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fouronnes3

Free startup idea: An appliance brand that makes every home appliance with the following features:

* Absolutely never any beep or sound

* Direct controls, no "programs" (i.e. microwave has two knobs: power and time, etc.)

* No network connectivity of any kind (obviously)

With a strong brand identity and good marketing these would sell like sliced bread.

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This basically exists in "Speed Queen". They've expanded offerings to try to capture the market that wants aesthetics and screens, but you can still get their old reliable: https://speedqueen.com/products/top-load-washers/tr3003wn/

Also worth noting, as someone who worked with appliances in the past, I have heard nothing but praise for speed queen products. Sentiment is that they are extremely reliable, if expensive.

This is something that has been bouncing around my head for a very long time. A company that manufactured even halfway decent products that don't have endless amounts of dark patterns/planned obsolescence would quickly drive me bankrupt.

I don't think we will ever see it though, at least not en masse. No startup would be able to afford the sheer number of lawsuits filed by the companies we have slowly allowed to become fat by selling products rife with consumer-hostile "features". Not to mention traditional advertising platforms would refuse to promote their products. Too much money already flowing in from the usual bad actors.

I don't understand why this doesn't exist.

It seems to me the market for "no bullshit" appliances is HUGE, and waiting for a company to grab it and make billions.

I have a pessimistic view on this because I think most people are sadly very prone to going for whiz-bang style over substance. This is why people still buy Samsung appliances when Speed Queen are no frills but top tier in reliability.

I don't think people actually trust Samsung as a brand that much. Marketing pipelines are just tailored to foist theirs and other garbage products because it generates revenue.

Yep, that's sort of what I'm getting at: people (generally) don't care enough to look past the marketing.

More generally, it's sort of like how on auto enthusiast forums people are like "why don't car companies make cars for us anymore, manual, V8, rear wheel drive" and the answer is that, while there are enthusiasts, their numbers aren't enough to make the economics work compared to churning out a boring crossover that will sell significantly better.

I think an even more important factor is that, in the case of speed queen, it has a great reputation within specific communities...but you can't really buy them in the stores that the average person visits for appliance purchases.

Whether or not you agree with it, joe next door is going to go to someplace like Best Buy or Menards for their new appliances, and they carry brands like Samsung and Maytag, and they are going to buy display models of the ones that draw attention to them.

Solid and reliable is more expensive.

That means it's purchased less. That means it's in fewer big box stores, where most people buy their appliances. That means it's purchased even less.

It's also much harder to differentiate whether an appliance is more expensive because it's solid or because it's bullshit.

They do exist. Cheapest stoves and fridges at home depot right now are the same old dumb appliance stuff they’ve been for 40 years. Cheapest microwave they sell is the same as its been for 30 years after innovating the dedicated Potato setting.

More likely the following products will pop up:

  * Noise cancelling earplugs
  * Smart glasses with blink/strobe/seizure-filters

And it will be an arms race, and the users will love their shiny iBlocks and iPlugs...

I think iPlugs might be a rather unfortunate name…

They will both still have a blue LED on them though, so you know that they're on

I didn't go look at the actual devices but I was pleasantly surprised when "America's Test Kitchen" (a youtube channel) had a review of Microwaves and said they rated device higher if (1) you could turn the sounds off (2) didn't have network features (3) had more direct controls

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZ1FBp-zDYI

Note: I did not follow up as I'm not in the market for a Microwave at the moment. I'm only frustrated the one built into my apartment makes too much noise. Also, the channel's design seems to be to make high quality videos but leave some of the info on their website which requires sign up so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I have not signed up.

I got a brand new microwave that controls time with a actual mechanical tomato clock mechanism, with a single distinct mechanical "bing" as it mechanically reaches 0 and hits a piece of brass.

It's the best microwave I've ever used. Meanwhile at work we have one that has a touch button for opening the door, and a touch slider to increase time. If power cuts, your food rots in there.

Touchscreens in the kitchen make no sense to me. Guaranteed to be working in an environment where things are hot, wet, sticky, etc. Why would I want to fight the sensor if my fingers are clean enough?

Hmm, while I imagine cleaning a continuous surface is easier, it doesn't need to be a capacitative one: Buttons beneath a flexing plastic membrane work took, like the classic microwave number-pad.

Pressing those is still tactile, although locating a distinct button by feel would require something else, like adding raised ridges.

I'm renting an apartment that came with a "nest" smoke detector. The thing ate through around 8 AA batteries every few months. We finally got sick of it and bought our own dumb 10€ smoke / CO detector.

If something like that is going to chew through batteries, it should be available as hardwired only, with batteries as the backup. But I know the manufacturers wouldn't want to miss out on the juicy market of people who don't want to deal with running the wires and who don't realize how often they're going to be replacing batteries until it's too late to return the device.

I agree. I think my anecdote illustrates the perversions of the renter's market, and the interaction with the Internet of Crap, more than it illustrates the IoC in general. A lot of people buy into this stuff and never realize it: they put it in their tenant's home and forget about it.

I'm not complaining about the package I got with the rental: like any packaged service you have to take the good with the bad. But when things are packaged, a lot of the bad wasn't up to the consumer.

You were no doubt using the wrong batteries. Lithium AA batteries come with the alarm and last about 5 years.

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