My fridge has an RFID chip in the water filter, so a generic filter doesn't work
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How long before we see an article about consumers repairing and chasing down ancient refrigerators that are sadly inefficient but at least repairable?
Wait until you hear about cars!
Fortunately for the big corporations, most people lack even the most basic mechanical skills and are totally reliant upon others to do even trivial maintenance. Thus almost everything is becoming disposable because it's cheaper to throw something away than it is to pay a technician to fix it, parts notwithstanding. Car makers are really hoping the EV thing sticks so they can force you to buy a brand new car every 5-6 years once the battery is toast.
But unfortunately you’re right. It’s probably the single biggest thing keeping me from pulling the trigger on a Tesla.
https://www.tesla.com/support/vehicle-warranty
> Model 3 - 8 years or 100,000 miles, whichever comes first, with minimum 70% retention of Battery capacity over the warranty period.
But that's warranty.
https://electrek.co/2018/04/14/tesla-battery-degradation-dat...
Some forum discussion: https://forums.tesla.com/forum/forums/cost-battery-pack-10-y...
Keep your car if it works for you. Financially that's the sensible choice regardless of technology. But you should expect to have less maintenance work if/when you switch to an EV.
What? No. This doesn't make sense at all.
First, most traditional manufacturers are NOT keen on having their fleet replaced. They don't want to cannibalize their own products. When they can, they will even retake possession of 'compliance cars' and destroy them.
Second, dealerships are also NOT pushing EVs. EVs make very little money due to less maintenance.
Third, no EV battery is toast after 5 years, except maybe first generation Nissan Leaf batteries (lookup 'lizard battery' if you are interested). Tesla's should last for 10 or more.
They really cannot prevent aftermarket batteries from being installed, or individual cells replaced. They can try to make the process more difficult (as GE is doing), but if there's enough incentive it will be circumvented.
Anything that does not deal with the drivetrain works just the same as any other car.
You might have a point if you mentioned the EV electronics. But can you repair a car ECU? Most likely, you can't. If that fails, you replace it. Same thing here, except there's less to replace.
Imagine how abysmal the second hand prices would be to offset a new battery pack after 10 years.
The environmental impact would be really bad as well.
Related: https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/10/16283330/tesla-hurricane-...
(Most of the stuff you see with the GE logo on is licensed branding and GE has nothing to do with it except collecting a fee for the use of their logo.)
https://invidio.us/watch?v=VRfoIyx8KfU
Have you got a 27B/6?
I’ll be sure to boycott Haier, and thus all of GE Appliances.
Wouldn't surprise me if others in that list of seven are holding multiple sub-brands too, and a full tree-walk produces a huge list of brands.
In my eyes, GE is just as guilty as Haier & KKR.
Case in point, the current top comment is how they're never going to buy a GE fridge again -- even though it's not GE. Haier's gettin that money and GE is eating that bad voodoo.
Inefficient? Maybe "old" (60s-80s?), but not "ancient" (30s-50s) --- this article might be worth reading:
http://web.archive.org/web/20121218033749/http://www.greenbu...
The 1930s GE Monitor-Top (ironicallly also made by GE, but the good old GE) uses less power than a lot of modern refrigerators, and many others from that era are similar. Despite their age, used working ones are very expensive.
I have a 1938 Frigidaire which I restored. The compressor, which was marketed as the "Meter-Miser", draws less than 100W when running, and it doesn't run very often. So far it seems it will be around 280kWh/year. It has no "smarts" to subvert me, and the sealed nature of the system means that it could likely continue running for another century and outlast me...
Nowadays I cringe when I regularly see small fridges completely encased in furniture in hotel rooms, with no air circulation. They get very warm and even the top surface of the furniture sometimes.
I wonder what William Holladay, the grandfather of the article's author, would have to say about that.
The idea of putting the compressor on top is also interesting, why is it not being pursued? Noise issues?
https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Appliance#Embodied_e...
Two hops upthread, the commenter says "280kWh/year" for their 1938 fridge. No clue what kind of power they use, but we can calculate the recoup cost of a replacement without knowing it.
