My dearest Lemmy, what is the appliance you have the most beef with?
The appliance that elicits anger and frustrated at it's mere sight. The treacherous device that never worked right.
"Smart" TVs.
I just want my TV to show pretty pictures with sound thrown at it by the digital receiver. If I want, I can attach a computer for streaming. How is that such a big ask?!
TV's are actually cheaper not because the tech necessarily being more available (even though it should) but instead it's because companies are harvesting your data on smart tv's and selling it making more profit than they would make with just selling you a TV. On a separate but somewhat related note, has anyone else noticed smart phones becoming more expensive as they become more protective of the users privacy?
sceptre makes a dumb tv thats pretty ok
I think some commercial TVs might do what you want.
The cost of a TV is subsidized by advertisements and deals with different apps for prominent placement.
Microwaves are allowed one proud "ding" or three "beep" before they are on my hate-list.
My microwave has an un-interuptable 6 shrill beeps, that then repeat if the door is not opened in 10 seconds. There is no mute option, and it can be heard everywhere in the house. I have seriously considered just ripping the speaker out of it. It is, without a doubt, the appliance I hate most in my house.
Perfect this is the type answer I was looking for!
I moved from the US to Europe and I keep joking that the largest QoL upgrade has been my unbelievably dumb microwave. It has a power knob, a timer knob that is spring wound, and when it hits 0 it physically hits a bell like an older toaster.
I fucking love it. It was like 20€
Sounds like mine. Shrill beeps that can’t be cancelled, muted, or interrupted, although I think mine is 30 seconds before the reminder beeps.
My favorite part, though? It beeps when you open the door. Like, just as a sound effect. I, the user, your god and your master, am the one who opened your door. There is no status to notify me of, there is no input to confirm. It’s just useless racket that can’t be eliminated without hardware modification.
Open the door to your microwave and see if it has instructions for written on its body. Mine has a secondary menu where you can turn it off.
And any remaining time on the cooking timer should automatically clear after say 10 minutes. Too many people that love leaving a few seconds remaining when retrieving their food. Then the remaining time stays there forever until someone comes along and clears it.
Microwaves are the penultimate Norman Object (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Design_of_Everyday_Things). They could have a standardized UI (cue up obligatory XKCD "Standards"). Instead, every manufacturer does it differently and usually in obscure, unintuitive fashion, often differently from the same manufacturer. Do you enter the time or power setting first? Oh wait, pressing a number launches it straight into running. That part that looks like a door handle is not how one actually opens the door; press the door button first. So. Much. Hate.
You know, the worst part is, they intentionally make the interface shittier on the cheap ones. I'm very convinced of this.
Yeah, I can see what you mean. Generally, they're similar-enough, at least in basic functionality, that I don't have an issue using someone else's microwave though. The advanced functionality can vary a lot.
What does kind of annoy me is that they're basically the one device --- VCRs used to be the stereotypical holders of this position --- that has a clock, but also is a device price-sensitive enough to both:
The result is that every microwave I see seems to wind up showing an unset clock.
I have a similar short fuse for microwaves but for the +30 seconds button. If the microwave doesn't have this it should get tossed in the nearest dumpster. The +30 seconds button is the pinnacle of human achievement.
My microwave thinks it's a regular oven and keeps beeping if you don't open the door. It doesn't seem to understand it has stopped on its own and can shut the fuck up now.
I want to open up my microwave and rip out whatever device makes the beep. Who has ever forgotten they have food in the microwave? I was hungry 3 minutes ago, I haven't forgotten, and it's not going to burn.
My old microwave wouldn't cook anything if the date wasn't set.
Yes. The date.
Now that's a good prank
Find an old 70s Amana Radarange on Marketplace or whatever local selling forum is available to you.
I have both 1972 (analog rotary dials) and 1976 (electrostatic push button) models, and they can bring a cup of water to boil in less than 30 seconds. Most any modern microwave I’ve tried this on needed 2-8 minutes to do the same damn thing.
you can get a modern high power microwave, you just need to look out for the wattage. boiling a cup of water in 30 seconds is not unheard of
Ah, my old oven did that trick with the clock.
Even better is that it was a strange brand and didnt have an easily findable online manual, the only way to set the date was to first push the 'alarm set' and 'alarm cancel' buttons at the same time, then use the + & - buttons to change the time.
Is a printer an appliance? 🤔
I dont remember when but the printer was an evil demon sent from hell, then all of a sudden printers just got good.
