I wish I could get a list of all microwaves and filter by criteria such as:
- Does the +30 seconds button start cooking immediately, or do you have to also press "start" afterwards?
- Does it beep every 30 seconds after it finishes, and if so can I turn that off?
- Better yet, can I turn the beeping off completely without taking the damn thing apart and desoldering the beeper, and of course in the process risking my life near the high-voltage electronics?
But it's basically impossible to know these things without buying it and opening the box, so there's no competitive pressure pushing manufacturers to make their appliances less annoying, so we all have to live with these little papercuts throughout our daily lives for perpetuity.
Because it's a paid subscription, and all of the items they review are actually purchased from retail suppliers who have no knowledge that Consumer Reports is the buyer, they can take their time and do very thorough comparisons incorporating tests of real world usability and reliability that are difficult to tabulate and instead have to reviewed like a movie or a book. But I don't know, it's likely the consumer reports type of shopper is such a minor fraction of the market that isn't worth optimizing for them any more.
Random people actually film themselves unboxing and using the product, and you can watch what buttons they have to press, etc.
Also you can virtually always download the manual as a PDF.
Of course that's not a list, and it takes a lot of work. It's deeply unfortunate -- somebody like Amazon could actually implement the kind of comparison matrix you're talking about, but they're not exactly innovating on the UX front. :(
(Amazon does sometimes show a comparison matrix of 4 products with something like ~6 rows of features for some products, but I think it's created by the manufacturer, so only compares models for that one brand, and doesn't always list the feature you care about either.)
Would that be valuable, though? Could Amazon do this in a useful and non-manipulative way? I have doubts.
The microwave would not function if the time and AM/PM values were not set. (As far as I could tell, there was no way to actually ever see the AM/PM value after setting it!)
So. Every time the power went out, I would be confronted with blinking times on clocks I didn’t even want, and a nonfunctional microwave.
I will never buy a kitchen appliance with a mandatory clock ever again.
I still miss it.
Unfortunately it was one of the most expensive ones in the stores: https://www.breville.com/us/en/products/microwaves/bmo850.ht...
Biggest annoyance is that it's 1500W so any time I'm microwaving packaged food I have to scale down power to 70-80% to match the wattage on the package.
No joke, I bought and returned 4 microwaves before I found one that doesn't. I'm picky, and finally found one that does a quick double "beeep beeep" and is done.
Yes, but it's much worse than it needs to be. When searching for hard disks on Amazon, if you search for "hard disk 8 tb" for example, Amazon will suggest the following criteria on the left side of the page:
Hard Disk Size
4 TB & Above
3 TB
2 TB
1 TB
501 to 999 GB
321 to 500 GB
121 to 320 GB
Up to 80 GB
Really? What is the point of this? How can it not do better?
If you dont want to use amazon https://www.pcpartpicker.com has a good section to search and compare hard drive sizes/pricing
- The buttons don't give have tactile feedback.
- Setting time is very confusing.
- You have to press multiple buttons just to start.
- If you want to cancel/clear timer, you have to press multiple buttons again.
i've seen one where buttons 1-6 immediately start cooking for that many minutes, alongside a +30 button, so that every 30s interval between 30s and 6:30 can be activated in one or two button pushes; fastest nuke in the west
It's "Magic Chef", for those of you who are curious. We didn't buy it (came with the house), and I'm not pulling it off the shelf to look for a model number on the back (I moved the vinegar bottles next to it, and there's no sticker on that side, nor the other, either), but that's a place to start.
And it was cool for a while, until I started reading their reviews and comparisons on products I knew a lot about and done my own research on. I found they just missed a lot of things I found really important.
We didn't agree on things I know about, so I had to assume we wouldn't agree on things I did know about!
And for the above poster, +30 starts it, it plays a little tune when done, and then every maybe 30s afterwards for 2 or 3 times. Oh, and the turntable rotates at 0.1Hz so a mug's handle is facing the same way it went in after any interval of ten seconds.
This indeed, there is no structured info anyware in even the software land where it's easier to get the info without buying/unboxing, so you can't rely on reviews that takes all those things into account and can't really do it yourself
- Electronic, unfortunately. No time/power dials, in favor of a menu system from hell, but
- One button press to start (max power, 30s);
- After starting, there's a button to add 30s;
- It only beeps twice after finishing, then shuts up.
