7 ms·

I beg to differ, many of these large household companies are shells of their former selves as they've been bought, bankrupted, and traded around. What's left is

by et-al 5y ago

I beg to differ, many of these large household companies are shells of their former selves as they've been bought, bankrupted, and traded around. What's left is just a name with no solid product line backing it anymore. E.g. Sunbeam was a solid household appliance name, and now it's a crap. Same with Braun. The easy industrial design exercise seems to be luxurious looking materials paired with cheap electronics. Amazon is full of this. Oddly, the thing I end up trusting these days are in-house brands because the store has some responsibility to make sure their own brand's reputation doesn't get too tarnished.

NickNameNick 5y ago
I imagine that makes the slow Denise of Sears/Craftsman particularly unfortunate then.
- ncmncm 5y ago
  What?
  - JoachimSchipper 5y ago
    Your parent comment has an autocorrect error, and meant to write demise (death).
ncmncm 5y ago
I don't even know how I would identify a good toaster to buy, nowadays. Electric kettles are a problem, too.
- chronogram 5y ago
  I bought a store brand 9A kettle and it's fine [1]. They're simple products and shouldn't break unless you have very hard water, in which case a round of vinegar should clean that. What are you running into? 1: https://www.blokker.nl/blokker-waterkoker-bl-10202---rvs---1-7-liter/1799791.html https://www.blokker.nl/blokker-waterkoker-bl-10202---rvs---1...
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    In the US, kettles are carefully designed to last one year and no more. Same for a $20 or $100 unit. I have not discovered a way to find one that is not so designed. Regular reviews are useless.
- Ekaros 5y ago
  Last Yule I bought a toaster for my brother. All of them felt kinda like crap, flimsy cheap, scratchy action... I was not even looking at cheapest but something I imagine to be reasonably mid-range that is around 50€ mark. After all it is a moving platform, some heating elements and case. Not at all complicated.
  - jfk13 5y ago
    It's been mentioned on HN before, but in case you haven't seen it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OfxlSG6q5Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OfxlSG6q5Y.
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    At issue is whether spending more gets you a better toaster, or just the same toaster but for more money. It is hard to find out.
- pmyteh 5y ago
  Commercial toasters (and, I imagine, commercial electric kettles) are 'good' in the sense of being well-built and long-lasting. I've got a 1980s Dualit toaster which is essentially bomb-proof (the clockwork timer will eventually stop working but is easily replaced; even the elements can be readily changed out if they get damaged). Of course, the downside is that new ones start at £150 or so. So it's difficult to make a financial case (as opposed to an aesthetic, or a principled one) over a £10 special from Tesco.
  - kasey_junk 5y ago
    The problem with ‘commercial’ kitchen equipment is that most of it is just up branded domestic equipment. When you do buy ‘commercial’ kitchen equipment you’ll notice lots of things that are just downright worse. Energy efficiency, safety features, and noise reduction are all things that are _way_ worse than with their domestic counterparts.
    - michaelt 5y ago
      "Real" commercial kitchen equipment is often totally different. Commercial fridges will stay cool even if their door is opened 20 times an hour. Commercial glass washers take a tenth of the time a home dishwasher takes. And if they're noisy, ugly and they need to be cleaned every day without fail, that's just normal commercial equipment.
- bgentry 5y ago
  After purchasing the top two Wirecutter picks for electric kettles (Cuisinart and some gooseneck kettle) both died within a year. The gooseneck one was rusted on arrival, clearly awful build quality. I decided to try paying much more for a Fellow Stagg EKG, and it was a great decision. It’s lasted over 3 years and has been an absolute joy to use compared to the prior mass market garbage. I often wish for a Wirecutter-like site that prioritizes quality and especially longevity above all else. Wirecutter always focused too much on cost, and even their “upgrade picks” tend to suffer awful quality issues. For years their top blender pick was an Oster that had hundreds of angry reviews about dying within months. Wirecutter ignored the feedback for years despite so many people streaming into their own comments section to vent about it.
  - WrtCdEvrydy 5y ago
    Honestly, I had spent 20 years in the US and we consistently bought the cheapest appliances ever. When I bought my house I finally said "screw it, let's see what decent appliances look like". Japanese rice cooker set me back $95 and I thought I would never hear the end of it, and after 4 years, it had already paid itself off (we were doing $14 rice cookers every 6 months). Air fryer was $70 but the previous $40 only lasted 13 months. Basic coffee maker was like $60 but made non-burnt coffee. A little combo oven/toaster is what I ended up on since we had one in the last apartment since we never used a full oven. The ones that are honestly pretty difficult to find were dishwasher but one of our friends suggested bosch because we wanted a quiet appliance.
    - JohnBooty 5y ago
      There's also just a... man, I don't know how to describe it. Kind of a mental benefit to using slightly nicer things. When I was young, almost everything I owned was the cheapest possible version of that thing. Everything just kind of sucked, brutally cost-optimized to the point of being somewhat nasty to use and barely functional. I was still very fortunate: I had food to eat, clothes, etc. A lot of kids in the world would have traded places with me. Now that I'm older, I have no interest in "luxury" goods, but there's that subtle intangible benefit to using e.g. the $95 rice cooker vs. the $14 rice cooker. You feel like somebody who's worth more than the cheapest possible piece of disposable shit, I guess. Or at least I do. It makes better rice, too, of course. And there's the ecological benefit of not tossing a $14 rice cooker into the landfill every couple of months. But there's also a bit of self worth involved, or something.

