An Antique Toaster That's Better Than Today’s [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OfxlSG6q5Y

by CaliforniaKarl • 7 years ago

386 232 7 years ago

youtube.com

EdgarVerona• 7 years ago

That is pretty brilliant.

spats1990• 7 years ago

The left-hand slice of toast when it comes back up at 1:19. >:(

Good video though. Pushing the toast down 3-4 times before realising the damn thing is unplugged is my signature move.

lolinder• 7 years ago

We actually have one of these, and it's absolutely brilliant. It's been in constant use since my father-in-law was growing up, and yet it still works flawlessly. I've never burnt a piece of toast with it.

It's kinda depressing that today our toasters are less useful and stop working 10x sooner.

emmelaich• 7 years ago

Our family had one of these too. I remember it as being better and longer lasting than any toaster I've had since.

And it lasted a loong time - 30 years or so.

Lio2• 7 years ago

I’m a massive fan of my classic Dualit 4 slice toaster. (Look I’m British we like toast, alright?)

I was all ready to pooh-pooh this new fangled design from the 60s vs Dualit’s classic design from 1952; it’s the Technics SL1200 of the international toast scene.

Honestly though this design is ingenious! Video is well worth watching (assuming you like toasted bread comestibles).

Now if you’ll excuse I’m off for some afternoon crumpet.

ooerrmissus• 7 years ago

Now if you’ll excuse I’m off for some afternoon crumpet.

Don't forget to bring her some of your toast ;)

Lio2• 7 years ago

If I knew how to type a Sid James dirty chuckle I would. ;)

combatentropy• 7 years ago

my classic Dualit 4 slice toaster

--- which is around $300 and still selling. I think we need to rethink the reasons that the Sunbeam was discontinued.

scoot• 7 years ago

It sounds expensive, but we've had ours for over 20 years, and I expect it to last another 20 (or beyond) and look just as classy.

It's mechanically simple, easily serviceable (four screws), and spares are readily available.

nyolfen• 7 years ago

this channel is truly excellent, strongly recommended if old electronics are even kind of interesting to you, and still worth a shot if they aren't. in particular i'd recommend this video about the sony trinitron:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aFhzGEBQlk

rzzzt3• 7 years ago

I can also heartily recommend watching Alec's videos. He also has a second channel for the "DVD extra"-kind of content that doesn't quite fit into the original videos, or is cut due to time constraints; I find these also interesting (link leads to "Filming CRTs", demonstrated on the Trinitron used in parent's video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j0IC0bu3dg

puranjay• 7 years ago

Seconded. Their exploration of failed technology is particularly interesting.

This two part video on CEDs - which I didn't even know were a thing - is absolutely fascinating. The depth of research rivals any educational program on TV.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnpX8d8zRIA

adrianmonk• 7 years ago

It's awesome how this toaster works, but for practical purposes, I would prefer a toaster that does not auto-start.

One of the challenges of cooking is juggling multiple things so the food is all ready at the same time. Being able to do steps in advance helps with that. This actually kind of matters for toast because freshly toasted bread is a lot better than cold toast.

So it's helpful to be able to take bread out of the package, stick it in the toaster, and put loaf of bread back where it belongs when convenient, then come back later and start the final step (actually toasting) at the exact right time.

(On a side note, in actual fact, I have never had a toaster. A toaster oven does everything a toaster does and more. You can make a hot sandwich with melted cheese, for example.)

__s• 7 years ago

Had a toaster that would detect when you put bread in & start. Issue: walk away & if you don't take the toast out within a dozen seconds of it finishing, it'd go on to toast toast

ohazi• 7 years ago

i.e. set your kitchen on fire. How the hell does something like that pass basic safety testing?

hinkley3• 7 years ago

This one has a latch that prevents that. To fire the second time you have to remove the toast (it’s mentioned near the end of the video).

nbutyllithium• 7 years ago

Terrifying! At least the Sunbeam toaster in his video had a mechanism that requires the toast be removed before the cycle can start again (~11:25 in the video). Thinking of all the possible ways something can fail and mitigating them can be difficult but I feel like leaving the toast in should have been an obvious one.

benj1113• 7 years ago

"because freshly toasted bread is a lot better than cold toast"

Whilst I do agree with you, there is somewhat of a bathtub curve to toast temperature.

'hotel' cold toast, with very nearly melted butter is almost as nice as fresh hot buttered toast. Tepid toast isnt so good.

Ps a good overhead gas grill (broiler) is the best for toast, unfortunately most seem to be rubbish these days :(

insulanus4• 7 years ago

Oh, you won't get us into your cold toast game that easily, you tricky brits ;)

toxik• 7 years ago

Low tech solution: put the bread on the toaster instead of inside until you wanna start it.

undersuit4• 7 years ago

Agree. Toasters of all kinds say not to put fingers or utensils inside the unit. Putting things into toasters could make them electrically "hot", don't rely on the lever.

klez• 7 years ago

Or put the bread in the unplugged toaster and plug it when you want it to start. Or, if the socket is not at comfortable reach, use a switch between the toaster plug and the socket. Not tidy, maybe, but it works.

twic3• 7 years ago

You can make a toasted sandwich in a Dualit toaster using the cage:

https://www.dualit.com/recipes/toastie

Or using a bag in a conventional toaster that lacks a cage:

https://www.lakeland.co.uk/10724/2-Lakeland-Toastabags---Toa...