I cant remember what the last serious issue I had with a printer was.
I cant remember what the last serious issue I had with a printer was.
I do, it was immediately before I switched to a Brother.
Not when I am done with it. From having to support them before I am so glad I don't own one.
You need to look into something thoroughly classic, like an HP 4050DTN. I’ve had mine since 1999 and it’s lasted me through two degrees with only 3 toner cartridges. I get the ones that can do 20,000 sheets at 5% coverage. And while yes, other parts like the fuser are now clamouring for replacement, to date the only things I have ever done are replace the toner cartridges and upgrade the JetDirect module to keep pace with my wired network.
Not bad for a printer that’s a quarter century old.
Edit: JFC I feel old now.
The stove in the place I rent. Only been living here maybe 2 years... and that thing is the devil. I thought it was just me getting used to an electric stove again. Nope, that thing is just a piece of shit.
Nothing can simmer, nothing can be left unattended for more than a few minutes (at most), it can't maintain anything close to a consistent temperature, and forget boiling water before you die of old age... I use an electric kettle just so I can boil noodles in less than 40 minutes
Maybe it's my pots?... nope, I've tried. Maybe I'll get better at using it?... no, and at this point I wouldn't even want to. It's just a piece of shit. My mother-in-law is a great cook, and she was pissed when she burned smothered chicken on it... because she hasn't burned smothered chicken in probably 20+ years; she confirms the stove is garbage
Fuck that stove
Thanks for hearing my rant, I feel a little better now
Edit: I forgot to mention that the fucker is BRAND NEW too. We're literally the first people to use it. Garbage-ass, giant piece of horse shit...
You could get your thermostat checked. Depending on the stove, it's something you could probably do yourself. It's like a ten dollar part, maybe?
We're just planning on moving now, cause we hate this place and there's a multitude of problems: A/C can't keep up with cooling the house, costs a fuck-ton in energy bills, the management company won't fix shit and they're a nightmare to work with. They tried to blame us for rats getting into the attic, when it was a known problem before. Took us 2 months to make them hire pest control, and then acted like we should be grateful for normal-upkeep, and not having rats get inside
The neighborhood is actually nice, but the big-name management company are basically slum lords with a smile. But we had 3 dogs at the time and rental options were few, that had a fenced yard and would accept 3 dogs. 2 of them sadly passed this past year, and as much as I miss them and it wrenched my heart... we realized we could probably find something better now and not need such a large yard (our last dog is old too, and doesn't romp in the yard anymore. He just enjoys little walks now)
The stove is just one of the things I hate about this place and I don't want to fix any of their shite, even for $10. We're just making it work for now
I trust your mom. She's gonna be right.
I have a Samsung printer that simply hates me. Whenever I need to print something urgently it will disappear from the wifi. It shows up for a few milliseconds when restarted and disappears again. However when you have the time and energy to investigate the problem it works flawlessly.
It's not the printer, dude. It's the radio.
Agreed. In the IT industry as a tech since 1997, and even now everything except for my iDevices and one wireless bridge to the far side of the house is hardlined. I absolutely despise WiFi, from long experience.
Printers. There is no excuse for (consumer) printers to be as shitty as they are.
There are reasons, but none of them are excuses: If patent hell wasn't a main obstacle put in place by the large printer manufacturers, I am sure open source hardware alternative would've forced industry improvements ages ago.
For me, it's specifically the HP printer my wife has. It has one of those subscription models where you pay per page (or per some unit, I forget) and you can't use it without an account and an internet connection.
I bought a Brother that offers but does not mandate a subscription and tried to get her to use it, but she is convinced the awful disgusting subscription model is easier.
Every time I see it it makes me a little sad and a little mad, but I had her put it on my network that has guest isolation, so it can't touch or spy on any of my other devices and only impacts her.
(My feelings about it aren't quite that strong in reality, but this is a thread about appliance beef. If her printer weren't isolated, I might actually feel pretty strongly about it.)
even enterprise grade printers are shitty
And there is a very good reason: Good Mechanical engineers are epxensive, so instead they hire crappy mechanical engineers
Don’t worry, commercial printers are equally bad but in a different way.
Every vendor feels the need to inject their own special secret sauce into the drivers instead of making a tool that Just Works.
US patents only last for 20 years. Technically, nothing is stopping you from making a part-for-part copy of a good laser printer from 2005 and selling it the same way some companies do replacement toner.
