Theres a technology connections video for that https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Limpr1L8Pss
Easy:
Some microwaves just set a timer, like 2:30 and call it a day. Others do power changes like 100% for the first minute then 75% for the next 2. Others have sensors and logic and compute the actual best time to stop popping based on physical conditions of the inside of the microwave
Orville has no idea what version you have, so they give you an algorithm instead
I use the popcorn button every time I make a bag. The sensor has never worked and I just have to pull the bag when the popping slows down, but the button sets a three minute timer and starts the microwave, it’s easier than setting the timer and hitting start like I had to on my old microwave…the struggle is real /s
Steam.
The answer is steam. Some microwaves have a humidity sensor that measures the amount of moisture released by food during cooking. Using that information, the microwave can estimate when the food is done and, in some models, adjust the cooking time automatically. For example, certain microwaves use this technology for sensor-cooking programs designed for potatoes, vegetables, or other foods.
Unfortunately, these features have largely turned into marketing gimmicks. They help sell microwaves more than they necessarily help cook food correctly. Many models no longer include genuine humidity-sensing technology, and the single-food buttons on cheaper models are often nothing more than preset cooking times and power levels.
People buy appliances based on how they look and how well they can show them off to others. Very few consider how a feature actually works, whether it serves a practical purpose, or whether it offers any real benefit over a less expensive appliance.
Here are a few other questionable marketing gimmicks in modern appliances:
Refrigerator air filters: These can reduce certain odors, but their effectiveness varies. The problem is that manufacturers turn them into another recurring expense for the owner, even when their practical benefit is limited.
RFID water filters: Some refrigerators use authentication chips to reject compatible aftermarket filters that lack the required RFID identification. This does not necessarily mean the manufacturer’s filter provides better filtration; it can simply mean you are locked into buying that particular brand.
Self-cleaning ovens: The high-temperature pyrolytic cleaning cycle is a legitimate feature, but it can put considerable thermal stress on components, particularly door locks, thermal fuses, and control electronics. As an appliance repair technician, I can tell you that this feature helps keep people like me in business.
Air fry versus convection: Air frying is essentially a form of convection cooking. Both use a fan to circulate hot air around the food. Air fryers and air-fry modes can differ in fan speed, airflow design, and heating configuration, but the underlying principle is the same. Manufacturers have simply found another way to market a familiar technology.
Coffee machines built into refrigerator water dispensers: Another feature that adds complexity, cost, and additional components to an appliance that already has enough things to break.
Android tablets built into refrigerator doors: You do not need a tablet on your refrigerator. At all. You can enjoy the technology if you want, but integrating a general-purpose computer into an appliance creates another potential point of failure and another expensive component to replace when the refrigerator itself may still have years of useful life left.
Wi-Fi connectivity in washing machines and dishwashers: What exactly do you need it for? You have been washing clothes and dishes your entire life without an internet connection. You do not need a notification telling you that a cycle has finished. You can check the appliance yourself.
The appliance industry has become increasingly focused on adding features that look impressive on a showroom floor rather than improving the fundamental functions of the product. I would much rather have a well-built appliance with reliable components, straightforward controls, and inexpensive replacement parts than a refrigerator with a tablet, a washing machine connected to the internet, or an oven that requires a technician after running its self-cleaning cycle.
Build better appliances. Make them reliable, repairable, and affordable to maintain. Stop confusing more features with better engineering.
Source: I’m an appliance repair tech for 22 years.
Want to come over and look at my microwave?
You started a pyrolithic self clean on your microwave over the WiFi again, didn’t you?
Lol 😂😂.
No.
Thanks for writing this :)
Can I bitch about something since you’re an appliance repair tech (not at you, just with you)?
GE french-door fridge, freezer. Less than 3-years-old. Freezer drawer.