MertsA3• 7 years ago

Yeesh, looks like an antique fire hazard to me. Also, unless the video is mistaken, if that complex linkage fails or the inner heating element fails then the thermostat on it is going to be blocked by that bit on the bottom of the bread carriage that's meant to block it while the carriage is lowered. That seems like a good way to get it stuck in the on position so if someone just looked at the toaster, they might not even realize that it's still on because the bread isn't lowered. What happens if something flammable like a letter slides off of something unnoticed and falls into the toaster? Even if someone is home and awake the thing moves slowly and is downright silent when it turns on and lowers the toast. The first sign of something going wrong might very well be flames.

This thing is a burn hazard, shock hazard, and fire hazard all in one.

maxerickson2• 7 years ago

The burning letter would probably stain the chrome finish.

jmpman• 7 years ago

I bet it wipes clean.

sjg0072• 7 years ago

Why would you have a letter near your toaster? Also why not unplug it when done?

koolba• 7 years ago

Why would you have a letter near your toaster?

The standard American household with 2.3 kids has everything on the counter near the toaster.

For the "oven" style toasters there's an significant chance that there's something made out of either paper or plastic atop the metal roof ready to melt as well.

Also why not unplug it when done?

And plug it back in every morning? That'd be unnecessarily annoying.

hinkley3• 7 years ago

One of the advantages of the combination of 120V, ground wires and keyed plugs is that by and large electronics here have not really needed to be unplugged between uses by most people still living.

In fact the most likely vector to shock yourself is the plug on your vacuum cleaner, because it is so often plugged in and mistreated in the process. The materials and stress relievers have gotten better and it’s probably been 30 years since I’ve seen a frayed cord...

Well, except for my Apple power cords. sigh

insulanus4• 7 years ago

Also why not unplug it when done?

Americans don't have time for this. They barely have time in the morning to grab their hot toast, hop on their Segway, or motorcycle, or rocket-ship, or what have you, and go go go go GO!

Love me some Americans.

vonmoltke2• 7 years ago

I grew up with this toaster, and it is not anywhere near as dangerous as you make it out to be. We never had anything like the issues you describe, and personally I think your situations (leaving flammable material where it can fall on the toaster, leaving the toaster plugged in all the time) are downright dangerous regardless of the type of toaster in question.

jahewson• 7 years ago

Survivorship bias. The design is ridiculously dangerous by modern standards. It would probably set my cat on fire.

MertsA3• 7 years ago

I'm not trying to imply that it's likely to occur, just that when talking on the scale of millions of homes with toasters in them, some of those convenient and ingenious design features would probably burn down many houses that a more modern design wouldn't have. Tons of people leave toasters plugged in all the time but you're not going to ever accidentally turn on a modern version where you have to push down a spring loaded plunger to switch it on.

Johnny555• 7 years ago

We had a toaster where the side carriage broke and tilted over to the side and let the bread come into contact with the heating elements, there were some flames from the bread (and lots of smoke) but not enough to make me think the kitchen would burn down... I just yanked the cord out of the wall and pulled the toaster into the sink but in retrospect, I don't think even that was necessary, the bread was already pretty much burnt out.

Moral of the story is -- toasters are heating devices, so don't let them run unattended.

harryposner• 7 years ago

I don't think he's right that you could implement a bagel mode on that toaster by just running the center heating element. Both heating elements are necessary for the toaster to function (which he mentions!). You need to run the center element to drive the bread lifter, but you also need to run the outer element to heat the side of the bread facing the bimetallic strip. You can't put the bimetallic strip on the center side of the bread, since it needs direct exposure to the heat radiating off the bread, and the coiled center heating element would get in the way.

tuukkah• 7 years ago

Additionally, there must not be a hole in the center of the bagel as that would cause the heat from one side to radiate directly to the bimetal on the other side.

XorNot• 7 years ago

Loved this video. The mechanical design of this thing (the solely mechanical design) is a thing of beauty.

tompccs2• 7 years ago

There's a simple reason why this toaster was discontinued, and that's because it can't be made from commodity components which are used by all toaster manufacturers, as well as in a variety of other domestic appliances.

Plus, assembly looks quite intricate and probably highly manual.

It's beautiful, sure, but go and buy a toaster today and see how much premium people are willing to pay for a designer brand with no functional advantage.

Sadly toasters all work "well enough". This is a textbook example of great engineering being trumped by globalised economics and fickle consumers.

hinkley3• 7 years ago

Except we live in a world where YouTube videos are interrupted by photogenic hipsters selling sunglasses made of titanium and hand cut, old school soap.

Recreating this toaster is exactly the kind of thing I hope that set gets around to.

Plus, there are toasters that cost more than my tablet which don’t have this feature. If you can make a toaster that infuriatingly stupidly expensive and sell it, you can sure as hell afford to make a workalike [of] this mechanism.

smacktoward• 7 years ago

Even for that market, the way you make money isn't by making products that are better than the commodity alternative. It's by taking the commodity alternative and dressing it up in fancy packaging and marketing so it looks like a product that's better than the commodity alternative.

Making unique, superior products is expensive. Your profit margins are much better if you just take the same crap everyone else is selling and put a sharp suit of clothes on it.

spaceman_2020• 7 years ago

My biggest pet peeve is all sorts of appliance manufacturers sticking touchscreen displays everywhere.