It's just that making a cheap and reliable appliance is HARD if there are dozens of distinct parts that all have to move together. Heck, id expect a near-clone of a Cuisinart stand mixer before I'd expect a printer.
(And, even then, i doubt it'd be much cheaper than just buying one used.)
Edit: patents, not parents.
US parents only last for 20 years.
Jeez, I'm way past my warranty. Almost at 27 years.
Dishwashers
Modern ones have too many features that can break and brick the whole thing and the cheap ones never get good powerful pumps so they spray like shit. Just make a basic mechanical timed dishwasher with a super powerful pump and I will be all in.
This is what I want for the vast majority of appliances. It just needs to do the basic functions reliably and have a few adjustments that I can fiddle with.
That's the thing--the actual purpose of the appliances hasn't changed at all. Every "advancement" is typically proprietary tech made to help comply with energy and water/gas usage standards--or to add perceived value through some half-baked gimmicks. For instance, dishwashers use smaller pumps run for longer periods of time to perform the same amount of work a larger more powerful pump could handle (in many cases a single pump sufficed for a dishwasher--one rotational direction for wash, opposite direction for drain)... I'm totally on board with energy efficiency but the laughably cheap/shitty tech they use to those ends kinda blunt the effectiveness of the energy saving measures (since replacing parts--or more likely entire dishwashers when those pumps fail--is a less energy-saving process than having a stronger, more durable pump that draws an extra amp or 2)
What features do dishwashers have?
Literally every one I’ve used has had racks, two to three spiny water sprayers, a water intake, and a detergent basket.
I’m not disagreeing with the overall sentiment, the “modes” of a dishwasher are dumb as shit. No I don’t want reduced water flow, reduced temperatures, and a worse outcome requiring manual intervention.
But what is there to break? Suck water in, pump it out, spray it at dishes.
maybe there’s the occasional weird model, like Samsungs wall sprayer. But you can’t buy them any more.
any fucking thing with touchscreens or touch buttons. those stupid things barely ever work and imagine not being able to use your appliance once that shit breaks.
It registers when my thumb brushes against the screen for a nanosecond but when I want it to register a press I have to tap the screen like a maniac.
Touch screen at work highlights the button I press. And then proceeds to not count it as a button I pressed. Fucker I saw the animation, you know I've pressed it, input the fucking number.
WE WANT BUTTONS
I keep buying cheap toaster ovens. I keep paying the price for it. At least I know my smoke alarms work
Get yourself a nice Panasonic one. $150-ish I have one that's over 10 years old
We must've lucked right out because we bought the literal cheapest toaster we found ($12 about 9 years ago). No special features, not even a cancel button, just a little knob for the doneness. It worked so well for the 7 or 8 years we had it, and the only reason we replaced it was cause we wanted a 4-slice toaster.
Thing was a champ, I was trying to see if I could find it online but can't see it anymore. I think it was Master Chef brand.
We have an Oster one now with a fancy touch screen that I can see is about $70. It works about as well as the previous one we had.
I encountered a gas stove that wouldn't work during a power outage. It had a valve that shut off the gas if electricity wasn't present. Way to intentionally sabotage one of your biggest advantages.
haha... yeah. We have a tankless gas water heater that requires an electrical connection. We live in hurricane country so going without power for days/weeks at a time is something we've lived through on several occasions. Having a hot shower during those times is the one thing my wife really appreciates. Fortunately, it's just a 110 connection and we can plug it into a generator or battery back up...
I'm guessing a tankless water heater involves some electronic controls. It probably could be designed to use low-voltage DC with a battery backup, but that would be fancy.
A gas stove should never need electricity for a burner to work if the user supplies another source of ignition like a match. This is surely a "safety feature" to prevent people from leaving the gas on when the electronic ignition is unavailable, but nobody with half a brain and a sense of smell would do that.
Nothing makes me particularly angry, but I'd really like if my washing machine had an accurate sense of time. It's so far off sometimes I might as well just pretend there's no timer. 1 hr 10? Come back in 1 hr to find it's got 58 minutes to go. Which is sometimes 10 minutes but might actually be 58. Or 30. Or 70.
Dumb fucking thing. Doesn't even do multiple cycles in a row so it's not like the timer resets for the next bit.
Yeah this drives me insane too.
Dont have a timer if its guessing
Printers/Fax machines.
