My microwave is a 1977 Amanda Radarange. It can boil a cup of water in ⅕ of the time a modern microwave can.
Now granted, it has zero fancy settings and a simple number pad that does nothing but set how long you want the microwave to run.
But honestly, this simplicity is a large part of it’s charm. No connectivity needs, no features locked behind paywalls, no extraneous bullshit or never-used features. Just a tool that does only one thing, and does it exceptionally well.
I got a “retrowave” in mint green. It’s dumb, uses a turn dial to set the cook time, stands on little feet like it’s from Rocko’s Modern Life, and looks like it’s from the 50’s. Have a matching toaster and eventually want a matching fridge.
It’s been 4 years and no issues which is more than I can say about a lot of other new appliances we’ve gotten for the house.
For dumb appliances with a fun aesthetics look up 'retro (name of appliance here) and you’ll get all the brands who make stuff like that. It’s the only way I’ve been able to avoid smart garbage so far.
That’s fine if you like the appearance of “retro” appliances, but that is certainly not the only way to avoid smart devices. Most microwaves, toasters, etc sold are not smart devices.
The fridge will likely operate far less efficiently than a modern fridge unless you have it rebuilt.
With that said, a rebuilt fridge - with a more efficient cooling system and better insulation and all seals redone, etc. - does not cost significantly more than a new midrange fridge.
Well, most of the fridge is already there. You just need to disassemble, sandblast the metal and paint (if the paint is in poor condition), replace the insulation with closed-cell spray foam, replace the refrigeration system with a modern Freon-free system, reassemble and put new seals on.
An old fridge can be quite simple, structurally speaking. It’s in the 70s and 80s when fridges started getting compact, difficult to repair, and disposable.
Good point. Not everyone swears like a trooper. I’m ex British army so can live with it. But I wouldn’t swear in mixed company or in front of my daughter, even though she is over 21.
To each his own, of course, but coy swearing is still swearing.
Actually I do sympathise. I swear too much (but not more than the average Aussie) and wish I could train myself to use some other intensifiers in my language but most of them lack intensity.
By Jove!
My word!
Sweet zombie Jesus!
Drokk!
It is an odd choice to argue over such a thing. No one was harmed in the making of the first comment. Or the second. If anything, that person is being completely reasonable instead of demanding what others should do.
they’re using the Wi-fi radiation to cook your meals /s
Thats really, really dumb. I can understand maybe wanting the option of having your oven ping your phone when the timer goes off, but what could it possibly need internet access for in order to turn on the heating element and a fan for a set period of time??
I had a bakery/kiosk mix of shop, where I baked bread every morning for 13 years or so. There was a customer who questioned my oven, because she actually does not know if it really radiates. And how I can be this sure about it. Its a damn oven! Like one in every household, just a bit bigger. People are really this dumb. Besides, it wouldn’t be legal… oh man still upsets me. Not because of being accused for, but it upset me that people like her have the right to vote.
Even though air frying doesn’t need Internet, the manufacturer is restricting that feature as a way to force you to set up the WiFi, so they can then slurp up all your data.
They’re literally holding the feature hostage, as motivation.
I’ve honestly come to the conclusion that some companies have management that actually believes its worth while to collect the most meaningless telemetry data, even after the ridiculous cost of bandwidth, database storage, hosting, etc. which all become more bonkers the larger the dataset. I’ve seen the cloud bills for actual useful data, I don’t want think about how much they must be paying AWS/Azure/GCP to host such worthless data. There’s no way its at all profitable to do so
At the bare minimum, they’re going to use that data to figure out, on average, how much use it gets while under the warranty period. They’ll use that to further cut corners on the materials or other design considerations.
I’m not sure if that’s possible, but if, not in this size. You would probably need an oven in the size of an entire truck maybe? It probably needs lot of energy for both, isolating and transforming/amping the signal. At that point the power going in to transform the signal could be used more efficiently otherwise to achieve the same goal without Wi-fi (as those small microwaves proves it).
2.4Ghz, and 5Ghz are microwaves. Your typical microwave oven operates at about 2.45GHz due to resonance frequency of water. 2.4Ghz wifi is literally a typical microwave’s neighbor.
The difference is sheer amount of power and shielding. Not the type of radiation.
The water resonance thing is a myth, AFAIK. Strong absorption is actually a bad thing for a microwave oven, because then it would only heat the surface. The way they work is effectively bouncing the radiation through a barely-absorbing dielectric thousands of times, to get the effect really even.
The frequency is probably just an easy one to build magnetrons for.
The frequency is probably just an easy one to build magnetrons for.
The real reason is that that range is reserved for consumer devices so that it doesn’t interfere with actual ISM sanctioned communications as enforced by the FCC. We just also decided to put wifi in the same range cause they’re stingy releasing frequencies for public use.