The coffee machine in my office has a touchscreen display. It only dispenses 4 things - lattes, cappuccinos, black coffee, and espressos.

Why does this have to be a touchscreen? It could have easily been more usable buttons.

But I guess you can't charge a $100 premium for buttons

NeedMoreTea• 7 years ago

Well Dualit are still making them manually, and seem quite successful. Repairable and last decades.

Sage have tried for the market of "premium, but made like crap really". £120+ for a regular toaster with added LEDs, displays, etc. They sell purely as they paid a celeb chef for their adverts.

abcdefabcdef4562• 7 years ago

Yes! Sage's "Heston" coffee machine is absolute pants too...

gonzo41• 7 years ago

Isn't the great engineering the fact that all toasters are made from commodity parts and are cheap and able to be had by all.

braythwayt2• 7 years ago

There are many kinds of great engineering. Lego making billions and billions of really cheap little plastic bricks that last forever and click together no matter when you bought them is one kind of great engineering, so is SpaceX.

tompccs2• 7 years ago

Oh yes I agree, and if some enterprising engineer wanted to buy the trademark and start producing them again I'm sure they'd use a servo and a microcontroller to achieve the same effect.

The design of the toaster reminds me of the design of the first transistor radio which ingeniously needed just four transistors to work. Nowadays that engineering effort would be a complete waste of time. It's sad in a way that that sort of craft has been lost, but it's largely redundant now.

coldtea2• 7 years ago

There's a simple reason why this toaster was discontinued, and that's because it can't be made from commodity components which are used by all toaster manufacturers, as well as in a variety of other domestic appliances.

That's definitely not the reason. We have automation robots and people do kinds of manual assembly for much less than a $200 or so this could easily command (besides, it's still being made).

We also have toasters with custom parts made today, they just aren't purely electro-mechanical like this.

That you can have one for a century and it will still work/be repairable easily is more likely the reason.

stuart78• 7 years ago

where did you find it still being made?

denton-scratch8• 7 years ago

Toasters do not all "work well enough". Shout if you have a toaster that you bought less than 5 years ago, that is still working. I think they're supposed to start failing after a year or two.

[Edit: if it's older than ten years, say how old - they made them better back in the olden daze]

These devices are sold for ten euros/dollars, or so. You really can't do good product design to that sort of price point. People expect to have to "recycle" them.

I bought a toaster for which you can order replacement heater elements, or a new timer. You can dismantle it and reassemble it with a normal electrician's screwdriver. The timer is clockwork. The whole thing's very steampunk.

It cost about 8 times as much as a "disposable" toaster. I don't know if it was a good deal; I'll tell you in a few decades. But if I don't have to bother with replacing it, from my POV that will be money well-spent; I'm sick of replacing stuff that should still be working. I'm sick of "hardware" that's really made of tissue-paper. And I'm sick of furniture that's made of wood-chips.

</rant>

bryanrasmussen• 7 years ago

I agree with every point you made, especially the wood chips. however I am still peeved at you because you did not include a link to this toaster you bought. How do I get one?

cdubzzz• 7 years ago

We bought the cheapest toaster we could find at a Target probably 5 - 6 years ago. Still works fine.

nextos2• 7 years ago

What you are saying is sadly the reality today within most product categories.

For example, go to a totally different category: clothing.

In the great age of US sports clothing, tees were slowly knitted by machines called loopwheelers. E.g. tees from Champion.

These days, they are crap. If you want a nice tee that will age well and last really long, you need to buy from some Japanese brands that try to imitate old Champion tees. The price is really high, and you'd most likely need to import or buy from a high end shop.

I try to buy good stuff that lasts ages. I don't care paying a big premium. I try to live with around 100 items. But its really hard.

cglace• 7 years ago

I received a toaster as a wedding present 7 years and about a week ago. We’ve used it almost everyday since then(when we are home). It’s a breville, we have a lot of their products and they all seem to hold up really well. I bought a breville coffee grinder 10 years ago that I still use every morning.

burmer• 7 years ago

My toaster growing up was a wedding present, for my grandparents. It still works.

PaulHoule• 7 years ago

My mother-in-law bought Her first toaster made in China from Wal Mart circa 2000, it burned up in about a week. Since then the toasters i have seen don't burn up but they are incredibly slow and try to make up for it by having more slots. It doesn't help much because usually i want one slice or at most two.

Did old toasters have asbestos in them?

aeternum• 7 years ago

I had that same sunbeam toaster shown in the video. It worked great for the first year, then we had to throw the bread in with increasing amounts of force to get it to start.

Eventually we were dropping bread from high above the toaster to get just the right amount of force. It often took many attempts, would not recommend.

ImprovedSilence3• 7 years ago

Right. It’s unreal how hard it is to find decent shit built to last, and don’t tell me I’m not willing to pay a premium for it, because I am willing. What I don’t like buying is shit branded as upscale high quality that is really the same garbage underneath.

I’m sure there a number of different elements at play here, but one aspect I’ve seen happen time and again is private equity buying out a company and using that strong brand to make progressively shittier and shittier goods, for the same or higher price, while still retaining enough critical mass mindshare that the brand is still “quality”.

multjoy• 7 years ago

My Kenwood thing off Amazon is still working fine after over 10 years. Wasn’t expensive, certainly isn’t artisanal.

undersuit4• 7 years ago

I bought an $8 toaster from Walmart some years ago when I consider the economy better(cause I was also able to buy a $20 microwave).

