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> They bury the lede in the last fucking paragraph. The reason this toaster is immensely better than the toaster you have at home is very, very simple: this toa
by throwawaylinux 5y ago
> They bury the lede in the last fucking paragraph. The reason this toaster is immensely better than the toaster you have at home is very, very simple: this toaster's 1949 price would be hundreds of dollars in 2021 terms.
From the article it seemed that it's better because it has a radiant temperature sensor rather than a simple timer. Unless you're disputing that and saying it's good for some other reason that would cost a lot of money, a temperature sensor and little control system for it would not cost hundreds of dollars to make today.
EDIT: The problem seems to be that regular consumer appliances seem to have raced to the bottom in the past 30 years or so. It's not that a significantly better toaster would cost hundreds of dollars more, it's that it would cost a few dollars more. The high end things that are 10x the price seem to be priced that way mostly because there is not a strong mid range market, or maybe they compete on gimmicks rather than basics. Because you don't need a $300 powder coated steel toaster with an a glass oven door and 5 cooking regimes including steaming that was mentioned in the article (https://us.balmuda.com/collections/toaster https://us.balmuda.com/collections/toaster) to get the functionality and robustness of their simple 1940s sunbeam toaster.
- philliphaydon 5y agoWatching the video with the article I'm truely amazed at the engineering involved in this. In some ways it's so simple, in other ways its crazy complex. Without the timer and automatic io of the toast, I think it would be expensive to manufacture. The internal design might be harder to automate to keep cost down. I think*
- IshKebab 5y agoBasically all toasters use temperature to stop rather than time. Am I missing something? I actually looked for a timer based toaster for ages and couldn't find one.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Tagbert 5y agoSome toasters have a simple timer circuit that releases an electromagnet to trigger the toast to pop up. There is usually a resister to adjust darkness that controls how long the timer runs. The cheapest toasters apply current to a bimetallic strip that heats up and bends away from the contact causing the heating to stop and the toast to pop up. These are variable due to ambient temperature and because the bimetallic strip is still warm if you do a second batch of toast and will trigger too soon. These are both indirect proxies for doneness of the toast, not a direct measure like the toaster featured in the article.
- throwawaylinux 5y agoI don't know, I'm just going by the article and youtube video referenced. From the article: and it’s got a mechanical thermostat inside that stops your bread toasting when it’s toasted and ready, NOT after some arbitrary amount of time. From the video: Modern toasters operate based on a timer...
- Breza 5y agoI recommend the book Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture. The author talks about how the market for consumer goods has been bifurcated into insanely cheap and stupid expensive.
- ksec 5y agoHaving used the Balmuda toaster, I am willing to bet it is better than the 1940s sunbeam toaster.