This article deals with the generation of microwaves in the oven and includes the operation of the magnetrons, waveguides and standing waves in resonant cavities. It then considers the absorption of microwaves by foods, discussing the dielectric relaxation of water, penetration depths of electromagnetic waves in matter and, in considering the possible chemical changes during the microwave heating, multi-photon ionization or dissociation.
So you’re likely right that it’s not water resonance, but chassis cavity resonance. I can’t say that I’ve read deeply into it. And thinking about it I remember hearing something about some of the high level stuff that I just read in relation to this article. I probably ran into it in passing and just failed to recall it. But to be frank, I’m okay just calling it voodoo wizardry in of itself. But I have to understand wireless communications stuff for my profession, and it’s well known that it’s basically the same range as wifi 2.4ghz/bluetooth/other consumer standards that sit in the same crowded space.
There’s several ISM bands, though, pretty evenly spaced. The 13.5MHz one is used for passive RF chips like on credit cards, for example. They’re skinny, but for purposes where bandwidth doesn’t matter they can be. For other purposes bandwidth is scarce enough there has to be tight regulation.
Actually high water absorption happens in mm wave bands up in the hundreds of GHz (and THz too, if we could make a decent transmitter). Those fucked up riot control devices that make your skin feel on fire work based on that principle, because the heat will only go deep enough to hit pain receptors. Presumably, they stop working if you get a water mixture of any kind on the window, too.
It’d be one thing if the “smart” features were there but only supplemented the basic functionality. It’s another entirely for those basic features to require an internet connection.
Out of curiosity, did the product description indicate the internet connection was required? I’m soon to be replacing some appliances and want to know what to look out for (besides all mentions of “wifi” or “smart”).
did the product description indicate the internet connection was required?
That’s an important question.
That said, we were recently appliance shopping and none of them said that it was required, but a couple of the negative reviews mentioned it.
We ended up choosing one of the very few that didn’t list wifi or an app as a feature. Hopefully there isn’t a stealth modem hidden in there somewhere. I guess we’ll find out next week when it’s delivered…
A coffee maker, I’d just return. But a dishwasher, refrigerator, oven, etc would be a huge hassle I’d want to avoid. I think my best bet, like you said, is to just look for one that has absolutely no mention of w-fi or “smart”.
We have a lot of smart plugs that we use for plant timers. They are way more accurate than the old school notched wheel ones and we can set them to actual sunrise and sunset. They also can just be turned on and used like a switch if the internet goes out
Oh no. I don’t be needin’ no internet enabled legislation! Good, old fahsioned, airgapped legislation was good enough before, and it’s good enough today!
Even setting up a vlan doesn’t work half the time because the mobile apps don’t talk directly with the appliance but phone home to a cloud service. A cloud service that will eventually go offline and leave the appliances orphaned. That’s how GE’s thermostats work.
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My microwave is a 1977 Amanda Radarange. It can boil a cup of water in ⅕ of the time a modern microwave can.
Now granted, it has zero fancy settings and a simple number pad that does nothing but set how long you want the microwave to run.
But honestly, this simplicity is a large part of it’s charm. No connectivity needs, no features locked behind paywalls, no extraneous bullshit or never-used features. Just a tool that does only one thing, and does it exceptionally well.
Yes! The Amandas were the best.
Your preference for someone to have the name Amanda seems like a rather oddly specific kink…
what is that thing wired into a 600v line??
Maybe just one without proper breakers?
Does it let you control the power level at all? If it does then no issues. If it can’t, hardly an issue.
I got a “retrowave” in mint green. It’s dumb, uses a turn dial to set the cook time, stands on little feet like it’s from Rocko’s Modern Life, and looks like it’s from the 50’s. Have a matching toaster and eventually want a matching fridge.
It’s been 4 years and no issues which is more than I can say about a lot of other new appliances we’ve gotten for the house.
For dumb appliances with a fun aesthetics look up 'retro (name of appliance here) and you’ll get all the brands who make stuff like that. It’s the only way I’ve been able to avoid smart garbage so far.
That’s fine if you like the appearance of “retro” appliances, but that is certainly not the only way to avoid smart devices. Most microwaves, toasters, etc sold are not smart devices.
Eh, its a very easy way to avoid smart appliances and a surprising amount of people don’t know they exist.
If it’s not for you, that’s okay, but someone else might find it useful and maybe wants that aesthetic.
The fridge will likely operate far less efficiently than a modern fridge unless you have it rebuilt.
With that said, a rebuilt fridge - with a more efficient cooling system and better insulation and all seals redone, etc. - does not cost significantly more than a new midrange fridge.