I don't think the article is correct that the humidity sensor was the last innovation (and actually, how can I tell if a microwave has this, and how is used anyway?) - we also have inverter microwaves recently, as well as combi grill/microwave etc.
EDIT: Oh, I think you meant "Project Farm", the youtube reviewer. Anyway, I'd like to see a 'design farm' for microwave concepts and designs, and appliances in general actually, they all suck.
NYT bought Wirecutter for 30 million dollars so... who knows, there might be a business here.
It's often some combination of holding down 1, 2, or 0 for a few seconds to change those modes.
Edit: I maybe should have clarified "appliance store", rather than big box. But there are three appliance stores within ten miles of me that sell appliances. Not Home Depot, not Wal-Mart. Appliance stores. The refrigerators and ovens and microwaves are all plugged in and you can try any of them. The only thing you can't try is the gas ranges.
This is the world we built shopping for price.
The majority of microwaves I've seen at my local department store are in a box, those few models that are on display are not powered.
Even in the highly unusual case that they were powered or within proximity of a free power socket, I think it'd be rather unorthodox to go to the store and test drive a microwave with your instant ramen.
Not at the appliance stores near me.
my conclusion: it often doesn't really matter.
I feel a bit whiney complaining about such a minor thing. But it does bug me everyday. The sheer senselessness of bad design is infuriating. They will make thousands, maybe millions of these things. Put a bit of time in designing it!
</end rant>
Probably some consumer tests showed that people had trouble with rotating the knob without pushing it during rotation. Or, pushing the knob sets the time and now you can set the power by further rotating the knob and then pushing start.
1: The first two times you push it, it sets the timer to 0:30 and starts cooking. The next time, adds 0:30. Each time after that, it adds 1 minute and starts cooking.
2. Reset the timer to 0.
And a door latch which stops cooking.
I don't need power levels, or more precise timing, or any of that other stuff.
For something like popcorn with a set time (2 min 20 s is perfect on ours, 10s too much and it burns), it's twist the dial then press start.
and I would argue these are two of the major reasons to use a microwave
Four buttons: Microwave, Defrost, Stop, Start.
Defrost is 40% power. It is a flatbed, so no turntable to clean.
My current one is:
Press cook time, 1, 0, 0, start. Too long.
So for 1 minute it is faster to do +30, +30, as that immediately starts.
An interior IR sensor/camera that will cycle/adjust power until my food is fully cooked to a certain temperature but not above it.
I don't want to pick a duration and I don't want to pick power levels and I don't want hot spots and I don't want to have to check the food every 30 seconds or 3 minutes or whatever it is. I just want to cook to a certain temperature, and avoid hot spots above that temperature.
So instead of fiddling with dumb things like 100% power for the first 2 minutes and then 10% power for another 8 minutes, I just want to reheat my chicken breast to 145°F or my salmon to 120°F or my soup to 165°F or my maple syrup to 180°F or my water for tea to 205°F. (Just examples, not looking to argue over temps!)
So let the microwave blast it full strength until there are hot spots, then cycle off to let hot spots spread their heat to the rest of the food, then blast more, until the whole food exterior is within a range of the desired temperature, then ding it's done!
And while it can't detect interior temperatures directly, you should be able to use the rate of exterior cooling during the off cycle to determine whether the interior has come up to temperature. E.g. the outside of a chicken breast with a still-frozen interior cools rapidly; the outside of a chicken breast with a hot interior stays hotter for longer.
Some companies get this right but others it’s astounding how many buttons you have to press to get the damn thing to start. I very much enjoy my current microwave which has a quick start button which is also knob. So you poke it and it just goes, but once running you can granularity adjust time up or down by turning the knob. Very satisfying.
But it doesn't cover all use cases -- I regularly cook things for e.g. 15 minutes at 10% power, to defrost and warm them evenly. That's one of the main thing I use my microwave for, actually.
I don't want to have to hit +30 thirty times in a row. If it's digital, I'm gonna need a number pad.
