17 ms·
Goodbye non-KISS appliances
- Kluggy 3y agoWe have a fancy Samsung fridge with display. I was livid the first day I woke up and entered the kitchen and there was a full screen ad on the display greeting me pre-coffee. I vowed to never buy another fancy appliance again and took it off the WiFi network.
- zx8080 3y agoI wonder would disabling a network raises its chances to need some repairs?
- willi59549879 3y agoi don't understand why people buy smart devices. with anything smart i can't know what exactly the device is doing. plus the software will most likely stop being supported. by then it is just a potential tool to being hacked
- Kluggy 3y agoMy wife really wanted the live calendar display on the fridge, which was useful. It was on an isolated WiFi network so it couldn’t communicate with any other devices in the house, but I didn’t count on ads being served directly on a $3000 device.
- spdustin 3y agoI just replaced the condenser fan (was squealing) and the evaporator defrost heater (it wasn't working at all, leading to the coils icing over) on my 20-year-old GE fridge. I threw in some SwitchBot BLE temp sensors that I monitor with Home Assistant, with alerts set to fire if it can't hold temperature or if the defrost cycle doesn't seem to be working, as measured by the swing between the "pre-chill" before defroster heater kicks on, and the temperature/humidity rise as it works. $40 in parts rescued a fridge that my subdivision neighbors each traded up years ago the first time theirs started acting up. I already had the BLE sensors. Runs like a champ, and remains free of an IP address.
- ljf 3y agoI cannot speak for that fridge as I don't know the energy usage. But the sad fact is that often buying a brand new machine will pay for itself in only 2 or 3 years over a 'free' older fridge or freezer (at least here in the UK). I have a 'keezer' - a chest freezer I run at fridge temps to store and serve homebrew beer. Buying a new A+ rated chest freezer cost me £199 but only costs £35 a year to run. A friend scored a free 15 yo freezer from Facebook and it costs just under £100 a year to run. So he saved £200, but now is down £65 a year. It won't take long for my keezer to be significantly cheaper over a 5 year horizon. I hate to see old tech wasted, but the energy and cost savings can be significant.
- userbinator 3y agoDid he clean the condenser and replace the door seal? Dirty/clogged condensers and leaky door seals have a huge effect on efficiency. Also, if his is not a chest freezer, that's another big difference --- a chest freezer is inherently better if opened often, since the cold air stays at the bottom, whereas in an upright one, it spills out.
- ljf 3y agoYes another chest freezer - and yes that usage is pretty good for a freezer of that age - when I've tested other brewers set-ups they can be even worse (but that is often when they've clad them in wood - looks cool but stops the freezer cooling properly...) I'll get them to check it is clean, but I'll assume it is as he's pretty on top of that sort of thing.
- TuringNYC 3y agoI got an eye opener when a fridge with a 10yr parts warranty came with a $2100 labor bill to actually install the broken condensor. I'm not sure why the condensor would be built in such a way that swapping one out can cost $2100...but it was cheaper to purchase another fridge, this time with a top of the line parts and labor warranty This infuriated me greatly because of the waste, not one of money, but for the environment. I considered paying the $2100 just to avoid the environmental waste, but realized this would probably be only one in a line of upcoming repairs.
- cranium 3y agoAt first, I thought "Wow, this guy knows a bunch about fridges!" but then I realized it's not by choice. I like not having to know anything about my fridge except basic maintenance, it feels like a gift now.
- Modified3019 3y agoLate last year over the span of two months I got the privilege of learning how to diagnose and repair problems with my water heater (bad flame sensor), HVAC (feather/cruft blocking a tube), and oven (bottom element burned out). While I’m glad enough to save the money, definitely not eager to learn how to fix the fridge too.
- daxfohl 3y agoYeah the figuring it out part feels good sometimes, but since it's rarely the same thing that goes wrong each time then the learning doesn't actually help much. Hence the repair man who supposedly does stuff like this all day frequently not finding the root cause. Or if it is the same thing each time, that's equally frustrating.
- mlrtime 3y agoWell it kind of is by choice. Unless the author enjoys this type of work he could have easily bought a no-feature fridge that lasts for 10-15 years.
- msadowski 3y agoI’m about to buy all the appliances to a new place in Europe and could use some more horror stories and learn which brands to avoid. So far I’ve been told to stay away from Samsung ovens. Anyone has any regrets on appliances?
- Arbortheus 3y agoIf you can afford it, get Miele or specifically the Bosch models that are made in Germany (many lower-end Bosch models are contracted out to e.g. Turkey, and not quite as good).
- gambiting 3y agoExactly - Miele, or Bosch Series 6 or 8 are usually made in Germany with longer warranty. And Siemens(which is just rebranded bosch nowadays, usually with even better finish and longer warranty).
- ce4 3y agoThe "Bosch Siemens Hausgeräte GmbH" was founded as a joint venture in 1967 already, the company has been producing both brands from the start.
- signalToNose 3y agoBSH is fully owned by Bosch since 2014
- polskibus 3y agoSiemens is same as Bosch, incl factories. But yeah look whether an appliance was made in EU or outside.
- pcammeraat 3y agoSecond vote for Miele. They work for decades.
- 3y ago
- cfeduke 3y agoI had a Sears Admiral refrigerator that was built in the 90s which recently (three months ago) had the compressor go out. I've had the refrigerator since I purchased the house in 2001 and I have performed zero maintenance on it, so it was no surprise that the... uh... solid dust build up finally wore out the compressor fan. Though my wife and I did purchase a new refrigerator I intend to replace the compressor in the Admiral because >25 years is a good run and I expect the resurrected refrigerator [when I get around to resurrecting it] will outlast the new one. I've never hooked up water lines for ice makers for my refrigerators, including refrigerators at my other properties. Call it a hunch.
- PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y agoI purchased a separate dispenser that takes 5 gallon drums of water. I strongly prefer the extra space over the convenience of water in the fridge door. Mine's an LG, we've had it for roughly 10 years now and never had a problem with it. But we don't even use the icemaker in it (we have a separate ice maker as well).
