Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

by hemloc_io • 10 months ago

824 670 10 months ago

jmarchello• 10 months ago

We made it! We’ve finally invented vibroblades!

trhway2• 10 months ago

the next version will come with plasma micro jets ejection from the cutting edge - convenient for civilian use. I'm also wandering about an array of shaped micro-charges on the edge - should be able to cut through several millimeters of steel in one move, etc. so a soldier can cut though an opponent's ballistic vest or a into an lightly armored IFV.

procaryote2• 10 months ago

A shaped charge is sadly the opposite of sharp so it would be a one time use blade that would be dull before and after

That one use would be anything but dull though

tsimionescu• 10 months ago

Now if they could get the vibrations by shooting a bullet along the edge, we'd also have gunblades!

joeshmoe112• 10 months ago

I was searching for this comment. All the snark in this thread, I’m just excited that we’ve invented working vibroblades lol

araes• 10 months ago

Heinlein, Star Frontiers, Star Wars, Battletech, 40k, Rifts, GURPs, Gundam, Metal Gear, Guyver, Shadowrun, and Evangelion will all be pleased.

Time until vibroswords, vibroaxes, vorpal blades, ect...

tra3• 10 months ago

What happens when you “oops”? All the way through the bone?

amacbride• 10 months ago

Subsidized by Big Hook, no doubt.

DennisP• 10 months ago

Same as a really sharp knife. In general though, dull knives are more dangerous. You have to cut with more pressure and they're more likely to slip.

pkulak4• 10 months ago

There must be a limit though. Surely a light saber is not more safe than a dull knife.

omnicognate6• 10 months ago

You say this from any special knowledge or is it just your opinion from the video? Looks to me like it will go through your flesh and bone like they're not there, in a way even a razor sharp knife won't.

Also, while it's true that dull knives are in some ways more dangerous than properly maintained ones, that doesn't mean safety increases monotonically with sharpness. I sharpen my kitchen knives every weekend and I'm perfectly capable of achieving an edge I could comfortably shave with, but I deliberately don't (I skip the highest-grit step and leather stropping needed for that) because it's not optimal for the vast majority of cooking tasks. The only thing that happens regularly in my kitchen that needs razor sharpness is scoring the top of a sourdough loaf, and my wife uses actual razor blades for that.

This strikes me as more of a competitor to electric carving knives than something I'd want to replace a standard chef's knife with. It looks like it needs to be used with very great care.

phailhaus• 10 months ago

He specifically says it's not a lightsaber, and when he's cutting the tomato you can see he does have to apply force for it to go through. He compares it to an ebike, where it makes cutting easier but it's not magic.

kakabelo32• 10 months ago

It is indeed more dangerous than a regular knife.

YeGoblynQueenne12• 10 months ago

If you cut all the way to the bone, the knife stops.

fumeux_fume• 10 months ago

While I think this is neat, I doubt the added complexity of the device, extra space required for storage of charger and the chore of charging it are worth the benefit of a slightly better, easier slice. Might be nice for people with certain disabilities though.

pkulak4• 10 months ago

A lot of the cool stuff we have now started off for accessibility.

psyclobe• 10 months ago

I think it would be fine as u would need a lot less knives so one bespoke one with a charger wouldn’t be that big of a deal

jaredhallen4• 10 months ago

Doesn't bespoke mean one of a kind and/or custom made for a specific purpose? I don't think this is bespoke. It's a gimmick.

saaaaaam3• 10 months ago

How much do you actually cook though? As a former professional chef I still do a lot of cooking and I’d love one of these and any storage trade off looks absolutely worth while.

makeitdouble• 10 months ago

If it works at least as well as the current electric knives, it let's you cut things you'd usually not try to cut.

Thin slicing frozen meat for instance, carving pumpkins, cutting bones etc.

kenjackson• 10 months ago

How does this compare to the electric carving knives?

thrill• 10 months ago

Watch the video.

rkagerer• 10 months ago

It's not obvious at first in the video, but they pre-cut a flat base into the plum to stabilize it on the table, and are cutting in at a slightdownward angle. I feel like you could make nearly the same shot with a regular knife. Tricks like this (and the deliberate filming angles to obscure those details) make the video seem disingenuous and come across akin to a snakeoil sales pitch, which detracts from my genuine interest in how the ultrasonic tech fares.

The shot of the scale showing force as they cut through a tomato was more compelling. I notice after the initial breach, when the knife is about halfway through, the forces are equal again. I assume that's due (at least in part) to friction between the inside of the tomato and the wide, side of the blade. Do they make a skinnier vibro-blade, or something like an ultrasonic cheese cutting wire?

esafak2• 10 months ago

It's ultrasonic; the frequency is much higher while the amplitude is much smaller.

canucker2016• 10 months ago

The video mentions that the knife vibrates over 40000 times per second.

Cheer2171• 10 months ago

For $500 I'll just replace the handle of a regular knife with a vibrator.

emeril• 10 months ago

at least make sure to clean the vibrator first

omnicognate6• 10 months ago

I lost three fingers watching this video.

mhb2• 10 months ago

You'll be wanting the KnifeStop™, then.

omnicognate6• 10 months ago

Hehe, yeah I was wondering if something like SawStop could work. It would just need to switch off the ultrasonic, not spectacularly destroy the blade. However, I then remembered the frankfurter demo for SawStop and realised there are extra challenges for something that is actually intended for cutting meat.

bombela3• 10 months ago

Hard to watch the tiny video. Cannot be made full screen. Rotating phone sideways the website header obscures the video.

edit: https://youtu.be/cXjbSVt9XNM

happyopossum• 10 months ago

Cannot be made full screen

Wha? I tapped the little diagonal expandy-arrows in the top corner and it went full screen.

bombela3• 10 months ago

No such button on my screen. Android v14, Firefox.

SoKamil• 10 months ago

I hate that default click action is mute and that the cursor is replaced with speaker.

andrewflnr2• 10 months ago

I actually thought that was a neat touch, since that's one of my most frequent interactions with an online video. But it needs to be overridden when the pointer is over the other controls. I couldn't scrub through the video on desktop without repeatedly muting/unmuting.

YossarianFrPrez2• 10 months ago

Maybe I'm just a sci-fi nerd who loves innovation, but this is so cool!

Clearly, this product is not intended for the mass market, and may find purchase with people who have tennis elbow and who can afford it, etc. <insert other critiques about practicality and applicability here>. But still, when was the last time someone tried to re-invent something as basic as a knife?

onlypassingthru• 10 months ago

when was the last time someone tried to re-invent something as basic as a knife?

A year ago? This one is designed for woodworkers.

https://www.bourbonmoth.com/shop/p/the-bourbon-blade-origina...

jstanley• 10 months ago

I thought I recognised the name - Bourbon Moth is the guy who faked a video of oily rags self-igniting to make a video to advertise fireproof bins for woodworking.

This one: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gqi2cNCKQY

Debunking: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GEtU3bYyCtA

latexr• 10 months ago

A pocket chisel is very much not the same thing as a kitchen knife.

cjbgkagh2• 10 months ago

Ultrasonic knives are used commercially, this is an attempt at a mass market by making it cheaper and packaging it in a more familiar form.

ars2• 10 months ago

They also make one for home use: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FK9SB5KR

HOZO NeoBlade Wireless Ultrasonic Cutter

It's from a kickstarter.

apwell23• 10 months ago

knife is already perfect

flkiwi• 10 months ago

Me, immediately: ooh Star Wars vibroblade!

YeGoblynQueenne12• 10 months ago

40K chainswords next.

tianjerry• 10 months ago

This is the best demo video ever! Congrats on reinventing the knife!

ginko• 10 months ago

Yeah, have to say the video is pretty good. I came in expecting the typical shopping channel pitch, but it did a very good job explaining the things the knife can and can't do. It really helps that it's presented by the inventor himself.

Still won't buy one but still.

jaredhallen4• 10 months ago

Have you watched any Cold Steel videos?

vasusen• 10 months ago

Super cool! I wonder if it would bother pets

Insanity• 10 months ago

Huh I didn’t even think about this. I’m assuming you mean the frequency is audible to dogs?

Havoc• 10 months ago

That looks really cool. Especially loved the wall of prototypes with raspberry picos etc.

Way outside the price range I'd consider personally but I look forward to having one in 5 years at a hopefully lower price point

SoftTalker• 10 months ago

Don't buy dumb electronic kitchen gadgets.

Get a good steel knife, learn how to sharpen it properly, and you're set for life.

grues-dinner2• 10 months ago

In particular, you don't need expensive stones, guides or lapping systems to do it. An aliexpress-grade 3000/8000 waterstone, a flattening stone and a strop will get most knives shaving the hairs off your arm for under £20 all-in.

wffurr2• 10 months ago

The odds I will ever learn to use a waterstone or strop are nil. A Chef’s Choice manual sharpener is really easy and makes my knives plenty sharp enough to cut tomatoes.

xxs13• 10 months ago

3000/8000 is a bad one. Both are way way way too fine. I'd very much like anything similar to 300/1200 + strop or so. I can shave with that.

Also I'd not use a soaking whetsone {anymore} (my spouse resents them for being that messy).

runekaagaard• 10 months ago

I agree. The industry standard for a great, boring, durable and surprisingly cheap knife is the Victorinox Fibrox Chef's Knife 20 cm.

SilverElfin9• 10 months ago

Maybe it’s dumb. But the video seems convincing. Ultrasonic knives are also used in some industrial and medical settings. So the concept does work. And the inventor of this one worked at Sansaire, Anova, and other kitchen hardware places. So they have a lot of credibility producing real products.

xxs13• 10 months ago

Of course, still need to sharpen, though.

bickfordb• 10 months ago

I agree. My experience: I bought some basic sharpening stones and watched some youtube and have had pretty good results with my basic japenese chef knives (~$100-150) that I've had for 15 years. It's 5 minutes of work every month or two for me. This product doesn't make sense to me for the price point. The aesthetics look really poor.

com2kid5• 10 months ago

The entire argument in the thread about how to best sharpen a knife is why people don't bother learning how to sharpen knives.

Like holy shit, I'm just going to pay someone a few dollars to do it because I don't want to bother sorting out all of the contradictory advice!

cush4• 10 months ago

If you have a sharp knife and a wet cloth under your cutting board chopping is a joy, otherwise it's a dangerous, tedious, and exhausting task that turns so many people away from cooking entirely

rcdemski• 10 months ago

Why a wet cloth?

kla-s• 10 months ago

Stiction

haneefmubarak• 10 months ago

I think the wet cloth is meant to increase friction between the surfaces

unwind• 10 months ago

It stops the board from sliding.

NortySpock• 10 months ago

The wet cloth between the counter and the cutting block keeps the cutting block from sliding / moving on you when force is applied, which is more comfortable and safer.

xboxnolifes• 10 months ago

So bad cutting boards don't slide.

com2kid5• 10 months ago

My wood cutting board has rubber feet on the bottom. Seems like a much easier solution than handling a bunch of wet towels every day!

cush4• 10 months ago

Yeah I have a few with rubber feet too. I still prefer a cloth as it dampens the impact of the knife so it's easier on your wrist.

amelius3• 10 months ago

Its capabilities don't look any different from what I've seen in TV ads over the last few decades.

crooked-v• 10 months ago

The bit that looks actually interesting to me is buried in the middle of the video - while the ultrasonic switch is on, food visibly falls off the knife instead of sticking to the sides.

whyenot4• 10 months ago

A good quality well sharpened knife already works incredibly well, doesn't cost $500, doesn't need to be recharged, and isn't going to be e-waste in 5 years (when the battery fails).