It has a plastic exterior, and a metal interior. The thermal regulator was luckily designed for this, if you start more bread immediately after the first pair it will finish faster and with less cooking.

It's a very reliable toaster for $8 , and if it breaks I'm going to feel like an asshole when I throw it in the garbage.

I used it in January when I toasted some banana bread.

cameronh90• 7 years ago

I have a toaster just about 6 years old now. It wasn't a spectacular one, just not the cheapest one from Walmart. It cost £50, still works as well as when I got it. The toaster in my rental property is now 10 years old and still going strong too.

Fridges on the other hand... I've had 3 die over the same period.

vageli• 7 years ago

Toasters do not all "work well enough". Shout if you have a toaster that you bought less than 5 years ago, that is still working. I think they're supposed to start failing after a year or two.
[Edit: if it's older than ten years, say how old - they made them better back in the olden daze]
These devices are sold for ten euros/dollars, or so. You really can't do good product design to that sort of price point. People expect to have to "recycle" them.
I bought a toaster for which you can order replacement heater elements, or a new timer. You can dismantle it and reassemble it with a normal electrician's screwdriver. The timer is clockwork. The whole thing's very steampunk.
It cost about 8 times as much as a "disposable" toaster. I don't know if it was a good deal; I'll tell you in a few decades. But if I don't have to bother with replacing it, from my POV that will be money well-spent; I'm sick of replacing stuff that should still be working. I'm sick of "hardware" that's really made of tissue-paper. And I'm sick of furniture that's made of wood-chips.
</rant>

Might I ask what brand of toaster is it?

jdnenej• 7 years ago

I have never seen a toaster just randomly break. I have had 2 toasters in my life. The first one broke because someone attempted to clean it and after that it would trip the ground power breaker on use. The second one has been working for about 5 years now.

organsnyder2• 7 years ago

We have the same toaster we got for a wedding present 13 years ago. It was not an expensive model (probably $30). I didn't realize that this was an appliance category that was prone to failures.

bcrosby95• 7 years ago

And I'm sick of furniture that's made of wood-chips.

Yeah, I learned woodworking partially because I wanted furniture I knew wasn't made from crap. It's a fun hobby that lets me step away from the computer.

Nevermind all the chemicals they use in some of this stuff. We bought a dresser and it smelled so bad we had to leave it in the garage for half a year before we used it indoors.

ryacko• 7 years ago

The Dualit toaster in my household was recommended by an appliance repairman. It is reliable so far, but it wasn't until the past year that the medium setting on the timer actually resulted in medium toasting.

carlmr2• 7 years ago

Shout if you have a toaster that you bought less than 5 years ago, that is still working. I think they're supposed to start failing after a year or two.

I bought mine in 2015 and it works. I've never had a toaster fail either. I'm not sure what you're doing with your toasters.

One of my water boilers failed (lid hinge broke). My oven recently broke after 12 years.

All in all I don't have many problems with appliances breaking.

I think it's more survivorship bias to think that old appliances were better. The ones you see surviving are the ones that didn't break a long time ago.

phyllostachys• 7 years ago

I think my wife and I have a toaster from when we first got married. It'll be 13 years this month. It's probably a 2009 or 2010 model, so really only about a decade or a little less old.

abcdefabcdef4562• 7 years ago

I went through 4 toasters in quick succession, never bothered keeping box or receipts so had no recourse. 18 months ago I bought a Tesco own brand, under a tenner, and it's still going. BUT it can't take a standard size piece of bread. Beyond the absurd, I rotate my toast daily whilst banging my forehead on the counter. (I did keep the box and receipt this time, I really must take it back)

nullc• 7 years ago

There's a simple reason why this toaster was discontinued, and that's because it can't be made from commodity components which are used by all toaster manufacturers, as well as in a variety of other domestic appliances.

The youtube comments include a response from a former sunbeam employee that suggests that it was discontinued because the companies CEO at the time was someone known for stripping companies and likely laid off the manufacturing staff.

lazyjones• 7 years ago

It's beautiful, sure, but go and buy a toaster today and see how much premium people are willing to pay for a designer brand with no functional advantage.

$200+ easily, just look at KitchenAid or Magimix toasters...

tgsovlerkhgsel3• 7 years ago

great engineering being trumped by globalised economics

The art of engineering is not to create a beautiful machine, it's to build something that does the job as efficiently as possible.

It's easy to build a machine that does something, it's hard to build it so it can also be manufactured cheaply. See e.g. the Juicero (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juicero#Controversies).

yummypaint• 7 years ago

I don't think the juicero was about solving a problem people actually had. It's real purpose was to add DRM to fruit.

benj1113• 7 years ago

Someone should introduce this guy to the Teasmaid, I think he'd be equally impressed

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teasmade

shakna• 7 years ago

I actually had one of these for a good long while. I was too terrified of it to pull it apart and understand the mechanism, but it was a great example of UX.

Removing just the step of pushing down and fast return actually did make me appreciate it more.

But he is absolutely right when he pointed to the paper insulated wire as a truly hideous and terrifying thing. My toaster did eventually burst into flames, and that's about where I think the fire started. Hard to tell when looking at twisted metal.

