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In case anyone missed the Juicero teardown in April, here it is: https://blog.bolt.io/heres-why-juicero-s-press-is-so-expensive-6add74594e50 https://blog.bolt.
by simonsarris 9y ago
In case anyone missed the Juicero teardown in April, here it is:
https://blog.bolt.io/heres-why-juicero-s-press-is-so-expensive-6add74594e50 https://blog.bolt.io/heres-why-juicero-s-press-is-so-expensi...
> One Giant Misstep
> The vast majority of the complexity of the Press is driven by one simple problem inherent in the machine’s design: the massive force required to press the packs across the entire surface at once. The machine must apply equal pressure to ~64 square inches of surface area at once, meaning the drivetrain must be able to apply thousands of pounds of force to squish all that produce.
> On the contrary, when a human hand squeezes the same pack, we naturally use a very different technique [fingers create large amounts of pressure over much smaller surface area]
> I have to believe the engineers that built this product looked at other ways of pressing the juice, but if the primary mechanism could apply force in a more focused way it could easily save hundreds of dollars off the shelf price of the product.
That blog post is high art.
- theGimp 9y agoAvE also did a teardown. It's 40 minutes long, and evidently I watched the whole thing according to YouTube. https://youtu.be/_Cp-BGQfpHQ https://youtu.be/_Cp-BGQfpHQ
- Overtonwindow 9y agoWow that was painful to watch considering how much was invested in that company, and how much the machine costs. Wow. Thank you for posting this link.
- theGimp 9y agoHah. Yeah, it's quite the spectacle. I've gotten used to AvE's unboxing by now and in fact look forward to it, but I remember it being jarring the first few times.
- jandrese 9y agoHe also did a DRM bypass, by which I mean he hooked a power supply up to the motor and ran it manually. It really is the most ridiculous product. Even if it were engineered properly to a reasonable price point the entire product is unnecessary and wasteful. The difference between selling bags of juice vs. bags of mostly juiced pulp that you have to finish yourself is definitely not worth $800 or whatever they were trying to charge. On top of that they added DRM, some goddamn subscription thing, required internet connectivity, and every other annoyance you can get in a modern product.
- deegles 9y agoI mean, if pressed juice actually lived up to its health claims I might consider Juicero more seriously.
- _jtrig 9y agoEating whole fruit is unbelievably more healthy, cheaper, and simple than the convoluted process this product serves. The time spent setting up this machine, throwing away the bags, electricity used, resources used, etc VS peeling an orange seems comical and sad.
- jandrese 9y agoTo be fair, the founder was much more into stuff like kale juice and beet juice than orange juice. Stuff that isn't particularly nutritious when eaten raw and unprocessed.
- ghostly_s 9y agoYou think the nutritional content of kale or beets increases when you juice them? Source?
- logfromblammo 9y agoThe effort to eat a bushel of kale dwarfs the effort to drink 1.5 juiced bushels of kale.
- xienze 9y agoOf particular note in that video is that there's more to the cost than the press. The build quality of the machine is way above and beyond what's necessary. I mean, that's a good thing, but you have to stop before your consumer-grade juicer costs $400 (was it really $700? Dang).
- hkmurakami 9y agoTo be fair, people have hurled similar criticisms at Many Apple Products over the years (and more prominently, NEXT), and we do complain about poor build quality of its competitors.
- gh02t 9y ago> I mean, that's a good thing Like AvE says, it's really not. Elegant engineering is exactly meeting your design requirements (assuming your design requirements are good). It's far far easier to overengineer everything. It's also wasteful, since all that extra capacity won't be utilized.
- ktta 9y ago>Elegant engineering is exactly meeting your design requirements Sure, if you selling juicers to businesses. Juicero is selling a lifestyle, not a product. Nice design is then a part of engineering. Fruit juicers have existed since I can remember. The real selling point here is the juice packs. The nice machine is so that people don't realize what they're doing, which is basically buying pulped juice then letting the machine pour it into a glass for them.
- monochromatic 9y agoSuch a good video. I've been an AvE fan for a long time, but I used this one to turn a couple of friends on to him.
- mring33621 9y agoThank you -- watching it now. Best quote so far: "...the local black bear...hasn't had it so good since my daughter was in diapers" (after he sliced open the juice-pulp bag).
- overcast 9y agoI just can't stand this guys mannerisms, and constantly goofing of words. Every single word, is some kooky variant. I respect that he's clearly an intelligent guy, and knows what he's talking about. It's just like listening to your annoying uncle, trying to constantly make a stupid joke.
- nate_meurer 9y agoHis Canadian dialect contributes a lot of this, dontya know? Skookum choocher's a thing up there.
- overcast 9y agoI understand that, I work with Canadians in every one of their provinces daily. They definitely do not talk as backwoods as this guy. His shtick is just to be obnoxious, and it's distracting from the otherwise great tear downs he does.
- nate_meurer 9y agoI'm quite the opposite; the shtick is addictive, and actually seems to help me retain the info. I remember points he makes and moments in his videos better because of the off-the-wall comments. I even end up talking a bit the same way after I binge on his videos.
- speg 9y agoMy wife gave me a strange look when I told her something was "good enough for the girls I go out with".