I would be perfectly happy with clearly labeled time and power knobs, however -- but I'm not sure it's easy to make a knob that works accurately and intuitively for both 30 seconds and 30 minutes.
My microwave heats a mug of water to the perfect temperature for tea in 2:10. I don't want to stand there to act as the timer myself.
And knobs are rarely used today because they cost more and fail easier than flat buttons.
I seem to recall that it didn't have a turntable, which is a pretty big negative, but probably required for a wired sensor.
In 2017, Cornell Capital bought the company for a total $500M of which $300M was financed by debt. Then 4 years later in 2021, it refinanced and added on debt, bringing the total debt to $535M. $245M was immediately paid out to shareholders as a dividend. Cornell Capital got paid back all the cash it invested in the company's acquisition, and then some. In 2023 due to high interest rates the company was no longer able to service its debt, costing the company ~$50M a year, and the company had to file Chapter 11.
When it's $300 million the bonuses can be kind of sizable, so everyone else including the shareholders, be damned.
The shareholders don't find out until it's too late.
In this particular case I bought a simple "one knob for power, one for time" model at the local Swedish supermarket for the equivalent of about fifty dollars (because it was in the discount) just a few years ago. It was during covid times so it can't have been more than three years. It works fine, precisely because it's dumb.
They don't sell that model any more, but another local chain has the equivalent for (at current exchange rates) about 90 dollars[0].
[0] https://www.clasohlson.com/se/Fristaende-mikrovagsugn-vit/p/...
I also don't know anyone using an Instant Pot.
And so far I also don't know anyone whose microwave broke after just one year, no matter if cheap or expensive.
The irony of some US based kid, who's literally been the biggest benefactor of capitalism his/her whole life, coming up with this line of argument isn't lost on me.
The first time I've personally even seen a microwave was around 1992-93, because communism.
A 21-year-old from Baltimore.
The key word in the description is "inverter". I am very much in the pro-inverter camp. In an inverter microwave, power is supplied through an inverter circuit to supply a steady and constant amount of power throughout the cooking time without cutting in and out. So if you select 50% power, the microwave will deliver 50% power throughout. Inverter microwaves are also more energy efficient than standard microwaves.
It has had one odd behavior that has me quite puzzled.
I was regularly having for breakfast a microwaved frozen breakfast sandwich and a couple hash browns cooked in a toaster. The hash browns took 10 minutes, and the breakfast sandwich 1 minute.
I'd program the microwave for a 9 minute timer stage, followed by a 1 minute cooking stage, and then start the microwave and drop the hash browns in the toaster.
I could then go do other stuff and when I heard the microwave beep I'd know it was time to go take the hash browns out of the toaster.
This worked great for weeks, then one morning the microwave would not start.
Some experimenting showed that it would still start as long as the first stage was not a timer stage of a multi-stage program was not a timer stage. E.g., cook stage + timer stage was fine. Cook + timer + cook was also fine, so it wasn't that timer stages could not precede cook stages. Timer only was fine, too.
This is not an internet-connected device, so it wasn't some sort of stealth firmware update. Reset didn't help, and neither did unplugging it overnight.
It was this way for a couple days (as a work around I'd do 1 second cook + 9 minute timer + 1 minute cook)...and then it started working normally again and has continued working normally ever since (about two years since the glitch).
I can't even come up with a reasonably hypothesis to explain this.
I agree, what you are describing is thoroughly bizarre. When you say that it wouldn't start, do you mean that it wouldn't let you hit the start button at all, or that the timer would run out and then nothing would happen?
The only thing I can think to ask from a debugging perspective is whether there's someone in your home who was using a mode last thing before bed that would have set it in an uncertain state?
Heck, even the moisture sensor, or whether someone opens the door on the last second of a cook before a beep could leave some register in an uncertain state.
I googled it and it looks like... a regular sandwich that needs to be put in the oven for some reason?
I LOVE those machines. The inverter is great because it doesn't make the lights dim periodically lol.
I'm not entirely convinced about the longevity either, the turntable of the first one I received was DOA and I had to get it replaced.
It's a commercial kitchen microwave oven and is built like a tank.