Get yourself a Brother brand laser printer. Best damn printer I've ever used. Every device auto connects as long as it's on the wifi and it's never failed to print in the thousands of sheets I've ran through it, with and without the software package they offer. Basic drivers are good enough for 90% of what I've needed
Or for low tech bulletproof reliability, a vintage HP 4050DTN. Mine has lasted a quarter century and two degrees on only 3 toner cartridges, a JetDirect module upgrade, and paper. It’s still working with the original fuser and rollers, although they’re beginning to need replacement.
The ice compartment of our fridge. It's always a fucking compressed block that needs manually smashing up. I fucking hate it so much.
Maybe you need to feed your fridge more fibre or have it drink more?
This is such a funny visual I've never heard of this happening
Have you tried replacing your HDMI cable? That might causing the Docking station issue
I have had the problem with a variety of cables. I think its a software issue. Wiggeling the cable does not cause any issues. The screen never looses signal its just briefly black.
But I guess it can't hurt to try more cables.
The screen sometimes goes black for a second or two randomly.
replacing your HDMI cable
I think you're onto something. I have two HP cube shaped docks on my closet now waiting on a return box. The third is holding, but only because there's also a reg key for windows that will lose compression on the HDMI and make it not resynch so often.
I still get the blinks, but they're daily instead of hourly. I can dig it out if it's valuable and the cables are good.
I'm also using a steetek/PWay/etc 2x2 HDMI KVM switcher downstream of that dock, so I can switch between two contract desktops for my k,v and m as the day cleaves to night.
Printers
The microwave, because my roommates insist on having a model that beeps every 30 seconds after it finishes cooking so you don't forget you had food in there. They still forget, though. It just gets on my nerves while I try to wash some dishes while waiting for the microwave to finish, or if I'm using it as part of prepping while cooking.
My apartment gym has a Nordictrack treadmill that I hate nearly every aspect of. First of all, it requires you login to use any of the programs, which doesn't really work with 200 potential users. It has lost internet every single time I've used it and needs a restart, even though I use manual mode, the UI buttons are tiny and impossible to read while you're running, and don't respond correctly, and worst of all, there's no goddamn place to put your phone so you can watch Netflix.
You lost me at “login” on a treadmill lmao.
Treadmills are already pretty niche considering walking/running is free.
Electric toothbrushes. They really are superior to regular old brushes, but they tend to break down after less than a year and aren't exactly cheap. Ironically, the last time mine broke I replaced it with the cheapest one and it's lasted longer than the ones before it. Go figure!
They break after a year? I've had mine for a decade now...
Judging from responses in here, I got unlucky.
What do you do for them to break so soon?
I've had two electric toothbrushes in my life. The first one lasted for maybe 10 years. The breaking point was plastic degradation which occluded the internal electronics and destroyed de button to turn it on.
I think could have been repaired with the right materials. The repairability of the brand I buy is pretty good.
For anyone curious the brand is: ::: spoiler Tap for spoiler Oral b :::
The electric toothbrushes are nice but the head replacements are too expensive and I've not find a suitable offbrand replacement. So I end up boiling the toothbrush heads several times to extend their lifetime.
That spoiler thing? Fantastic. I chuckled, anyway.
So, I have never thought about this before but I would think the lifetime of a toothbrush head is based more on mechanical stress on the bristles and not bacterial growth.
Which I assume you try to address by boiling them. I remember studies made on boiling dishwashing sponges and unless I remember wrong boiling them regularly actually lead to more bacterial growth over time. Don't remember thr explanation and maybe funded by "big sponge".
That said I always use mine at least 2 months longer but am not boiling them.
Philips Sonicare. My first two developed the same problem: some connection inside came loose and the head would be loose and rattly. I tried opening them up and fixing them, but they were too bent out of shape. My third one ( a slightly different model) is going strong for some time now, so maybe I just got unlucky.
I really don't get all the shit microwaves and printers get. smart devices especially samsung and xiaomi phones are the worst, from privacy, ownership and control, and maintainability points
edit: fixed a typo. got a stroke when writing...
I've never had issues with microwaves
me neither, but they all universally could have a silent mode.
truth be told, I have a very old microwave with buttons and dials, so mayhaps I didn't get to experience the shit "modern" microwaves do
Sounds like you've never had to service a printer, their hate is justified
Same privacy, ownership, and control issues. Had HP remote shut down one of our office printers b/c it detected unauthorized ink. It wasn't unauthorized ink. They didn't care. And it is trivial to hack and duplicate any document that ever gets printed or put to glass
Maybe I'm just stupid but I have a helluva time opening cans
Get a P38.