Really!? That’s a bit of a life hack. Good to know.
Usually mass-produced is a fraction of the price of anything bespoke.
Well, most of the fridge is already there. You just need to disassemble, sandblast the metal and paint (if the paint is in poor condition), replace the insulation with closed-cell spray foam, replace the refrigeration system with a modern Freon-free system, reassemble and put new seals on.
An old fridge can be quite simple, structurally speaking. It’s in the 70s and 80s when fridges started getting compact, difficult to repair, and disposable.
Other than the frame, what components aren’t being replaced? I’ll admit my fridge knowledge is mostly theoretical.
Oh these are modern appliances with a retro aesthetic. Everything inside is all brand new including energy efficiency…just minus the smart features
If they will be running a botnet with your net at least it should be a fair pay.
Would be interested to know of you can connect, enable, then block it’s access to the internet. That’s what I did with Wyze cams.
What does the dismiss button do? Or the back button.
Just based on the messages (that could be miss leading) sounds like some features will not work.
F&&& that. Send it back.
We can’t say the word “Fuck” here? Serious question; why did you self censor?
Do what you like, friend, as I did. Why? I don’t swear a lot in person, and for me, I communicate the same online and off.
Good point. Not everyone swears like a trooper. I’m ex British army so can live with it. But I wouldn’t swear in mixed company or in front of my daughter, even though she is over 21.
To each his own, of course, but coy swearing is still swearing.
Actually I do sympathise. I swear too much (but not more than the average Aussie) and wish I could train myself to use some other intensifiers in my language but most of them lack intensity. By Jove! My word! Sweet zombie Jesus! Drokk!
deleted by creator
It is an odd choice to argue over such a thing. No one was harmed in the making of the first comment. Or the second. If anything, that person is being completely reasonable instead of demanding what others should do.
removed by mod
Ugh I see CAFE in all caps and all I can think of corporate average fuel economy
It’s so the AI can reminder you to buy chicken nuggets, if you plan on having them every night next week as well.
They are smart because they know how to spy on you without telling you.
Maybe you can buy a DLC to have additional functionality. Or you need to pay micro transactions with each cooking. No money is wasted.
they’re using the Wi-fi radiation to cook your meals /s
Thats really, really dumb. I can understand maybe wanting the option of having your oven ping your phone when the timer goes off, but what could it possibly need internet access for in order to turn on the heating element and a fan for a set period of time??
I had a bakery/kiosk mix of shop, where I baked bread every morning for 13 years or so. There was a customer who questioned my oven, because she actually does not know if it really radiates. And how I can be this sure about it. Its a damn oven! Like one in every household, just a bit bigger. People are really this dumb. Besides, it wouldn’t be legal… oh man still upsets me. Not because of being accused for, but it upset me that people like her have the right to vote.
It doesn’t need it. That’s exactly the point.
Even though air frying doesn’t need Internet, the manufacturer is restricting that feature as a way to force you to set up the WiFi, so they can then slurp up all your data.
They’re literally holding the feature hostage, as motivation.
Is data on when I turn the oven on, and how long I run it for, even worthwhile? Or do you think it’s sniffing out other info from my network?
I’ve honestly come to the conclusion that some companies have management that actually believes its worth while to collect the most meaningless telemetry data, even after the ridiculous cost of bandwidth, database storage, hosting, etc. which all become more bonkers the larger the dataset. I’ve seen the cloud bills for actual useful data, I don’t want think about how much they must be paying AWS/Azure/GCP to host such worthless data. There’s no way its at all profitable to do so
At the bare minimum, they’re going to use that data to figure out, on average, how much use it gets while under the warranty period. They’ll use that to further cut corners on the materials or other design considerations.
They wouldn’t be holding you hostage for it if it wasn’t.
Some people just want to watch the world burn.
Nah. Corporations aren’t all knowing godlike beings. They are run by stupid people who make mistakes, just like us.
You’re thinking of microwaves.
That could work if you amped the waves up and trapped them in a confined, isolated space, no?
I’m not sure if that’s possible, but if, not in this size. You would probably need an oven in the size of an entire truck maybe? It probably needs lot of energy for both, isolating and transforming/amping the signal. At that point the power going in to transform the signal could be used more efficiently otherwise to achieve the same goal without Wi-fi (as those small microwaves proves it).
Maybe if you could amp up the wattage by a 1000 fold, sure
We’re not trying to be efficient, we are trying to be innovative!
Listen, the Behemoth probably wouldn’t even survive a shot from the wifiaser.
I for my part would rather like to use the microwave for Hi-Power WiFi (and you can hold a bag of popcorn into the datastream for nutrition too!)