- imjonse 3y agoAppliance engineers probably have their equivalent of "Kubernetes and SPA used for no good reason at all and now we can't focus on the actual features"
- czechdeveloper 3y agoBy now, making UI with (by now not completely) SPA frameworks specifically made for that task is just better developer experience. I won't go back to pretty much html string concation via templates. Why do people keep pretending it's better in any way is lost on me.
- eggdaft 3y agoYeah the backlash against SPAs doesn’t make any sense. Server side rendering is fine for documentation etc. but full applications don’t want to be simulated on a server, client-server makes complete sense.
- ho_schi 3y agoI don’t share this position. Webservers shall create and provide the readily HTML so browsers can render the website without JavaScript. Actually text-browsers should render it and also allow disabled persons using it without hassle. Instead SPA (or more direct JavaScript) is used to force the browser to assemble the HTML and it is slow and waste resources. Creating website which create load on the client-site is bad because we’ve power on the server dedicated for this task - not so on client. Looking back web-developers need something imperative and more direct than CGI, PHP or JSP. The initial backslash against JS was right. I sadly shipped JS. When a powerful application is needed? Make a native application and use an appropriate toolkit (Gtk or QT).
- eggdaft 3y agoI agree you’re right in that the current tech stack is bad. But the answer is to fix that, and I think (very) slowly we will. JS was a terrible language but nowadays it is pretty good in some areas, passable in others, with some horror shows left in. The ecosystem and tooling are the real problems. I don’t understand why these issues haven’t been addressed by Google et al. Native applications are just so much more expensive to develop and maintain. Given the nuances of different platforms, it’s also very difficult to keep different versions in sync. People expect collaboration as table stakes, which makes that task even harder. I agree accessibility is a problem. Ironically the Java applet had the right idea, as a compromise between our positions, but wrong time and maybe wrong language? Its Swiss cheese security didn’t help either.
- Animats 3y agoAn error occurred: API rate limit exceeded for willbush/blog. Sign in to increase the rate limit Unsure if that is a joke or a real error message.
- joatmon-snoo 3y agoPretty sure it’s a real error message. I believe it’s a comment system implemented by piggybacking onto GitHub issues, and GH API rate limiting can get aggressive fast.
- willbush 3y agoThink I'm just going to disable it. I haven't had a single person use it outside of me to test it.
- kmoser 3y agoMy parents have a clothes drier from the 1970s and a fridge from the 1990s. They have needed repairs, but they were infrequent and not so costly as to necessitate buying a new unit. My A/C is only four years old and the maintenance guy is telling me one of the fans is drawing too much power and will need to be replaced soon. Despite the part being free under warranty, they want $600 to replace it. This seems to be standard in the industry. Same for the capacitor: the part is only $17 but the authorized service companies want several hundred dollars to replace it, a job that should only take 15 minutes. It's almost as if they know they have us over a barrel.
- rentseekingb 3y agoThis frustrates me to no end. Nearly every industry feels like a scam now. Outright lying to customers, over-charging them. Heck, I get it, they’re a business and need to make money. But there are reasonable limits.
- jamiek88 3y agoAnything that doesn’t involve coolant bleeding can easily be done yourself or by a handy pal via the university of YouTube.
- rentseekingb 3y ago1000x this. I’ve started to learn how to do everything myself via YouTube. Am I an expert? Heck no. Can I do a dang reasonable job for easily 1/10th the cost? Sure seems to be true.
- nicbou 3y agoIt's not just the cost, but the hassle of booking someone else to fix your stuff. The same is true with all self-repairs.
- cqqxo4zV46cp 3y agoYep. I’ve really had to unfortunately that there are so many things that are very hard to just “throw money at”, unless it’s A LOT of money. Just wrangling someone to come and fix my…whatever…can easily take hours and hours of work, no matter what I’m willing to pay.
- brodsky 3y agoWhen we upgraded our appliances, the "smart" or "wifi-enabled" ones were specifically avoided like the plague. "Dumb" appliances - especially fridges, for some reason - are becoming hard to come by, but they do exist. Electrolux, KitchenAid, even LG all make some no-frills models that can save both money and frustration. Hopefully those companies continue serving the "luddite techie" market.
- Brian_K_White 3y agoWatch out for the LG "linear compressor", and it's in other brands too like Kenmore I think it was. Even without brains, new appliances are shit.
- krasin 3y agoRelated: LG Settles Class-Action Lawsuit Over Refrigerator Compressors, https://www.consumerreports.org/lawsuits-settlements/lg-settles-class-action-lawsuit-over-refrigerator-compressors/ https://www.consumerreports.org/lawsuits-settlements/lg-sett...
- arter4 3y agoYes, I agree. I'm not a luddite per se - heck, I make a living out of making stuff talk to one another on a network. But I don't get the appeal, from a customer standpoint, of having all physical objects talk to you or to the Internet. Like, why? I get it when it comes to alarm systems. Being able to get a notification when someone breaks in is nice, because the alarm system is mostly doing its job when you're not at home. It makes sense. What it does not make sense, in my humble opinion, is pretty much everything else. Why do I need voice activated lights, outside of a cool party trick ("hey, I can turn the lights on with my voice")? Why should a vacuum cleaner, even if a robot one, be able to upload a picture of a woman on the toilet to the Internet (which has actually happened)? Why should the fridge talk to you? Ironically, this kind of stuff might become less and less appealing with remote working. If you're at home anyway, can't you just stand up and look at the fridge or turn that light on?
- 3y ago
- daeaeae 3y agoI have only bought small things like a kettle since the "smartening" of household items started, and every time it feels like navigating a mine field of planned obscolescence. But I guess it is good motivation to give my current old and trusty appliances more TLC.