Evap fan goes out. It’s pretty corroded. I do wonder if someone spilled something in the back of fridge but I can’t see a sign of residue beside the corrosion (Still, no protective shroud above the fan from fluids dripping down the back). Bench-tested it; dead. Condensate drain seems fine. Order $100 replacement. Still doesn’t turn on. I know control boards can fail from a result of this, too. I check output power from board, and it all seems good. Tested new fan; it’s good too.
Before this, I realize the evaporator connector harness is flush with the floor of the fridge and downstream of the condensate drain pan. Water literally pooled in the 6-prong connector harness that is sealed into the floor of the freezer. Dried it out, cleaned it off as best as I could with CRC QD cleaner, etc. but I’m not getting the same voltage I’m getting on the 12V red from the board – closer to 6 – which I can only deduce means a short or corroded connector underneath the freezer… So now gotta cut it out.
I’m not the only one who’s had issues with this, and it reallllllly feels not just like a poor design but planned obsolescence.
The sad thing is that as far as I can tell, GE is probably still the best fridge company for bang for buck? Maybe LG or BOSCH if willing to pay premium?
Yes, GE has been doing this recently, and they are also the company behind the RFID water filters, which are massively unpopular.
Planned obsolescence is absolutely something that occurs in modern appliances, and they seem to be becoming increasingly prevalent over the last year, at least from what I have observed.
I also encountered this issue with a four-year-old, bottom-freezer, French-door GE refrigerator. I was unable to supply power to the evaporator fan motor in the freezer section, and we ultimately had to condemn the refrigerator.
There are several things to unpack here. For starters, the motor operates at 12 volts, so I cannot simply drill through the back wall, run a few wires, and get the fan running normally like I could in the good old days. You are just out of luck.
What bothers me most, though, is that I do not understand the logic behind planned obsolescence. There is absolutely no guarantee that this customer will go out and buy another GE refrigerator. In fact, they are much more likely to buy anything other than GE after experiencing this kind of failure in a four-year-old appliance.
So, I have to assume this is incompetence rather than planned obsolescence.
In general, I currently recommend GE and LG appliances, particularly here in the United States. I do not recommend Bosch refrigerators, despite the company’s excellent reputation. Bosch makes the best dishwashers on the market, hands down, and I recommend Bosch dishwashers without hesitation.
The problem with Bosch refrigerators is not necessarily reliability. It is parts availability. Although the refrigerators themselves can be reliable, obtaining replacement parts in the United States can be extremely difficult. Parts are discontinued far too quickly, and the domestic supply chain can be practically nonexistent.
I can end up with a two- or three-year-old Bosch refrigerator that needs a water inlet valve, only to discover that the part has already been discontinued in the United States and is no longer available through the domestic supply chain.
An appliance is only as serviceable as the parts available to repair it. Reliability means very little if you cannot obtain the components needed to keep the appliance running.
I’ve never even seen a popcorn button. Is this a 'Murrica thing?
they love the corn
Fuck yea
Yeah our microwaves seem to have a defrost button that then goes to type/weight… A popcorn button, which has been around for 15ish years, a 30 second button, which many people just hit for everything… and then the power setting which you end up hitting 9 buttons every time because you can never get the order right on if it’s power 70% time start or 70 power time start or time 70 power start or who the fuck knows what so you just try to remember to put the frozen food in the fridge the night before so it’s thawed enough to do what you need with it
Liability.
Microwave design in America infuriates me ever since moving over here.
Used to be you just press the number for how long you want, and then enter the power and 30% power meant max power for 3 seconds, then off for 7.
Then they stopped turning on the microwave when you press a number and you had to find “cook time” among the 15 different buttons for specific types of food that never turns out right or require you to look up a chart, it was faster to just press “add 30 seconds” 8 times.
Then they removed the “add 30 seconds” button.
Every evolution was more expensive and fancier, but replaced the most basic functions with things that I have literally never used or heard of somebody using.
Then I came to asia and half the microwaves have two dials: Time and power, and power actually lowered the heat instead of just boiling and then letting it wait for 10 seconds.