It requires a 20amp circuit and it has no turntable because it has two magnetrons.
https://www.manualslib.com/products/Panasonic-Ne1258r-Commer...
Recommended.
Residential grade appliances are quite frankly awful and really limit how well you can cook. My dream kitchen is ironically a professional one.
One of my rants are stoves. They is not get as hot as professional stoves. To overcome this, I got a Blackstone griddle that also includes a gas range. I then replaced the propane regulator with some Chinese one that lets me output ateasg 2.5x the amount of gas the stock one did.
I could probably damage it at max output but I've never tried. Instead o get up to 600* F and cooks mean steak and perfect smash burgers.
20A @ 120V is only 2.4 kW max while you should only run it at 80% of the circuit/breaker load so 1.9 kW. Not exactly a fast charging EV circuit. It is not that much greater than a 15A circuit. It would take over an entire day to charge a typical EV, e.g Tesla LR Model 3, from 10-90%
Aren't standard microwaves 15A? Wouldn't a 15A -> 20A microwave just be 33% more powerful? Is that a dangerous jump?
I know very little about electricity
The controls were two knobs. There were no other controls. No start button. No open-door button. Both knobs felt Very Serious. There was no spinny platter thing, but it didn't seem to really do any worse than the new ones with it—but it was easier to clean. It was pretty big for a microwave.
One knob was power. One knob was a timer. You turn the timer knob to start it. It physically ticks down until it dings (real bell, not a speaker) and stops. You pull the (heavy) handle on the door to open it. It's secured with (I suppose) one or more of those mechanisms where a flared tab goes between a pair of little wheels, so it's secure unless you pull fairly hard, no need for a release button.
It was still mounted in the exact same place and working just as well as it did in the 80s and 90s, when my grandma moved out to live with my parents in the 2010s.
I've seen a few kinda similar models on offer, but they're expensive and without feeling one in person I really doubt they're actually as good.
(A bunch of the finishes on their very-modest poor-rural-town house—outlet and switch cover plates, some of the trim, the front door, the storm doors of all things, and the doorbell, were all luxury-tier by modern standards—some of those, I've never seen anything as good on any house built since 1970 or so, and I've been in some "nice" ones; some stuff's simply gotten worse, and I tell you what, the solid feel and butter-smooth action of some of those things really did make life better)
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36877524 - Quick example from a search.
But when we started shopping we were pleasantly surprised that there had been at least two major developments in the tech since last time I bought one.
First, an inverter gives you actual power-level control instead of the old-fashioned on-off modulation.
Second, flat-bed models have rotating emitters so you no longer need that rotating glass plate to get even application of heat to the food, and can even use square dishes that would be too large to rotate, without risking the usual hot-spots.
Maybe this market isn’t progressing at a rapid pace, but there is some progress.
Now that's interesting, how do they work - is it a rotating waveguide? I see an hour or two of web 'research' ahead.
I don't care about the variable power, but found an "inverter" microwave without the rotating plate, which cooks evenly without it of course. It has more internal space and is easier to clean.
I usually hate all device sounds, but surprisingly this has a reasonably quiet singular bell-like "ding" option, rather than the typical "beep-beep-beep" that drives me nuts.
The only thing that concerns me is the oven modes. It's got this plastic spinner piece that supports the glass turntable that I'm not sure about leaving in, and you can't use the metal tray in microwave mode.
So I just leave it in microwave mode all the time.
Domestic brands over here aren't even trying. Build quality is subpar on everything manufactured on the continent, but thankfully designs are pretty simple and parts are readily available.
Our only choice on larger appliances is basically Miele at 2-4x the European MSRP to get anything remotely reliable. Even then the Miele@Home stuff is nothing but a nightmare so far.
So I can imagine a spec which says "do a cheapest buzzer on its preferred frequency, 1 second period, 50% duty cycle, 3 times" being independently written in 3 different engineering offices, and multiple devices ending up with identical beeps.
[0] https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/pui-audio-inc/AT-...
Highly recommend
Yes, there are ten other buttons I never use. Yes, they could conceivably be “better” in small ways. Yes, modern ones can break like every other appliance does, but the ones from the 80s and 90s broke, too.
> what can we learn from this? i don't know. capitalism will destroy everything it touches.