- dangus 3y agoIt sounds more like OP didn’t do research on which brands and models are good/reliable. On top of that, with scratch and dent, you do get what you pay for at some point. If an appliance is visibly damaged you don’t know what happened to it: could have been dropped, hit with a truck, returned due to problems/abuse, etc. When physical damage is involved you don’t know if it can exacerbate a design weakness, loosen some screws, whatever you might dream up. I get it, a lot of appliances are cheap shit that aren’t “built like they used to.” But also, nobody twisted OP’s arm to buy a fridge with an LCD touch screen. Here’s another thing: good, built-to-last-decades appliances exist and just cost a lot because that’s what they cost to produce. We can’t really blame appliance manufacturers for either the decline of American purchasing power and/or the change in consumer preferences toward shopping on price and nothing else. You can buy a tank of a washing machine like a Speed Queen but you also get into it knowing you’re paying three or four times the cost of an equivalent shit box. And here’s the thing, if the shit box goes for 6 years without repair/replacement and the Speed Queen lasts 20, congratulations, the shit box wins on TCO. On top of that, your money can sit in your bank account or be used for something else instead of being paid up front for the appliance. It’s the same deal with refrigerators like Sub-Zero. I talked to an appliance technician who told me all the luxury brands are less reliable, but I think the more accurate statement is that customers don’t call for repairs and blow money on labor costs for their cheap refrigerators, they just buy a new one. When you look at Sub-Zero and similar offerings, they mostly eschew gimmicks, often not even bothering with a water dispenser and going with a basic ice machine instead. They’re not universally good, because there are shit brands in that space too (like Viking), but you’ve got a lot more quality options at that price point. I think one solution to the situation of disposable goods might be a disposal tax that the manufacturer and customer share half and half. Or, improve warranty laws for product categories that should last longer. Nobody’s going to make a shitty fridge if you make a 10 year warranty mandatory.
- karaterobot 3y agoThis was my takeaway from the article as well. The author bought a cheap refrigerator, then bought another cheap refrigerator when it broke. He's acting like durability is what he cares about the most, but it sure seems like price is the variable he's optimizing for, with predictable results.
- Solortho 3y agoIn France, we have a name for French-door fridges, it's American fridges...
- ponector 3y agoAs French fries, which actually should be Belgian...
- fmajid 3y agoNope: https://www.lefigaro.fr/langue-francaise/actu-des-mots/2018/08/01/37002-20180801ARTFIG00017-non-les-frites-ne-sont-pas-belges.php https://www.lefigaro.fr/langue-francaise/actu-des-mots/2018/...
- NullPrefix 3y agoI enjoy American food - pizza is my favorite and Chinese would be the next best thing
- bee_rider 3y agoAmerican food is fun, we took everybody else’s food and then deep fried it. How could someone not enjoy it, right?
- saiya-jin 3y agoWhat you call 'American pizza' is basically just Italian focaccia with just more stuff on top, with very thick bland crust. Literally nobody in Europe eats pizza in such a form, not in restaurants at least, and for Italians living in Italy that would be a proper insult. Then in my experience there is simply too much on top of it, especially too much cheese, so 1/2 of US pizza is way more filling and has tons of calories compared to full one down here. I am not commenting on taste which may end up more than fine, just looks. But that thick crust adds tons of empty sugar calories to the food that originally doesn't have so much.
- computator 3y ago> the combustion engine and hybrid cars are surprisingly reliable The OP brings up an interesting contradiction: appliances have become less reliable but cars have become more reliable. Cars have become worse in some of the same areas as appliances, like the use of touch screens instead of physical controls, but cars have nevertheless become more mechanically reliable. What would explain this opposite trend?
- smt88 3y agoCars are highly regulated.
- jfim 3y agoThere's a lemon laws for cars in many places, where if it breaks too much you can just return it to dealership for a refund. No such thing for appliances, unfortunately.
- staticautomatic 3y agoIn CA you can use the lemon law for other stuff. I got the cost of a laptop back that way in small claims court.
- bryanrasmussen 3y agoWe bought a new stove about 6 years ago, basically had to get induction stove top because that was all that was available. I bought one of the more expensive ones. That stove top broke after a couple months, but luckily we're in Denmark where the warranty is a year, and when something gets repaired like that it's also under warranty for a year (actually sometimes more). We got that stove top replaced about every 4-6 months for 4 years until finally they did a good enough job that it lasted. The repairman said yeah sometimes it's just like that, ha ha. No monetary cost but every few months you can't cook for a week. Luckily I also bought a portable non-induction stove with two plates which we use whenever the main stove has problems.
- ThePowerOfFuet 3y ago
- aartav 3y agoFor the most part I agree with this, over engineered feature creep is really just horrible stuff. I never need a fridge with wifi and I absolutely swear that that anything more than auto-off is a waste in a coffee machine. But I think the "Other appliance anecdotes" part suggests that the author has very different requirements than I do. I grew up without a garbage disposal, but its a huge convenience to have one. Also I've had top loader washing machines that don't have easy access to the trap, gimme easy access to the trap ANY DAY and I don't care how its loaded.
- neilv 3y agoOn the garbage disposal, I've heard that water treatment facility managers hate them (or at least one does), because it encourages people to put through food waste. I've also heard landlords say garbage disposals are a net-negative for maintenance visits: disposal-related problems are more costly than the occasional clog because someone put down something the disposal would've stopped. Also, in multi-tenant buildings, disposals can be a nightmare. Too many people with varying folk wisdom of what's good to put down it. Some people create blockages for the entire stack or more, which ends up causing powered backflows of nasty wastewater into some units. And then what eventually gets snaked out of the drain, and dragged across their kitchens... mere bleach will never get that sufficiently clean. (Even after 3 of these kitchen-apocalypse episodes, you just can't get some people to understand that they can't keep grinding orange peels in their disposal to freshen the air, even when the rot of previous orange peels in the increasing blockage they created might be the reason they want to freshen the air now.) I try to tell people that pretty much only water and dish soap should go down the drain, and that one of those few-dollar mesh drain strainers is a great tool to help follow this rule. (Also, a container for collecting most of the grease/oil that would otherwise go down the drain.)
