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Comment by russdill | Hacker News Reader

If you buy a consumer product labeled "military grade" you are buying snake oil. And not just snake oil, incredibly over priced snake oil.

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Military-grade just means it has a spec, now, I will admit having a spec is nice, very nice. but in general it says little about the actual quality of the item. And if the spec can't be found or there is no spec. Probably best to stay away, in those cases they are not even selling you the snake oil but the sound of it sloshing in the bottle.

There is no legal requirement for it to refer to MIL-SPEC. More often than not it is just pure marketing without any actual spec tied to it

Military grade afaict just implies the military ‘could’ use it, by that definition almost any company sells military grade products or services, except companies who explicitly would not sell to the military.

the military often writes a spec and then refuses to buy anything that doesn't meet it. Most soldiers are not going to walmart to get supplies - even f walmart sells that type of thing.

I’m not talking about what the military could or would use, I’m talking about what it takes for something to be called military grade.

"military grade" isn't a protected phrase. As a consumer you might be able to sue them if the thing breaks and they can't prove that phrase meant anything? But doubtful.

Claiming to conform to a more specific product or process standard would be more specific fraud.

But in general though "military grade" is a red flag for shitty marketing.

Example: pop tarts are military grade! [1]

Though their commercial packaging is likely not.

https://www.dla.mil/Portals/104/Documents/TroopSupport/Subsi...

In the US, "military grade" is like "natural". There is no legally enforced meaning, so it means whatever the manufacturer says it means. Sometimes that's something real and of some value, but the majority of the time it's just a meaningless marketing buzzword.

Original Gameboys are military grade, and even in the gulf war when they were used, there was one that survived being melted.

Used for what?

If you had one, you could also buy games in the form of “cartridges”. Putting one of those cartridges into the gameboy would let you play the game for as long as the batteries held out.

Morale

I remember that Nintendo Power letter to the editor!

Yeah if you see something labelling itself "MIL-SPEC", that's grade A snake oil bullshit.

That said military spec stuff is actually generally a good sign that something is of higher quality than random off the shelf garbage but only if you know there's a specific spec you want it to work with. And most of the time you aren't even necessarily looking for a MIL-STD (standard) but rather a MIL-PRF (performance rating/spec).

So like if something is "MIL-SPEC" run. But if you see say a spool of fiber that is "MIL-STD-1678 compliant" and more importantly "MIL-PRF-49291 compliant" and "MIL-PRF-85054 compliant", that's probably a really good sign that it'll do its job. The former PRF documenting perf requirements for the fiber itself and the latter PRF the cabling/sheath's corrosion and deterioration resistance.

It's the military so odds are it'll probably cost extra for that and it'll still kinda suck but it'll suck in exactly the way they promised.

TIL:

* https://www.navsea.navy.mil/Home/Warfare-Centers/NSWC-Dahlgr...

* https://landandmaritimeapps.dla.mil/programs/MilSpec/ListDoc...

Anything with “Marine” in its title, is usually 5X more expensive, but worth it.

Nothing sucks more than having the engine crap out, 150Km offshore, because your fuel injection system got corroded.

Hell, anything even close to salt water is apt to get ate. What's funny is you'll see people say they want to retire and get a beach house. No. You. Don't. Blowing sand is hard on stuff, getting in gears and moving parts. But the salt, the salt is like some alien monster that just dissolves things that flat landers would never expect. Get the smallest amount of saltwater flooding in a closet with equipment and things start to corrode away like it's an alien acid world.

Exactly. It's a very successful marketing play on MIL-SPEC:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Military_Standar...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_grade

Basically same with any company with "Patriot" or "Veteran" in the name.

It's just a weak pander to people's weak egos. Freedumb, if you will.

Tactical everything!

I’m waiting for “Titanium Sourdough” optical fibres myself.

Well those materials are verifiable at least.

My favorite are "titanium" products which are just electroplated with a layer of titanium a few atoms thick.

Not really if it is owned by Veterans. There are many veteran owned businesses and I see nothing wrong with it.

I don’t disagree but it’s not hard to understand why people think “military grade” means it’s better. “Military grade” communicates tough/durable/stress tested to a lot of people. Veteran/patriot isn’t an indicator of build quality, even if it is also pandering to a certain sensibility.

For many products it just means it's a small run from a group that may not have a lot of domain experience using materials and methods that will make the end product appear superior to buyers.