I think this is a great example of the kind of things that planned obsolescence has killed. The design could probably have been improved, and the safety brought up to modern standards, through research and iteration.

However, why invest in making a better toaster when you can sell a $2 worth of toaster for $5 that will expire in less than two years?

bch2• 7 years ago

[...] why invest in making a better [...]

This is the question of our Industrial Age. I think a nice example is VW (in a former life) w their beetle program. Well documented in Small Wonder[0] under Heinz Nordhoff[1]. Easy 50 years of incremental improvements and what seem like truly human- (Volks) oriented design decisions.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Small-Wonder-Amazing-Volkswagen-Beetl...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Nordhoff

userbinator3• 7 years ago

That's not regular paper. It's probably some sort of mica-asbestos composite and definitely not flammable.

Fire is likely to be caused by bread crumbs, since otherwise there is nothing combustible in the toaster (unlike the plastic-ful modern ones.)

dmitriid• 7 years ago

The Swedish company Husqvarna used to make toasters that would carefully lower your bred, close the lid, and then carefully bring it back up much like the toaster in the video.

Unfortunately, Ic an't a video of it, or even proper product descriptions (it looks like they discontinued toasters). And yeah, it wasn't as consistent :)

azinman22• 7 years ago

Except how do you stop it early?

kempbellt• 7 years ago

Turn the dial

azinman22• 7 years ago

But it’s both not very accessible as well as you’re resetting what you might want to keep as the default.

Retric• 7 years ago

There is probably a button, but at worst unplugging it works as toast is raised when the coils cool.

ken2• 7 years ago

There is no button. You can sometimes make it abort by slamming the intensity dial all the way to the left. But yes, in general you have to unplug it, which is horribly inconvenient.

analog31• 7 years ago

You don't need to. Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but... The classic toaster sensed the temperature of the toast, and stopped when it was done. My family had one of these, and it was quite predictable. We never had to change the setting, and it handled a variety of kinds of bread.

Today's toasters, at least the cheaper ones, seem to be based solely on time, and so it's unknowable how a particular kind of bread will behave. You have to watch it and be prepared to stop it early.

Bagels were a problem if the hole lined up with the sensor. I don't think store-bought bagels were a thing in our area until long after the toaster was made.

Tokkemon• 7 years ago

I love this channel so much. Well done Alec!

abootstrapper• 7 years ago

I love this guys videos.

radicalbyte• 7 years ago

On a slight tangent: when I saw the title I thought "I'll probably have to post a link to that Technology Connections film showing that natty old toaster".

His channel is really interesting; even if like me you find his style a little irritating at first it really grows on you when you see that he really knows what he's talking about. One of my favorite channels next to Jeff Cavaliere (Athlean-X).

dwighttk2• 7 years ago

So, you have to toast two pieces at once?

pg_bot• 7 years ago

No, if you have one piece of toast you put it in the slot that has the lever.

dwighttk2• 7 years ago

ah, I was trying to stay around in the video until he got to that, but even at 1.75x I couldn't handle it.

twic3• 7 years ago

As a Brit watching this video, i had to stop and google a couple of Americanisms:

"unpolarized cord" - good god, you mean you can plug most American appliances in either way round, and so random parts of them will be live? This is the worst country on earth!

"toaster strudels" - correction, this is the greatest country on earth.

gautamcgoel• 7 years ago

Comment of the day right here!

Aloha2• 7 years ago

Pretty much every modern appliance is polarized.

The key to note, in most houses when the unpolarized stuff was new, there were alarmingly few ground sources nearby, so the fact that one side of the appliance was hot, doesn't actually matter that much - so while it's safer now, it wasn't that unsafe then. I'd also point out, these choices make more sense when you consider the lower voltage of US power distribution.

kwhitefoot2• 7 years ago

Pretty much every modern European mains powered device is double insulated so it doesn't matter which pole is live and which is neutral.

Some countries do have polarized connectors (UK, some Polish, France, Belgium, etc.) but many do not. However supposedly competent electricians sometimes connect them the wrong way round anyway or omit the earth or both as I discovered in France last year.

See this web page for a convenient list of mains connectors and countries that use them: https://www.worldstandards.eu/electricity/plugs-and-sockets/

vinay427• 7 years ago

Tangent but virtually every country in continental Europe has two-prong unpolarized cords. It's far more common here than in the US, in my experience.

maxerickson2• 7 years ago

The appliances would be designed to account for the plug going in either way, which is a long ways from 'random'.

Polarization and grounding enable designs that are even safer.

mikestew• 7 years ago

and so random parts of them will be live?

Why on earth would you assume that?

This is the worst country on earth!

Could be, but we do know how to make appliances that are not dependent on which you plug them in. (Truth be told, I’m pretty sure a lot, if not most, other countries do, too.)

kwhitefoot2• 7 years ago

Modern devices are normally double insulated, it makes no difference which pole is live. Many European countries use unpolarised Schuko connectors.

ozmbie• 7 years ago

That's why I love UK and Australian/NZ power plugs. It's impossible to plug them in "the other way around". They only go in one way.

frosted-flakes2• 7 years ago

North American plugs also only go in one way, unless they are unpolarised, and pretty much all modern appliances have polarised plugs. The only stuff that doesn't are stuff like cell phone chargers, which is actually great, because sometimes it's more convenient to have it pointing the other way.

megaremote3• 7 years ago

toaster strudels

I am sure you can get the same effect in your country by just pouring a cup of sugar on each slice of toast.

twic3• 7 years ago

Cinnamon toast, the borderline poverty answer to toaster pastry!

lampenrad• 7 years ago

Very neat design, but there are highly advanced toasters nowadays. There just doesn‘t seem a market for them in the West (yet?).