- computator 3y ago> garbage disposal ... encourages people to put through food waste That's like saying bicycles encourage people to ride bicycles. It's supposed to encourage it. That's the literal purpose of a garbage disposal unit: "a device that shreds food waste into pieces small enough—generally less than 2 mm (0.079 in) in diameter—to pass through plumbing."[1] > Some people create blockages for the entire stack or more I don't know how that could happen since if you put something into a garbage disposal unit that can't be shredded to tiny particles, then it's the garbage disposal unit itself that will get clogged, not the pipes or drains. Whatever gets through the garbage disposal unit is going to be less than 2mm in size, and generally much smaller and liquified. If you're referring to oil or grease buildup in pipes, that is irrelevant to the use of a garbage disposal unit since people can and do pour oil or grease down the drain whether they have a garbage disposal unit or not. In my opinion, a garbage disposal unit is an under-appreciated and supremely useful kitchen appliance, and extremely environmentally friendly (see the brief Wikipedia explanation[2]). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_disposal_unit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_disposal_unit [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_disposal_unit#Rationale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_disposal_unit#Rational...
- captainkrtek 3y agoWhen I bought my house I also asked to keep the old (circa early 2000) appliances. They are stupid simple, reliable, and have no extra features or wifi. Meanwhile the last place I rented had a brand new fridge that broke twice in 6 months..
- starkparker 3y agoBought a dumb white top-freezer Whirlpool fridge 11 years ago (WRT359). No water dispenser, no ice maker, not even a light in the freezer; temperature and airflow controls were just knobs. The freezer drain line ran inside the back panel and was a PITA to clean, and the butter compartment lid squeaked so loudly that it was physically painful, but otherwise it was solid. Had no issues until the plastic drain pan cracked while moving the fridge to redo the floors. Rather than deal with the repair (a replacement drip tray alone was $120 shipped) we sold it to an appliance flipper and put the money toward a new one. I was bummed, but when the buyer came to haul off the old one he was pleasantly surprised that it had made it a decade mostly intact. Replaced it with a dumb white top-freezer Whirlpool fridge (WRT318). Both were about the same price, inflation adjusted, when new (~$650 from Lowe's). It was in stock and installed the next day. Only tech "upgrade" in the new fridge is a membrane button to control the fridge temperature instead of a knob. When my wife wanted a touchscreen in the kitchen so she could queue up Spotify, I got a refurb last-gen Lenovo Duet chromebook/tablet for $120. The tablet back has a strong magnet for the cover that made it perfect for slapping onto the side of the fridge. We put a pair of used Kantos on top of the fridge and charge the tablet off its USB port; Google Keep also handles the shopping list, Google Voice on functions as our backup phone. 100% of our "smart appliance" needs done and dusted.
- sleepingreset 3y ago[dead]
- nolist_policy 3y agoPlus that Duet chromebook tablet gets updates till 2030, which is over and beyond the update lifecycle you'll get for any smart appliance.
- gmerc 3y agoCompanies creating quality are stupid. Making devices that break sells much better and consumers outside of Japan are stupid/overwhelmed/feature dazzled enough they don't really care. Also, everyone (outside japan) does it, so they don't have a choice. Capitalism in action
- rglullis 3y agoI do not consider myself a Luddite, but the more I hear stories like that the more I feel validated in my "do not rely on anything that I can not fix it myself" principle. We are past the point where you can not buy a "dumb TV" anymore or to do so you need to pay an absurd premium. The next in line are our home appliances. Your fridge, your vacuum cleaner, your clothes iron... everything will be built in a way that makes you dependent on the vendor. I know it is easy and tempting to blame "late-stage capitalism" and corporations' endless appetite for growth bringing up Planned Obsolescence, but have we really made ourselves so helpless that we are unable to say "no, I refuse to accept this crap you are offering me"?
- finaard 3y agoAlmost 10 years ago - when I bought our current 50" TV - one reason was that large computer screens were unaffordable, bad to look at from angles, or both. I recently checked, and seems nowadays you'd be able to get decently large 4k-screens at similar cost than a TV. Just add a PC or whatever media players you want.
- userbinator 3y agoAll my appliances are mid-century or older. Parts are simple and easily fabricated if necessary. Having a restored 85-year-old refrigerator (compressor and refrigerant still original) in active use, it's amazing how efficient it actually is. It's manual defrost, but doesn't need defrosting all that often either. Reading about the failing condenser fan and compressor reminded me of these items, worth watching again: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32462954 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32462954 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20856036 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20856036
- ThePowerOfFuet 3y ago> All my appliances are mid-century or older. Parts are simple and easily fabricated if necessary. Having a restored 85-year-old refrigerator (compressor and refrigerant still original) in active use, it's amazing how efficient it actually is. I don't think the word efficient means what you think it means. Have you ever measured their power consumption?
- userbinator 3y agoA little less than 300kWh/year. For a 9cft fridge, some fancy new ones use even more than that.
- sneed_chucker 3y agoYou're seriously using a refrigerator from the 1930s?
- userbinator 3y ago1938 Frigidaire. Restored with new door gasket and insulation. Apparently, I'm not the only one (mine looks cleaner than this, and is a bigger model): https://www.reddit.com/r/BuyItForLife/comments/13obhfp/my_grandpas_85yo_frigidaire_from_1938_still_works/ https://www.reddit.com/r/BuyItForLife/comments/13obhfp/my_gr...
- sircastor 3y agoI've done more than my fair share of washer repair over the years. I have benefited from Whirlpool reusing the same basic design in a half-a-dozen brands and 40 years. There are some minor differences in the last washer we had and the current one, but it's basically the same wash basin, the same agitator, the same gearing system. I've watched enough videos on youtube that have taught me the ins and outs of that machine. I don't want it to have any more features. I just hope they don't stop making parts for it. My oven on the other hand - it's a GE Cafe slide-in dual-oven. I'm very happy with it. And I know how much people here rail against it, but I like being able to preheat it, turn it off remotely. Of course, baking is a hobby for me, so I wanted the extra oven.