It's a cool idea, and I hope it is commercially successful, but not for me.

karmanGO• 10 months ago

The battery is comes out for recharging, so replacing a dead battery should be trivial

scrlk• 10 months ago

It's a proprietary form factor, so you're gambling on replacements being available down the line. I don't think it'll be easy to rebuild the battery pack without compromising the casing.

prmoustache2• 10 months ago

The dead battery is still e-waste and recycling isn't a magically neutral activity that brings back one new product out of an old one with no loss or energy spent.

tptacek18• 10 months ago

This thing is $399, which is on the expensive side of prestige chef knives, but by no means the extravagant side of it. People who buy knives that cost more than $150 generally buy lots of knives, and this is priced for that market.

Philip-J-Fry• 10 months ago

But it's not priced for the market of people who buy lots of knives. Because those who buy lots of knives aren't going to be interested in some mediocre knife with a vibration motor attached to it.

Those who are interested in knives would be able to get a more impressive knife for $399. And they are usually the type of people that enjoy sharpening a knife until it cuts better than this ultrasonic knife ever will.

This is a product which is targeted at people who don't really know a lot about knives and prep their meals with a dull blade.

whyenot4• 10 months ago

It’s $499 with the wireless charger. I see that the charger isn’t required. You can take the battery out of the knife and charge it by USB. I would correct my comment, but it is no longer possible for me to edit it.

ChrisMarshallNY• 10 months ago

Pretty kewl, but, for some reason, this old site comes to mind...

https://www.tumblr.com/weputachipinit

beeflet2• 10 months ago

why does tumblr make me sign in to see posts

jaredhallen4• 10 months ago

Thanks for the share, hadn't seen that before.

amelius3• 10 months ago

Does the vibration pass through the skin, via the handle?

sethammons4• 10 months ago

Answered in the promo: no, you can't feel it.

amelius3• 10 months ago

Well I also don't feel the vibration of my doctor's ultrasound device. Doesn't mean there is no vibration.

Tade0• 10 months ago

I would get this for the same reason I'm planning to replace my couch with an optimal-for-moving-through-a-turn couch as soon as I find a carpenter willing to make it. The middle part will be evened-out by a separate, round cushion.

typon• 10 months ago

This looks amazing. I love tech in Lindy products that actually works well.

dsr_3• 10 months ago

It certainly would be nice to have three or four independent reviews from people with knife skills.

martini333• 10 months ago

It's not made for people with knife skills.

saaaaaam3• 10 months ago

It absolutely is. I’m a former chef and have great knife skills but would love one of these.

SilverElfin9• 10 months ago

If it helps, the inventor worked at other kitchen product companies like Sansaire (founder) and Anova. And at other places in the cooking world. So they’re not entirely unknown either.

dsr_3• 10 months ago

No, that doesn't help. Product managers sometimes overhype their products.

Independent. Reviews. People with knife skills. Some degree of communications ability would be nice, too.

bigyabai• 10 months ago

The parent comment asked for a second opinion, that's not even related.

leeoniya2• 10 months ago

all the comparisons in the vid show knives being pushed through the food. that's not a good way to use a knife.

if you used a knife to actually slice the tomato instead of chopping it, you'd get a much different force result.

not to say there's no benefit here, but def feels intentionally exaggerated.

also, i wonder how fast this blade will wear if you ever accidentally pressed the edge into the cutting block. my guess is that it will wear much faster.

kulahan2• 10 months ago

That’s not necessary with an ultrasonic knife and would generally be a waste of time. The vibrations take the place of needing to slice, rather than chop. This knife is not meant to be used like a normal chef’s knife.

I’d still never get one because I love my knives (and zen out hard when sharpening for an hour or two), but the push is literally the goal here.

leeoniya2• 10 months ago

That’s not necessary with an ultrasonic knife and would generally be a waste of time

i was just saying they compare it to normal knives being used incorrectly.

tptacek18• 10 months ago

It depends completely on the knife. A nakiri or a bunka wants you to push cut, for instance.

I definitely did notice that the video didn't show any bulk prep work: a clean cut through a single product is not nearly as interesting to me as how cleanly and quickly I can work through a couple onions.

ok_computer• 10 months ago

This is a QVC product with the name of a US tech city slapped on it.

Signed, a guy living nearby the home of QVC in a decidedly non-tech area of the US.

Ps. don’t buy future e-waste kitchen ware unless you have accessibility reasons. You can get a good-enough victoronix 8” chef knife for $65 (I paid $36 a long time ago) and a world class chef knife for less than $250.

pier252• 10 months ago

how do you sharpen it?

xandrius4• 10 months ago

Whetstones, pretty cheap only and not as hard as it seems.

stouset2• 10 months ago

Honing is 1,000x more important than sharpening.

When it does come time to sharpen, I constantly see places offering knife sharpening services, and they’re usually cheap enough. Or you could get a gizmo that does a mediocre job (and shaves away far too much material) if you just want to get it done. Or you could learn to do it yourself which isn’t that hard or time-consuming but is somewhat of a labor of love.

CBLT• 10 months ago

I use a knock-off of the edgepro I got for $30 online, with a nice set of compatible whetstones that click into the assembly that were $20 online. I did what everyone else does and hotglued some magnets underneath the piece you hold the knife on.

I tried a compatible strop that clicks in but it's not worth it imo; just use a normal strop.

m0llusk• 10 months ago

AUS-10 steel is fairly easy to sharpen, so stones are a good option but I prefer diamond sharpeners myself.

prmoustache2• 10 months ago

In my case I just wait for the sharpening knife guy who pass once a week in my neighborhood. It is quite easy as I am working from home and he plays those distinctive panpipes notes.

itomato3• 10 months ago

Carefully? Professionally? Except which knife stall at which farmers market wants the job?

Learning to sharpen the (correct) knife (for the task) will do as much or more for the chef who struggles here.

Prepping 1000 lemons? An ultrasonic knife is not your answer.

tptacek18• 10 months ago

Say more? I'd love to see a takedown of this, but this isn't one. QVC does not appear to sell this product, nor would its performance differ whether or not QVC did.

pukexxr2• 10 months ago

This is a semantic argument. This product smacks of being a garbage kitchen gadget. Whether or not it's a QVC product, it certainly looks like cheap white-label alibaba junk. Just look at that handle. Did they just slap a knifeblade into an electric nosehair trimmer?

I'd try one out of professional/academic curiosity (I'm a chef), but am highly skeptical of this product. It looks like absolute trash.

All the people saying this knife does anything remarkable clearly have no experience in maintaining a decent knife blade. I've got knives that I've had for over 20 years that perform as well as this thing appears to (in the slick prepared advertisement).

Having said all that, you won't find an accurate takedown of a product that isn't on the market yet. Still, I can't help but wonder if the person behind this had dedicated that effort towards helping mitigate the water crisis, deforestation, or any number of other inarguably nobler pursuits.

Moto74513• 10 months ago

QVC might not be a well written takedown of it, but he’s right that you don’t need an electronic knife.

My first job was at a knife shop so I’ve seen everything from stamped steel fantasy nonsense to traditional style hand forged items. There’s a lot that goes into making a good knife and you don’t need to spend a lot to get one. Similarly you can spend a lot of money for marginal to no benefit.

In general a hard edge with a softer back is necessary for a strong knife that will cut well. This is a function of heat treatment. A knife that is tempered the same the whole blade is fine for smaller knives but it’s possible to break the tips or edges off larger knives. From there metallurgy affects the edge retention and how easy it is to sharpen. Plain 440C will make a fine enough knife if heat treated properly but can also make blades that can’t be made particularly sharp and can’t easily be sharpened. These knives will be very stainless so this is why poor quality and good quality knives will be made in 440C. The next tier of knives beyond singular steel forging will be a very hard edge steel wrapped around a softer core steel. The sky is the limit from there in terms of metallurgy. The highest end knives will use powdered steel where precisely composed steel bars are made using uniform grains of steel and other attractive metals and doping materials as part of the forging process.

Once it gets home a good edge has to be maintained.

People do all sorts of things to dull perfectly good cutlery (I cringe when I see people use glass or marble serving/cheese boards as a cutting board). A off hand toss of a knife into a sink can roll the edge.

The worst offense is when I see someone at a farmers market with the grinding wheel “sharpening” a knife by crudely removing the hardened steel edge of a knife. Good luck cutting much with the softer core steel or softer tempered back steel.

While having an Evangelion style ultrasonic knife is cool, it’s certainly not necessary and I expect it can be ruined in many of the same ways a $400 traditional knife can be.

At home I have Henkels for the holidays and some forged food service knife’s for general use. When visitors throw the food service knives into the sink I just take out the sharpening stones and don’t cry all that much.

lif• 10 months ago

umm, you raise a valid concern, afaict, however, e-waste is kind of a taboo word around here, or? Or maybe just another part of the 'inevitable' belief system.

Like, how about that _planned obsolescence_ of a vast majority of consumer electronics hardware? (If that ain't the case, would be happen to learn otherwise from someone with better knowledge.)

Tempat1• 10 months ago

I guess with knives the thing is it’s very easy and cheap to get a version that works well lasts pretty much forever. Makes the other options look worse in comparison.

gcanyon2• 10 months ago

Is there video online of any knife cutting off the ends of chives in mid-air?

RajT88• 10 months ago

It is only eWaste if you think our future does not resemble the Fallout games.

But if you do this will be excellent tech for melee weapons.

luxuryballs• 10 months ago

now I want to see ultrasonic fencing

brandall10• 10 months ago

Check out Japanese knives. The Tojiro DP I got for an inflation adjusted $75 is a dramatically better knife than that Victorinox.

serf• 10 months ago

i've had both, and the reality is that they're both just steel -- a good grind will make any shit steel knife cut like a 700 dollar Japanese blade for a few days.

(and yes the Japanese steel dulls too. No cheating physics.)

xxs13• 10 months ago

One note on high quality and carbon Japanese knives - they are way harder to sharpen, also usually come with 17 degrees apex.

Higher HRC would retain the sharp edge for longer, of course - but again much harder (literally) to sharp them.

thebenedict2• 10 months ago

This is nonsense and your cynicism is unwarranted. I personally know Scott. He's worked on food tech in Seattle for decades, and developed the product and fundraised for Seattle Ultrasonics locally.

Ultrasonic knives are historically large footprint devices used in commercial/industrial food prep. The innovation here is making ultrasonic hardware compact enough to fit in the knife handle.

satiric• 10 months ago

Sadly Howard Schultz moved the Ultrasonics to Oklahoma City a while back.

lightedman6• 10 months ago

"The innovation here is making ultrasonic hardware compact enough to fit in the knife handle."

I was using ultrasonic scalpels back in 2002. They were smaller than this knife.