It looks like modern refrigerators are considered about 3x as efficient as pre-70s refrigerators, so let's say that a straight swap of a size-equivalent refrigerator of average efficiency will cost 100kWh/year.
https://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=refrig.calcu...
Spending 1638 kWh on a new refrigerator will save 160kWh/year, so the break even point in carbon terms occurs after 10 years have passed.
This is all very bad napkin math done in crayon. If you want better figures, you'll need to know your own refrigerator runtime figures, which means measuring your fridge's power usage for a standard week of use (if you maintain a very stable indoor temperature through heating/cooling) or for a year (if you do not), and you'll need to know the energy saved per year of your current fridge, and etc.
ps. Apparently they have a fridge from 90 years ago that's still running. If you replace one modern fridge with another and only save 20 kWh/year, it will take you 90 years to recoup that cost. The 10 year figure is only possible because their 1938 fridge is so inefficient.
pps. Owner of said 1938 fridge, I intend no disrespect. This DOE paper talks in detail about the changes that improved efficiency – inventing high-efficiency compressors, changing the shape of the drain pipe (1% efficiency gain!), and replacing the refrigerant and insulation materials with more efficient ones. https://www.nrel.gov/docs/legosti/old/7281.pdf
...and that's where you're wrong. These are the most efficient as of 2020:
https://www.energystar.gov/most-efficient/me-certified-refri...
The top of that list is a 5.1cft model that uses 186kWh/year. The next one is also roughly the same size and uses 202kWh/year, followed by an 8.8cft that uses 294kWh/year. 100kWh/year is, frankly speaking, impossible. Mine has 9cft.
That "calculator" is being very deceptive by grouping everything "before 1980" together. The 60s and 70s models are certainly far more power-hungry because they made them bigger and with thinner insulation (more interior space) and things like defrost heaters, but the ones before that are not.
This DOE paper talks in detail about the changes that improved efficiency
...and none of the energy usage figures they quote are anywhere near the 300kWh/year range. A look at the real numbers shows just how efficient these early models are.
The only takeaway for me is that a fridge upgrade has to be at least 50 kWh/year more efficient, or it's more likely than not a complete waste of carbon.
Here is a fridge that is rated at 75kWh/year.
https://www.bosch-home.dk/produktliste/koeleskabe-og-frysesk...
https://www.euronics.ee/t-en/89517/home-appliances/sbs-refri...
75kWh/year is for the "cooler" only, which doesn't go below freezing. Ice takes a huge amount of energy to make, so that isn't surprising. I'm not sure I can even set my vintage fridge to not freeze, but it would probably consume in that ballpark too if I never let the evaporator go below 4C or so. The above link shows the companion freezer, which does, uses a 237kWh/year --- pretty good, but then the two together use a far more realistic 312kWh/year.
In any case, if you buy a A+++ freezer they "only" use around 200kWh/year. This is mostly due to better insulation, and is in general an environmental and economical benefit to buy if your freezer is old.
But you don't need hypotheticals! The defunct Juicero required a wifi connection to "check the packet's expiration", but was enforcing use of their proprietary fruit packets. (Can't find an authoritative source atm but it was what everyone assumed and what their business model effectively required[2].)
And IIRC Keurig seriously considered doing this or had already implemented it.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-...
https://jorgelo.co/the-future-a-cat-litter-and-drm-6dbda2642...
The cartridge system adds a consumable part for the sake of having a consumable part.
I'm sure it's only a matter of time until they try the same thing on dishwashers and washing machines.
"The Wash Master 4000 is optimized to work with a range of certified detergents. The following cartridges are compatible with your new Wash Master 4000..."
I always wonder how much P&G pays for that sort of placement.
https://craphound.com/category/radicalized-full/
Buy it, or read it for free.
I state the above not to give these companies an easy excuse out, I still think this is not the ideal solution. But what should they do instead? I witnessed this first hand years ago when I worked retail, people would come in and ask me questions about a printer and then drive to WalMart and buy the same printer for $15 less.