- acd 3y agoI had the same experiance after a automated home espresso coffee machine broke down. I compared many machines to that of a mocca spanish/italian espresso maker. Simple design as simple can be. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moka_pot https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moka_pot Advocate US navy KISS design principle. Are a smart phone smart when it distracts you from close ones? Smart devices can get hacked Dumb devices much harder. Which is more secure old CRT or new smart tv? Same goes for IT shiny new complicated thing or simple kiss thing.
- Aryth 3y agoI wonder where the "French door" moniker came from. Lived in France my whole life and never encountered one.
- Aryth 3y agoI wonder where the "French door" moniker comes from. Lived in France my whole life and never saw one there.
- cassepipe 3y agoIt's been addressed somewhere else in the comments. Search the page and you will find a the answer
- JimDabell 3y agoThis is something I’ve specifically noticed in relation to televisions. Televisions used to be primarily hardware-driven. The functions worked reliably even if they were limited. Then things changed so that televisions are now primarily software-driven, but the software still seems to be written by developers working in the hardware industry, not the software industry. They have terrible quality problems. Before, it didn’t matter because the feature set was so limited that software bugs were make or break. If you can’t decode a signal or change a channel, it’s not getting shipped. But now, where there’s an entire OS, GUI, applications, network access, etc.? Now there are vast areas where a million mistakes can be made and shipped. The software industry is (relatively) well-equipped to deal with this. The hardware industry is not. So they ship garbage quality over and over again. That’s not even covering the perverse incentives vendors have to make their products cheaper and make up for it with spying, adverts, etc. That just compounds the problem.
- mosselman 3y agoI first felt impressed by the note taking, but the more I read, the more I felt it is not very keeping it simple. Thinking back in some shitty fridges we’ve had, I have a good feeling about which ones were shit and which were good. I don’t need to keep notes on this. For other parts of life this is great though: keeping track of what is going one with some friends I don’t often see or distant relatives. Impressive.
- willbush 3y agoI'm basically this guy once I sit down at the computer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urcL86UpqZc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urcL86UpqZc So I've invested more times in Emacs than I'll probably ever get back in timing savings from ripgrep'ing through my notes. However, they're nice to have when I need them.
- _kb 3y agoThe descent into feature laden, landfill destined shite is a seemingly universal trend. It's the same across appliances, TV's, computers and wider 'consumer tech' and extends to cars, footwear, and (at least in Australia) homes. Minmax'ing cost and marketable shiny features over literally every measure of quality, usability, repairability, and longevity is abhorrent. It's an accelerating arms race to the bottom. I can only hope we reach point where the market segments and opens space (with sufficient demand) so that more people and companies can focus on making sane, well designed, simple things again.
- NullPrefix 3y agoTried reading the article, but couldn't figure out what's the difference between side by side and french style. Tried looking online but it didn't help me either
- pimlottc 3y agoSee this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39238010#39238589 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39238010#39238589 tl;dr: side-by-side = one side freezer, one side fridge. french door = freezer on bottom, fridge on top with two doors
- NullPrefix 3y agothanks
- riffraff 3y agoAre french door fridges "not simple"? I've had one for ten years and it didn't have any issues, and I didn't buy a premium model either (no ice machine on the top door tho). But a friend of mine has a new one and it has the issues of the heat exchanger freezing due to bad insulation or something. I feel it's not that these things are very complicated, as much as the fact that it's a market for lemons.
- issung 3y agoHe seems to note that the fridge is french-door a hell of a lot, does this actually impact the cooling mechanics, making them more complicated and prone to break? Or is it just a coincidence all of the overly complicated fridges happen to be french door because they look "fancier"? Fridge experts please weigh in.
- berkes 3y agoI've never owned a refrigerator with odor removing, ice makers, or double doors. Is all this fancy stuff typical American? Because over here, northern Europe, only the high end refrigerators have ice makers, for example. Why would one ever want that?
- omnicognate 3y agoMy fridge craps ice and I never again want one that doesn't. It eliminates faffing with trays/bags (or buying the stuff) and ensures you'll never go to make a G&T and discover, horror of horrors, you're out of ice. I need my fridge to connect to the internet about as much as I need my oven to operate as a fax machine, though. (Also Northern Europe btw.)
- berkes 3y agoThe two reasons I never want an ice-dispenser, is that one, it's rediculously expensive. I would never pay hundreds of euro's for a standalone machine that makes ice: for that price I'll gladly keep fiddling with trays in the freezer or just drink my drinks without ice. Why pay that markup when it's embedded? And second, it's the single point of failure of the entire fridge. Everything else, from the rubbers to the pump will last longer and be easily repairable. I'm convinced it's mainly there because producers of fridges know it obsoletes the entire fridge faster. That without these fragile "addons" the machine might just last for years or decades. During which this family does not buy a new one.
- omnicognate 3y agoWhy pay the markup? Because I'm willing to pay it for the benefits it provides. Not everybody values things the same. You prefer to save the money, I prefer not to drink iceless G&Ts like some sort of savage. Economics at work. It's not an SPF as the rest of the fridge doesn't rely on it to operate. Ours broke down last year (after about 14 years of continuous operation in a hard water area). The fridge continued to work fine and after about a month we had the ice maker replaced.
- sunpazed 3y agoAfter our fancy fridge died, we purchased a “dumb” Mitsubishi Electric WX Series fridge. No LCD panels, no wifi, no time. It’s tiny at only 470L, however it’s designed for maximum storage in small Japanese apartments, so we can fit heaps of groceries and frozens. It also has a chilled compartment specifically for sushi meat! Also, 10 year warranty on all parts.
