4 ms·

This is one of those stories where I initially go "wait, quirky failed?" and then I think of the Quirky Eggminder that I purchased and realize, "yea, that produ

This is one of those stories where I initially go "wait, quirky failed?" and then I think of the Quirky Eggminder that I purchased and realize, "yea, that product really did make me a sad and angry customer." For those who don't know, the eggminder was a wifi enabled egg carton paired with a smartphone app that tells you how many eggs you currently have, how old each egg is, and notifies you when you need more eggs. For a guy who eats eggs two-to-three days a week and isn't quite sure how many are left in the carton when he's at the grocery store, it was pretty nice. Unfortunately, if you've ever put batteries in the refrigerator (think of that NYTimes review of the Model S), you would know they don't function very well at low temperatures. The egg minder runs out of batteries within a week, at which point it becomes a glorified and overpriced egg carton. One glaring flaw made the product useless. Today I've learned that was true of most of their products.

username223 11y ago
How can this have been a thing? First, eggs don't need to be refrigerated; they keep at least a week at room temperature. Second, they can be bought in lots of 6, 12, 18, and 36 in most supermarkets; choose based on your rate of consumption. Third, they're dirt cheap, typically less than 25 cents apiece. We're talking Vessyl levels of pointlessness here.
- dasil003 11y ago
  Are you European? The reason I ask is because the US and the EU take opposite approaches to the issue of egg safety. In the EU eggs are not allowed to be washed before sale, that means the eggs retain their natural anti-bacterial coating from when they are laid, so they are naturally microbe resistant and that's why European eggs are not refrigerated in the store. In the US they mandate that eggs must be washed before sale, but the egg shell is a semi-permeable membrane, and washing off the natural coating renders the egg vulnerable to spoilage, therefore it must be refrigerated or the eggs will tend to go bad.
  - username223 11y ago
    I'm a 'Merkin, actually, and I've never had problems leaving eggs out for a week, then eating them hard-boiled, scrambled, or over-easy. Then again, I sometimes find it hard to understand the Purell Nation in which I live.
    - venomsnake 11y ago
      You have 1/20000 chance of having an salmonella egg in a batch that can be inactivated with proper cooking. For people with working immune system basically any food is safe-ish. So we are overdoing it. But there are people for which (AIDS, immunosuppressors, cancer) a very low bacterial load could be deadly.
      - jakobegger 11y ago
        It does depend on the kind of eggs you buy. If you buy eggs from chicken in cages where chicken peck each other to death, I assume that your salmonella risk is higher than if you buy eggs from free ranging chicken in organic farms. At least that's what I like to tell myself when I buy the fancy eggs at twice the price.
        venomsnake 11y ago
        A few thoughts - there are people that cheat on the "free range" label. Sometimes the free range chickens if done improperly can live in worse conditions than caged. And industrial farms have really got good at safety. That doesn't mean don't buy. It means research so that you are not ripped off. My opinion is follow the flavor - absolutely anecdotal evidence - but the deeper and more flavorful an animal based product is - the better living conditions the animal had. The tastiest eggs I have eaten were the ones which I have stolen right under the hens in small family farms.
  - zorf 11y ago
    At least in Sweden and Finland it is recommended to refrigerate eggs. This way the eggs are edible up to two months, even though the packaging (based on EU rules) says 28 days.
enneff 11y ago
If you eat eggs regularly then you needn't keep them in the fridge.
- flippant 11y ago
  Eggs in some parts of the world are washed. This removes the outer layer and as a result they need to be stored in the fridge.
stephengillie 11y ago
This is the EXACT problem I had when trying to make a "fridge temperature puck" - batteries work less well in very cold situations, probably due to low temperature decreasing molecular reactions. I was planning on having an Arduino collect stats and then display them as a webpage over Wifi. There are basically 2 solutions, and I feel both are inelegant: 1. Use part of the battery voltage in a heater that warms the battery enough for it to continue reacting and producing voltage. 2. Locate the battery outside of the fridge somehow, with a long wire to the rest of the device.
- tectec 11y ago
  There are lithium batteries that perform well in cold temperatures. I have not used them myself but something like this should work fine in the fridge or freezer. http://www.energizer.com/batteries/energizer-advanced-lithium-batteries http://www.energizer.com/batteries/energizer-advanced-lithiu...
logn 11y ago
Then you're gonna love the product which is a wifi enabled battery monitor paired with a smartphone app that tells you the current charge of a battery. Actually the fridge lightbulb might have been a better place to source power. But given a product description like eggminder, I would assume the company would fail anyhow. While there may be some people who need eggminder v2.0, there aren't very many of them. Eventually someone will invent the IoT device to end all devices, much like how the iPhone ended up reducing the number of gadgets a person needs. So maybe they failed due to lack of iteration, but maybe the wacky gadget business just isn't a good one.
- LoSboccacc 11y ago
  so for IoT we just need usb-c rails all over the place :D
halcyondaze 11y ago
While the battery oversight was bad, who actually cares about how many eggs they have left and needs to be notified? It's a non-problem first and a hardware oversight second.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Apparently GP cared since he paid for the product. The thing about optimizing day-to-day life is, everyone has different needs and priorities, and everyone has different personal shortcomings they want to correct with technology.
RyanMcGreal 11y ago
The obvious solution is to start building fridges with power outlets inside the cooling area.
- function_seven 11y ago
  You're not thinking future-proof enough! Each shelf needs to have NFC coils embedded throughout. With just outlets, you'll run out as soon as you have an Eggminder, a Milkminder, and a Sixpackminder
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

