Re:Mass producing the most expensive rice cooker [video]
by kjkjadksj on Sunday November 05, 2023 @11:14AM
(#38152390)
Imagine you are making rice in this for the first time and you have no idea how long its going to take. That is ridiculous when you think about it. How do you even plan the rest of the meal assuming you won’t just be eating rice? Take the loss the first time and take 90 minutes to make dinner since the manufacturer didn’t have actually cooking with the thing in mind I guess.
Re:Mass producing the most expensive rice cooker [video]
by Karellen on Sunday November 05, 2023 @12:06PM
(#38153016)
> Imagine you are making rice in this for the first time and you have no idea how long its going to take.
How many times do you use it for the first time? Seems like a bit of an edge case to spend engineering time/add extra parts for.
Re:Mass producing the most expensive rice cooker [video]
by solardev on Sunday November 05, 2023 @12:56PM
(#38153601)
I don't think this is some insolvable problem. It's literally estimating the time it takes to cook rice, and many other rice cookers (including other Z models, apparently) do this just fine.
It's not some edge case, it's literally the biggest question after you push start.
Re:Mass producing the most expensive rice cooker [video]
by haswell on Sunday November 05, 2023 @12:16PM
(#38153166)
Imagine you’re grilling steak (or making lasagna, or cooking chili, etc) for the first time. The same principles apply. It’s easy to look this up, and once you do, the problem is solved.
Expecting a cooking tool to hold your hand to this degree doesn’t seem reasonable to me.
Re:Mass producing the most expensive rice cooker [video]
by callalex on Sunday November 05, 2023 @12:17PM
(#38153170)
I’m almost certain that the manual gives an approximate time range for each mode.
Re:Mass producing the most expensive rice cooker [video]
by JohnBooty on Sunday November 05, 2023 @04:09PM
(#38155670)
Well, because rice is inexpensive, you.... could do a test batch? Sure, it would add $0.25 or something to the cost of your $100.00 rice maker.
Or you could just put the rice in extra early. It will get done early. But it will still be hot and perfect when you're ready to eat?
It feels like you have a big misunderstanding of rice cookers.
Re:Mass producing the most expensive rice cooker [video]
by Encrypt-Keeper on Monday November 06, 2023 @11:05AM
(#38164371)
If it's your first time using it, you'll probably read the manual which will contain a table of general cook times. I just used a rice cooker with no screen for the first time and I had no problem with its lack of UI.
But on the other hand, if this is a piece of equipment you use regularly, you'll learn pretty quickly how long each thing typically takes, and after that initial learning period, the fuzzy progress indicator is no longer very valuable, and doesn't seem worth investing the engineering and UX time (and resulting higher product cost).
As a software-oriented community, I understand the impulse to throw code at the situation, but this seems like a situation where the cost of doing so doesn't really help very much. And it might actually make things worse, since most users are conditioned to trust/believe the sensors/indicators they see, and a countdown that keeps dynamically changing/jumping/slowing will confuse quite a few people who don't understand why it's a hard problem to solve.
And I think it's worth noting that this is par for the course with most things related to food prep. I'm always looking up cooking times for various things until I memorize the things that I cook often, and this seems like just another case of doing a quick search for a timetable.