But a few months later, it told us that its bulb needed to be replaced soon. And the replacement was going to cost a couple hundred bucks.
I knew that projectors needed bulb replacements from time to time, but I didn't think it would be that frequent.
We just let it complain until the projector refused to work because of an 'expired' bulb.
I got online and bought a super cheap 'clone' for the bulb from China. After installing it, all was well.
That same bulb was working fine from 2009 until we got rid of that projector in 2018.
It used to be ready paying meant getting more quality, longer life, easier to replace parts. Now, it seems unrelated. The cheapest one may well be the best one, or a at least the expensive one has all the corners cut too.
There are situations where this isn't the case. And this may be a middle vs bottom of market thing. But expensive stuff is often the same crap with a brand logo.
I was considering purchasing a 2020 Jeep Wrangler, but after reading the terms of service for your "UConnect" monitoring system, I no longer want to. I will consider it if I receive satisfactory answers to these questions:
Can a Jeep Wrangler with advanced safety be purchased without Uconnect?
If not, is FCA willing to state in writing under penalty of perjury that "Opt Out for Privacy Reasons" causes all data communication between the vehicle and any other party to cease? Actual severing of communications, not some weak claim that you will not use the data.
Currently the owner of an older Jeep Wrangler.
I have not yet received a reply.
It probably reduces the chances of an answer to nil unless they have the ability to deliver what you ask for. But the idea that a giant like FCA is going to bend over for you to disable some feature that is standard on their car is a non-starter, there simply is no process for a thing like that.
But at least their marketing&sales department is informed that they could have sold one more vehicle but did not, which given the fact that the OP is anything but stupid is probably what he was going for anyway.
If you don't want to be tracked, don't buy a truck with the advanced safety feature, pretty simple...
It's supposedly possible to turn off tracking. There's a "privacy opt out". That means you no longer get the "Monthly Vehicle Report" emailed to you.[1] The question is whether it really means that communications with the mothership stops. Companies lying about opt-out is common.[2][3]
[1] https://www.mopar.com/en-us/my-vehicle/vehicle-health-report...
[2] https://www.hoganlovells.com/en/blogs/hldataprotection/ftc-o...
[3] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7804121/Face...
It could be built so that the air bag deployment is what enables the cellular connection to operate. Until the air bags deploy, the radio doesn't get any electrical power.
I'd love a vehicle that is completely radio silent, incapable of transmitting or receiving, until there is a crash.
If they would make it such that it only connects when it has to, then it would be a reasonable compromise.
I suspect you won't be getting one. I also suspect that's the first letter of that kind they've ever received.
I love the concept, the execution is horrible. Give me a button to enable or disable filter verification. If I want to spend money on an official GE filter, I'd love for them to verify I got what I paid for. If I want to buy third party, you shouldn't be stopping me...
We've already been through this with printer cartridges, and how did that turn out?
A device you paid for refusing to work for just any reason is absurd.
You're being naive if you attribute actions like this to altruism from corporations.
If the 3rd party are selling their cartridges with GE branding without GE's consent, that would be counterfeiting.
GE could easily allow other cartridge manufacturers to build and to supplier.
Look at the CO2 cartridges used in the Sodastream machines.
What they have tried to do is when you exchange your empty cartridges for a full one, they will only accept Sodastream cartridges. However, 3rd party cartridges are available quite readily everywhere.
We changed the filter once because we thought the filter might be defective... never again.
(Not you, the filter makers...)
There's no mini-lab or sensor in your fridge actually testing if the water filter is working.
And even ones that claim to measure how much volume is dispensed are just counting how long the water valve is open and assuming a flow rate.
That said, the filters do go bad, and sometimes even provide media for stuff to grow on, once the contents become chemically and physically inert. If you don't want to change the filter, get a "blank" to plug in. Don't just leave an old filter in.