It works.
Agreed. Simple, cheap, reliable, and faster than struggling with that piece of shit opener that barely works and you should have thrown away years ago.
If I were running a soup kitchen, I'd have a different preference, but reliable lever openers like the P38, P51, or even the opener on a leatherman serves my needs better than any of these POS twist-style openers.
Ohh is that the proper name for them, found it on eBay very cheap. Ages ago I was annoyed at tin openers but tried one that should stab through the lid and then lever through. It broke within a day or two, it was rivited together and they failed.
Think I might just buy some, also a more practical size for taking out and cooking over a stove.
those are great when you need to pack light, but holy shit it's a pain in the ass to open a can with those things. feels like it's going to rip my goddamn fingers off
My wife doesnt like how much noise it makes and says its messy and violent and dangerous to open anything with a gun. We are eating a lot more soup now though.
I just use a knife. My wife got a fancy electric can opened a few years back and loves it but I can't stand the thing.
Everything with a built in lithium battery that isn't easy to swap. Phones, headphones, vapes, the weird gameboy thing I got offa aliexpress.
My oven is a piece of shit that has unreliable temperature control and manages to have hot spots even with the fan on. I bought it new and I don't think it will die any time soon. Joke is I paid a lot more than for my previous oven and it's the worst piece of shit I've ever had, a miniature countertop oven I had way back that was old as balls gave more consistent results.
The Oatmeal is correct, the answer is printers
And by extension, scanners
Why scanners?
The big or small ones?
Commercial use scanners, size isn't necessarily the distinction
Devices designed to scan thousands of pages a minute have very finicky mechanics, but come in hand sized to office copier sized
Just that 1) Their mechanicals are hard to maintenance and have very little tolerance for fuckery and 2) the software is universally terrible and badly written for a device you are literally paying ten grand to own.
Firewalls in general.
What about them?
They are so often stateful and fall over when some scanner comes by, or if a light DNS DoS attack happens, compromising the entire access link, when the scanned systems or the DNS server weren't even bothered by the amount of requests.
They introduce weird unexpected restrictions, like preferring to blackhole our customers traffic rather than accepting some asymmetric routing. And then we get blamed for their setup, which they don't even know.
They ossify protocol development in general, requiring things like header encryption in QUIC to force them to ignore things that aren't their business anyway.
They are apparently also expensive as hell, multiple customers have declined upgrades because they don't have fast enough firewalls and not enough budget to buy faster ones.
Those are the ones that come to mind right now. There are also occasional bugs that make our or our customers lives difficult, but I can't recall a clear one at the moment.
A few years ago we bought a dishwasher when we were in no place to be spending money on something unnecessary, but my wife was 8 months pregnant and wanted one. We bought the cheapest one at I think Lowes, if I recall correctly it was around $100, maybe $120.
The ducking thing doesn't have buttons, it has some stupid sensor panel, not touchscreen but is supposed to mimic it I guess. The sensors just don't fucking work, ever. I spend 10 minutes loading the thing and 15 minutes trying to get it to start. Most of the time I have to cut the power from the breaker a few times to eventually get it to work. It'll just change through all the settings beeping like crazy, so we have to keep it shut which means our dishes don't dry properly. For a while I could only get it to start on the intense mode so it took 3 hours to run, now it only works on normal. It's like I have to do a magic spell each time but the steps change weekly.
I would love to throw it out and get a new one but it technically works and it's only 3 years old.
When you have the money, get a Bosch 800 series.
Like, my god it’s practically perfection. Don’t use pods, you need to use HE powder, but otherwise this is the best consumer dishwasher I have ever seen short of an industrial model.
Using pods is a waste of money anyway
...or consider boycotting Bosch, due to their move towards cloud-required-to-run dishwashers.
Watch the first 30 seconds of this to see how much nonsense the Bosch 500 has going on.
A dishwasher is, IMHO, not unnecessary. If they're used efficiently ie only run when they're full, they use considerably less water than washing by hand does, does a better job than I do and I push a button and don't have to participate any more until it's done. Plus, depending on the energy makeup of your country/home setup, use a lot less energy to heat the water than your domestic hot water does too.
My fridge because once a year it seems the coils freeze over.