Bloomberg recently covered high-end Japanese toasters: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-16/this-japa...

megaremote3• 7 years ago

There are high end toasters in the west. I feel like no one did any research at all.

https://www.toaster.org/glass-toasters/

Cytobit• 7 years ago

I don't see any evidence that that site did comprehensive reviews and analysis. Just a bunch of Amazon affiliate links.

Aloha2• 7 years ago

I'm really happy to see that a Technology Connections video made HN, this guy produces really entertaining and easy to digest videos about technology most people don't give too much thought to. While I can't say I learned anything new most of the time (This video and the one about TOSLINK are exceptions), I was entertained and can use these videos to send to someone who doesn't have a huge technical background on stuff.

staplor• 7 years ago

It's not as if similar toasters don't exist. I have a similar one in my kitchen.

https://www.kitchenaid.com/countertop-appliances/toasters/tw...

opencl• 7 years ago

There are modern toasters with the auto drop functionality but none that I'm aware of that sense the temperature of the bread like the old sunbeam does.

ubertoop• 7 years ago

It's antiquated. My toaster uses machine learning to determine the "doneness" of the bread. Thereby allowing for breads of variant moisture levels to be brought to the same level of doneness, independent of surface heat.

Couple that with the fact that my toaster is also connected via 802.11g to the INTERNET where, naturally, I can view the toast progress via an iOS or Android app. A live feed of the toast progress is streamed to the app, and I can either cancel early or allow the bread to finish toasting. Upon finishing, a push notification is sent to my phone. Nice.

Lastly, and this is probably the highlight feature... I can share my toasting status to social. With the click of a button I can share a screen shot of my toast, WITH my choice of camera filter. Nothing says "ive got it better than you" than a picture of a perfectly toasted piece of toast with a christmas spirit filter.

DaiPlusPlus• 7 years ago

Is it on Amazon?

unionpivo• 7 years ago

no but 50 different lookalikes from china are.

drivingmenuts• 7 years ago

It’s all fun and games until someone hacks your toaster to start toasting penii onto the surface.

dsamarin• 7 years ago

I would pay good money for a toaster that would print my own uploaded designs into

trhway• 7 years ago

or they make the toaster to slightly and unpredictably vary the quality of the toasting - not enough for you to notice anything specific, yet enough to make you start the day with a bit of puzzled annoyance and undermining your confidence in your perception of reality - "was the toast different yesterday or is it just me?" - and leaving you with something bugging at the back of your mind through the day making you a bit impatient, a bit more easily frustrated, distracted and having some unspecified resentment building up deep inside you more and more with every day...

bch2• 7 years ago

Isn’t that what these[0] are for?

[0] https://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/store/s/panini-makers

sixdimensional• 7 years ago

Don’t forget it’s hooked up to the IoT cloud and has a digital twin for real time troubleshooting, as we are monitoring the device telemetry via MQTT and performing big data predictive maintenance analytics using RNNs! We’ve already shipped a replacement toaster coil, dispatched a technician and billed your credit card $9.95 per month, since it’s now “toaster as a service”!

netsharc• 7 years ago

Why own a toaster, using my Toasteroo service other people will make you toast and bring it to your front door!

kalleboo• 7 years ago

If my toast isn't on the Blockchain, I'm not eating it!

dTal• 7 years ago

The slow-burn upping of the ante left me unsure if this was even satire. Well done.

...it is satire, right?

CinchWrench• 7 years ago

But your toaster is open to the internet and now it mines bitcoins for some shady character in Moldova.

antongribok• 7 years ago

A sad state - I struggle to say if this is serious or satire.

Avshalom• 7 years ago

You jest but the netbsd toaster is closing in on 15 years old https://www.embeddedarm.com/blog/netbsd-toaster-powered-by-t...

pooya13• 7 years ago

We are approaching The Toaster Event Horizon.

emcrazyone• 7 years ago

I have this toaster and LOVE it.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=crc8n7D4kYg

robocat2• 7 years ago

Does anyone know how Breville are making really usable appliances?

I bought a microwave oven which has a very good UI (buttons, knobs, layout, display).

Also: why do I fear the UI of anything with a German brand name?

friendlybus• 7 years ago

Is it bree-ville or brev-ill?

joshu• 7 years ago

I kinda want one. I wonder if people will start buying and modding them? I can/t wait for /r/MechanicalToasters

pkulak• 7 years ago

Knew who this was before I clicked. Do yourself a favor and browse his other videos: there's absolute gold in there.

modeless• 7 years ago

"Now you know why you were taught to never stick a knife down a toaster"

That's the most interesting part of this video to me. I was definitely taught this, and I never understood why because modern toasters don't have this problem (where the insides of the toaster may be connected to a live wire even when off). Funny how this kind of cultural knowledge persists after it's no longer relevant.