I came across one in the wild when I made the mistake of visiting Universal Studios Orlando recently :/
Another example of their ridiculous wastefulness is integrating OLEDs into the wrappers of their plastic bottles to market Star Wars: https://www.engadget.com/2019/12/06/star-wars-coca-cola-oled...
What I find amazing is the dedication to extracting potentially a little more money from people who may buy one extra cola rather than allowing a refill when the production cost is next to 0, but leaves a more satisfied, and likely return, customer.
Practices like this are likely to turn people off. The fact that they think they can do something like this just displays how much of a monopoly/duopoly this company actually knows it enjoys. Where else will their customers turn? There's nowhere to turn. So gouge them.
The interesting thing was I realized that the syrup cost $.03 per cup, and McD's was selling it for - I don't remember 45 years later but it was a lot. Puzzled, I asked about it and was told that McD's lost money on the hamburgers and more than made it up with the drinks and fries.
It's also how movie theaters make money. They lose it on ticket sales, and make it up at the concession stand, especially on the soda.
Similarly for restaurants. The drinks are the big moneymakers.
Camera makers don't make money on the camera bodies, but on the lenses and accessories.
Car dealers don't make money selling cars, they make it on the financing and the service.
They have RFID in the soda dispensers because they want people to buy the $15 "free refill" cup. I have never visited Orlando Universal two days in a row so I don't know if the cup "works" more than 24 hours.
You can use the cup any other visit as well, although I heard they've switched it up where the older cups no longer work - which is insane if true since it's the same tech. Guessing if it's true they want to have everyone buy a new cup.
Cruise lines were the first place I saw this used, years before UO implemented it. They would have a couple FreeStyle machines scattered around the ship, that would work with the cup they would give you when you bought the beverages package. Again, overall a UX win, because they had the same packages before, but you would have to go to one of the bars or whatever to use it.
EDIT: I also feel like saying that in both instances, the machines would still happily dispense plain water. So that's a nice thing.
The explanation I read back then was that they used to sell souvenir mugs with free refills for the duration of the stay. But guests would come back the next year with their mugs and abuse the system by taking more refills without paying for another visit.
So the RFID mug system enables the dispenser for the time duration of the guest visit (day, week, whatever). But now that means the dispenser also has to able to fill paper cups with single servings since the dispenser can't tell what is under the nozzle - a mug or a one-shot cup.
So now the paper cups have RFID in them and that's how we got to where we are.
But when exactly does a year start and end? =)
I'm not qualified at all to say this, but I'd say the park ticket is a loss leader.
The entire park is a shopping mall now. Mobile product carts and gift shops around every turn - not just at the exits anymore. The RFID MagicBands exist to eliminate any hesitation in purchasing something. The FastPasses were built to keep you walking around and buying stuff instead of waiting in a line for an hour. The hotels are full of upsells and overmarketed dining plans (if they saved you money, why would they be selling it?). I could go on and on.
I'd rather spend that money on flying to Europe or somewhere else.
I live with schedules every day at work. I go on vacation to get away from schedules...
My favorite thing to do is to just go to a forest preserve or other park and just walk around looking at the trees and the clouds.
I actually like that. Less waiting in lines.
At least that‘s what I do when I‘m going out dancing I buy one drink and the rest of the night it‘s tap water for me. In a theme park I probably could bring my water bottle.
The reasoning I heard was that people using it for water were also wasting a ton of ice and the machines would run out faster than they could be replenished. It did use to be common to see mountains of dumped ice in the dispenser so I do kinda believe it.
Ideally the park should be installing those water bottle fountains.
Back when I went there 20 years ago, they’d sell a reusable cup for around $40 that got you 50 cent sodas all academic year long (it was otherwise maybe $2.50-$3 for a soda). You were on your honor to show your reusable cup at the cashier to be charged for a soda. As with the paper cups, you’d get free refills once you paid for a drink with your meal.
Now they sell a prepaid RFID cup that has a certain number of fills programmed into it. If you use them all, you can add more to your cup account.
Because you still need a chip to authorize the fountain either way, the disposable cups are also chipped and programmed to allow two fills before deactivating.
