4 ms·

Absolutely blows my mind how many people have fallen into the trap that is "SMART" devices and "POWER EFFICIENT" appliances. Only to find out just after the war

Absolutely blows my mind how many people have fallen into the trap that is "SMART" devices and "POWER EFFICIENT" appliances. Only to find out just after the warranty runs out that they ultimately invested in a hawt piece of trash. There is no pride in manufactured goods anymore, imho there's not much pride in anything nowadays. Not surprising when a burger engineer at McDonald's makes more money than even an entry level machinist.

zeristor 2y ago
Oral B sell a variety of Electric toothbrushes, dependent on the built in Li ion battery. Some of them hook up to a mobile phone by bluetooth to track how you brush. The thing is once the battery dies the £150 toothbrush is useless, it's' sealed so replacing the battery isn't trivial. I think in the battery may last a fair bit longer now. Electric tooth brushes are quite an improvement over a normal tooth brush.
- Redneck-Tech 2y ago
  Why repair something when the repair's cost more than this years model which boasts more privacy pirating features than the one you currently own? Manual brushing is so retro... just walk through the automated car wash with your mouth open and at the end make sure you smile.
- tallanvor 2y ago
  There are tradeoffs both ways. A user replaceable battery can extend the life, but it also introduces a way for water to get in and short it out, thereby drastically decreasing the lifespan. But given the overall power requirements for the device, ensuring that the battery is charged appropriately to extend the lifespan is pretty easy. My Philips is over 4 years old now and if I'm traveling for a week I may need to charge it once (never really tried to let it drain fully), and it gets used twice a day.
- vel0city 2y ago
  I recently had to replace the handle of my Oral B electric toothbrush with a built-in sealed battery. The battery got to the point where it couldn't hold a charge for at least two brushings without it noticeably having its power output diminished. I bought that brush handle in 2009. 15 years of life, and if I didn't mind about the second brush charge I probably could have squeezed another year or two out of it.
sofixa 2y ago
> Absolutely blows my mind how many people have fallen into the trap that is "SMART" devices and "POWER EFFICIENT" appliances. Only to find out just after the warranty runs out that they ultimately invested in a hawt piece of trash Those two/three things are entirely unrelated. Power efficient appliances are a must in most countries not powered by low-carbon energy (so in the EU, that basically leaves everyone outside of France and the Nordics), and a good to have for those that are. Quality of those appliances is entirely unrelated to their power efficiency. Smart appliances are on a spectrum. Some are useless, some are practical. Again, their quality is entirely unrelated to their smartness. Their smartness can be optional, non-blocking and using open protocols; or it can be mandatory, cloud-only so that when the cloud service gets retired to save money the appliance is useless. As an example, my LG washing machine/dryer combo can connect to my Wi-Fi network to be able to send me notifications when it's done, to load custom programmes, to remind me I need to do a wash cycle of the machine itself. Those are useful features, entirely optional, and the machine won't stop working if it can't connect to the Wi-Fi.
- Redneck-Tech 2y ago
  Quality has much to do with efficiency. Try driving on bent wheels and let me know how efficient that is. My washing machine tells me its done by making a chime same as my oven... no internet needed.
throwaway7ahgb 2y ago
You're not wrong but misguided. Consumers voted for this a long time ago, people want cheap s*t. There are manufacturers that do take pride and their products can last a lifetime if not easily repairable. Guess what, nobody actually wants it. (except the HN crowd aparently).

zeristor 2y ago

Oral B sell a variety of Electric toothbrushes, dependent on the built in Li ion battery. Some of them hook up to a mobile phone by bluetooth to track how you brush. The thing is once the battery dies the £150 toothbrush is useless, it's' sealed so replacing the battery isn't trivial. I think in the battery may last a fair bit longer now. Electric tooth brushes are quite an improvement over a normal tooth brush.

Redneck-Tech 2y ago
Why repair something when the repair's cost more than this years model which boasts more privacy pirating features than the one you currently own? Manual brushing is so retro... just walk through the automated car wash with your mouth open and at the end make sure you smile.
tallanvor 2y ago
There are tradeoffs both ways. A user replaceable battery can extend the life, but it also introduces a way for water to get in and short it out, thereby drastically decreasing the lifespan. But given the overall power requirements for the device, ensuring that the battery is charged appropriately to extend the lifespan is pretty easy. My Philips is over 4 years old now and if I'm traveling for a week I may need to charge it once (never really tried to let it drain fully), and it gets used twice a day.
vel0city 2y ago
I recently had to replace the handle of my Oral B electric toothbrush with a built-in sealed battery. The battery got to the point where it couldn't hold a charge for at least two brushings without it noticeably having its power output diminished. I bought that brush handle in 2009. 15 years of life, and if I didn't mind about the second brush charge I probably could have squeezed another year or two out of it.

sofixa 2y ago

> Absolutely blows my mind how many people have fallen into the trap that is "SMART" devices and "POWER EFFICIENT" appliances. Only to find out just after the warranty runs out that they ultimately invested in a hawt piece of trash Those two/three things are entirely unrelated. Power efficient appliances are a must in most countries not powered by low-carbon energy (so in the EU, that basically leaves everyone outside of France and the Nordics), and a good to have for those that are. Quality of those appliances is entirely unrelated to their power efficiency. Smart appliances are on a spectrum. Some are useless, some are practical. Again, their quality is entirely unrelated to their smartness. Their smartness can be optional, non-blocking and using open protocols; or it can be mandatory, cloud-only so that when the cloud service gets retired to save money the appliance is useless. As an example, my LG washing machine/dryer combo can connect to my Wi-Fi network to be able to send me notifications when it's done, to load custom programmes, to remind me I need to do a wash cycle of the machine itself. Those are useful features, entirely optional, and the machine won't stop working if it can't connect to the Wi-Fi.

Redneck-Tech 2y ago
Quality has much to do with efficiency. Try driving on bent wheels and let me know how efficient that is. My washing machine tells me its done by making a chime same as my oven... no internet needed.

throwaway7ahgb 2y ago

You're not wrong but misguided. Consumers voted for this a long time ago, people want cheap s*t. There are manufacturers that do take pride and their products can last a lifetime if not easily repairable. Guess what, nobody actually wants it. (except the HN crowd aparently).