UltraSane5• 10 months ago

The guy has a YouTube video where he claims to have spent 6 years working on this product. Is he lying?

parpfish• 10 months ago

i don't think they slapped seattle on it because of tech connotations.

i think they slapped seattle on it because of the Seattle Supersonics, their old NBA team that still has a cult following

arp2425• 10 months ago

In the video he says he spent a lot of time making prototypes and perfecting the design.

Is he lying? He shows images of the prototypes. Did he create fake prototypes?

schainks• 10 months ago

This is a boon for elderly losing hand/wrist strength

reilly3000• 10 months ago

It’s a very impressive video, but the ‘world’s first’ claim is BS: https://www.369sonic.com/ultrasonic-kitchen-knife/

jitl3• 10 months ago

“Chef knife” is the important part, the one you linked is a paring knife.

oakwhiz• 10 months ago

Honest question, does it aerosolize pathogens that cause food-borne illness?

lordofgibbons• 10 months ago

That's good point, aerosolized raw chicken meat water doesn't sound like a good time.

NedF• 10 months ago

That's good point

Why is it a good point?

Do you get disease at a rate we care about from smelling a fart? Or smelling raw chicken? Or cooking chicken and the aerosolize particles off that?

The tool seems to melt going off similar tech - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNwHDWlA7gE

Why does you brain think it's a good point other than you want to be negative? Because nihilism is cooler than thinking?

Dentists do ultrasonic scaling, which a ultrasonic water spray and are not dropping like flies.

What is the good point here, tell us more, love to hear it.

DannyBee7• 10 months ago

Good news - ~all food borne pathogens are much denser than air. Not like slightly, about 1000x denser.

You are going to have about as much aerosolized raw chicken meat water (ARCMW) whether you use an ultrasonic knife or not.

The ARCMW touched by the ultrasonic knife will probably have significantly less alive bacteria than the stuff touched by the regular knife.

tcoff91• 10 months ago

Great question. It does seem like you would not want to use it for raw chicken.

enaaem• 10 months ago

So it is essentially an electric tomato knife.

DannyBee7• 10 months ago

As far as i can know, the science does not support this answer :) In fact, it is probably the opposite - you should definitely use it on raw chicken.

DannyBee7• 10 months ago

Interesting question, short answer - almost certainly not any more or less than you are already, and to the degree it does, it almost certainly is making things better and not worse.

First - ~all food illness causing bacteria is denser than air. about 1000x denser. On its own, it won't float.

Second - almost all cutting motions are still going to throw it around. So you are already doing this when you cut or chop food. You are slicing cell walls, etc, releasing pathogens that exist inside. But it doesn't like aerosolize in the sense of floating around, because it's denser than air[1]. How far it goes depends on the cutting motion, etc.

Third - does ultrasonic make it better or worse - well, again, it doesn't overall float, so it's really a question of does it do anything to make go farther/less far, and does it do anything to destroy or the opposite?

44khz (used here) is a common ultrasonic frequency in cleaning[2] and leak detection.

In fact, it's also used to remove bacterial cells from surfaces at higher intensities (and detect them at lower intensities). It's actually one of the major ways non-heat pasteurization is done.

While it's not 100% at removing individual bacterial cells, even at super high intensity, ultrasonic frequencies are both detrimental to cell growth, and as used here, will cause lots and lots of bacterial death because of everything from cavitation to pressure changes to instantaneous heat to you name it.

Does it fling pathogens any further? Maybe? I'm sure there are some situations in which it will. But they don't seem normal. Like if you are just slicing raw meat or chicken, it's hard to see how it could do that.

Overall, it probably helps more than it hurts. As far as i can tell, it's not even a close question.

[1] It is possible to get the bacteria to float in air anyway due to brownian motion and other mechanisms, but it still seems overblown - the percent of food borne illness caused by inhaling bacteria vs eating underprepared food it is so small they don't even bother to track it. This knife is not going to change that.

[2] If you google it, you will also discover it's emitted by fearful rats. I don't know if the knife also scares rats away.

linsomniac• 10 months ago

I think the parent is specifically referencing the point towards the end of the video where he shows smoke-like vapor coming off the food. It's not clear from your response if you are aware of that, so just wanted to clarify.

whyenot4• 10 months ago

To me, it seems like you wrote a lot but never actually answered the question of the person you are responding to. A reminder: the question was does the blade aerosolize fluids. Based on the video (as soon as 10 seconds in) it sure looks like the answer is yes, to a much greater degree than a normal knife.

tptacek18• 10 months ago

Elsewhere on the thread I pointed out that I'd noticed the video doesn't show anybody doing actual prep; making an easy but deliberate thin slice of a tomato is one thing, quickly dicing an onion or a bell pepper is a very different thing.

To that observation I'd add (h/t my Slack friends) this interesting site Seattle Ultrasonics stood up:

https://seattleultrasonics.com/pages/knife-database

One thing I notice here is that Japanese knives (and my trusty MAC) fare really well on the BESS and CATRA scale, but relatively poorly on the "Food Cutting Rank", which is based on an ad-hoc seeming performance scale of how well their robot fared with a bunch of cutting tests that included stuff like bread and cheese (h/t again Slack friends) --- which nobody uses a chef's knife to cut.

That's a weird scale to plot chef's knives across --- unless the purpose of building that scale was to showcase an electronic knife that does well on tasks people don't normally use chef's knives for, but maybe not as well on chef knife daily driver tasks.

SilverElfin9• 10 months ago

I was surprised by that too. The Shun did surprisingly well in the real world test despite lower scores on the other two categories.

data-ottawa• 10 months ago

A slight tangent but I find sharpness tests often don’t represent the experience at the macro level, but it’s easily benchmarked and quantified.

As an example are tons of people pushing Feather or Astra or similar ultra sharp shaving razors. I bought a ton of sample packs the ones I liked the most were Kai, which are considered relatively dull, but have properties which make the overall experience better (I recall reading they’re thicker and vibrate less during cutting).

To me that makes this knife cutting benchmark more attractive than sharpness or retention, but I still have questions about technique used in the benchmarks, and how that affects knife performance (e.g. I would never try to cut bread by just pressing down as this move does).

ReptileMan4• 10 months ago

The problems were even bigger than that - they tested factory sharpness and factory geometry that often are shit. And not thinning and sharpening them properly. Let alone that the steel on the factory edge has high chance to fatigued/softer than the rest.

CamperBob22• 10 months ago

One obvious question is where on that list the product in question would fall.

formerly_proven• 10 months ago

My question for this product is entirely different: It's well-known that ultrasonic sound can still damage your hearing despite being inaudible or nearly so. Does this?

condiment• 10 months ago

A talented chef might cut vegetables at 25hz, while the blade is moving at 44khz. So whatever cutting improvement is conferred by the ultrasonic tech will certainly be applied towards fast cutting. It seems that the main benefit for fast cutting would be that food doesn't stick to the blade.

I'll cut bread with my chef's knife (amazon shun knockoff) when I want to make less of a mess. One interesting thing I noticed is that when Scott was cutting bread in the video he was cutting a croissant and no crumbs fell.

It will be interesting to see the knife in the hands of real chefs. Two things I'm curious about are whether the ergonomics of the button are good, and whether the ultrasonic action atomizes foods as they're being cut, changing the experience of cooking in some way.

tptacek18• 10 months ago

I'm not saying it can't work, just that they didn't show it, and after the required thin-tomato-slice that's the thing I'd most want to see the knife doing.

niccl• 10 months ago

I'd really like to see a citation for 25 Hz. It feels to me like a decimal point might be missing. And how does the knife moving at twice the frequency of the vegetables being cut work? do they do two complete cycles of the knife for every cut of the veges? that's not what I've seen watching cooking shows (which might not be the best thing to watch for this to be seen, of course)

mattmaroon2• 10 months ago

Damn, I was set to completely dismiss this as entirely useless overcomplication but making stuff not stick to the knife would be nice.

eightysixfour• 10 months ago

It will be interesting to see the knife in the hands of real chefs.

Not really? I feel like this is for the other people, the folks who don't have the training to use a chefs knife super well. I'd rather see a decent home cook compare it to their knife in general prep.

neilv• 10 months ago

Ginsu confused us about use cases.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wzULnlHr8w&t=25s

jfim• 10 months ago

I can see why one would use a serrated knife to cut bread, but what knife would one use to cut cheese other than a chef's knife?

mgiampapa• 10 months ago

A Santoku or other knife with scalloped sides do well. There are also in fact, cheese knifes, for cutting and serving that are popular for self service cheese boards. Wire is also popular for cutting large block cheeses.

rcpt3• 10 months ago

There are cheese knives that are either very high aspect or have a holes so nothing will stick.

tptacek18• 10 months ago

Ironically, the cheeses I would cut with a chef's knife are exactly the ones that aren't going to stick to the knife. The ones that get messy are just as easy to cut with a butter knife.

(Amusingly, butter is one of the demos in this video.)

realityfactchex• 10 months ago

Jacques Pépin suggested at [0] "basically you need three knives":

  - a chopping knive, 9-12" depending on one's hand
  - a utility knife for slicing, about 6"
  - a paring knife, a cheaper ordinary one is fine

Of those, other than the chopping/chef's knife, I imagine that one could generally slice cheese with the utility knife (depending on the cheese, of course).

[0] https://youtu.be/nffGuGwCE3E?t=12

helsinki• 10 months ago

A cheese knife.

montag• 10 months ago

The nerdy sales pitch got me excited about a knife. Also, I have to wonder if the name is a deliberate nod to the Seattle Supersonics...

Mtinie• 10 months ago

I shared this with my tech friends:

“This has all the hallmarks of a product that’s going to be disappointing but I’m so optimistic it won’t be.”

I’m seriously hopefuls it works because vibroblades (I mean, “progressive knives” and “high frequency blade”) are awesome and the timelines of Neon Genesis Evangelion and Metal Gear are getting closer. Which may, or may not be a good thing.

SilverElfin9• 10 months ago

Well we know this tech works because there are already ultrasonic cutters in medical and industrial equipment. So it’s more about whether they implemented it well, rather than some new fundamental discovery.

saxonww4• 10 months ago

The two things that stood out to me:

"The best tools shouldn't only be accessible to the pros" but his knife costs more than every knife in that database.

The weight is listed in their help articles as 330g. I also think that handle is chunkier than a typical high end chef's knife. It may be easier to cut things with it, but I think your hand and arm are going to get tired of using it more quickly than with a regular knife at ~100g less.

And I realize these fare worse than the high end japanese and german knives, but it's hard to get excited about a $400 knife you can't put in the dishwasher when you can get a perfectly credible fibrox knife for about a tenth of that, which doesn't require charging and can tolerate 'careless home cook' levels of abuse.

tptacek18• 10 months ago

Yeah the handle was the first thing I saw here that gave me pause. The handle shape matters a lot!

Though: do. not. put. your. $300. knife. in. the. dishwasher.

ackfoobar2• 10 months ago

I don't think anyone who cares about the cutting experience would put a knife into a dishwasher.

comfysocks• 10 months ago

Feel free to correct me if I’m off base, but it doesn’t seem like the robot is actually slicing. Looks more like it’s just mashing the blade into the tomato. In this case I can see how the vibration can make up for the lack of slicing action. Ie sliding the blade across the tomato.

My question is: would there still be an improvement if they used a slicing action?