Coffee dispenser at work. It acts up like it's a printer. Replace left cartridge. Replace right cartridge. Cleaning required. Thorough cleaning required. Unknown leak. Heating water please wait. Unknown error. Fuck that, I'll piss in a cup myself if I don't get my coffee now.
Then there's also the towel roll thing in the toilets. I swear it's stuck for longer time than it's functioning. It'd be a full time job keeping that rolling throughout the day
Ugh. If you have even a little space on your desk you could get a "5-cup" (that's about 2 mugs) drip coffee machine and some unbleached paper filters for about $25. You could still make that refreshing stroll in the direction of the big machine, but with your fresh hot mugful already in your hand.
Mashing machine. BEEP BEEP BEEP shut the fuck up bro
Not me, but my mother has beef with air conditioners. When I was little, I got sick (to the point of losing consciousness) due to a dirty AC in a hotel, so now she (maybe rightfully) assumes that a random given AC in a public place is filthy. We don't have one at home either - mostly because in this climate we'd only need it for a short time each year, but also because mom thinks it'd be easy to not take care of it properly and let enough filth accumulate.
The humble Mandoline
Severed fingertips await
Holy fuck what
ZigBee buttons for Home Assistant.
The fridge. If you close it too hard or too soft, it ends up not closed, but a fingers' width open.
I have a Samsung that I passionately despise. While it seems to cool fine, they designed an ice maker that either fails and leaks or jams itself with ice so it renders itself unusable.
If I paid a premium price, why can't I just get a modest functional ice maker?
There was a new fridge when I bought my house. Basic ass nothing fancy Frigidaire. No ice machine. I love it.
When I redo my kitchen this year, I'm buying a countertop ice making machine. I've heard too many horror stories about the ones in fridges.
Right now I'm still truckin with the ice trays. Not enough room in the kitchen currently
Elevate the front a bit and gravity will do.
Smart idea. I know, because I tried it already. Didn't really work (a slight inclination didn't work, and I didn't want to tile it more).
IIRC a trick you can do is take a heat gun (or failing that a hair dryer) and warm up the magnet gasket border thing. Then close the door and leave it for a bit. Something about it better forming to the correct shape and making a better and more consistent seal.
Couldn't hurt!
This works on certain models, I have had success with Samsung and Whirlpool fridges but that's my only experience
That's not the issue. It looks like there is a problem with the hinges. And no, oiling didn't help.
Anything made by Samsung.
Samsung SSDs are great and industry-leading in terms of reliability
Alexa.
Any device someone ask my help with figuring out. Its rarely the appliance that pisses me off and more the blatant learned helplessness and fundimental inability for fellow adults to rub two braincells together on figuring out a new thing or to troubleshoot a simple problem. A lifetime of being the techie fixer bitch slave constantly delegated the responsibility of figuring out everyones crap for them has left me jaded to the average persons mental capacity and basic logical application abilities.
I'm about to smash my goddamn phone. i can buy the best phone with all of my money and it still sucks ass
I think we are asking too much of phones. I’m not even certain we are in charge of the wanting any more… they dangle… we salivate.
No… I haven’t gone back to flip phone yet but I’m sure tempted.
My twin tub washing machine. Fucking POS doesn't spin properly, so i just give up most of the time.
TV + Android box (Nvidia shield TV) + Soundbar.
This trio is a bug-riddled experience, constantly changing behavior without explaination, frequently malfunctioning.
All I want it to do is Jellyfin, YouTube and occasionally Twitch. I just want 1 on/off button on 1 remote that will turn on and off the whole system. Keypad to navigate, Ok and back buttons.
One day, the Soundbar decided it will only turn on automatic 1 out of 10 times from now on. Why ? Sometimes the video output will be green and I have to reboot the android box. Why? If my SO stand up from her chair in the other room, the TV will turn black from 5 seconds. Why ? The biggest button on the remote is NETFLIX that I don't use and it's very easy to accidentally press it and the remapping software only works sometimes. Why ?
This is so frustrating, also because there aren't any fix possible. Any suggestions online may or may not work, most often they don't. I am just stuck with this technology that is expensive, but still garbage and no better alternatives exist on the market.
Washing machines.
My washing machine 15 years ago would wash my clothes with...uhhhh...fucking water.
Now you can't buy washing machines that actually wash your clothes in water. They all spritz your clothes with a little water then jiggle around your damp clothes for a bit.