- theGimp 9y agoDifferent strokes for different folks, I suppose. The biggest reason I watch AvE is for his hilarious delivery. You and I can disagree of course. I'm not finding issue with your opinion -- just offering mine. I should also mention I'm Canadian and pretty much nobody talks the way AvE does. His accent and vocabulary are purposely exaggerated.
- artursapek 9y agoI can't believe the amount of engineering that has gone into making juicing a little bit more convenient. I imagine a teardown of a proper Breville juicer would reveal a much simpler machine - it's just a high powered motor that hooks on to a blade. You turn it on and off. No gears, no PCB, nothing. And the juice is leagues above this stuff. All because people can't be fucked to pick up some vegetables at the grocery store. Hilarious.
- nsnick 9y agoI don't think the point was to make it more convenient. I think the point was to introduce DRM to the juicing market like Keurig®.
- bllguo 9y agoSure, that's the ultimate goal as that's how money will be made. But you need to make people buy the machine in the first place, and convenience was one of the selling points.
- j2bax 9y agoPressed juice is superior in quality, taste & nutrition than juice harvested via a centrifugal juicer that uses blades. That said, your point stands, if you use a masticating cold press juicer which you can get for $300 or less routinely. The main difference is the high speed centrifugal juicers oxidize the juice, heat it up and make it really foamy as opposed to the masticating method which is essential a large gear that the fruit is slowly pushed/crushed through.
- nate_meurer 9y ago> "high speed centrifugal juicers oxidize the juice" Source? I've seen no empirical evidence to support this notion. > "heat it up" No they don't, not even close. My Green Star twin-gear and my Omega 8001 auger juicers both heat up juice WAY more than my Omega centrifugals. My centrifugal juicers also don't produce foam in any meaningful quantity. These are very different juicers, meant for different tasks. My Green Star is the only juicer that I can use for leafy greens and sprouts, and it's brilliant at those, but it's useless for bulky things like apple, carrots, and beets. My Omega centrifugal juicers, on the other hand, can't do greens worth a shit, but they'll suck nearly every drop from apples/carrots/beets, leaving just a slightly moist pulp behind.
- semi-extrinsic 9y agoThere's also AvE's teardown, which in addition highlights the multiple WTFs in the construction. I.e. this wasn't overengineered by experienced people, like a Leica or a Hilti, it was overengineered by a bunch of freshly graduated mech.eng.'s.
- sloppycee 9y agoIs that surprising though? I doubt mech engs graduate with enough (any?) experience with manufacturability [1]. Seems the lesson learned here is that unlike software, physical goods require an experienced up-front design that can't be haphazardly iterated on by new-grads to be fixed later. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_for_manufacturability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_for_manufacturability
- chx 9y agoEh, most of the software skills you bring from university need plenty of tweaking before it is useful in a real world environment. The academic goals are severely misaligned with the real world programming usage.
- jlarocco 9y ago> Seems the lesson learned here is that unlike software, physical goods require an experienced up-front design that can't be haphazardly iterated on by new-grads to be fixed later. I'm not so sure software is any different. I think a large part of software's reputation for low quality and buggy software is due to this.
- phasetransition 9y agoWatching AvE's teardown, it seems to me that the team behind the external industrial design was highly experienced. Very big, nice injection molded parts and over molding. Would not surprise me to see it was, e.g. ideo behind that. By contrast, the mechanical internals and motor controller are simultaneously over engineered, and in some places poorly engineered. It feels like a young team trying hard. BTW, not throwing rocks. I'm sure I would have done many of the same mistakes years ago. Also, AvE is great.
- sloppycee 9y agoWow, it's mind-boggling that the engineers didn't try something simpler. My first hunch would be to use rollers, like getting that last bit of toothpaste out; I can't believe that it operated as an actual press. It really is beautifully designed though. I figure the engineers were either forced to make a 'juice press' for marketing, or took it too literally.
- rimliu 9y agoSomething like those two rollers on the top of old soviet washing machine: http://www.automaticwasher.info/TD/AWJPEG/VINTAGE/2013/mechanic2laundr++7-18-2013-17-22-6.jpg http://www.automaticwasher.info/TD/AWJPEG/VINTAGE/2013/mecha... I have tried to google for the English name of that mechanism, without much luck. I guess it was not so common in the West.
- jnwatson 9y agoI bet the mechanical engineers and designers had a field day designing that. When price is no object, it is really fun to make things. I was in a similarly fated startup. It was super cool to design stuff with no regard to usability or cost, but the gravy train ends at some point, when you realize you've been making something nobody wants. The fastest path to validating the business plan is usually the right one.
- ChuckMcM 9y agoRandom tidbit, Xerox PARC had something of a reputation for designing impossible to manufacture systems. Stories like this remind me to always pair designers with 'just get it done' people so that they can balance out each other.
- nerdponx 9y agoI was pretty surprised that it's just a big flat press. Would have bet money on a roller.
- Shivetya 9y agoIt really feels as if the marketing side had more pull in the design than engineering. I wonder if they had a bunch of mock ups of what it could look like and simply picked what they thought was the best minimalist design and then passed if off to the people who had to make it work. i never understood what I was supposed to get from one of these over traditional methods or even regular juice. Oh I get the concept of just now squeezed but part of these sales rely on being competitive in pricing and it never felt that they were even trying