_9ptr2• 10 months ago

The difference in sharpness remains if there's no slicing motion with either knive/setting, right?

cwong430• 10 months ago

The lower the better on the Food Cutting Rank

tptacek18• 10 months ago

Yes, I get how the scale works, just not why I should take that scale more seriously than sharpness x edge retention.

jaredhallen4• 10 months ago

Nobody uses a chef's knife to cut cheese?

KingMob2• 10 months ago

Ahh, but now they could. No need for specialized cheese-cutting tools with this knife, presumably.

Ditto for bread knives.

lightedman6• 10 months ago

"nobody uses a chef's knife to cut."

Hi, originally-trained Oriental cook here. Yes, we do use chefs knives to cut cheese. Also cleavers. Also wires.

spott2• 10 months ago

I don’t understand judging a knife by any measure of “sharpness”? Sharpness is what the sharpener brings to the knife. Edge retention is the steel, but the skills of the sharpener (against how easy the steel is to sharpen) are what defines the edge sharpness.

This is mostly just a remark on the fact that BESS is probably just measuring the factory edge… which only matters until it has dulled the first time?

tptacek18• 10 months ago

That... seems wrong? It leaves out edge geometry and carbide size?

bjt• 10 months ago

I also noticed that while they show the traditional knives struggling to make their way through something hard like a carrot, they never show the ultrasonic knife cutting a carrot. I suspect the ultrasonic feature helps more on softer things.

aidenn0• 10 months ago

Maybe it changed since you posted it, but right now the top 3 knives there by "Food Cutting Rank" are Japanese (Shun, Moritaka, Tojiro), with a Wuesthof coming in at 4th?

All of the Japanese brands I recognized were in the top 10 (out of 21) with the MAC being exactly in the middle.

jiveturkey• 10 months ago

I have an ultrasonic knife for reverse engineering. It's wonderful. It's also great for crafting.

I'm highly doubtful it's useful in the kitchen. Sharp knives would seem to do the trick.

ghola2k5• 10 months ago

All I can think is how this would weaponize onion cutting.

bob1029• 10 months ago

And the chopping of serrano peppers.

hamonrye• 10 months ago

Use a Hauser. German steel, whereas the Japanese know to forge a blade.

non_aligned2• 10 months ago

Ultrasonic knives have been available for non-food uses for a long time. They are useful in certain narrow applications, such as cutting leather or some plastics.

That said, they come with two big caveats. First, if you push them into any harder material, the edge is destroyed almost immediately because of the micro-scale "jackhammer" action. So, hit that avocado pit and the knife is probably cooked.

Second, the constant motion heats up the blade, to the point of melting thermoplastics or causing the edge to lose temper if you're pushing a bit too hard, cutting the wrong material, etc.

It's your money, but I suspect this knife is more of a hassle, and requires more care, than a regular kitchen knife. And let's face it, the coolness factor aside, how often do you struggle to cut chicken, tomatoes, or bread? If you do, it's probably because your knife is dull, and this knife will get dull too.

justahuman74• 10 months ago

Sourdough can actually be a pain to cut without making a giant mess of the crust

bombela3• 10 months ago

Please tell me it was an intentional pun with the word for bread in French: pain.

calf• 10 months ago

I'm an amateur cook, my immediate question was how much the vibration and heating will affect vegetable and meat oxidation and cell damage on the cut surface.

Could this improve the texture and flavor of certain foods? Like make garlic taste even more garlicky? Or could it cause an apple slice to brown faster? Can it be used to slice cooked fish as if it were sashimi? Etc.

If a site like SeriousEats does a product review I hope they focus on qualitative taste, and possibilities for enhancing cooking techniques, not merely saving time/effort to do something.

dskrvk• 10 months ago

I like this vibro-knife “demo” by Neil Blompkamp’s Oats Studios: https://youtu.be/zaeFgSR_DMU

gorgoiler• 10 months ago

A different but far better piece of cutting edge technology is a modern, diamond-encrusted nickel/chrome-plated steel plate.

These things are now so sharp they can bring an edge profile back to a knife in five strokes without even needing lubrication (which is nice as water is a PITA when it causes corrosion between the steel bed and the plating.)

Every knife in your kitchen can be razor sharp in seconds and kept razor sharp whenever you need them to be. IMHO, far more useful than a single digi-vibro-knife.

Example product: Trend 300/1000 diamond sharpening kit.

shoobiedoo• 10 months ago

Agreed. Even a knife with heavy usage only needs a few swipes to realign the edge. Warning though, sharpening things can be addicting. I have a massive straight razor and finishing stone collection. It's a wonderful hobby, but dipping into natural stones gets very expensive

sfblah• 10 months ago

I want to see what happens when it cuts your finger. Actually, I don't want to see it. But I'm curious.

reportingsjr• 10 months ago

There are surgical scalpels that are ultrasonic, and they are incredibly sharp when activated. They can cut through skin and tissue like butter!

sleepybrett2• 10 months ago

100$ ...for a charger.

6c696e7578• 10 months ago

I have a reciprocating saw in the shed already.

lisper• 10 months ago

"Please sign in to confirm you're not a bot. This helps protect our community."

Um, no.

bmacho• 10 months ago

The website is just https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/cXjbSVt9XNM video embedded + a button to buy. (But it still tracks the referrer in the URL so it tells google that you went HN frontpage -> Ultrasonic Chef's Knife. It seems HN has put back referrer in the links :|)

MattGrommes• 10 months ago

I work with some bigger ultrasonic cutters/welders and the thing I didn't see in the video was the horrible noise they make. He says the knife makes no noise but they also don't have the noise on for the shots of the bigger ones so I'm suspicious.

sheimend• 10 months ago

Sound is on for the tomato shot in the beginning of the video, FYI. It is extremely quiet.

metalman• 10 months ago

cue the vibro-stab themed "thats not a knife....." and hey for extra murderyness it could be paired with a shock zapper

esafak2• 10 months ago

Just kids having fun.

kakabelo32• 10 months ago

What does this device accomplish in the kitchen, besides being able to make fine slices of vegetables more easily? Electric carver knives beat it for slicing meat.

And then for most any other situation of knife usage it isn't necessary at all, as knives are mostly used for chopping. The one (1) thing I can see this being useful for is a shrunken down version for paring, but whether or not that is mechanically feasible, I don't know. The curve and the handle are more important than this vibro-verbing.

Nice dialogue, btw. "Help chefs feel great about themselves in the kitchen", "access to sous vide". <Kitchen Woke> ?

andy99• 10 months ago

As an aside, this feels very familiar as a sci-fi weapon, does that ring a bell for anyone? I was thinking William Gibson first but I can't place it there.

ianseyer• 10 months ago

Raven in Snowcrash? Not quite ultrasonic iirc but extremely thin, like the wire developed in three body problem

fancyswimtime• 10 months ago

dune?

petralithic• 10 months ago

Dune's vibrating shield and corresponding weapons.

YossarianFrPrez2• 10 months ago

It's seemingly quasi-semi-related to The Foundation's 'atomic knives'?

Hilift• 10 months ago

This could be the exemplar prototype for Dune knives that can penetrate a Holtzman Shield. Also recall in Dune there is an aversion to technology, so the simplicity and required human operation is a perfect fit.

arp2425• 10 months ago

in Dune there is an aversion to technology

Just computers, no? IIRC they use knives because the shields stop fast-moving objects like bullets, so you need a slow-moving object like a knife.

empiricus• 10 months ago

evanghelion

elwood_b• 10 months ago

Your cat is gonna LOVE it!

adamredwoods• 10 months ago

I love these inventor stories, as the Chef's Knife does towards the end of the video. Another great one is Springfree trampolines, from NPRs How I Built This:

https://www.npr.org/2021/08/27/1031732394/springfree-trampol...

coastalpuma• 10 months ago

If you're an amateur and really want to spend this much money, get a good enough knife (e.g. the classic victorinox) and a chef's choice electric sharpener, and you won't have any more issues.

com2kid5• 10 months ago

I've read multiple reviews saying the chefs choice sharpeners are basically useless. Having owned 2 of them I can confirm they seem to do almost nothing after the first few times using them.

A few YT knife channels have done deep dives showing why they stop working soon after purchase, the details escape me but I have to agree with the end result....

cush4• 10 months ago

Can confirm, they're useless. Just pay someone $10 to sharpen the knife once in a while.

EnPissant• 10 months ago

Which model did you have. I have the XV model and it is 90% as good as stones.

Taek• 10 months ago

I'm a bit surprised to see how much snark there is in the comment sections of this video. The requests for "let's see an independent chef use this knife to do real kitchen work" make total sense, but the moralizing around e-waste and losing fingers etc feels off balance.

People spend hundreds of dollars and many hours sharpening kitchen knives, of course there's a viable market for sharper kitchen knives. And for e-waste, you are never going to make meaningful progress by telling consumers to feel bad for buying fun things. The problem is so much bigger than that, the energy is better spent in a different place.

This is a cool and novel tool, at least as far as its genuine utility can be verified. It doesn't seem harmful to let people get excited about it.

razzmatazmania• 10 months ago

I'm surprised there isn't moralizing about the price point. I don't see why the US is so far behind in manufacturing efficiency. Everything seem to be 10-100x the cost of comparable Chinese goods, and US labor isn't paid anywhere close to 100x more.

Eisenstein2• 10 months ago

This episode of the Search Engine podcast goes into detail about that:

* https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-puzzle-of-the-all-...

gpm• 10 months ago

Eh, it's pretty clear this price point isn't driven by manufacturing. It's driven by being a bespoke item with tons of R&D costs that need to be recouped.

If this turns into a significant market, I'm sure the cost will plummet.

ajmurmann• 10 months ago

Is it that they cannot sell it for cheaper or that this price will maximize profits?

komali2• 10 months ago

Why would manufacturing cost come into play? Isn't it a given that a company will charge as much as they can get away with charging? Cost of labor and material I understood to only matter at the absolute bottom of a highly commoditized market e.g., bolts or capacitors or whatever. This is the only consumer ultrasonic knife (as far as I know) so they can charge whatever.

rowanG077• 10 months ago

This is also make takeaway. I have noticed this more and more on this site. Everything is criticized to an insane degree. If someone hasn't solved world hunger, while at the same time making money and curing their grandma of Alzheimer it will not be received well.

rkomorn7• 10 months ago

Oh good for them if they cure grandma of Alzheimer's. That's REALLY gonna help those of us whose grandmas are already dead.

jszymborski• 10 months ago

...you are never going to make meaningful progress by telling consumers to feel bad for buying fun things.

I think it's a worthwhile message to tell folks that we, collectively, should be mindful about the resources we consume and the waste we produce. For such razor-thin (lol) gains in QoL, I think it's worth reminding people to consider whether it is worth the huge increase in waste. Knives are metal and wood/plastic... awfully efficient tools for the work they get done.

EDIT: And to balance the negativity, I _love_ the Seattle Ultrasonics logo.

mlrtime• 10 months ago

You're not entirely wrong but the selective outrage (on e-waste) here is 100% off balance.

tgsovlerkhgsel• 10 months ago

Most importantly, buying useful things, that will likely be used for a long time and contain about as much e-waste as a single-use vape.

mensetmanusman2• 10 months ago

E-waste can be solved without reducing the number of items. Just requires basic investments in recycling.