username223 11y ago

How can this have been a thing? First, eggs don't need to be refrigerated; they keep at least a week at room temperature. Second, they can be bought in lots of 6, 12, 18, and 36 in most supermarkets; choose based on your rate of consumption. Third, they're dirt cheap, typically less than 25 cents apiece. We're talking Vessyl levels of pointlessness here.

dasil003 11y ago
Are you European? The reason I ask is because the US and the EU take opposite approaches to the issue of egg safety. In the EU eggs are not allowed to be washed before sale, that means the eggs retain their natural anti-bacterial coating from when they are laid, so they are naturally microbe resistant and that's why European eggs are not refrigerated in the store. In the US they mandate that eggs must be washed before sale, but the egg shell is a semi-permeable membrane, and washing off the natural coating renders the egg vulnerable to spoilage, therefore it must be refrigerated or the eggs will tend to go bad.
- username223 11y ago
  I'm a 'Merkin, actually, and I've never had problems leaving eggs out for a week, then eating them hard-boiled, scrambled, or over-easy. Then again, I sometimes find it hard to understand the Purell Nation in which I live.
  - venomsnake 11y ago
    You have 1/20000 chance of having an salmonella egg in a batch that can be inactivated with proper cooking. For people with working immune system basically any food is safe-ish. So we are overdoing it. But there are people for which (AIDS, immunosuppressors, cancer) a very low bacterial load could be deadly.
    - jakobegger 11y ago
      It does depend on the kind of eggs you buy. If you buy eggs from chicken in cages where chicken peck each other to death, I assume that your salmonella risk is higher than if you buy eggs from free ranging chicken in organic farms. At least that's what I like to tell myself when I buy the fancy eggs at twice the price.
      - venomsnake 11y ago
        A few thoughts - there are people that cheat on the "free range" label. Sometimes the free range chickens if done improperly can live in worse conditions than caged. And industrial farms have really got good at safety. That doesn't mean don't buy. It means research so that you are not ripped off. My opinion is follow the flavor - absolutely anecdotal evidence - but the deeper and more flavorful an animal based product is - the better living conditions the animal had. The tastiest eggs I have eaten were the ones which I have stolen right under the hens in small family farms.
- zorf 11y ago
  At least in Sweden and Finland it is recommended to refrigerate eggs. This way the eggs are edible up to two months, even though the packaging (based on EU rules) says 28 days.

enneff 11y ago

If you eat eggs regularly then you needn't keep them in the fridge.

flippant 11y ago
Eggs in some parts of the world are washed. This removes the outer layer and as a result they need to be stored in the fridge.

stephengillie 11y ago

This is the EXACT problem I had when trying to make a "fridge temperature puck" - batteries work less well in very cold situations, probably due to low temperature decreasing molecular reactions. I was planning on having an Arduino collect stats and then display them as a webpage over Wifi. There are basically 2 solutions, and I feel both are inelegant: 1. Use part of the battery voltage in a heater that warms the battery enough for it to continue reacting and producing voltage. 2. Locate the battery outside of the fridge somehow, with a long wire to the rest of the device.

tectec 11y ago
There are lithium batteries that perform well in cold temperatures. I have not used them myself but something like this should work fine in the fridge or freezer. http://www.energizer.com/batteries/energizer-advanced-lithium-batteries http://www.energizer.com/batteries/energizer-advanced-lithiu...

logn 11y ago

Then you're gonna love the product which is a wifi enabled battery monitor paired with a smartphone app that tells you the current charge of a battery. Actually the fridge lightbulb might have been a better place to source power. But given a product description like eggminder, I would assume the company would fail anyhow. While there may be some people who need eggminder v2.0, there aren't very many of them. Eventually someone will invent the IoT device to end all devices, much like how the iPhone ended up reducing the number of gadgets a person needs. So maybe they failed due to lack of iteration, but maybe the wacky gadget business just isn't a good one.

LoSboccacc 11y ago
so for IoT we just need usb-c rails all over the place :D

halcyondaze 11y ago

While the battery oversight was bad, who actually cares about how many eggs they have left and needs to be notified? It's a non-problem first and a hardware oversight second.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
Apparently GP cared since he paid for the product. The thing about optimizing day-to-day life is, everyone has different needs and priorities, and everyone has different personal shortcomings they want to correct with technology.

RyanMcGreal 11y ago

The obvious solution is to start building fridges with power outlets inside the cooling area.

function_seven 11y ago
You're not thinking future-proof enough! Each shelf needs to have NFC coils embedded throughout. With just outlets, you'll run out as soon as you have an Eggminder, a Milkminder, and a Sixpackminder
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]