It's crazy to see just how unsafe appliances used to be. People maybe don't take that safety differential into account when lamenting the complexity and unreliability of modern stuff.

One other safety thing: it looks like this toaster may not raise small toast high enough to easily grab. Most toaster levers let you manually raise the toast higher than normal to retrieve it. Without a lever you are forced to reach into the hot slot and risk burns or electrocution to retrieve your toast before it cools.

tbyehl• 7 years ago

Toaster tongs. I don't remember encountering a toaster that could lift while I was growing up... but toaster tongs were a hit at every Tupperware party.

robocat2• 7 years ago

The nichrome wire is under tension in this device.

When the nichrome wire breaks (eventual common failure I think), wouldn't that cause a high risk of the live wire touching the body of the toaster?

retroriffic• 7 years ago

Note that the host isn’t saying that this 60s toaster _as designed_ is better in every way— rather, that a modernized version of this design would be better than toasters designed today using the latest electronics.

denormalfloat• 7 years ago

That is a lot of moving parts for a toaster. It seems like even a few crumbs falling into the wrong spot would jam the falling/raising mechanism.

paulcole• 7 years ago

18 minutes for that. Jesus Christ.

gnicholas• 7 years ago

I inherited one of these from my grandfather. I always thought it was elegant because there was no manual lever, but I had no idea how complicated the mechanism is (current through a wire heats it so it expands, triggering a series of levers). After watching the first part of the video I wanted to get it back out and start using it again. Then he described the paper insulation around the wire, and I decided not to. Maybe in a few years my kid and I will watch his remediation video and give it a try. Seems like a pretty serious fire (and electrocution) hazard as-is!

soheil2• 7 years ago

It seems like modern toasters try to accomplish so many requirements which are boring and dull at the expense of giving up on ingenuity and beautiful design. Take for example bagel mode, nearly all modern cheap toasters support that, this adds complexity and reduces viability of a rather simpler yet elegant design. Manufacturers wanting to satisfy these rather mundane requirements in order to not only appeal to as many consumers as possible, but also avoid a type of boycott because product X cannot do task Y, thus it's inferior marketing arguments, they forego engineering elegance.

soheil2• 7 years ago

This could be a type of The Tyranny of the Minority [0] having to satisfy so many small yet forcefully demanded items.

[0] https://areomagazine.com/2019/04/02/the-tyranny-of-the-minor...

starpilot• 7 years ago

Get a toaster oven. Does everything a toaster can, better. Reheat cookies, make small baked goods, and just easier to use.

wyclif2• 7 years ago

I've used both frequently, and I don't think the toaster oven is easier. It's just better for things that are not slices of bread or bagels, so I'd concede it's a more general kitchen appliance. To toast bread in a toaster oven, I need to open the glass door, then position the bread on the tray, close the door, and then turn the dial. Then I have to open and close the door after toasting.

With a toaster, it's just drop the bread in and push the lever down. Then pull the toast out when done. It may not seem like a significant number of saved steps, but if you're doing it over and over again it adds up.

kaendfinger• 7 years ago

Highly Recommend this channel btw, lots of quality videos on old technology.

gumby• 7 years ago

Toasters like that are still for sale. I have one I bought at Target -- hard to get more mass market than that.

I recently moved into a smaller space so put the toaster in my garage and just use the oven like we did when I was a kid. My watch tells me when to pull it out!

ken2• 7 years ago

3 months ago, I wrote a mini-rant in response to this video about how this is the Worst Toaster Ever Made: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20177007

I stand by every word I wrote. I'd rather use a propane torch. It'd be quicker and easier and safer.

davidw• 7 years ago

The sensor wasn't very good, either. There was a razor thin margin where you'd get reasonable toast, and it was almost all the way to the "light" end. At even 25% to "dark", you'd get a block of charcoal. I'd set it all the way at "light", and toast my bread twice, if needed, because that was safest.

In the video, the first toast that comes out of the 'old school' toaster looks pretty dark:

https://youtu.be/1OfxlSG6q5Y?t=78

knolax• 7 years ago

I'd rather use a propane torch.

I've had toast made on a charcoal grill and I gotta say it tastes a lot better than toast made in a toaster.

pkroll• 7 years ago

Everything tastes better made on a charcoal grill. As someone in a high-rise, with a propane grill, my envy is considerable.

gridlockd• 7 years ago

Thanks for the rant. I saw that video back then and immediately suspected that it was a "so clever it's stupid" design.

I hate it when companies do that stuff and get away with it, or even praised for it.

(Looking at you Apple, your keyboards suck and the notch is stupid)

erikpukinskis• 7 years ago

The notch is pretty smart. People want more screen space, but it’s nice to have the battery and time visible, the notch let’s you stick them up there with the camera in otherwise wasted space.

war10254• 7 years ago

In the follow-up video he goes through how to adjust the thermostat and spring tension. So maybe your toaster was just adjusted wrong?

Maybe also just an example of something that's "too clever by half" [1]

My own mini-rant: We got a KitchenAid mixer for our wedding and I think it's the worst mixer I've ever used. We had a Sunbeam growing up and it was superior in every way.

[1] https://www.epsilontheory.com/too-clever-by-half/

xyzzyz• 7 years ago

You should never need to adjust thermostat and spring tension in a toaster.

linsomniac• 7 years ago

I'm curious about the KitchenAid you got: Which one? Looks like the current Sunbeam mixers are fairly "cheap", compared to the KitchenAid "bowl lift" ones.