9dev2• 10 months ago

Recycling is a sham. There is mostly no efficient recycling of sufficiently advanced components, the industry just spent decades on making you think you can buy lots of cheap things and all that trash isn’t your problem. Well it is.

DannyBee7• 10 months ago

Overall agree it seems cool, and maybe interesting.

"People spend hundreds of dollars and many hours sharpening kitchen knives,"

The former, totally agree - i've seen people buy a tormek to do basic knife sharpening (not grinding), which is like swatting a fly with an $800 hammer.

The latter, do you mean overall, or in a sitting or what?

I've certainly seen people on various forums go nuts, and then you have hertzmann staring at knife edges with an SEM, but even if i did it completely by hand with shaptons, it takes like 15 minutes, max, to sharpen 10 knives, through an entire insane grit progression (which i do for plane blades when i need to cleanly slice end grain without going to a super high-angle plane or something. For knives, i was just trying to get a comparison point, i use electric sharpeners in practice).

Or approximately 2 minutes with an electric knife sharpener.

While sure, there is a difference when i put them under my digital inspection microscope, either can slice paper towel cleanly and easily (slicing paper is easy, slicing paper towel ends to be hard because any burr catches really easily)

Are there really even semi-normal people out there spending hours to sharpen knives?

If so, like, why?

(Obviously, again, if they need to be reground because you knicked it really badly, sure that takes a bit, but beyond that)

None of these steels are tough enough to require all that many strokes (it's pretty easy to test it with a marker and see when you remove the marking), and if you are using super custom steels (RIP Crucible :(), carbide, or ceramics, you need CBN or diamond anyway, but the same is still true - given the correct abrasive material, sharpening knives is just not that slow.

I actually travel with an electric knife sharpener if we are going to be staying in an airbnb somewhere for >1 week and are cooking most nights. It's the most consistent thing about airbnb - no matter what level of luxury, etc, they always have many knives, and all of them are dangerously dull. It still doesn't take more than a few minutes to sharpen them all.

john_minsk5• 10 months ago

I admire you. You are a minority, you know that, right?

I don't have time in my schedule at the moment, which says "sharpen the knifes". So for me - it would be amazing if someone solved this problem in a radical way.

Sporadically I would sharpen the knives and since I don't have it in my "skills" section of the brain, I always have to "figure out" sharpening process.

gommm• 10 months ago

Since you seem knowledgeable about knives, Do you know any great knives makers? And are those custom steels or carbide blades worth it?

So far, I mostly sharpen my knives on the back of a plate. So definitely could be doing more :)

aenis• 10 months ago

I spend hours every 6 months or so sharpening knifes on whetstones. I like the excuse to have some me time, listen to an audiobook or just do some thinking. Akin to meditation.

I also dont like the blades ruined through automatic sharpeners - the knifes are made of good quality steel, were made to order in Jp, and have sentimental value. I also sharpen the cheap knifes this way, tho - I like manual work.

marcosscriven• 10 months ago

What should one look for in an electric knife sharpener? It’s hard to search as there’s so much content farming. I’m UK based. Are they worth it compared to a simple “drag through” thing?

I got a single decent knife: https://wusthof.com/products/wusthof-classic-8-cooks-knife-1...

But I’m worried about ruining it, and the “care instructions” seem to mention using a whetstone.

dlcarrier3• 10 months ago

    >People spend hundreds of dollars and many hours sharpening kitchen knives...

What amazes me is how many people spend absolutely zero time sharpening knives, using decades-old knives that have never been sharpened and can't even cut through cucumbers.

john_minsk5• 10 months ago

I don't use knives in my kitchen. My romantic partner does. Yesterday I decided to cut some tomatoes only to find out that all knives are dull.

She never said anything, I didn't know it. Why?

Because she is just "used" to it and to her these knives were just fine. So she never thought about sharpening knives in the first place.

I will take those knives to a pro and he will sharpen them for me, as in a rental I stay in, I don't have the tools to do that and as I said in another comment - I don't have a pain free process to do that as I don't do it often.

RHSeeger2• 10 months ago

I know I'm setting myself up for being picked up, but... I use an older knife that I've never sharpened outside of "occasionally" running it back and forth against a tough fabric. It cuts literally everything just fine; cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes, etc. Nothing about my use of it _seems_ unsafe; but I expect that's partially because I don't cut very fast. Cooking, when I'm involved, tends to be "social time", where we prep and chat at the same time; so there's no rush.

I'm not saying it's not a good idea to sharpen knives, but a lot of people make it sound like you're a dangerous monster if you don't. And that just doesn't seem to be the case.

an_ko• 10 months ago

Such people should perhaps consider a ceramic-bladed knife. They stay sharp basically forever because the blade is extremely hard, with the downside that it's not repairable with ordinary equipment if chipped. But if the owner would never maintain their metal knife anyway, then it's not _really_ a downside.

oezi• 10 months ago

And why should they care if it works for them?

Saline95152• 10 months ago

Duller knives cut more slowly, hence if I cut my finger, I feel it before it goes deeper, which is safer.

Such knife seems like a disaster waiting to happen, I can't see the benefit honestly.

herpdyderp2• 10 months ago

I've tried sharpening knives a few times in my life and I've never been able to tell the difference. I agree with the principle, but in practice I simply haven't witnessed it matter.

nathan_compton• 10 months ago

This seems like a sign that going into business selling knives based on their sharpness or apparent sharpness is a bad idea.

adonovan• 10 months ago

Why there isn’t a bigger business selling diamond stones for the kitchen is a mystery to me. Everyone has a honing steel but that won’t grind a new edge like a proper stone.

Zigurd3• 10 months ago

People worry that they will ruin their knives in an attempt to sharpen them. They don't know that they always have the backstop of going to a competent kitchen store and having them sharpened there. I worry about ruining knives with a cheap sharpener I got at IKEA. So I don't buy super expensive knives. I buy commercial grade knives from Dexter and Mercer. I sharpen them to the best of my ability. The results are no doubt inferior to an expert sharpening them, but they're far better than no sharpening or settling for serrated knives.

Keeping knives sharp is just obscure enough of a skill to elude most home cooks. Videos that tell you to judge the angle for sharpening a knife unaided don't help.

giardini3• 10 months ago

Amy's Trick:

============

You can sharpen (really, burnish) steel knives on a stainless steel sink edge! Stainless steel kitchen sinks are very common in USA.

Gently press the knife blade almost flat against the sink edge and pull the knife handle toward you while moving it to the right (or to the left if you're left-handed). Hold the knife at the angle desired for the blade edge (endless discussions of angle are possible). Of course don't cut yourself.

The motion is similar to that when using a sharpening steel.

Do several times on both sides. Wash and wipe the blade clean. Voila!

A co-worker taught me this trick after I asked how she kept her knife so sharp. I haven't bought or used a knife sharpener since.

scotty79• 10 months ago

That's easy. You have mouth full of even duller blades that will do in a pinch and for most foods any knife is already overkill.

poink• 10 months ago

People spend hundreds of dollars and many hours sharpening kitchen knives

With a mass market electric sharpener and a reasonable knife I spend maybe 15 minutes/yr on sharpening and the knife + sharpener costs less than half this product

The marketing video seems to try to head people like me off, but it also seems to wildly overstate the level of commitment required to have sharp knives

(I do think the tech is cool tho. I just wouldn’t pay $400 for an 8 inch chef’s knife no matter how good it is)

stickfigure4• 10 months ago

To embrace a stereotype, there are two types of people in the kitchen: Tool enthusiasts and food enthusiasts.

The tool enthusiast has beautiful Japanese steel knives treated as family heirlooms; the knives are sent out for professional sharpening once or twice a year.

The food enthusiast has a pile of fibrox knives and a chef's choice electric sharpener. The knives go through the sharpener once a month and the dishwasher daily; the knives get replaced every decade or two.

The tool enthusiast's knives are pretty, but the food enthusiast's knives always pass the paper test.

Nobody has ever complemented me "wow, this meal was prepared with such pretty knives!"

lqet• 10 months ago

People spend hundreds of dollars and many hours sharpening kitchen knives

I am ashamed to admit it, but I have been happily using this 5,99 EUR IKEA knife sharpener for nearly 10 years know:

https://www.ikea.com/de/en/p/aspekt-knife-sharpener-black-57...

I use it 1-2 times a month for 30 seconds on the 2 knives I use in the kitchen. They pass the paper test. Previously, I used the bottom of a coffee mug.

That being said, thinks like [0] do exist and people seem to buy them.

[0] https://www.horl.com/us/en/sharpeners/

thiht• 10 months ago

No need to be ashamed, if it works it works. Whetstones look cooler but they do the same job. I actually bought the same device at a local knife store for my parents and the clerk said it was perfect if you just want to get sharp knives and be done with it. Whetstones or professional sharpening is more useful for pros or knife hobbyists/enthusiasts.

avereveard• 10 months ago

The video provides no test of the unsharpened sonic knife performances, so any claim made are instintively fishy marketing, however cool the product may be, it was fresh out of packaging, what happens once the blade is dull? If we have to sharpen it it instantly loses all it's value.

also, no test on power armor, I don't think they have identified their core market.

emmelaich• 10 months ago

Pro tip, often the early comments on HN are negative. Give it some time.

omnicognate6• 10 months ago

Concerns about safety aren't moralising, and this isn't just a "sharper kitchen knife".

First, on sharpness, it takes me about 15 minutes once a week to sharpen my cleaver, two chef's knives, paring knife and breadknife. I could spend another half an hour or so and get them to razor sharpness, but I don't because I don't need or want that level of sharpness for kitchen work. Therefore, while something that eliminates that 15 minute task could be of value to me (though personally I rather enjoy the process), something that provides a sharper edge is not.

Secondly, even if I were to use razor-sharp knives, there's a limit to the damage they will do to my hands in a typical accident. In particular, even a razor sharp knife will usually stop at the bone. I don't know if this knife will because this advert didn't address safety at all, but given ultrasonic knives are used for cleanly cutting through bones in surgery [1] it's reasonable to suspect it might not. Adding to my chef's knives the ability to smoothly pass all the way through my finger would not be an upgrade in my view [2].

Lastly, to raise questions about a product's safety is not "moralising". If I were to say that you shouldn't use this knife because of safety concerns, that could be viewed as a moral position, but I don't care about that at all. You can use chainsaws and flamethrowers in your kitchen for all I care. When I say I would be unlikely to buy this thing without some information on what it will do to my hand in the event of a kitchen accident, that's just a choice I am free to make as a consumer.

[1] https://www.cheersonic.com/portfolio-items/ultrasonic-bone-c...

[2] As it is, I have what seems to be permanent scarring and some loss of sensation on my left thumb from cutting it to the bone with my breadknife a year ago, and my mind replays the trauma every time I pick that knife up. (No, the knife was not blunt. It was brand new at the time, and I've since maintained it to the same level of sharpness it had then, using a ceramic sharpening rod and a whetstone for the tip. The accident was due to me being distracted and positioning my hand incorrectly. And yes, better technique would have prevented it, but I'm not and never will be a trained chef. Had I used this ultrasonic knife I expect I would have taken the end of my thumb off.)

raverbashing• 10 months ago

If anyone doubts the efficiency of ultrasonic cutters may I recommend this Old (Tony) video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFeek0a8s7Q

lwhi• 10 months ago

I have a knife sharpener in my drawer that I use to sharpen my Wursthof knives .. and end up with sharp knives as a result.