I don't live in a desert. I live in a place with access to plenty of water. I should be allowed to buy a washing machine that actually fills up with soapy water and washes my damn clothes.
I could buy a Speed Queen washer for $2,000 from a specialty store, but that's ridiculous. Why can't I just buy a washing machine that washes my clothes? They're ALL terrible now. All the washers in all the big box stores are just...bad.
Get your washers used from thrift stores, the older the better
Don't fall into the aesthetics trap, you don't need to swap your appliances out every five years for new
That still make toploaders, you know. Even HE ones. Front loading washers only serve to break your back from all the bending over.
Even the toploaders do the same thing now. They don't actually fill with water like they used to. I got frustrated with my modern toploader and that's how I wound up with the highest rated frontloader I could find. Both garbage.
The washing machine I bought in 1996 for $250 cleaned clothes better than any machine I've had in decades.
I just want to wash my clothes. In water.
Keurig coffee makers. My first one killed itself during descaling, the in-warranty replacement’s buttons were cursed and never worked. I always felt guilty for destroying the planet one K-Cup at a time too.
The terrible devices actually encouraged me to grind my own beans and make Japanese-style pour over iced coffees.
I bought a cheap espresso maker off Amazon. It's so cheap that nothing can be adjusted, not the pressure, the drip, the heat, nothing. Every single shot I pull from that thing tastes like burnt ass. I even invested in some nice expensive espresso beans, and no luck. The cheap machine is in fact a piece of crap. I should have known better.
Most modern refrigerators. They have tons of features (ice makers, water dispensers, screens) that are unnecessary.
But what gets me really going is the shelving, specifically door shelving. Most manufacturers have moved to clear polycarbonate for the “wall” around the shelf which is specifically not recommended for shock loading. For example, the load that is applied when the door closes and the condiments slide into the retaining piece. To get a fridge with metal means upgrading to a luxury model.
And don’t get me started on the fact that door shelving overlaps with interior shelving. Go look at a 1940s Shelvador and learn how to build a proper appliance.
Frankly, most appliances bother me:
Do most fridges not have shelves that can be put practically anywhere?
The key with the shelvador is that there’s no overlap between door shelves and interior shelves. You can stuff the fridge right to the brim and close the door. Too many refrigerators now have an overlap, so you need to reserve space from the fridge to allow the door shelves space. It’s not a matter of placement, just the door shelves are too deep (or interior, depending how you look at it).
Yeah one can't hang clothes outside to dry here, since it's not dry outside, and line dried laundry is stiff and wrinkled, dryer laundry is soft and smooth. But I still pull half my clothes out and hang them inside to dry because oof dryers sure do wear them out faster.
I discovered that a dehumidifier is really good at drying clothes cheaply. The one I bought has a specific button for laundry.
My fridge's ice machine has never worked and instead just made my fridge piss itself on multiple occasions.
The hvac control panel.
The furnace and ac units are both great, but the control panel will sometimes just, idk, dissociate. I can change settings and it displays them, but they don't "take". It won't relay those changes to its bigger brethren. In order to snap it back to reality, I have to go out to the garage and flip the breaker because there's no other way to power cycle it.
There are spiders in the garage. And they are prolific with their webs, especially where I need to walk to get to the breaker panel.
So when the hvac panel glitches, it's a whole ordeal to fix it.
Printer
Only 2D since bambulab came
Dehumidifiers are so mysterious and needy.
If you want the internet appliance nerd to demystify it for you, just under one hour:
Already seen it :)
I'm taking about the error codes, the "is it broken, or just defrosting the coils" conundrum. The mysterious ways fluid flows through tubes or pumps (or not), the filters you have to clean, the pail thing you have to empty of water if you weren't able to situate it near a drain, the existential question of, "is this thing actually slowing down mold growth, or am I delusional," ...
At least they don’t play an entire Etude in Db like washing machines.
I mean I like microwaves but it pisses me off it wants to know the date and this goes for any item that wants internet access. Time I get. Its sorta convenient to have it show it when its not doing anything else but why the F do you think you need to know the date. Im not setting you to go cook something later. Really it comes down to it refusing to work after power loss until you put in time and date. My microwave always thinks the days start on november eleventh two thousand eleven.