We have a bowl lift and I love it, though that's with an asterisk... Ours is a ~7 year old one (maybe 10), and the drivetrain is pretty crappy. The accessory port is driven by some really nasty looking sintered metal gears, and some teeth on ours broke, despite never having used the accessory ("PTO"?) port. I ended up taking it apart, I could get replacements for everything but I ended up disabling the accessory port because that part of the drivetrain was so sketchy. The rest of it was just fine.

The newer ones, as far as I can tell from a disassembly video I watched, are vastly superior in the drivetrain. Ours, has been a real workhorse since I did this fix. I used grease with a lot of molybdenum content, but should have used something rated for high temp, because at one point a few months ago my wife had it smoking.

thrower1232• 7 years ago

The old KitchenAid mixers are bulletproof and absolutely top of the line. My mother inherited one that was built in the 70s and it still gets daily use.

The newer ones feel much cheaper. My wife has one of the fancier new models, and it just feels like a much inferior product. It's the same design, but everything about it works less well than the older iteration.

mumblemumble2• 7 years ago

I'm at least somewhat with you. My in laws have this toaster, and my mother in law loves it dearly. And her beloved Sunbeam toaster is the reason I make do with un-toasted bread for breakfast when we're visiting them.

My experience is very similar to what you describe: The switch that gets it going is finicky, and will frequently play games with you for several minutes before letting you have toast. The darkness seems to be controlled by a random number generator rather than the darkness dial. Aborting toast that's getting a bit too toasty is a non-obvious procedure that tends to involve singing your fingers. I suspect that the thing is a fire hazard.

The reason I stop short of saying it's a bad toaster with a bad design is, the thing is half again as old as I am, and it's probably just that it's starting to wear out.

After half a century.

Name another electric toaster that will make toast at all, however jankily, after that many years of service. The fact that the thing is the bane of my breakfast is kind of a testament to what a great product it was. A lesser toaster would never have survived long enough to torment me so.

(p.s. - I will say that that silent smooth rise out of the toaster, while impressive at first sight, is objectively a nuisance in practice, since it puts it on you to keep track of the time and an eye on the toaster so that you can get your toast when it's done, before it's had time to dry out and become unappetizing becuase you left it bathing in the toaster's residual heat for too long. Which is just way too much to be putting on me in the early morning, when the coffee has yet to take effect and I haven't had a chance to get so much as a slice of toast into my stomach yet.)

organsnyder2• 7 years ago

Do toasters wear out? I've never seen one that didn't give decades of service.

mumblemumble2• 7 years ago

Shame on me for commenting before finishing the video. Turns out there's a very easy fix for at least the finicky switch, and it sounds like it would do the trick for the Sunbeam toaster that I know and lov^H^H^H^H use sometimes.

SubiculumCode• 7 years ago

My grandma is still using the toaster she bought int he 60's. My mom is still using the same microwave she bought in the 80's, crank dial and all.

switch007• 7 years ago

Pfffft toasters. Pan-fried toast is the best toast! This is _irrefutably_ true, because you can add butter to a pan and not a toaster! In case you aren't convinced: isn't a grilled cheese sandwich one of the best uses of bread? Case closed. Throw out your toasters and bathe in the wonderous joy of pan-fried toast.

Shivetya• 7 years ago

The vintage toaster you want, no bagels, is a Toastmaster 1B16. my parents have my grandfather's toaster of this model and I have one from ebay. Perfect toast each time. Sunbeam made a similar one though it had less adjustment as seen in the video but I think it was inferior to the Toastmaster; I have both and both still work

Please note, whomever is using the name now is certainly not making a toaster of the same quality.

they weigh a good amount but that tends to be the case of anything from the forties and fifties.

Example auction of a 1B16 https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Toastmaster-1B16-Automatic-...

Great site for toasters https://toastercentral.com/toaster40s.htm

innagadadavida• 7 years ago

Anyone remembers the afterdark screensaver from the PC era? It looks like this toaster was used for the flying toaster. Amazing product, pity today’s stuff is just built so poorly.

Krasnol• 7 years ago

I like how the first time he puts toast into it, the left one comes out charcoal black before the cut. I wonder what happened there.

Too• 7 years ago

As ingenious as this is, can you truly call it simple? I mean just look at the patent alone, it has over 120 listed items and the real production piece probably even more. It is mechanically incredibly complex, combining all kinds of levers, materials, linkages, thermal expansion, small tolerances, reflecting radiation, latches, bimetallic switches. Contrast this with a basic design which can probably be made with 2 or 3 moving parts only: the spring, some latch and a time/heat-controlled relay.

Assuming you'd want to replicate this thing with modern equipment, would it be cheaper and simpler with a servo and a µC?

wkjagt• 7 years ago

A while ago, I wrote (1) about an old toaster I had bought at a thrift store 7 years earlier and that I’d been using daily since. Now, 5 years later, I’m still using this same toaster, and it still out-toasts most newer toasters. I really believe it’s getting harder to find quality products that are built with longevity and repairability in mind.

(1) https://medium.com/@wkjagt/i-love-my-toaster-d9b335d4abf9

An Antique Toaster That's Better Than Today’s [video]

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