How would this make my life much better?

TulliusCicero• 10 months ago

I'm a bit surprised to see how much snark there is in the comment sections of this video.

It's "slashdot talks about the iPod announcement" all over again.

Unfortunately, communities tend to devolve other time into empty cynicism and negativity, and it's hard to stop, since obviously you don't want to ban 100% of cynical or negative comments.

rkomorn7• 10 months ago

since obviously you don't want to ban 100% of cynical or negative comments.

Probably would be a net positive if we did.

wisty2• 10 months ago

Why is it people here seem so unusually sceptical?

It's expensive (but not really, only compared to knives - a $500 GPU isn't expensive). It's probably mostly good in certain niches and using a $10 knife that's sharpened properly is probably 95% as good in almost every application, and using a $10 knife that is only reasonably well sharpened is probably 90% as good. Slicing stuff for hotpot or yakiniku or Korean BBQ is what I thought of when I saw the ad, while for a lot of things it's probably not worth it. But a lot of stuff is like that - good in a niche, OK elsewhere, and there's always a cheaper option that's more flexible and almost as good even in the niche.

I feel like hn is upset by the lack of marketing. This looks like a direct sales ad that you'd get on Facebook, rather than the hype research marketing that mostly targets the b2b types who mostly dwell here? The marketing isn't the kind of marketing they normally get targeted by, so they notice it's marketing?

I notice this on other forums. If marketing isn't slick and well targeted, people get upset and suspicious because it's marketing. But functionally, they're not upset because it's marketing (almost everything is), they're upset because it's not enough marketing, and functionally they want more marketing that targets them better.

thomassmith652• 10 months ago

It's the lack of pragmatism.

"Sure, people claim the kitchen knife has been a solved problem for hundreds of years, but what if there was a kitchen knife that had a battery inside and cost $500?"

And if this version of the knife doesn't connect to the cloud, the next one will.

It all seems quite gimmicky.

2muchcoffeeman• 10 months ago

Kudos if they develop a knife that blunts itself when your subscription expires.

arp2425• 10 months ago

if this version of the knife doesn't connect to the cloud, the next one will.

That's just ugly cynicism. And I'm willing to bet a good amount of money the "next one" from this company won't. But it doesn't matter because this one doesn't and we're talking about this one, not some hypothetical that may never arrive.

wisty2• 10 months ago

That's cynicism.

Everything has pros and cons. You haven't said a single pro. You haven't added any real cons to what I said, and made up hypothetical ones.

It's a sales pitch so you're saying why you wouldn't buy it. I'm not ordering one either, 500 is a bit steep for me. If he just showed off the technology, I suspect people here would be more enthusiastic about it, even if you wouldn't bother to buy it yourself.

I'm not saying you're wrong (at the price point), but that the framing of whether we're going to buy it is a result of the marketing.

9x39• 10 months ago

I think it's because it seems like a Juicero to anyone who uses knives to make dinner regularly. We're fascinated by tech, and sure, I'd try this, but I bet anyone who has prepped with a knife for hours per week is probably pretty skeptical on the practicality here.

A sharpened piece of metal has been reliable for thousands of years and will continue to remain so. For new tech, I am also a fan of the ceramic knives out there for vegetables, as they hold a razors edge much longer than metal (albeit are far more brittle - I use them for veggies only, no meat).

One can buy a decent steel chef's knife, a ceramic one, lose them both, buy them again, buy a sharpening stone and a strop for the price of one of these. On one hand, the sci-fi emergence of the vibroblade or something in the kitchen would be cool. On the other, it could be a $500 vibrating slapchop[1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxGn2Egekic

YeGoblynQueenne12• 10 months ago

"You gonna have an exciting life now. Breakfast to go. You're gonna love my nuts".

O.o

sublinear2• 10 months ago

It has nothing to do with how good the marketing is especially when the product is so obviously only applicable for niche use.

I think we all had very similar thoughts to yours, but just came to the opposite conclusion.

zug_zug2• 10 months ago

We are usually skeptical. And I don't know why a weird ad for a smart-knife has gotten to the top-page of HN.

We don't like "buzz" and "hype"... if it's truly a great technology we can buy one a year from now. Not trusting a commercial to be honest isn't undue skepticism.

Well said.

kristjansson2• 10 months ago

$500 isn’t even out of the question for a great knife, it feels like about the right price point for the product.

t-3• 10 months ago

It's expensive (but not really, only compared to knives - a $500 GPU isn't expensive).

No, it's really expensive. $400 is nearly a week's pay for an hourly worker in much of the US. For many on this site it might be less than a day's labor but that's not the general case.

The lack of trust is probably because knives seem to be a favorite product of shysters. Selling expensive knives that promise the moon and wow the audience with cool knife tricks just reeks of fast talking late-night infomercial salesman trying to get over on grandma. The tech looks cool, but the presentation is off-putting.

gompertz• 10 months ago

You're not thinking like a marketing executive. The people who make $400 a week are not the target audience for this product. It's that simple. Not everything is made for Walmart shoppers.

kumarvvr• 10 months ago

using a $10 knife that is only reasonably well sharpened is probably 90% as good

I think the value proposition is in the idea that you don't have to sharpen this knife as often as with a normal knife, and that the performance is consistent.

The non stickiness is also a huge value proposition, because that is an annoying and time consuming aspect of any cutting.

benbayard2• 10 months ago

I think it’s a really cool product. I would happily own one. The problem I have with it is that $400 is a LOT for a chef knife. A great knife and an awesome sharpener can be easily had for $150, or $250 if you get a top of the line sharpener. That knife will last you a lifetime. How long will this knife last? What happens when the battery runs out of lifespan. What about when the motor dies? If this was closer to $250, I’d be much more likely to buy it.

brap2• 10 months ago

I wrote in another comment that I think this pitch is a 10/10, but I think I understand the skepticism.

There's something about this sort of product that feels inherently gimmicky. I can't quite explain why, maybe because it's too good to be true, maybe because it's a kitchen appliance, maybe it has something to do with the vibrations.

For instance, my girlfriend has this eye cream applicator(?) that vibrates... for some reason. Is it a gimmick? I don't really know, but there isn't a research paper in the world that would convince me it isn't.

Anyways, this video had me hooked, and I would 100% try this out if I could. But I would never buy it without trying first.

YeGoblynQueenne12• 10 months ago

> I notice this on other forums. If marketing isn't slick and well targeted, people get upset and suspicious because it's marketing.

For me, I get extra upset and suspicious if marketing is well targeted. Add a plus one if it is particularly slick.

Just something off-putting in someone trying to draw on my strings, which I see all too well myself, thank you.

clhodapp• 10 months ago

Speaking of ultrasonic vibration... Is the audio in the video have noticeable warbles and pops for anyone else? I wonder why that is...

zaps• 10 months ago

Ok great, now Steve Jobs it and explain to my mom why she needs it

veidr• 10 months ago

I think a lot of the commentary here is missing the main point — while you may not (I mean, certainly do not) need an ultrasonic chef's knife, it's a cool origin story, and the guy has the receipts! Years of iterations of circuit board design, blade shapes, and the robotic cut-test arm... I personally would enjoy using this in my kitchen just for the hacker vibes.

Although not a pro, or even a good cook, I do like quality knives — but, like most people who develop a casual nice-knife affinity, I then bought a few quality knives, a couple of junk knives to try restoring with a whetstone, a hand-made Japanese knife with my name on it, and... then I had enough kitchen knives to last the rest of my life, and there was no reason to buy any more.

This is the first one I have considered in years. Not because I need it, or because it's necessarily better at cutting must things than the workhorse Sekimagoroku nakiri I use[1] but because it's fucking neat and radiates nerdium waves.

This knife should be celebrated for what it is: basically an epic nerd project. That can also cut at least a few kinds of fruit more easily (or at least more enjoyably).

[1]: KAI model AE5206 (which seems very much like a Shun knife, made by the same company, but cost me only $53)

llsf• 10 months ago

Same vibes, different frequency...

https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/1245797052/vintage-60s-phili...

arp2425• 10 months ago

I watched the video and this seems pretty neat. Don't want to knock it or be negative. He's definitely right that most people's knives are dull – when I use knives in other people's homes I often just want to cry at how dull they are (also: pans – how the hell do so many people have dented damaged pans?) But you really don't need to splurge out €329 to have reasonably sharp knives.

All you need is a sharpening steel and use it once or twice after every usage. Even a cheap knife will last for years while remaining reasonable sharp. Mine was €6 or thereabouts at Tesco two years ago and is more than sharp enough.

Of course more expensive knifes (ultrasonic or not) are better and can hold an edge longer. You can spend more time, effort, and money on making them sharper than just a quick use of a cheap sharpening steel. If you want to spend the extra money: go for it! But for a normal home cook: you can go a long way with consistent use of a €10 sharpening steel.

ryoshu• 10 months ago

The demo videos show very poor knife skills.

wunderlust• 10 months ago

Knife skills are a necessary but not sufficient condition for being a good chef.

geuis• 10 months ago

This product is a huge gimmick. Buy a $20 double sided sharpening stone on amazon and you can keep even the cheapest stainless steel knives sharp and chef ready for years. Just basic knife sharpening skills are needed which you can pick up in 10 minutes on YouTube.

aortega• 10 months ago

But I want a ultrasonic knife.

turtlebits• 10 months ago

Theres a whole class of people who will pay more to not have to maintain things themselves. I bought an EV because they require little maintenance and I also hate filling up.

I have decent knives but have probably never sharpened them properly. If there are more reviews, I'd pick this up.

jcims2• 10 months ago

I've invested close to a thousand dollars in sharpening tools over the years. I keep my knives super sharp as a hobby more than anything. I'd still love to have one of these in the drawer for certain tasks. It's ugly and clunky but I'd probably still use it on a semi-regular basis for warm breads, cheeses, etc. I bet the action would help with sharpening as well.

I do wonder if a tuning fork or 'mass on a stick' hidden in the tang could provide enough vibration to help with the sticking. You'd probably have to smack it with every cut but it's so rarely a problem that would be fine.

victorhooi3• 10 months ago

Oh wow - would love to know what you got for sharpening, or what you'd suggest for the home cook?

When you say ugly/clunky - I'm guessing you mean it's a bit heavier, or the weight will be off compared to a good high-end chef's knife? (I don't have anything like that, haha).

I did note on their FAQ they say to never activate the blade whilst sharpening:

https://seattleultrasonics-ceizljlxnpt.gorgias.help/en-US/ho...

Do not activate the ultrasonics during sharpening - this can damage both the blade and your sharpening stones, as the ultrasonic movement is too aggressive and not evenly distributed across the entire cutting edge. Also, reshaping the blade to a different belly curvature or tip shape can cause it to fall out of tune, so avoid removing more material than you would during normal sharpening.

jcims2• 10 months ago

Oh nice catch on the sharpening bit! I don't know that I'd be able to resist on the finer grits.

The only thing you really need to keep kitchen knives sharp is the habit of sharpening them. That said I've been using this recently for utility sharpening - https://worksharptools.com/products/precision-adjust-knife-s...