by et-al 5y ago

NickNameNick 5y ago

I imagine that makes the slow Denise of Sears/Craftsman particularly unfortunate then.

ncmncm 5y ago
What?
- JoachimSchipper 5y ago
  Your parent comment has an autocorrect error, and meant to write demise (death).

ncmncm 5y ago

I don't even know how I would identify a good toaster to buy, nowadays. Electric kettles are a problem, too.

chronogram 5y ago
I bought a store brand 9A kettle and it's fine [1]. They're simple products and shouldn't break unless you have very hard water, in which case a round of vinegar should clean that. What are you running into? 1: https://www.blokker.nl/blokker-waterkoker-bl-10202---rvs---1-7-liter/1799791.html https://www.blokker.nl/blokker-waterkoker-bl-10202---rvs---1...
- ncmncm 5y ago
  In the US, kettles are carefully designed to last one year and no more. Same for a $20 or $100 unit. I have not discovered a way to find one that is not so designed. Regular reviews are useless.
Ekaros 5y ago
Last Yule I bought a toaster for my brother. All of them felt kinda like crap, flimsy cheap, scratchy action... I was not even looking at cheapest but something I imagine to be reasonably mid-range that is around 50€ mark. After all it is a moving platform, some heating elements and case. Not at all complicated.
- jfk13 5y ago
  It's been mentioned on HN before, but in case you haven't seen it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OfxlSG6q5Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OfxlSG6q5Y.
- ncmncm 5y ago
  At issue is whether spending more gets you a better toaster, or just the same toaster but for more money. It is hard to find out.
pmyteh 5y ago
Commercial toasters (and, I imagine, commercial electric kettles) are 'good' in the sense of being well-built and long-lasting. I've got a 1980s Dualit toaster which is essentially bomb-proof (the clockwork timer will eventually stop working but is easily replaced; even the elements can be readily changed out if they get damaged). Of course, the downside is that new ones start at £150 or so. So it's difficult to make a financial case (as opposed to an aesthetic, or a principled one) over a £10 special from Tesco.
- kasey_junk 5y ago
  The problem with ‘commercial’ kitchen equipment is that most of it is just up branded domestic equipment. When you do buy ‘commercial’ kitchen equipment you’ll notice lots of things that are just downright worse. Energy efficiency, safety features, and noise reduction are all things that are _way_ worse than with their domestic counterparts.
  - michaelt 5y ago
    "Real" commercial kitchen equipment is often totally different. Commercial fridges will stay cool even if their door is opened 20 times an hour. Commercial glass washers take a tenth of the time a home dishwasher takes. And if they're noisy, ugly and they need to be cleaned every day without fail, that's just normal commercial equipment.
bgentry 5y ago
After purchasing the top two Wirecutter picks for electric kettles (Cuisinart and some gooseneck kettle) both died within a year. The gooseneck one was rusted on arrival, clearly awful build quality. I decided to try paying much more for a Fellow Stagg EKG, and it was a great decision. It’s lasted over 3 years and has been an absolute joy to use compared to the prior mass market garbage. I often wish for a Wirecutter-like site that prioritizes quality and especially longevity above all else. Wirecutter always focused too much on cost, and even their “upgrade picks” tend to suffer awful quality issues. For years their top blender pick was an Oster that had hundreds of angry reviews about dying within months. Wirecutter ignored the feedback for years despite so many people streaming into their own comments section to vent about it.
- WrtCdEvrydy 5y ago
  Honestly, I had spent 20 years in the US and we consistently bought the cheapest appliances ever. When I bought my house I finally said "screw it, let's see what decent appliances look like". Japanese rice cooker set me back $95 and I thought I would never hear the end of it, and after 4 years, it had already paid itself off (we were doing $14 rice cookers every 6 months). Air fryer was $70 but the previous $40 only lasted 13 months. Basic coffee maker was like $60 but made non-burnt coffee. A little combo oven/toaster is what I ended up on since we had one in the last apartment since we never used a full oven. The ones that are honestly pretty difficult to find were dishwasher but one of our friends suggested bosch because we wanted a quiet appliance.
  - JohnBooty 5y ago
    There's also just a... man, I don't know how to describe it. Kind of a mental benefit to using slightly nicer things. When I was young, almost everything I owned was the cheapest possible version of that thing. Everything just kind of sucked, brutally cost-optimized to the point of being somewhat nasty to use and barely functional. I was still very fortunate: I had food to eat, clothes, etc. A lot of kids in the world would have traded places with me. Now that I'm older, I have no interest in "luxury" goods, but there's that subtle intangible benefit to using e.g. the $95 rice cooker vs. the $14 rice cooker. You feel like somebody who's worth more than the cheapest possible piece of disposable shit, I guess. Or at least I do. It makes better rice, too, of course. And there's the ecological benefit of not tossing a $14 rice cooker into the landfill every couple of months. But there's also a bit of self worth involved, or something.