Is it an amazing indispensable life-changing invention? No. But does it suck? Also no. The premise of the article is seriously flawed, and comes across as somebody who just didn't like anything but old-fashioned stove cooking (probably by someone else) in the first place.
I sympathize a bit with those who would like to have physical knobs and simplicity. I’m not a fan of the capacitive touch buttons. They are easy to clean, so I understand why they’re popular, but it would feel nice to just spin a knob to 3:30 and press the start button.
And it was 1/10th the cost of the “good old days” models. I appreciate the cost-cutting that went into my microwave.
Any time I'm in someone else's kitchen and I just want "900w for 3 minutes" I curse the grid of buttons that show pictures of chickens and fish and who knows what else.
Their thermoses are so amazing. In fact, they’re so good that I often have to keep the lid open cuz my coffee stays too hot for too long.
My understanding is that with inverter the microwave can actually adjust the power instead of doing the on/off/on/off cycle you get with the cheap ones.
I guess the rotating plate is there, because it's hard to distribute the microwaves evenly inside the oven. Some time ago I tried to find one without the rotating plate, but the only ones I could find were professional ones (>$1k)
Now at least Panasonic seems to have models that meet my criteria [1], but they are not on all markets. Haven't checked any reviews yet.
[1] https://www.panasonic.com/au/consumer/household/microwave-ov...
Without a rotating plate there will be a hidden metal fan-like object ether in the ceiling or the floor. this is a rotating reflector designed to scatter the waves a bit.
Don't consider this a recommendation(it may well be utter garbage) but my next microwave is going to be a Sharp R-21LCFS mainly because it hits all my key points. no rotating platter, no modes or features, just one big dial to set the timer... it's... well perfect. Plus I was able to find the service manual for it. I always feel better about a product if it has a service manual.
https://www.sharpusa.com/ForBusiness/CommercialCooking/Comme...
"Perfection is reached, not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away."
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Microwaves are great. Amazon will have a Farberware or RCA for $70 to my home in two days - including shipping!
What exactly is the problem? No one has ever used them to do anything other than heat things up. I was a child of the 80s. No one ever used these supposed features the post complains are disappearing.
Instant Pot. Introduced millions to pressure cooking. Pork shoulder or brisket in 30m instead of 3 hours. Same for beans. Mine stopped working after several months and I called the company. They sent me a new one, actually a nicer model than the old, for free, that week. And told me to throw the old one out. Years later it’s working great.
Who cares if the company went bankrupt? Yes private equity seems to suck but guess what, you can still buy a cheap great Instant Pot.
Then he has the nerve to complain about capitalism, the reason we have this stuff. Does the author think in the Soviet Union it was easy to get a microwave? Does the author think communist citizens lucky enough to own microwaves had all the features they could want, and could be one tenth as picky as he is?
Please tell me in what system other than capitalism you get to publish your nitpicky complaints about your abundant selection of consumer electronics to the world at the click of a button, on your computer or phone or tablet, that you own and hook up to your broadband internet which is readily available to your heated and cooled home, in one of the most prosperous countries on earth, so you can sneer at capitalism, which literally is the reason you have all this.
What a bizarre post.
In summary, not every microwave sucks, and instant pot isn’t dead.
Microwaves should last for decades, this is the same type of thing that you may have heard your parents complain about "I had a can opener that I got from my mother and it just broke, the five new ones I bought same price all broke within a year".
There is really nothing complex about one. It's a timer connected to some voltage equipment and a couple transformers. But, the way you make it, fused steel, well oiled joints, cheap copper wire barely within tolerance or thick wire able to withstand 2x the amperage, varies wildly. As demand goes up, you build fancy microwave factories with expensive well tested molds that can churn out hundreds of thousands of them...until demand goes down and paying for maintenance and power at the factory no longer make sense, let alone having anyone staff the place or prevent looting and squatting.
So you cut corners and your microwave is made of plastic, every time you use it it fries its own cheap water based glue, and the thing falls apart every 6 months.
That's what he's complaining about. Yeah, capitalism works great assuming constant or increasing demand, but it's really bad at financial planning or literally anything else, and then it creates garbage and human suffering.