It's a bit clunky but I tend to obsess over the angle of the grind, and something that physically constrains that is going to allow me to enjoy the process. For general purpose sharpening you don't need much more than a coarse stone (320 grit) and a honing steel. The coarse stone will bring the edge back (learn how to feel for the burr) and regular use of the steel will keep it in good cutting shape until it wears down. You might not get hair-popping razor sharpness, but that's a fairly short-lived state with kitchen knives unless you do a lot of maintenance.

65• 10 months ago

I find it funny most of these comments are about how unnecessary this thing is.

To me it has immediate appeal to make cutting easier. It's also really not that expensive. I suppose this is the same site that is crazy about AI and thought Dropbox would flop. This thing has more utility than AI to me. I suppose being a software person can warp your perception of the real world.

jpe-210• 10 months ago

The concept of the knife is interesting. I could see myself buying one if I had that much money lying around.

Maybe if the home chef who needs a leg up sees this it would prevent them from spending that much or more on more expensive knives and maintenance products. For those of us who know our way around the kitchen I’m not sure how much benefit I would get out of it.

Also did anyone think some of the cutting segments, particularly the radish, seemed sped up? The movement of the blade and hand looked a bit unnatural.

gurgeous2• 10 months ago

I personally watched Scott spend years working on the project and obsessively iterating on the steel, the vibration pattern, the circuitry, the handle, and the form factor. Scott is a hacker, one of us for sure. I mean, the guy built a custom robot just to measure cutting efficiency...

The knife is amazing and exactly as shown in the video. Rand Fishkin has a nice short on LinkedIn trying out the knife too. I think he shows one his (sharp) kitchen knives slicing through a lemon, then the Ultrasonic. It's astounding.

Disclaimer: I am a (tiny) angel investor in Seattle Ultrasonics.

tptacek18• 10 months ago

Does that video show him doing actual prep? I 100% believe he made a knife that can make a paper-thin slice of a lemon. But that's not what a chef's knife is for. As someone who thinks the world would be a better place if this product worked and was successful: for god's sake record someone processing an onion. That's what matters.

gurgeous2• 10 months ago

In Rand's video he does an "old" lime, mozzarella, and a shallot. It's just a quick vid he did in like five minutes but it shows some prep. Rand is a prolific amateur chef...

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7374472...

Disclaimer: I've enjoyed many delicious meals at Rand's table

sublinear2• 10 months ago

Free idea: put this tech in a mandoline slicer.

Even the best tend to struggle with consistency and can only go so thin due to all the friction. An ultrasonic mandoline that can overcome all that would probably fly off the shelves and better match the original industrial intent.

kristjansson2• 10 months ago

On one hand I would buy that instantly. On the other hand, it’s already missing small pieces thanks to my current mandolin. Not sure I want to make my scariest utensil scarier.

sebastiennight• 10 months ago

An ultrasonic mandoline that can overcome all that would probably make fingers fly off the shelves and better match the original industrial intent.

FTFY

system2• 10 months ago

Rank Fishkin from MOZ? Why is he testing knives on LinkedIn?

quantumwannabe• 10 months ago

Do you know if the knife still acts "sharp" when the physical blade is dull or does it still need regular sharpening like a normal knife?

miragecraft• 10 months ago

I think it’s really cool, but not sure about the button design (seams to trap germs) and placement (index finger is not where I naturally exert pressure when cutting with a kitchen knife).

Also would be nice if it can be fitted to existing blades as handle retrofit, but I understand that might not be possible to properly tune the vibrations.

lstodd• 10 months ago

when I need a ton of whatever cut thin I just use a rotary slicer.

a knife is for detail work like stripping meat. on bulk/speed/uniformity you cannot beat a slicer with a knife.

thr0away• 10 months ago

Umreeka can have geniuses only in tv shows at this point….otherwise we are reinventing knives!!

your_challenger• 10 months ago

It looks like a very cool product. Though it's too expensive for a regular guy who treats the cooking as a chore.

CarVac• 10 months ago

The only actual benefit I find it has over a well-maintained sharp chef knife is the non-stick aspect, which looks really nice but not $300 nice IMO.

Most people don't sharpen their knives enough and therefore they have to expend a lot of effort to sharpen them.

If your knife is only slightly dull it takes 10 seconds to resharpen it, unlike if you've gotten the edge all folded over and such.

raldi2• 10 months ago

But as you say, most people don’t do that. So “the only actual benefit” is something of value to most people.

metadat• 10 months ago

Is this Hacker News or the TV Shopping Network?

peteforde4• 10 months ago

I recently backed NeoBlade, which is an ultrasonic multi-blade cutting device for crafters. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hozodesign/neoblade

TL;DR it's really freaking cool, though the blades do seem to get dull fairly quickly. That said, they are made of a radically different grade of steel.

If the tech in the NeoBlade has been adapted successfully to the chef's knife, then all of the haters are going to sound like all of the early "you don't need an air fryer" pundits who totally missed the point and were clearly wrong.

Also, all of the "why would I care if I can aerosolize citrus" commenters have clearly never worked in a cocktail bar. Which isn't a knock; this is Hacker News, after all. Just know that there are people who make fancy drinks who would pay a lot to be able to do this easily. If you are the sort of person who spends time thinking about clear ice, you don't need this explained to you.

com2kid5• 10 months ago

I'm still in the camp that air fryers are stupid. A convection oven does literally the same thing.

Also, portable air fryers make such small servings that they're useless for people with families. What the hell I going to do with three chicken wings?

peteforde4• 10 months ago

You're technically right that an air fryer is a type of small convection oven, but dismissing them as "stupid" ignores why they're so popular. The point isn't that they reinvent physics, it's that they package convection in a way that's faster, uses way less electricity, is easier to clean, and perfectly sized for 1-2 people. Most folks aren't cooking for a big family every meal. I often just want to make fries, roast veggies, or crisp up leftovers. My Cosori lets me do that without heating the entire kitchen (and way faster, too).

I also simply don't have a convention oven. I rent my place, and it's not like I can just swap out the white goods.

Yes, the smallest ones are limited in capacity, but that's not the whole category. Larger models handle whole chickens.

The proof is in the market: people buy them in droves because they make food hot/crispy really quickly. A conventional oven can do the same thing, but it's like saying a desktop computer makes laptops "stupid". Technically true, but it ignores convenience, size, and efficiency, which are the reasons air fryers took off.

Anecdotally, most air fryers are owned by people who used to believe that they didn't need an air fryer. Have you actually had one in your life?

ThrowawayTestr2• 10 months ago

Ovens take time to preheat.

dragonwriter• 10 months ago

I'm still in the camp that air fryers are stupid. A convection oven does literally the same thing.

Air fryers are convection ovens, just with higher capacity fans relative to their own size compared to typical convection ovens (large convection ovens are sometimes coming with "air fryer" modes that replicate this, now.)

OTOH, aside from the utiltiy of having an additional smaller oven—which is not negligible, for many people’s cooking patterns—plenty of existing ranges include conventional rather than convection ovens, and adding an air fryer is a lot cheaper than replacing the range.

Also, portable air fryers make such small servings that they're useless for people with families.

I have a family, and a countertop (I assume that’s what you mean by “portable”) air fryer/toaster oven, and I don't find that to be the case. We get a lot of use out of it.

goopypoop5• 10 months ago

when your bag vibrates at airport security but, phew, it's not a sex toy it's ok guys it's just my knife everything's fine

zug_zug2• 10 months ago

So the issue with that tomato cutting test was that it was terrible form.

You obviously don't apply flat pressure on a tomato until it breaks, you slice it by sliding the blade forward as you push down. It's unclear to me that this blade offers any improvement over proper technique, and feels disingenuous to even offer that comparison.

raldi2• 10 months ago

The comments in this thread remind me of the famous HN Dropbox announcement.

To 99% of people, “just sharpen your knife regularly” is about as realistic as “just set up a Linux FTP server with rsync and…”

GuB-42• 10 months ago

How well does it cut frozen food?

Probably not great, otherwise they would have shown it, but being able to cut frozen food properly would be a game changer. The only things I found working are saws, and they are messy.

sethammons4• 10 months ago

I learned long time ago, if you are freezing it, freeze it in a shape that can be used frozen.

For instance, I flatten ground meat into 1lb "patties" and don't freeze it as a roll. I can literally snap the patty in half if I want half a pound, and the increase in surface area means rapid thawing if I place it, still in its storage bad (ziplock usually, but vacuum seal sometimes), into room temp water.

ashu1461• 10 months ago

Somehow after looking at the video, it is hard to believe that it is actually much different than your standard knife.

tills13• 10 months ago

For $500+ you can get a really, REALLY nice Damascus steel chef's knife with a beautiful patina and wood handle. Yes: it requires a bit more maintainable but nice things often require some work. When it's properly honed & sharpened, it'll cut just as well as this.

ehsankia• 10 months ago

So you're basically saying that you can spend as much money to get a knife that will cut as well but requires regular work put into it, whereas this doesn't? I think that's the whole pitch here...

m3kw9• 10 months ago

I think eventually you do need to sharpen it, this thing delays it. But it seems like a good gift if it ain't too expensive.

hardwaresofton• 10 months ago

This kind of thing is what I come to HN for.

This guy did a 6 year multidisciplinary grind to produce a stunning consumer product. Exemplary

victorhooi3• 10 months ago

This looks really cool!

I was just curious about two things - seems there might be some knife aficionados or experts here!

1. Sharpening - As a home cook, who doesn't know a lot about knives/sharpening - how hard would this be to maintain? Would it be plausible to get some basic home sharpening gear, and maintain this myself? Or should I take it to a professional knife sharpener - and if so, how do I even know if they're a good one, and won't damage the blade, or perhaps are good, but somehow get the blade out of "tune" etc?

2. Safety wise - is there anything at all to be concerned about with ultrasonic 40Khz blades? Should I be wearing any hearing protection when using this? (Context - I have hearing loss in both ears, and wear hearing aids - keen to preserve my remaining hearing, and am understandably cautious about this kind of thing for my family and me).

FpUser• 10 months ago

That non stickiness. I am curious if we do ultrasonic frying pan. Will it be non-stick as well?

HeyImAlex• 10 months ago

I think if this can keep a knife effectively sharper than the equivalent nice steel with less maintenance, then it’s going to find a market.

I’m a nerd, but Ive found that once I’ve mastered a hobby I eventually gravitate towards convenience, optimizing my time over absolute performance. I’ve built five PCs in my life, and now I only own a macbook. I spent loads of time optimizing my hifi setup, and now most of my apartment is sonos. And I have probably 1k worth of nice japanese knives + whetstones, that I would happily replace with a single knife that needs little to no upkeep.

benbayard2• 10 months ago

I am like you, but my concern with this knife is lifespan. My Japanese knives will last a lifetime. This knife has no warranty that I could find, but how long do we expect it to live? If it’s 10 years or so, I could be happy with it.

jatins• 10 months ago

On safety, if the blade is vibrating and I put my finger perpendicularly under it, will it cut the skin?

They show the knife being touched from the side but of course that's safe

MathMonkeyMan• 10 months ago

"J. Robot Choppenheimer" is what earned my upvote.

If this knife works as well as the pitchman says, that's amazing. Just don't touch the edge.

