this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2025
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I imagine it's because their use is evident (no need to advertise what they do, since they've been common in households for the past half century), and they've likely peaked in terms of function. You can't really improve much beyond what we have now, the last great advancement in the microwave was probably the turntable for consumer units, and the moving fields that commercial units have. You're limited in power output by the outlet you plug it into, so "faster cooking" is a no-go (unless you stuck a 240v plug on the end, and good luck getting that to fly with your average consumer in the US, we already find those annoyingly sparse for dryers and ovens and such) -- what else can you innovate to differentiate your microwave from every other microwave on the market?
My ideal microwave:
I have never needed to use power variation, defrost settings, popcorn button, or any of the other junk.
Innovate through simplicity. Less features means less to go wrong, and cost savings that can be put into either making it cheap or improving component quality.
I discovered the existence of those on online forums, it literally blew my mind. Manufacturers engineering microphones in microwaves because US people can't be arsed to stay for two fucking minutes next to the oven. Fucking unbelievable.
Wait, is that what the popcorn button does? I always thought it just was a preset for a time that would work decently for most standard brands.
Mine is definitely just a preset time estimated for what a bag of popcorn should require. It sets a timed countdown that looks and works exactly the same as if I had simply entered that time.