3 ms·

Designing a kitchen requires a human designer. If you could feed a cabinet and benchtop range into a design AI and allow people to use the AI online to design t

by xupybd 4y ago

Designing a kitchen requires a human designer. If you could feed a cabinet and benchtop range into a design AI and allow people to use the AI online to design their ideal kitchen, you wouldn't need a designer. This would enable DIY kitchens to be sold to a much larger market. Alternatively small kitchen installers could handle the sales and installation. Manufacturing can already be done by many 3rd parties. The expensive part is in design.

Tabular-Iceberg 4y ago
Isn’t that what IKEA already does, without requiring AI? All you need is a design tool that lets you plop the cabinets and appliances where you want them. Maybe you can add a simulator that estimates the efficiency of a particular layout. For example I felt I needed more floor space, but in retrospect I have to move around a lot more to reach things, making my layout less efficient. A simulator could have told me to put the counters closer to each other.
- xupybd 4y ago
  Yeah Ikea has cornered that low end market. There is a big market for that and lots that are happy to learn how to design. There is also a big market that is not willing. They want to tweak but need a lot of hand holding. Thanks to Ikea there is not much point trying to compete in that space. Mid range cabinetry still needs more customer support in the design time. Also Ikea cabinet construction is not great. I'd recommend not using them in your house. Maybe in a cheap rental.
  - Tabular-Iceberg 4y ago
    I get that, I just don’t get why you can’t use the same tool but with the upmarket ploppables. Adding the aforementioned usage simulator and maybe using it to suggest starting layouts doesn’t seem like it would depend on the market positioning of the cabinet company, surely it would be just as applicable for low end as for midrange.
warrenm 4y ago
Have you not been to Home Depot or Lowe's recently? Or IKEA? Let alone standalone kitchen joints ... this seems like a pretty much solved problem
- xupybd 4y ago
  Working in the industry I can assure you it's not. There is a huge market segment that will not use the existing tools and solutions as the learning curve is more than they want to put in. These people will always use a kitchen designer and often get bespoke cabinets. The cost of doing business that way is orders of magnitude higher than IKEA or Home Depot. Those offerings also suffer from very low product quality.
  - warrenm 4y ago
    Seems like it's not a tool problem, then - it's an attitude problem :)
    - xupybd 4y ago
      Customers are lazy. You can make money by making their lives easier. Uber eats is a prime example. It's not really that hard to drive out and pick up your food but they made it so easy.
      - warrenm 4y ago
        >It's not really that hard to drive out and pick up your food But it is time-consuming - why spend 30 minutes going, grabbing, and coming when you can spend 30m at home waiting for it to arrive?

by xupybd 4y ago

Tabular-Iceberg 4y ago

Isn’t that what IKEA already does, without requiring AI? All you need is a design tool that lets you plop the cabinets and appliances where you want them. Maybe you can add a simulator that estimates the efficiency of a particular layout. For example I felt I needed more floor space, but in retrospect I have to move around a lot more to reach things, making my layout less efficient. A simulator could have told me to put the counters closer to each other.

xupybd 4y ago
Yeah Ikea has cornered that low end market. There is a big market for that and lots that are happy to learn how to design. There is also a big market that is not willing. They want to tweak but need a lot of hand holding. Thanks to Ikea there is not much point trying to compete in that space. Mid range cabinetry still needs more customer support in the design time. Also Ikea cabinet construction is not great. I'd recommend not using them in your house. Maybe in a cheap rental.
- Tabular-Iceberg 4y ago
  I get that, I just don’t get why you can’t use the same tool but with the upmarket ploppables. Adding the aforementioned usage simulator and maybe using it to suggest starting layouts doesn’t seem like it would depend on the market positioning of the cabinet company, surely it would be just as applicable for low end as for midrange.

warrenm 4y ago

Have you not been to Home Depot or Lowe's recently? Or IKEA? Let alone standalone kitchen joints ... this seems like a pretty much solved problem

xupybd 4y ago
Working in the industry I can assure you it's not. There is a huge market segment that will not use the existing tools and solutions as the learning curve is more than they want to put in. These people will always use a kitchen designer and often get bespoke cabinets. The cost of doing business that way is orders of magnitude higher than IKEA or Home Depot. Those offerings also suffer from very low product quality.
- warrenm 4y ago
  Seems like it's not a tool problem, then - it's an attitude problem :)
  - xupybd 4y ago
    Customers are lazy. You can make money by making their lives easier. Uber eats is a prime example. It's not really that hard to drive out and pick up your food but they made it so easy.
    - warrenm 4y ago
      >It's not really that hard to drive out and pick up your food But it is time-consuming - why spend 30 minutes going, grabbing, and coming when you can spend 30m at home waiting for it to arrive?