It seems like a wasteful money grab at a place where it costs north of $50K/year to get in the door.
We truly are living in the future here.
Just not the one we expected.
[0] https://twitter.com/IamShaneMorris/status/122036793494775808...
https://twitter.com/GE_Appliances/status/1220372879306522633
> Hello Shane, we appreciate your feedback and certainly understand your concerns. We will forward your feedback to the appropriate team. -BL
Where someone responds about how inane their response is, to which they direct that person to privately message for support. The person wasn't asking for support
Maybe disabling the RFID reader hardware will make the fridge bypass the lockout code?
The easier solution is just not buy a GE fridge, but the general public won't be aware of the need for that solution.
I got new appliances a few years ago and luckily it was pretty easy to get "dumb" appliances. I really hope that is still true next time I need to get new appliances.
I hate this future where I need to prevent a company from updating my wifi enabled fridge so I can get clean drinking water. Oh what a world.
The only downside is that when you dispense water it lights up a little sign that says "water is not filtered".
I do this and buy cheap aftermarket filters from Amazon.
You can probably find some tape that matches the color nicely on Amazon for a very small amount of money.
I have never understood why people take extra steps, have extra inconvenience, and have more expensive, harder to replace items just for the sake of saving, what, fifteen seconds filling up a pitcher?
And it is more convenient in multiple ways. Also you don't mess up the nice cold air in the fridge.
It's a tradeoff but it's not a lopsided one.
Gillette sold their razors at 1/4 of the manufacturer's cost but they had a patent on the razor itself which will only take Gillette's razor blades.
Those razor blades are markup 400% - 1 cent sold for 4 cents.
The "innovation" was people are willing to pay per shave instead of paying upfront for a razor which was seen as an investment at the time.
Seriously men, do away with the cheaply made but expensive plastic trash and invest once in a nice safety razor. It's worth it.
There's a reason people prefer the disposable multi-blade plastic crap. You don't need the hands of a surgeon to use them, without cutting yourself.
[0] https://sharpologist.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/34c.jpg
With a cartridge, I don't cover myself in nicks. With a safety razor, every pimple, birthmark, and angle in my face is a potential cut point.
Other helpful tips - let the hair soak for a couple of minutes; clean/dip the blade with >90% alcohol to remove moisture, preventing corrosion and dulling. Haven't had issues shaving since.
It's not like other people have armored skin that's immune to sharp things; we all cut just as easily as you do. It's a matter of technique.
There's a reason for why the world has switched to the disposable plastic crap - and its not because people are fools. It's much the same reason for why the world switched from horses and buggies to automobiles.
As a huge fan of safety razors you're one of the first people I've heard argue against them.
But nobody does this for razors.
Terry Pratchett had a good one-paragraph rant on expensive shoes vs cheap cardboard shoes, the expensive ones last 10 years the cardboard 10 days.. its in the same space.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/72745-the-reason-that-the-r...
Personally I can't tell the difference, but she swears it's different.
Sounds like a great way to sell some more ink or another printer early.
I used to always buy genuine HP cartridges, sold by Amazon (not a third-party seller,) with official packaging, non-tampered unbroken sticker on the box, and yet one day my printer reported a cartridge as "non-genuine" and absolutely refused to accept it. Maybe the chip malfunctioned. But since that day I have stopped buying genuine and I replaced them with recycled third party cartridges. A third of the cost. And they never caused this problem. A defective system caused HP to lose a customer.
There is a huge problem with knockoffs and "off brand" items, most are harmless. Since this is something you put in your body there is reasonable concern that there is opportunity for unsavory or unscrupulous actors to make an <appliance brand> water filter that makes you sick, because it has some shitty chemical or compound in it. The genuine filters are indistinguishable from the knock offs. So when there's lead or something terrible coming out of your refrigerator your going to blame the brand. Even if the blame gets redirected, consumers will be upset the brand didn't do more to protect them.