I think probably the microwaves in the Soviet Union still probably last decades, because unlike the American ones, there were still people willing to buy and or repair their own. Sure they might be "trash" in build quality, at some point in history, but what matters is not all money.
Things better about the modern microwave: It heats food faster despite the same power rating. It has a higher CFM vent which is noticeably better than what I had before at getting cooking gasses off my stove. It has a brighter stove light. The panel is completely blank aside from the time when not in use. (I find all the buttons kind of mentally disruptive, odd maybe.) The buttons are kind of annoying capacitive things, but other than that I’m very positive on it.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-17/china-s-m...
Looking through amazon, all the most basic models at a ~$80 to $110 price point really look almost identical beyond a basic facelift. They nearly all have a power and timer knob, the same stamped steel internal and side panels and roughly the same max power. At most, you see different generations.
No two people you know have the same microwave.
Wanna heat up a cup of milk from the fridge? 70sec. Only half a cup? 40sec. Wife wants the milk extra hot? 80sec. Milk wasn't in the fridge? Minus 10-20sec - and so on. For families it's really useful.
It's 4 years old now and used 10 times a days, and runs still fine. It's a bit loud and the glass is very dark so you can't peek inside (probably the biggest disadvantage).
Shaving Is Too Expensive: https://www.johnwhiles.com/posts/shaving
Your Stuff Is Actually Worse Now: https://www.vox.com/the-goods/23529587/consumer-goods-qualit...
Your Sweaters Are Garbage: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/10/sweat...
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/06/insta...
I for instance had no idea that a company called Midea existed, much less that it's now a near-monopoly supplier of shitty OEM microwaves to the world. Here's hoping my indestructible Toshiba keeps on ticking, since looks like Midea swallowed them too in 2016.
https://www.midea-group.com/our-businesses/smart-home/toshib...
I've had vastly different experiences than the author.
The boyfriend does not like using it with the moisture sensor active (he strongly likes to cover his food with a lid, to prevent splatter), but I find just a paper towel is good enough for me - and when left to its normal pre-programmed modes it works surprisingly well when I just let the intelligence the engineers at GE programmed into it at the factory do its thing.
I am also the least likely person in our household to actually use one, I have a perfectly good stove and oven, and I'm much more likely to warm my leftovers with that. Then it doesn't come out being uneven in temp, with a weird rubbery texture, or devoid of moisture.
Of course - it cost 600 dollars - as the saying goes, you get what you pay for.
The wife and boyfriend however? the microwave was for them.
We use our InstantPot daily, too, for all sorts of foods and especially steel-cut oats or oat groats, scheduled to be ready in the morning.
Still they don't give you direct wattage control, which perhaps is what you're asking for.
https://www.techlicious.com/review/microwave-ovens-with-inve...
I can't remember if it was in "The Design of Everyday Things", or "The Inmates are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive us Crazy", but a story is recounted about trying to buy a usable video recorder.
He assumed that the expensive ones would have solved the UX issues (like being able to set the time correctly!), but no. The more expensive ones had control interfaces for all kinds of useless functions and were incomprehensible. He just wanted something easy to use, and ended up buying the cheapest model.
I used to use a lid on all the food I microwaved but I learned recently that microwaves and plastic are not a good mix. Low power with my inverter microwave has rescued the device as something useful for heating food!
By the way, the “inverter technology” isn’t really anything special. It’s a switched-mode power supply like you’ll find in millions of devices. The main difference is that this one can output the high voltages needed to drive the magnetron. It’s also a lot lighter in weight since it uses a much smaller transformer!
I just purchased an air fryer [which has greatly reduced my microwave usage, generally]. I specifically purchased the unit because it had analogue controls, including dual twist-dials (one for time, one for temperature).
As an added bonus, it has a single "DING" from an actual mechanically-struck bell... and it cost 1/3rd of the digital [controls] model I had initially considered purchasing.
To not leave anybody "hanging," the air fryer I purchased was the in-store Mainstays [WalMart] cheapo unit, which air-fries for one.5 PERFECTLY.
Microwaves are better in countries with less capitalism?
