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Comment by avsteele | Hacker News Reader

So wait: Rigid, Milwaukee, and Ryobi are all manufactured by the same company (TTi?)? I had no idea Is there any actual difference here or is it all marketing?

There are the only 3 brands in power tools I recall seeing, so this is very odd.

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You need to look harder - dewalt, makita, hitachi, Bosch in the common middle to pro end, skil, porter cable, black and decker on the low end and that’s just for super common ones. Hilti, festool, Mitabo on the more expensive end. Not to mention the HF and Walmart brands, Crafstman, etc. This is off the cuff, but seriously this is a one second Google search.

And yes there is a big difference between ryobi and Milwaukee - it’s classic market segmentation. Ryobi is for hobbyist home light duty shit and competes with B&D, Skil, etc. Milwaukee is made for tradespeople - higher performance motors and parts. They are more expensive - and despite the contingent of tech bros on here thinking they’re the only smart people in existence - people are not paying that premium for no reason or “marketing”.

Minor nitpick, there is no longer a line of Hitachi power tools. After the merger they're now called Metabo HPT.

Another nitpick, they're Metabo HPT only in North America, in EU and Asia they're Hikoki. So at the end there is still separate Metabo, and there is also Metabo HPT/Hikoki. That's a very strange limbo since it'll be very hard to look for reviews.

Except for the new hitachi made rebranded metabo miter saws

There are a handful.

https://www.protoolreviews.com/power-tool-manufacturers-who-...

I think I’ve seen a better source in the past.

I think it would be great if using trademarks as standalone labels were prohibited, and a company had to label everything it produced with its own name. So there would be (Stanley/Dewalt, Stanley/Bostich, Stanley/BlackAndDecker) making it apparent they were all made by the same company, rather than letting a handful of companies confuse the market by creating a simulation of competition.

Also battery compatibility. What cordless tool manufacturers have done creating incompatible battery connectors should be flat out illegal. There is absolutely no reason for it besides undermining the market by creating artificial lock in monopolies.

> Stanley/Dewalt, Stanley/Bostich, Stanley/BlackAndDecker

Stanley and Black and Decker have merged, they're called Stanley Black and Decker now.

If you look at the lower end brands, they're often all selling near-identical licensed products regardless of parent company. The higher end brands are usually actually different from each other.

My understanding is Milwaukee is still engineered in the States. Their FUEL line (brushless, high end) is very well respected for most tools.

And AEG at least. Probably more.

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