Maybe I drank the koolaid on this, but there are a number of other accessories for products up and down the line that I staunchly oppose this scheme for. I don't necessarily buy the "control the experience" bit. I think it applies sparingly but a "works best with our brand's stuff" sticker is generally sufficient.
Problem with this argument is yielding liberty.. It doesn't work.
Yes, I know (I am a software engineer with a large amount of embedded work in my resume), and I don't mind it at all when the software is actually doing useful things that can't be done well otherwise.
But there's a lot of things that are being computerized where there's no actual user benefit to doing that. All that does is increase the number of points of potential failure.
An open source hardware very standardized and modular serviceable model would probably be a decent analog to the domain - it would commoditise the parts and help counter the nicheness in terms of economies of scale. The rarity of people who know enough to roll their own appliance design is probably one of the biggest obstacles. It isn't like 3D printing currently.
Apparently even manufacturers who are advantaged by logistical simplicity apparently already regularly tweak the yearly designs based upon cost advantages.
I suspect that ironically technological advancement could eventually make fridges better that way - thermocouple based copling has had a slow but steady upward trend line. If it keeps up then a bunch of cooling thermocouples, electronic thermoneters, a power supply, and a few microcontrollers/a Raspberry Pi descendant in an insulated box could put it in more traditional "hacker" skillsets.
(Which, not for nothing, is harder given all the diffusion brands. For GE, that includes Monogram, Café, Profile, Haier, and Hotpoint.)
It would be trivially easy - as in, as easy as Legos - to use push fittings (such as sharkbites) and a short, extra length of hose and cheap in-line filter to insert a pre-filter just before the refrigerator.
You would then gain the ability to change the filter with any you like, anytime you like, and the interior filter of the refrigerator would last, basically, forever.
Seriously - no plumbing involved - you are putting together 2-3 pieces from the hardware store, like Legos.
Search the web for "5-year inline refrigerator water filter" to find some of them.
For example, if my Nintendo Switch controller breaks, I will not even hesitate to get an official Nintendo controller. However, it would be nice to have aftermarket controllers work. However, if for example my IPhone earbuds fail, I would hate to not be able to use spare earbuds I have lying around. If my Macbooks trackpad fails, and I see the choice between using a compatible aftermarket trackpad or a genuine Apple trackpad, I would get a genuine Apple trackpad. That is my choice. Someone else would want a cheaper option, and that is fine.
Now, I could see the angle of wanting to force customers to choose GE replacement parts. Less support. They will be able to diagnose or troubleshoot issues without considering aftermarket compatibility issues. Also, yes, they will have another potential recurring revenue stream!
We'll see if automation leads to an open-source era for appliances. The hype about robots building robots should start seeding more projects this decade to "cut the cord" from obsolete business models.
How ecological is that?
I know of refrigerators in use today that are more than 40 years old.
Is this disclosed when you buy the fridge?
Your refrigerator refuses to work because of a comment overheard by your thermostat that was construed by AI as being insufficiently supportive of your countries corporate foreign policy objectives.
If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear.
Meanwhile in 2020 we purchase them ourselves because we don’t want to flip light switches.
More "oppression-by-comfort" than "boot-on-face-forever".
It would've made more sense to say that they were using the human brains as CPUs, so conciously the humans were living in society, but sub/unconciously they were performing calculations for "the machines".
Which would open up an interesting plot, if the machines' (AI) "consciousness" ran on our brains and they didn't have their own hardware CPUs, would that make the humans the machines? Or would the program be seen like a computer virus?
I disagree, but 20+ years later I don't think it would even be an issue, what with all the `people only use 10% of their brains` nonsense movies that have come out.
That was apparently the original plot before studio executives decided it would be too difficult for audiences to understand.
https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/19817/was-executiv...
Yes, it makes zero sense. Just burn the food, if you even need to use food at all.
The door refused to open. It said, "Five cents, please."
He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. "I'll pay you tomorrow," he told the door. Again it remained locked tight. "What I pay you," he informed it, "is in the nature of a gratuity; I don't have to pay you."
"I think otherwise," the door said. "Look in the purchase contract you signed when you bought this conapt."