I've gotten into the habit of using one of those slatted knife sharpeners before every use of my knife. It works well enough.

bradley13• 10 months ago

Such funny (and odd) takes on knives. They are tools, nothing more. I sharpen ours weekly, using a sharpener that wears down the blades. When they get too worn, they get replaced.

lolive• 10 months ago

I would buy the katana version, in Cyberpunk 2077!

rishabhd• 10 months ago

Metal Gear Solid vibes.

pantulis• 10 months ago

Wait until Gillette figures this shit out.

bschwindHN• 10 months ago

This is super cool tech and I truly appreciate the grind this guy went through to bring a hardware product to life.

At the same time, I've been using a $5 chef knife for almost a decade and just giving it a few passes against a honing steel every few weeks. It gets plenty sharp after that, to the point where I don't feel I'm missing anything. Then again, I'm just a home cook who's super into kitchen knives so I acknowledge I'm not in the target market.

jeandejean• 10 months ago

Hackers news is now sneaking more and more ads. That's disappointin

enceladus_ice• 10 months ago

Why can't you just buy a cheap whetstone and sharpen your knives when they're dull? I have a mid chef's knife from wustoff or zwillig, don't remember which, that I just keep sharp periodically when I notice it's dull. I've had it for years of home cooking.

nevertoolate• 10 months ago

Target market is a hobby chef nerd’s mom :)

Otoh: this is NOT how a person cuts with a knife! Kills credibility of the whole complicated measurement with the robot. Just ask a chef to cut on a scale. You will be surprised. People can cut with semi-dull knife by pulling the knife towards their body not pushing down towards the cutting surface.

nine_k2• 10 months ago

Any new tech arrives as a gimmick, too expensive and underwhelming to be practical in daily life. Think about early TVs with a postcard-size monochrome screen, early 8-bit hobby computers, first Tesla cars, solar panels at the time when only spacecraft carried them, etc.

If the thing proves somehow useful, mass adoption and mass production slashes the cost 2-3 orders of magnitude, and the thing becomes mundane.

Otherwise it becomes forgotten as a weird gimmick.

Let's wait another 15 years.

albert_e• 10 months ago

Impressive dedication -- and what a refined looking product. Of course the real world use needs to match the advertising. I am not in the target segment (too expensive for me) but love to see such products and innovations across daily life tools -- hopefully this inspires others too.

weakwire• 10 months ago

LOVED!!! the presentation.

thomascountz• 10 months ago

I feel like the demo video embodies a lot of startup advice I've seen on HN about product vs team.

This video makes me like Scott and Seattle Ultrasonics. I feel I can trust Scott's expertise. His backstory fits what I imagine I would do if I were obsessed with a project like this. This makes me compelled to learn more and to maybe become a customer? Why? Because I want to see Scott succeed and would feel proud to be a part of that. Even if this knife didn't end up performing to my expectations or if I didn't really need a knife like this, I want to see Scott make more things. He has a very well-proven record of delivering and I would bet he could do it again.

Funny, that! Whatever type of marketing this is, it works on me.

brap2• 10 months ago

Yeah, I don't know anything about knives and this is definitely not for me, but I will say I think the pitch was a perfect 10/10. I thought I would watch for a few seconds and stayed for the whole thing. Great job.

YeGoblynQueenne12• 10 months ago

I'm afraid all it did for me is it made me think to myself (in a sarcastic inner voice): "are you going to do a screwdriver next?".

nsarrazin• 10 months ago

To me the main appeal of this is not that it makes cutting easier (you already reduce much of the cutting force needed if you slice across instead of pushing down, which this seems to be doing at a micrometer level) but the fact that food doesn't stick to the blade.

All of my knives have sticking issues, potato slices are the worst culprits. When doing a lot of prep work on veggies in a cramped area it's a pain and this seems like it could actually fix things?

OTOH, I'm not a huge fan of the design, I don't mind spending good money on a knife but between the blade profile and the chonky handle, it looks like an hybrid between an 8" fibrox and an electric turkey cutter.

If there was a premium release with a fancier handle (could wood work?) and a nicer blade profile (something like a gyuto or a french sabatier) I would be interested and I think it would reduce sticker shock (looks premium, expect premium price). I love the design of the charging tile though!

omega3• 10 months ago

The tomato test is disingenuous - no one slices a tomato by pressing the knife straight down - you slice it to break the thick skin and follow with a slicing motion. The rest of the graph basically shows no difference between the force used for ultrasonic one and standard knife used inefficiently?

rkomorn7• 10 months ago

And yet, when people like to show off how sharp their knife is, dropping a tomato on it (blade-up obviously) and watching the tomato split in two is one of the favorite tests.

Probably (and precisely) because you can only achieve this with a knife that cuts very well.

account425• 10 months ago

That's nice and all but I don't think you want to be the guy that brings an ultrasonic knife to a knife sharpening competition.

barrenko• 10 months ago

Crazy stuff, the Quantified Knife project seems even crazier.

mizzao• 10 months ago

What happens when the ultrasonic knife gets dull? At what point is a regular sharp knife better?

Most people don't maintain their knives well and they get really ineffective over time. Others who do, probably won't buy this...

ThrowawayTestr2• 10 months ago

You can sharpen it, it's still a regular knife.

spragl• 10 months ago

It is a cool product, but I have the clumsiness of the average home cook. So my old style knifes are plenty sharp for me. I would not be comfortable using this. But if there were a version with the slipperiness he shows, just having standard sharpness, it would be much more interesting to me.

BTW I think the focus on knife sharpness is overrated for most kitchen tasks. At least for home cooks. Your knives should just have the necessary sharpness. More than that is a negative in my opinion.

markasoftware• 10 months ago

I mostly agree that, as someone who cooks something intricate <10 times per year, a sharp knife is in fact more dangerous than a dull one.

Scott in the video makes the argument that sharp knives are safer, because you don't have to use as much force. But the only time I've ever cut myself with a knife in the kitchen have been with very sharp knives, eg one time handling it while washing the blade.

big_paps• 10 months ago

I have not many virtues but i always keep knives sharp wherever i am. With this tool the last bastion has fallen …

estimator7292• 10 months ago

The wireless charging knife rest got me. I have utterly no use for this thing but it looks so goddamn cool that I want it anyway.

TechSquidTV• 10 months ago

I'm a sucker for good demos.

idorosen• 10 months ago

They claim to be the first, but a simple google search shows several other ultrasonic kitchen knives out there. (369sonic, etc.) dating back years.

redox99• 10 months ago

It's the first ultrasonic CHEFS knife (afaik)

landgenoot• 10 months ago

Isn't this extremely dangerous? This will keep cutting without force through body parts untill it reaches the bone.

pvtmert• 10 months ago

i guess that is why you need to keep pressing the button (also battery conserving too)

the guy mentions cutting self occurs mostly due to excessive force applied by the (amateur/inexperienced) user and i kind of agree.

other part is that the inattentiveness and distraction, maybe trying to be fast... although if i were able to cut through (pun intended) things that easily, i would be steadier hand...

codeduck• 10 months ago

awful handle ergonomics compared to any "real" knife e.g Wustoff or Victorinox.

No tang whatsoever, so the knife has no strength. It's probably unbalanced, which makes it awkward to use with finesse and speed. A year of heavy use and the "haft" will degrade to the point that it's dangerous.

Buy a proper carbon steel knife. You can keep it sharp forever with 5 minutes on youtube and $20 worth of kit from Amazon. Plus, it will never go flat.

ropable• 10 months ago

Cool tool, however: the people who are going to spend $500 on a cook's knife likely already have the capability and motivation to properly sharpen a kitchen knife. The market for this feels extremely limited.

Also: I'd be curious how this feels in the hand due to the button and the extra weight.

mrheosuper• 10 months ago

"Sorry honey looklike we have to eat out today because i forgot to charge my kitchen knife"

pedro_caetano• 10 months ago

Having worked a fair amount with ultrasound for eye surgery [0] the physics similarities are very striking (the FEA simulation gave me flashbacks) but it's almost funny how the same principles can be translated and applied for an entirely different end purpose (cataract surgery, and slicing tomatoes!)

To use Scott's words it is very cool to see such a tech translation from industry to home use. I would still be cautious about the lifetime of these devices (namely how it will deal with water ingress over time) but the fact that they will come out of a factory is already quite a HW startup feat.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phacoemulsification

BrandoElFollito• 10 months ago

I was offered a CHEF'S CHOICE 15XV a few years ago and this is what I use to sharpen the knives at home (very ordinary knives).

I never knew if this was the summum of how sharp my knives could be, or where I bring them on a "sharpness" scale of 1 to 5 for a given knife.

I was also wondering if this depends on the knife - with some knives being better for such electrical sharpener and some worse.

rfwhyte• 10 months ago

$400 USD for a $50 Japanese stainless steel blade, and what amounts to the guts from a $10 electric toothbrush.

I mean I get that you spent some R&D money on developing this thing, but selling something direct to consumers at 10X the BoM cost is abhorrent.

robinwinters• 10 months ago

After culinary I was a cook/chef in starred/bib kitchens for 15+ years. I also apprenticed at an old school Japanese whetstone sharpening shop during that time period (my SF neighbors here probably know BC). I have a certain amount of expertise in this area and I can say unequivocally that there is no way this could be used for even moderate prep work. There's nothing wrong with the steel, it's a pretty standard SS, the size is a little too large for my hands, I like a 160, but 200 is a good middling size for most. It’s the vibrating. You know how your hands feel after holding a ~~vibrato~~…lawn mower for a while and then your hands feel like fuzzy pudding? There’s that, but the blade will shift constantly, and heaven help you if the motor goes wacky/dying.

I'm trying to think of a place for this in any kitchen, home or professional, and cannot see it being safe or all that useful...especially for $400.

It's a cool idea and really makes wanna go watch The Bad Batch again, BX Battle Droids carry vibroblades, but other than pure novelty it aint cuttin it for me.

Bonus for the buy-curious: Getchu a hydrodynamic spatula…jk. Get a nice 160mm - 200mm carbon steel gyuto, Tojiro makes pretty good entry level knives; a paring knife, and a Mercer white handle offset bread knife (a classic) and that’s all you need. For sharpening, a medium grit, muddy synthetic whetstone, I’m a huge fan of Aoto 2-4k, and you don’t really need much else for getting started, but in a way that even the serious pros will know you’re doing the right things. Maybe you need a strop, maybe. Chromium Oxide on leather or cork. Oh, and a SOFT wood cutting board. Hinoki wood is the undisputed king of cutting boards, or you could go with a no-trax self healing synth rubber if you have the $$. Put a wet kitchen towel/papertowel under your cutting boards so they don’t move around when you’re using them. Haste makes waste, and a wet towel is a hot towel.

Leave the money on the dresser.

vlmutolo• 10 months ago

It’s vibrating at a microscopic level. You won’t be able to feel it at all.

floppiplopp• 10 months ago

So, some tech business took something that is practical, robust, and low maintenance, and then added a deteriorating battery, delicate electronics, and the need to constantly charge a f-ing kitchen knife. Bullshit innovation is reinventing things, but worse. I wouldn't be surprised if they at some point added AI powered cutting modes and a subscription service, because the target audience clearly is gullible morons that are easily fooled by fancy ideas of vaguely sci-fi concepts.

Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

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