They literally gave an example of how when people were buying them, there was a lot of innovation. That was capitalism too, right?
In fact, if there is any innovation do be had here, it’ll only happen because of monetary motivations.
On the one hand all the innovation and cheap prices are a result of capitalism driven competition.
On the other hand, all the deceptive marketing, addictive vacuous features, vendor lock-in, planned obsolescence and enshitification are also a result of capitalism, which only cares about maximizing profits and return on capital.
This analysis misses a LOT of economic factors.
As well as corporate control factors.
> what can we learn from this? i don't know. capitalism will destroy everything it touches.
Once a market is saturated and business growth can't continue by selling more of the product(see microwaves), growth occurs through M&A(consolidation) or reducing costs(eg: removing the moisture sensor). The author reflects on the microwave market having single supplier Midea as an example of the former, and their removal of the moisture sensor as an example of the latter.
Naturally, the author asks, "what are the incentives that create these behaviors?" They identify the economic structure as the proximal cause of these incentives. Thus concluding that the economic structure that creates microwave markets ultimately concludes in the creation of the shitty microwaves.
The author extrapolates this to the multicooker market a la InstantPot - a bonus predictive why InstantPot will get shitty soon.
no electronic junk, 4.8/5 reviews. But people seem to want to buy the annoing computers stuck in there versions.
The microwave oven is a lot more powerful than a wifi transceiver but all that power is contained inside the interior which is designed as a faraday cage to block and reflect the waves back toward the food. The amount of microwave energy that actually escapes the oven is minuscule to the point where it just barely interferes with nearby wifi signals.
And Instapot was killed by private equity.
I love this. I will adopt it.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074RCGYLB
ONE dial. One. Zero buttons. Perfect.
It does not have a turntable, but it's never needed one.
- Subscription service?
- Annual government funding?
- Annual private funding for "best product in category"?
Also how are some companies who make long-lasting tools which are apparently good quality (such as Lodge, PYREX, Patagonia) seemingly doing just fine?
Patagonia has even lowered their standards somewhat - I know a guy who bikes to work every day in Seattle and has used the same Patagonia waterproof panniers for something like 15 years, and I would be willing to bet that new ones are more cheaply made and less waterproof, while costing more.
Patagonia also isn't particularly high quality (I own dozens of their clothes because I like their environmental activism, but many fray out of the bag, fit poorly, have crappy zippers, etc.). Arcteryx and European brands often make much higher quality clothing. Patagonia's on par with REI store brand clothing, IMO. But at least now they're wholly owned by a nonprofit!
I'm not sure any company can avoid this fate long term if they need to keep growing.
And these days, with everything from electronics to materials science to coatings to additives all changing so fast, maybe fast and cheap and easily replaceable is just what the market bears, for consumer and manufacturer alike?
Maybe I need to look into replacing it with slightly better model with inverter... As power scaling might be useful.
But I don't have a microwave and never consider buying one. I used to live without it. When I order fast food, couriers usually deliver a warm meal to me. When I buy prepared food at a local grocery store, I always ask the salesperson to reheat it right in their microwave at the store. When I cook food at home, it will be hot. If I leave something in the fridge, it's not a big deal for me to eat it chilled later. Chilled food does not lose its nutritional value anyway.
The reason I decided to live without a microwave is that I can't find a device without any built-in smart-scheduling functions; instead, I want one that would offer me complete manual control.
What I really need is a device with three simple features:
1. A manual knob to control the microwave power generator output.
2. A manual shut-off timer knob.
3. A manual grill spiral knob.
It has two mechanical knobs: power and time. You can hear the timer whirring down.
That’s all I need.
Live long and prosper, nameless microwave.
I just go "Computer! microwave for 3 minutes and 30 seconds!" bam!
What infuriates me are vacuum cleaners. To make them more "eco-friendly" it's even regulated in the EU now that vacuum cleaners may not use more than 900 watts. But it's not like vacuum cleaner technology has improved tenfold since I had my good old 1500 watts vacuum cleaner in the 2000s (rip). So how did they achieve this magic? Well, new vacuum cleaners don't vacuum for shit, that's how.
Miele and Lindhaus are also good.
Sad, but somewhat true. Brilliant post.