...he found the contract. Sure enough; payment to his door for opening and shutting constituted a mandatory fee. Not a tip.
"You discover I'm right," the door said. It sounded smug.
In another instance, the door also didn't want to let him in without paying.
From the drawer beside the sink Joe Chip got a stainless steel knife; with it he began systematically to unscrew the bolt assembly of his apt’s money-gulping door.
“I’ll sue you,” the door said as the first screw fell out. Joe Chip said, “I’ve never been sued by a door. But I guess I can live through it.”
My TV has a terrible display but doesn't know how to connect to the internet, for example.
Less is more, more is less. Less is better, more is worse.
In the scheme of a remodel or new-construction adding the high-quality, durable options is a small expense and saves on very expensive repairs down the road where you have to pay $2,000 to replace an item that would only have cost a few dollars more to install one that will almost never need replacing.
Alas, we never did anything with the idea.
You also hit on something that I think too many people don't think of when they're pricing stuff. People tend to look at the sticker price alone, not the total cost of ownership. I've found that often (but certainly not always), the more initially expensive but high-quality stuff will end up being cheaper in the long run.
Do your research. I witnessed an office where the CEO's partner was an interior decorator, and said partner was responsible for the office construction.
In the opulent kitchen, they put two commercial dishwashers, the kind where you preload the dishes onto a kind of rack, and slide the whole rack into the dishwasher in one step.
Greatly increases utilization of such dishwashers, because the dirty dishes can be queued up for washing, and the clean ones can be unloaded and put away while the dishwasher is running.
These dishwashers were designed around maximizing utilization during busy periods. But.
In an office kitchen, they would be run once or twice a day most of the time, with bursts only happening during infrequent events. This turned out to be an unexpected problem.
It seems the dishwashers were full of steel for durability, and they needed to run a load to warm up. Once warm, they could to load after load at high speed. But when only doing one load a day, they wouldn't clean the dishes properly.
The vendor told them this and suggested they have one "prosumer" model and one commercial model for when they had a catered event, but this displeased the CEO's partner, so the company was stuck with two commercial units.
They learned to run an empty load every day before running a full load, wasting enough time that the dishwasher lost its speed advantage. It also wasted water and energy do do one preload for each daily load.
Something to think about when buying commercial. It's usually ok, but sometimes, a commercial unit has tradeoffs that will gravely undermine its ability to function in a home or office.
You make a very good point, but I don't think that whether its commercial or not is what you need to look at. The intended use case is. There are several commercial use dishwashers, for instance, that are intended for relatively infrequent use. The ones you describe were intended for heavy-duty restaurant use -- that's the real mismatch, not the fact that they were built for commercial use.
The infrequent commercial resturant / office kitchen models you mention are good, but lab/ medical models are what I imagine most people want.
You can get them based on power and water availability (real 240v+ hot water heating element!!!), high pressure pumps, all stainless parts, sanitary cleaning in under 10 mins, and can use active heating for drying. Fully programmable wash cycles, both time and temperature, but in an under counter residential-like form factor. Get one of these, plus some fryer clean out detergent, and you're set.
Also, they're easily 3-10x the price of higher end residential models.
I know many people who have had to replace or service their "high efficiency" machines within 5-10 years, while many old washers seem to last at least 20 years without service. Given the electronics and specialty parts in the new machines, it seems doubtful that you could keep one of them in service for more than 15 years.
I never spent so much time looking for an appliance. I must have spent 6 hours looking at Amazon, Home Depot, Best Buy, etc, websites. There are so many models, sizes and types. The model that died was ~25 years old. It performed well, but the company doesn't make microwaves anymore (Sanyo)... at least I didn't see that brand when searching.
To put it another way, should my car stop running entirely if it detects that I'm using a "non-GM-certified" cabin air filter?
Imagine you were stranded somewhere and the only option was to use the wrong oil. Sure, it may destroy the vehicle, but at least you would be able to run the vehicle and (hopefully) get to safety before your engine block melts. My issue is when the decision has been made that "you _might_ break it, so we've taken the choice away."