Source: https://www.britannica.com/science/electromagnetic-radiation/Microwaves
2.4Ghz, and 5Ghz are microwaves. Your typical microwave oven operates at about 2.45GHz due to resonance frequency of water. 2.4Ghz wifi is literally a typical microwave’s neighbor.
The difference is sheer amount of power and shielding. Not the type of radiation.
The water resonance thing is a myth, AFAIK. Strong absorption is actually a bad thing for a microwave oven, because then it would only heat the surface. The way they work is effectively bouncing the radiation through a barely-absorbing dielectric thousands of times, to get the effect really even.
The frequency is probably just an easy one to build magnetrons for.
The real reason is that that range is reserved for consumer devices so that it doesn’t interfere with actual ISM sanctioned communications as enforced by the FCC. We just also decided to put wifi in the same range cause they’re stingy releasing frequencies for public use.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISM_radio_band#Frequency_allocations
But research was done on it cause of course it has been.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0031-9120/39/1/006
So you’re likely right that it’s not water resonance, but chassis cavity resonance. I can’t say that I’ve read deeply into it. And thinking about it I remember hearing something about some of the high level stuff that I just read in relation to this article. I probably ran into it in passing and just failed to recall it. But to be frank, I’m okay just calling it voodoo wizardry in of itself. But I have to understand wireless communications stuff for my profession, and it’s well known that it’s basically the same range as wifi 2.4ghz/bluetooth/other consumer standards that sit in the same crowded space.
There’s several ISM bands, though, pretty evenly spaced. The 13.5MHz one is used for passive RF chips like on credit cards, for example. They’re skinny, but for purposes where bandwidth doesn’t matter they can be. For other purposes bandwidth is scarce enough there has to be tight regulation.
Actually high water absorption happens in mm wave bands up in the hundreds of GHz (and THz too, if we could make a decent transmitter). Those fucked up riot control devices that make your skin feel on fire work based on that principle, because the heat will only go deep enough to hit pain receptors. Presumably, they stop working if you get a water mixture of any kind on the window, too.
https://media1.tenor.com/m/1PlOazHibx4AAAAd/simpsons-joke.gif
It may very well be. However, with how matter-of-factly you said it, some people might not think it’s a joke.
That’s a big, honking “no” from me.
It’d be one thing if the “smart” features were there but only supplemented the basic functionality. It’s another entirely for those basic features to require an internet connection.
Out of curiosity, did the product description indicate the internet connection was required? I’m soon to be replacing some appliances and want to know what to look out for (besides all mentions of “wifi” or “smart”).
That’s an important question.
That said, we were recently appliance shopping and none of them said that it was required, but a couple of the negative reviews mentioned it.
We ended up choosing one of the very few that didn’t list wifi or an app as a feature. Hopefully there isn’t a stealth modem hidden in there somewhere. I guess we’ll find out next week when it’s delivered…
Thanks for the additional insight.
A coffee maker, I’d just return. But a dishwasher, refrigerator, oven, etc would be a huge hassle I’d want to avoid. I think my best bet, like you said, is to just look for one that has absolutely no mention of w-fi or “smart”.
Any smart feature must be optional.
I have smart lights at home, none is required to get light in the rooms, they are only used for mood lighting.
We have a lot of smart plugs that we use for plant timers. They are way more accurate than the old school notched wheel ones and we can set them to actual sunrise and sunset. They also can just be turned on and used like a switch if the internet goes out
If you didn’t immediately take this back and demand a refund you’re part of the reason enshittification is getting worse
Or American with fuck all in the way of consumer rights, one of the two
They didn’t buy it. They bought a house that came with it.
Whose gonna pay the refund?
For context. Might be a bit less obvious to non native speakers, but I can understand how you might miss it
Yeah I would immediately return honestly, there are plenty other espresso makers that don’t require wifi
This blender doesn’t actually make coffee. ☹️
Pfft maybe not the way you use it
It’s an oven, old bean
99% of people couldn’t give less of a fuck. The only way we get out of this death spiral is with smart legislation.
Oh no. I don’t be needin’ no internet enabled legislation! Good, old fahsioned, airgapped legislation was good enough before, and it’s good enough today!
Even setting up a vlan doesn’t work half the time because the mobile apps don’t talk directly with the appliance but phone home to a cloud service. A cloud service that will eventually go offline and leave the appliances orphaned. That’s how GE’s thermostats work.
Why the fuck can’t we make things hot without the internet? FFS
Fire: “I got you, bro.”
A fire is what you may get when a hacker decides to turn the oven on for you.
It’s like playing Zomboid, but you don’t actually have to break into the house to put your clothes in the oven and turn it on.
Closer to how the first Megaman Battle Network starts as the scenario cmnybo mentioned is exactly what happens.