- zvmaz 3y agoWhenever I have to buy a microwave oven, I always choose the ones with the simplest user interface possible: Two knobs, one for the timer, one for the intensity. They have served my parents and myself well.
- tussa 3y agoAh good old planned obsolescence. Some people argue it's just incompetence, not PO. But if you've been in the business of making the same type of hardware/appliances for more than a few years then it's definitely planned obsolescence.
- zubairq 3y agoGood article on devices that are simple to use. I definitely think twice when I see appliances that need Wi-Fi or an app to work
- coldtea 3y agoThe title should have Kiss capitalized as KISS
- sys_64738 3y agoWidgets like fridges need to be minimalist as the manufacturers are all incompetent. Less tech means less things to break. No French doors and no ice makers. Always problems right there. The only thing you guarantee with a fridge is more hassle as the complexity of its design increases. These things are NOT built for reliability but are designed as the original subscription model: regular repairs.
- mgaunard 3y agoThe only appliances I ever had that failed on me are those that I inherited from a previous owner or tenant. Having a good reliable appliance is just a matter of buying good stuff and caring for it properly.
- pfdietz 3y agoThe Internet of Things I Won't Buy.
- revscat 3y agoEnshitification of all the things, thanks to growth-driven product decisions. There are self-destructive aspects of capitalism that are endemic to it.
- RajT88 3y agoMy fridge is not pretty, but it has been running for 20 years straight with the only hiccups being power outages. I really do not expect that a newer fridge will last as long. I may try and find something in brushed aluminum off Craigslist which has been sitting in someone's garage since 2000 when this one eventually goes. I have an aunt who has had a fridge running without issues since about 1962. It is all white ceramic over stainless steel and a thing of beauty. This is the kind of product engineering modern companies seek to avoid. I seem to recall a Heinlein novel about inter-dimensional travelers who wanted to take over the world by destroying the economy. The first thing they did was found companies which made products which never wore out (razors and cars).
- grogenaut 3y agoThere are still simple models. I got a whirlpool about 2 years back. All it has is a water dispenser and an ice maker on the inside. Other than that it's the same as my late 80s Frigidaire. Still seems to be mostly mechanical. It's a lot more efficient than my old fridge though and a lot bigger. The old one had issues with it's design and defrosting as well that the new one has fixed esp being a lower cold drawere model vs the old one with freezer on top. I can't block the vents on the new one and they can't freeze up, but it does use a blower. The old one could ice over the vent and I had to modify it with a extra passive heating wire to keep it from freezing up.
- kd913 3y agoThey may run, but the power consumption your old fridge freezers are wasting would cover multiple brand new fridges many times over. Anything over 10 years really should be replaced. A bit like leds vs incandescent at this point time. Especially problematic given a fridge freezer runs 24/7 and is the largest contributor to your energy bills. Also isn’t this a classic example of old things that survive are likely more expensive and well made. However, the cheap stuff back then likely got replaced sooner. Probably a similar thing applies where an expensive modern fridge will last ages too.
- madaxe_again 3y agoThe longevity and the power use are connected. Modern appliances use a very low viscosity oil in the compressor pump, and as a result use less power, but also wear faster. The old ones use a much more viscous oil which gives decades of use at the expense of higher power consumption.
- nickt 3y agoIt could be worse. At least the spares aren’t VIN-locked (yet).
- zbrozek 3y agoIt's increasingly difficult to get high-end performance with a simple device with a good user interface. Incidentally, I happen to have almost the same refrigerator as the author (same thing, but without the hot water dispenser). My only failure so far has been the condenser fan after seven years of operation. It was clearly an electronic failure of the onboard motor controller, which honestly has no excuse to fail. I also have a more-recent Kitchenaid 48-inch-wide side-by-side purchased in 2020. It's a remarkably simple appliance given the year of manufacture. Yet the interior lighting is horribly unreliable. The freezer killed three lighting modules in its first three years. They inevitably go high impedance, usually emitting zero light. One of the three was still emitting a tiny amount of light post-failure. The lights are all in series, so when one fails the entire chamber goes dark. I've even had one of the replacement lighting modules fail already. This component is clearly flawed and I'm tempted to design my own replacement.
- mlrtime 3y ago> It's increasingly difficult to get high-end performance with a simple device with a good user interface. It's actually not at all, but people [in general, not here] want Cheap + Features. There are expensive "prosumer/consumer" level no-feature refrigerators but people don't want to pay for them.
- alwa 3y agoAre there particular brands or manufacturers that you look to for this quality, or do you look more to the price or “commercial-grade” positioning as a signal?
- mlrtime 3y agoYou need to do your research. Because a manufacturer/brand can make one product (sometimes just one item in a lineup) very well, but the rest of the products not so much. So a well designed kitchen with "prosumer" appliances will be a mix/match from a bunch of different brands. I've stated earlier here that I've had Sub Zero refrigerators last 10-15+ years with mostly no maintenance, however you will spend around $7k at the low end. For kitchen appliances talk to chefs who work with these brands daily or read around their forums. Most people don't want to do this or will vote with their wallet by buying something cheap that needs replacing in ~5 years.
- em3rgent0rdr 3y agoIf you want to keep it simple, don't even bother with filtered water and just drink out of the tap. It is safe in the developed world. If you are concerned about germs, which can get through the filter anyway, you should boil the water instead.
- beebeepka 3y agoi don't want my water to have metal taste, so i use filters. if you care about germs, it's easier to drop some silver in the water. boiling uses too much energy
- mlrtime 3y agoThe problem isn't safety , but taste. I'm 100% onboard and don't have any problems drinking tap [in the US]. However, most people now base how water tastes from bottled water. So the preference at home is to not drink off the tap.
- brabel 3y agoThe taste depends on the quality of water and what sort of chemicals they deliberately put in the water to keep it "safe" for human consumption. Here in Sweden and many other European countries, the tap water is indistinguishable from bottled water.
- bluedays 3y agoI live in an area with high levels of PFAS in the water, so this isn't always true.
