this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2023
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I dunno. I'm not a microwave engineer but you point out that misuse is rampant. I almost never cook anything above power 50, but I didn't even figure that out until my late 20s. Maybe a quick photogrammetry scan to determine size of food stuff, a scale to determine mass could help with some basic settings. Maybe even just a cook (default, 50% duty cycle) and power cook (full on, boil water etc.) to direct users. What about multiple magnetrons? Would that help with dead spots? What about a magnatron on a servo that raster scanned your food? Test pauses during cooking where infrared thermometers sample progress and make adjustments? I know Amazon made a pretty decent little smart microwave but I haven't even seen basic smart features cooked into very many of them. I'm just spitballing here, but with proper use and a sometimes some repositioning microwaves can do a pretty decent job, but I'm surprised they have evolved pretty minimally.
Even cheap-ish microwaves have "defrost" and "reheat" functions that ought to do the job more or less correctly (defrost will pulsate the magnetron to allow ice to melt into a water layer that's easier to heat up, reheat uses a steam sensor to roughly gauge the amount of food).
Most people are just impatient monkeys who hit the "max power" setting 100% of the time and will not, under any circumstances, take five minutes to learn to use the reheat function or lower the power level.