through no fault of its own).
Microwaves are great. Amazon will have a Farberware or RCA for $70 to my home in two days - including shipping!
What exactly is the problem? No one has ever used them to do anything other than heat things up. I was a child of the 80s. No one ever used these supposed features the post complains are disappearing.
Instant Pot. Introduced millions to pressure cooking. Pork shoulder or brisket in 30m instead of 3 hours. Same for beans. Mine stopped working after several months and I called the company. They sent me a new one, actually a nicer model than the old, for free, that week. And told me to throw the old one out. Years later it’s working great.
Who cares if the company went bankrupt? Yes private equity seems to suck but guess what, you can still buy a cheap great Instant Pot.
Then he has the nerve to complain about capitalism, the reason we have this stuff. Does the author think in the Soviet Union it was easy to get a microwave? Does the author think communist citizens lucky enough to own microwaves had all the features they could want, and could be one tenth as picky as he is?
Please tell me in what system other than capitalism you get to publish your nitpicky complaints about your abundant selection of consumer electronics to the world at the click of a button, on your computer or phone or tablet, that you own and hook up to your broadband internet which is readily available to your heated and cooled home, in one of the most prosperous countries on earth, so you can sneer at capitalism, which literally is the reason you have all this.
What a bizarre post.
In summary, not every microwave sucks, and instant pot isn’t dead.
Microwaves should last for decades, this is the same type of thing that you may have heard your parents complain about "I had a can opener that I got from my mother and it just broke, the five new ones I bought same price all broke within a year".
There is really nothing complex about one. It's a timer connected to some voltage equipment and a couple transformers. But, the way you make it, fused steel, well oiled joints, cheap copper wire barely within tolerance or thick wire able to withstand 2x the amperage, varies wildly. As demand goes up, you build fancy microwave factories with expensive well tested molds that can churn out hundreds of thousands of them...until demand goes down and paying for maintenance and power at the factory no longer make sense, let alone having anyone staff the place or prevent looting and squatting.
So you cut corners and your microwave is made of plastic, every time you use it it fries its own cheap water based glue, and the thing falls apart every 6 months.
That's what he's complaining about. Yeah, capitalism works great assuming constant or increasing demand, but it's really bad at financial planning or literally anything else, and then it creates garbage and human suffering.
I think probably the microwaves in the Soviet Union still probably last decades, because unlike the American ones, there were still people willing to buy and or repair their own. Sure they might be "trash" in build quality, at some point in history, but what matters is not all money.
Which brand has this happened to for you? I've never seen this, but I've only ever had a supermarket own brand which will just be Midea and a Panasonic.
> but what matters is not all money
Then buy a commercial one which last longer and cost more.
Where do you get this? Microwaves do not fall apart every six months. I had one that we had to replace after 4 or 5 years because we didn't clean the spills enough. We liked the quality enough we replaced with the exact same model.
You mention you think I'm young even though I said I was a kid in the 80s. I think it's actually young people who tend to romanticize old stuff. Those old microwaves were not miraculously better quality. The ones still alive today are, this is survivor bias.
The old ones were generally fine, the new ones are generally fine. They break eventually, implements exposed to the mess of cooking (liquids, steam, caked on grime) tend to, unless you maintain them, which guess what, no one does. We don't really have the time.
The best evidence that the quality is fine today is that, by the article's own testimony, people stopped improving them. If they really sucked someone would go in and make a better one and make a bunch of money. There's a reason no one is doing that.
People love to complain, today as ever.
Young or out of touch. Either just bought a microwave and it hasn't failed yet or old and have one that's lasted 5-8 years and don't have a new crappy one yet.
>The best evidence that the quality is fine today is that, by the article's own testimony
He said/she said. This is all assertion by opinion without facts. That said, it appears a year ago the trend was downward, for multiple appliance types, in the US: https://www.statista.com/statistics/220020/average-life-expe...
Anecdotally, modern appliances tend to break after only a couple years (based on reports I hear from friends co-workers, etc.). More cheap shit from China/etc. (my fridge drawers are plastic and snapped about 8 months into usage, something that should have a 13-14 year lifespan, and of course, is out of warranty already).
Trying to produce a chart of microwaves bought and produced in 2020 and how long they've lasted is much harder, and honestly you're bullshitting at least as much if not more than me here - plugging your ears and pretending everything is fine is less honest and not at all observant. Combining the facts I do have (actually decreasing lifetimes over a decade) and people complaining more, and an effective monopoly due to capitalism, I would say the reasonable conclusion is that actually no, microwaves today are not generally fine.
> There's a reason no one is doing that.
The reason is not what you think it is. Nobody owns microwave makers or microwave factories, so people just generally accept gradually shittier shit. People buying things is not people being happy with what they bought. There's a big big difference. Inflation remains at an all time high and people are pretty pissed about how much everything costs already - the system has already started to fail.
> If they really sucked someone would go in and make a better one and make a bunch of money.
Sure, if there are some millionaires with money to spare maybe they'll make some cheap reliable microwaves. But they won't make a ton of money. And since, nobody's interested in making reliable microwaves, and they have other things they are interested in doing (due to capitalism), microwaves continue to get shittier and shittier.
This is the whole point of the article, which maybe you'd have grasped if you weren't all "and they dare to question capitalism those damn dirty hippie socialists".
But I don't have a microwave and never consider buying one. I used to live without it. When I order fast food, couriers usually deliver a warm meal to me. When I buy prepared food at a local grocery store, I always ask the salesperson to reheat it right in their microwave at the store. When I cook food at home, it will be hot. If I leave something in the fridge, it's not a big deal for me to eat it chilled later. Chilled food does not lose its nutritional value anyway.
The reason I decided to live without a microwave is that I can't find a device without any built-in smart-scheduling functions; instead, I want one that would offer me complete manual control.
What I really need is a device with three simple features:
1. A manual knob to control the microwave power generator output.
2. A manual shut-off timer knob.
3. A manual grill spiral knob.
We use our InstantPot daily, too, for all sorts of foods and especially steel-cut oats or oat groats, scheduled to be ready in the morning.