- SteveNuts 3y agoI’d be shocked if home appliance filters are capable of filtering PFAS anyways.
- _dark_matter_ 3y agoRO definitely does. Other filters can as well, but maybe not as well. https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/14/health/pfas-water-filters-wellness/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/14/health/pfas-water-filters-wel...
- hprotagonist 3y agothe more this goes on the more i think i should buy home goods at restaurant suppliers. https://www.webstaurantstore.com/avantco-a-23r-hc-29-solid-door-reach-in-refrigerator/178A23RHC.html https://www.webstaurantstore.com/avantco-a-23r-hc-29-solid-d... looks great!
- drsopp 3y agoProbably noisy.
- speed_spread 3y ago...and power inefficient. The metrics are just not the same as those for home use. Also, like military hardware, industrial appliances rely on a long chain of logistics to keep going. They generally will however degrade more gracefully and be easier to maintain - because they're designed to be maintained.
- HumblyTossed 3y agoHow long until we can’t get ice because we let our water filter subscription lapse? I feel like that’s where we’re headed. Gotta get that MRR.
- jvolkman 3y agoI wish it was as easy as continued payment. I can't get ice out of my GE Cafe unless I hit it with a hair dryer every two weeks.
- fredsmith219 3y agoWe had similar problems with a Samsung fridge and the same solution. And I won’t buy an another Samsung product again.
- bell-cot 3y agoRadical Idea: "Landfill" taxes on appliances. Manufacturers of basic, last-forever stuff pay ~0%. Manufacturers of breakdown-o-matic junk can end up paying 100%. And the ability to pay has to be backed by tightly-regulated insurance policies - so CrapCo can't just vanish into corporate shell games or bankruptcy when the tax man comes knocking.
- Nifty3929 3y agoIt's very fun to get angry at appliance makers - but if they actually made the appliances that we think they should, they would go broke because nobody (except a few of us) would buy them. This is how these newer "smart" appliances started taking over in the first place. As evidence, check out some of the manufacturers that do make higher-quality dumb appliances, like Subzero and Speed Queen and notice how little consumer market share they have. Of course they are more expensive, but that's where the supply and demand curve cross. But where people like business owners WILL pay more for quality and longevity, they do have a major share of the commercial market.
- jfengel 3y agoI suspect the manufacturers get stuck in the race to the bottom. Customers want to spend as little as possible, but that makes it hard to choose one low-end device over the other. So they add features that cost very little but attract attention -- even if they make the actual experience worse.
- Nifty3929 3y agoYes, I think this is exactly it.
- ben_w 3y agoThat sounds like an argument in favour of[0] centralised planned manufacturing — we can't get good stuff, because short-lived shiny products outcompete boring high quality products. [0] this doesn't mean it's a sufficient, let alone universally applicable, argument in favour; I'm well aware of many examples of central planning failures.
- switch007 3y agoRight. People seem to not want inflation to apply to appliances. E.g. a decent toaster in 1984 in the UK was about £18. That's £72 now. Only posh people spend £72 on a toaster. Most people I imagine want to pay no more than £40. Microwaves were around £200. That's £805 now. Nobody is spending £800 on a microwave.
- nytesky 3y agoThe old Kenmore was probably built by Whirlpool in a US factory. GE cafe is a rebranded Haier fridge from a Chinese factory. We bought a Samsung (would have preferred LG) fridge 4 years ago and have not needed a single repair. But it is pretty bare bones — French door and in freezer ice maker — no water dispenser or door controls.
- alwa 3y agoOne of the happier things I’ve done for myself lately, at the advice of this forum, was to get a rock-solid, dumb, black-and-white Brother laser printer. It sits there and just does its job and I never have to think about it. Does anyone have any tips as to the white-goods equivalents? Fridge, freezer, laundry machines, that kind of thing?
- cmiller1 3y agoA commercial fridge and a chest freezer.
- EasyMark 3y agoI bought a chest freezer and regretted it. Not because it failed but because it's too easy to bury stuff. Sold it to a buddy after 3 years for 1/3 the original cost. He's still using it, but he's a hunter/fisherman, going on 10 years now.
- EasyMark 3y agobuy the simplest devices you can. I believe whirlpool still makes some models in the USA. Evidently (according to reddit) never buy a Samsung or LG kitchen appliance. Whateve r you do get online (reddit and other places) and look for the specific model you're looking at, never buy on a whim, do research. You can eat out for a couple nights if the fridge goes.
- taude 3y agoI had an LG refrigerator that was a nightmare. I've had better luck since upgrading to a Bosche. I second Whirlpool, though, when I remodeled, I donated my working whirlpool washer and dryer that I inherited that was from circa 1980 or so....
- the_snooze 3y agoExactly, simple is good. Software is not simple. Internet-connected software is definitely not simple. If you want anything to work reliably long-term, avoid devices with remote dependencies that the manufacturer will deprecate as soon as they get bored of maintaining them. Anything you want to last more than 5 years should be able to work completely offline.
- syntaxing 3y agoI don't quite understand why the author didn't stick with with Maytag since his washer is still going strong? My family owned a couple of Maytags growing up and I thought it was a budget brand. But recently, I used the Maytag "commercial" washer, dryer, and dishwasher. I was really impressed and follows the KISS mentality closely. No frills, just works.
- Dig1t 3y agoWRT washers/dryers it makes more sense to buy a refurbished one from Craigslist. There are folks who buy and fix old units as a side hustle and the ones I’ve bought from them are wayyy cheaper and run so much better than any newer unit I’ve owned.
- 1auralynn 3y agoYeah my current washing machine is a refurbished old school top loader. Easy to install, wash cycle is 45 min, gets clothes super clean. It's definitely not water efficient but at least it doesn't take 3 hours to actually clean your clothes. Who's got time for that? I can get 6 loads of laundry done leisurely on a Sunday.