Another example might be, should users not be allowed to install programs on their computer because those programs might interfere with the computer's performance?
In your example, I still would absolutely have minded such enforced nonsense.
And you should never have a warranty voided for doing an unauthorized but valid adjustment/repair.
From the perspective of the manufacturer, it's either a fairly blatant cash grab or poor design.
https://external-preview.redd.it/qRggs-k588dZAM2uBK3FH4xOih9...
Shenzhen and other places is full of talent capable of fulfilling this niche.
All it takes is a brave soul to go out and try it.
Nest is now owned by Google. Nest also had installed microphones in their units without telling consumers prior to being purchased by Google.
I'm convinced privacy-conscious smart products which keep things as local as possible combined with good simple design is applicable to so many niches. Including routers.
If I was a VC I'd be looking for someone to invest in which offers both modern digitized equipment without the total privacy/security sacrifice.
Businesses should be happy with stable revenue once they reach that point, instead they desperately try to get more, risking the company’s reputation and/or legal issues (not specifically in this case but I’m sure there are companies that did illegal stuff just to get more profit).
The current idea of running a business is absolutely unsustainable.
On this water filter thing, the fridge costs about $1500. Suppose it lasts 10 years, and you replace the $55 water filter every six months. That's $1100 worth of water filters! The water filters almost double the cost of the fridge!
Profit-wise, on a $1500 fridge, it's a competitive market. You're looking at multiple brands, so GE probably has a profit of $100 at most on the fridge. On the water filters though, we know that the generic one sells for $19 and the branded one is $55. That suggests that GE probably makes a profit of at least $20 on the filter. Over the life of the fridge, that's $400 in profit -- 80% of the profit of the fridge is in the filters! If third parties are threatening that profit by making knockoffs, of course GE is going to take countermeasures to protect 80% of their profit.
Even in the water filter scenario, let's assume everyone has this fridge and is regularly buying filters. They had temporary growth in revenue but now that everyone has fridges + filters it's mostly stable again.
Do you think they'll stop there? The unsustainable idea we have of running a business would suggest they should be doing something else to even further increase the profits.
The name-brand GE filters (for the type I used to buy) eliminate/reduce lead, chlorine, plus "5 trace pharmaceuticals" and 15 other contaminants.
The bargain bin filters (HDX, in this scenario) only eliminate/reduce lead, chlorine, "tastes and odors."
GE - https://www.homedepot.com/p/GE-Genuine-MWF-Water-Filter-for-...
HDX - https://www.homedepot.com/p/HDX-Water-Filter-for-GE-Refriger...
If you can demonstrate that the store brand filters are the same, despite not advertising the ability to filter the same chemicals and pharmaceuticals then sure, you win.
My point was that the “name-brand costs more for no reason” is not always true. FFS
I have no interest in buying and disassembling the filters to compare them but since they are both charcoal filters they are the same. If they were not, then one of them would be advertised as a charcoal filter and the other one would be advertised as a charcoal filter + some other filter.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22126021
Stop trying to penny-pinch your customers that way, a reputation is hard to build and so easy to lose.
Perhaps Libertarians would jump in? Choice made with knowledge founds their original philosophy.
Which seems reasonable to me?
You could say that they should just invalidate the warranty, but can you invalidate a statutory warranty?
On a less snarky note: We've been repeatedly shown that companies act in their own self interest, and put out as cover reasons that are more socially acceptable.
But also, I think "restricting consumer choice because their warranty wouldn't cover it" is a terrible reason, and shouldn't be socially acceptable.
Who knows what's in that gas? It could explode!
It doesn't seem reasonable to me at all, honestly. What sort of damage could a water filter do that would cost them so much?
This looks purely like a move to take their customers for all they're worth.
In the US a manufacturer can not invalidate a warranty for arbitrary reasons, they must prove that the owner's use or modification was the primary cause of a failure.[1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty...
You can buy much cheaper filters on Amazon that go on the water line, that last much longer.