Totally understand that, I’m just talking about the difference between “patriot/veteran” and “military grade” to the average person. The latter heavily implies “quality build” while also appealing to people (mostly dudes) who want that sort of label for whatever reason, while the former is purely about values and has no implications as far as quality is concerned.

America is a country which thinks buying cheap tat from China with American Flags on is patriotic

There are some ratings, like semiconductor temperature ratings, with labels that include "military", (e.g. manufacturers may name their products, from the narrowest to widest operating temperatures, with something like: commercial, industrial, automotive, military) and "military" would indicate a better product.

On the other hand, when a product is designed and manufactured to sell to a military, it's going to be expensive, and that extra cost isn't going to quality or capability, it's going to compliance. You're more than likely paying extra to get something using some old and outdated technology, that includes paperwork to prove that it's only built using the approved old and outdated technology.

Military grade: mass produced by the lowest bidder

I only use handmade artisanal networking equipment.

Hand-beaten from Tibetan silver by buddhist monks who live in a cave in the Himalayas. You just have to make sure the chakras are aligned correctly when you've installed it.

There are plenty of things where mil spec is extremely strict and high quality. They wont be sold to consumers as they are priced accordingly

A company can not sell a product to consumers cheaper than it can sell to the federal government, and the federal government contract normally comes first. A lot of the stuff you can buy (minus restricted items), it'll just cost you.

They can't sell the same thing but they can sell something slightly different. put a different type of paint on it and you can sell for different prices.

Untrue, otherwise vendors would be doing this instead of leaving tons of money on the table.

Well, not mass produced enough.

Common mass produced products manufacturers have incentives to not mess-up too badly: recalls or warranties on such scales are a nightmare.

With military contracts, its a paid maintenance opportunity.

> Military grade: mass produced by the lowest bidder

This

In the military, military grade is a synonym for crap

"Military-grade" has a very specific meaning: it's at least 10x overpriced and painted black.

Why black? Shouldn’t it be camouflage?

Drop it in some mud

No, that would be “tactical.”

I personally look for the 1,000x overpriced space marine spec so I can get it in white.

No heresy detected in this thread.

FS will literally sell you heavy-duty Armored (e.g. thicker/stronger sheath) cable and the packet it comes in will be labelled "military grade". That's literally your scenario.

Is one supposed to send it back for a refund and order the much thinner, less-durable cable? Or is perhaps the landscape not as black-and-white as your "this is automatically snake-oil"?

But shitload of vendors won't bother and just sell you a "military grade" or, even in non-english speaking countriess, say a "MIL-SPEC Daniel Defense AR-15". They won't list every spec in detail. And they make good AR-15s (but not cheap).

Anyone who thinks the triggers listed as MIL-SPEC from, say, Geissele here:

https://geissele.com/triggers.html

aren't totally fine is out of his mind. They're amazing triggers, widely used and loved.

And they don't say which specs its passing (at least not on the main page): it's just MIL-SPEC.

As a sidenote my very best laptop passes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIL-STD-810 but most people will just say it's "military grade" or "MIL-SPEC".

Guess what? Its screen never broke overnight like the one of my MacBook M1 Air did (the infamous "bendgate").

I can bend my LG Gram's screen and it's keeps working fine. I can let it drop. Friend who sold it to me stepped on it when he woke up once.

There's a very big difference between saying: "There are shady vendors" and saying "Military specs do not exists and it's impossible for consumers to buy items passing military specifications".

Yes, there are dishonest vendors.

Yes, military specs do exist.

And, yes, it's possible for consumers to buy products passing (and even surpassing) actual military specs.

What if it's Military Grade Snake Oil?

Someone should legit retry actually selling oil made of snakes as a miracle solution to some modern problem.

The best snake oil money can buy!

If you buy a commercial product labelled "military grade", you are also buying snake oil.

"Military grade" is generally shit. It's built down to a price, manufactured the cheapest possible way, so they can get the lowest possible tender submitted. Bonus prize if the manufacturer is owned by either someone already in government, or with close ties to someone in government.

The only "military grade" devices I own are some woefully unsuccessful radios, which failed in the market because they were actually good - easy to use, reliable, and easy to repair - which made them about 5% more expensive than the cheapest option which was made by a company part-owned by the government and part-owned by someone who donates heavily to the Conservatives.

> incredibly over priced snake oil.

Military grade snake oil?

When I see "military grade" I assume overpriced $30,000 hammer

There are even military grade phone cases, whatever that means.

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