11/11/11 is the Skyrim epoch
My front loading clothes washer. It frequently doesn't drain right. If you create a fault tree on what causes that, you can have:
The pump can clearly be heard running when the water levels are too high, so I know the sensor, sensor hose, controls, check valve, and pump are all functioning. Sometimes, the pump runs for way longer than you'd think necessary, with only a small trickle of water coming out little bit by bit. This indicates to me that there is a clog upstream from the pump. Multiple times, I have squeezed myself back behind the washer to take the back off and access the filter (which should be accessible from the front). I've found no clog there. Ive taken out the heating element to check for clogs around it, and found nothing there. Ive shown a bright light from inside the drum to highlight any potential clogs between it and the drum, and seen nothing there. Despite all of that, the problem remains, and when I manually spin the drum with nothing inside, I can hear what sounds like stuff moving around inside.
I assume it must be ghosts or something at this point.
Gas stove. Literally playing with fire every time I need to light the front left burner. Usually I have to let enough gas come out to have the neighboring burner's igniter light it up. I keep my distance just in case.
I have to "prime" one of my burners. I'll turn it on the power boil setting for a second or two to let gas out and then back to the ignite setting to spark it
For me, the "power burner" is so weak it can't bring a pot of water to boil or properly saute anything. Everything online says that it must be because the gas outlets are dirty, but they are spotless.
Just get a long refillable butane lighter? Or one of those electric arc lighters? (Some of those have a long extension)
...and once it's 'fixed', it starts doing it again within weeks. Always the same one....
I have a camp stove that I got for really cheap because someone returned it because the igniter didn't work. The spark gap was too high, so all I had to do was poke the wire over a little, and it works perfectly now.
Waffle maker. Damnit I love waffles, but I can only clean out so many ruined waffles before I turn to pancakes.
Oh man! I was thinking waffle maker too!
Every consumer grade one had weird power issues, cooks unevenly, or would just be a pain to wash. I used to work at a breakfast place and those high end ones are incredible compared to the garbage that the average person has.
I finally found a really good one after years of junk. But I'm afraid if I praise it too much, it'll hear me and crap out. (The Dasher Mini waffle maker.)
Air Fryers.
It's a tiny convection oven.
I love air fryers. I would absolutely get rid of my toaster oven/conventional oven.
I'm not here making giant roasts or pies. I'm just trying to heat up some nuggies and fries.
They cook so much better.
Yes, and it's glorious.
I don't have space for a full sized oven, and I am also convinced the little guy turns out better results than the proper convection oven my mom used to have.
It used to be printers but I switched to a Brother laser printer about five years ago and its been trouble free while having reasonable print costs. You can even force it to print on empty for a bit longer, although you shouldn't push any laser printer too far on empty as you can wreck them.
Toasters are my big gripe. Its been proven that they have massively reduced costs at the expense of longevity and toasting efficiency from what we had decades ago. I have an expensive toaster (from Sage), and I have still had to replace micro switches on the buttons. While it does a better job of even browning than a cheap toaster its still far from the level I expect.
I would buy one of those expensive Japanese toasters or a commercial toaster oven but I do not want that much counter top taken up by it. I would rather just cook my toast in a cast iron pan now, far better finish.
Smart phones, then closed driver GPUs and compute units, then probably printers.
Do printers count? I fucking HATE printers.
After some half a century of existing they are somehow still annoying to use.
Try industrial label printers. They are like printers on hard mode.
Printers are a given, I figure.
I have a black and white samsung printer that is like a decade old with the only maintenance being adding the powdered ink and replacing the roller thingy a couple of times. Always works, never had an issue, printed thousands of pages over time in spurts of hundreds at a time and even not printing for like two years.
On the opposite end inkjet printers are the fucking worst computer accessory I've ever dealt with. They have always been a shitshow even before they started the ink pricing shenanigans because they are finicky and unreliable to start with.
Stop buying shitty ink jet printers and get a laser printer. Pretty sure the Brother MFC my dad purchased a decade ago will outlive him.
I do think that most people would be happier with lasers, especially on the "clogged nozzle and requires regular use" front (though now there are also lasers that also do the "razor and blades" sales model, with a cheap printer and more-expensive toner).
However, there are legitimately some people who do need inkjets for one reason or another.
I got a Brother printer. I hate it less than my HP and Cannon ones I used to use but it’s still a printer. A sin which cannot be redeemed
I'd enjoy my Epson Eco tank printer more if it wasn't trying to constantly update firmware, apps, drivers, etc.
I'm not setting up faxing. Stop asking.
Came here to say this. F all printers ever made.