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- WaitWaitWha 3y agoLet me add my gripe to over-automation. Ceiling fans that can only be controlled using a remote. No way to wire at switch. I am very much into local home automation, that is where no internet connection is required or allowed (HomeAssistant anyone?). One thing I always watch out for is the automation must allow manual interaction. These fans have no pull chains, or switches when the remote breaks or more likely get lost.
- gangstead 3y agoI'm in the process of replacing the remote+canopy module in my hands with Lutron controls. With those you can control from both the wall and the remote.
- bpye 3y agoI am also a proponent of this idea. I bought a Sharp R21LCF microwave last year - it’s a commercial microwave and the single control is a dial to set the time. It’s great!
- ltbarcly3 3y agoBuy appliances at costco, max out the extended warranty. You get 5 or 6 years of warranty. Some devices will last 20 years, others will fail multiple times under warranty, and eventually be replaced as a lemon, under warranty. It gets you out of the bathtub curve and you don't have to have a part time job repairing appliances.
- BooneJS 3y agoTimely read; we’re in the process of replacing our $12k Thermador refrigerator 4 years after we bought it, and 6 months and a dozen trips by the repair guy.
- killthebuddha 3y agoRelated, thinking out loud: Why is the following timeline counterfactual (as far as I know) for basically all household appliances: 1. it was invented 2. it was commercialized 3. some decades of varying modes of specialization, advancement, innovation 4. reach technological maturity/saturation 5. open source designs with idiot-proof manuals emerge 6. everyone uses the open source versions 7. maybe a freelancer market emerges 8. it's no longer commercially viable 9. it becomes a near-zero-cost improvement on the baseline human condition 10. focus on new technology The hopeful view (IMO) is that we're just at a point historically where things like washing machines and refrigerators are still at step 4 and people like me are starting to wonder why we're not further down the road? In 10-20 years maybe we'll be at 6 or 7? The cynical view (IMO) is that the capitalist system operates by pulling a bait and switch on the average consumer. As technology becomes commercially viable, we use the slack it creates to pump everyone full of skittles and pretty little liars and then sell refrigerator-television-vending-machine appliances until the Decadent Society collapses under its own weight. Maybe a more moderate view (IMO) is that it's naive to think that everyone could possibly have the time or desire to maintain their own refrigerators? FWIW My take on this particular view is that we should be trying to develop a society where it's not naive, where the average human stands on top of centuries of innovation rather than cocooned inside of it. /idk
- redsoundbanner 3y ago[flagged]
- ongytenes 3y agoI have a Whirldpool that quits cooling about every three years. I've fixed it each time. The problem is a inverter/frequency shifter keeps burning out. The compressor, an Embraco, is a 230 vac, 3 phase requires a inverter to convert 120VAC single phase to three phase 230VAC. The inverter does double duty as a frequency shifter to control the speed of the compressor while keeping the voltage constant. After the third time it burned out I plugged the refrigerator into a large surge protector. It has since died again. The other refrigerator from the early 90s is still working without any problems. The amount of energy the three phase compressor saved was more than canceled out by the cost of the parts to repair it
- steve-atx-7600 3y agoI am only on my first fridge from 2014. It’s a Samsung French door with freezer on bottom. I’ve replaced the mother board, the ice maker, applied silicone sealant to the ice maker housing, and installed a drain heater in the main coil compartment to augment the defrost heater (saw this on you tube to prevent ice over). After all this, it’s been working fine for a couple years. Hope I don’t have to buy another fridge for a long time.
- astrostl 3y agoOur ancient basement fridge died. We replaced it with a Best Buy Insignia SKU 6472692. It's currently $500, and we paid $550 plus a bit more to take away the old one. Its primary features include having two doors, staying cold on the bottom, and staying really cold on the top. We love it.
- conductr 3y agoMy first home (~2010) had no fridge so I bought a new Samsung it was about $3k, nothing smart about it, it just looked nice and had a freezer at bottom and an ice dispenser on the door. Within the next 3-5 years I had spent another $3-5k on repairs and eventual replacement with another similar looking/capable fridge by another similar manufacturer. It followed same similar timeline to its end. The ROI and reduced hassle factor of just buying a Subzero made sense for me on the third fridge. I know several people that have 30 year old ones that just don’t fail. So far so good but we’ll see how it lasts.
- ploxiln 3y agoIce dispenser in the door is apparently a huge risk factor for fridge failure. The ice making machinery either being in the non-frozen section, and/or having some mechanical components passing through the insulating door, makes it struggle. People love it, but bad idea. The fridge that was in my house when I bought it (recently) has an ice maker fully contained in the freezer at the bottom, you have to open the freezer section fully to get at it. Apparently that can work fine. Just some tips for the future :)
- conductr 3y agoYeah I agree, when I bought the subzero they didn’t even offer ice in the door on any models. Likely to maintain their reputation of low maintenance Unfortunately in my house the kitchen appliances are on display and so “need” to look nice. If I were to build a custom house, I’d just hide all the appliances and buy the $500 basic white fridge like I have in my garage.
- chrsw 3y agoEngineers are under more pressure to cut costs than make things long lasting. Imagine if businesses were in control of evolution.
- class3shock 3y agoIf you read this and thought, "I wish I knew where to buy a good xyz" I recommend you check out Ben's Appliances and Junk on youtube and the BIFL (Buy It For Life) subreddit. Both have helped me. It often seems impossible to buy things that are quality or free of extraneous features no matter what you are willing to pay. It's frustrating.
- RecycledEle 3y agoAppliance makers could build the simplest possible appliance, then build a simple monitoring system (like OBD2 in cars) to tell us what is wrong. They could even agree on a standard interface so anyone with a computer or phone can see the live data and diagnose bad sensors. They could make that OBD2-like system relatively secure by having it only sense and report without being able to make adjustments or screw things up. They could make it so you can tell the appliance to ignore a bad sensor, so we do not get OBD2-like problems where bad sensors are more common and more expensive than real problems. Nobody has done it, yet. I have hope for the Chinese to figure this out and create a national standard.