This is exactly what my experience has been, although I still have the “add time” buttons. Don’t forget that half the buttons are inaccessible unless you have the door open. I have no idea why anyone would design a microwave this way.
30% power meant max power for 3 seconds, then off for 7.
This is true for most microwaves unfortunately. Panasonic’s use an invertor however so you get genuine reduced power vs % of time at max power.
The microwaves over here list the wattage they run at when you lower the power.
I dunno, I’m in the US and nothing you said applies to my microwave.
Could it be that you’re just looking at the wrong brand(s)?
Anyway, all of this talk made me think of that 30Rock episode where Jack is tasked with designing a new microwave for GE lol
The Technology Connections video has already been posted, but for a quick written answer:
Cheap microwaves wire that button to mean “run for 2 minutes” which will probably ruin your popcorn. Mid-ranged brands will sense moisture. Higher end brands might have a microphone to listen for delay between pops which is what the popcorn bags instruct people to do.
Popcorn makers tell you to listen for pops manually because it’s easier than writing “if your popcorn button sets a time or asks for bag size, don’t use it because it’s not using any sensors to determine when to stop and will burn your popcorn.”
Mine uses moisture and also asks for the weight of the bag and it’s ok, as it it never burns them, but it’s kinda conservative, it leaves. Afew unpopper kernels. I mostly use an air popper tho
It’s not the microwaves fault. There is a small percentage of kernels that will never pop. That’s just how they are, and nobody knows which ones it will be until they bite into it during a movie.
A half popped kernel is referred to as an “old maid”
No because i can press the +30 seconds before it finishes and more a few more pop without burning if I wait a few extra seconds (usually 10-15l
Do you know a microwave with a legitimate pop button? I like to pop the corn.
Not sure about microwaves popping the corn, but there was this guy Jimmy who was cracking the corn, but honestly I couldn’t be bothered with it.
Not sure about guys named Jimmy cracking the corn, but there was this chicken in the corn so the corn cain’t grow nah-ah, but I don’t really know too much about it honestly
No. I ended up switching to this guy and has been awesome:
I have one that air pops into a bowl. It usually works but occasionally there will be one that pops really hard and blows some of them out of the bowl. If you were to stand by when this happens you would be hit by popped pop corn, and in your shock, you would likely scream like a small child who stubbed their toe or realized Santa wasn’t real and therefore neither was the American Dream or hope for Humanity at this scale.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Fountain-Air-Popper/38278478
This guy right here fixes all the issues I had with the style of air popper you’re taking about.
Ahh, Dr. Redenbacher himself.
My dogs come running when I get out the air popper because there’s always a kernel or two that lands in the bowl before popping and sends a bunch flying. Yes I scream like a child every time which makes the dogs flinch, but not enough to stop them from hoovering up all the popcorn.
Sounds like it’s time to bring out the big guns!
Those suck so much to deal with
Delicious!! Too messy though!
Nope. Someone got a patent on the idea in early days of microwave popcorn and they have effectively killed it by asking too high of a price to use.
But there are phone apps that will listen to the pop rate and tell you when it’s done.Thanks, but I’ll just listen for 20 seconds instead of slopcorn.
My god it does NOT need an app. It better be free.
If someone can’t count a few seconds to know when to stop I don’t think they should be making popcorn.
Deaf people don’t deserve popcorn.
Got me!
Free. (But with in-app purchases) ;-)
Well, as long as that’s a “tip” button.
Patents only last 20 years. I’d be more concerned about when it expires and they actually have a plausible reason to put a listening device in your microwave
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I must just be lucky. My popcorn button just puts my microwave on for 2m40s and my Kirky Sig movie theater butter popcorn comes out great every single time. I’d say one in 50 bags has had an issue with it being slightly overdone, if that. I appreciate that the button does 2:40 because I would never hit 2:40, it would either be 2:30 or 3m.
The longest I have ever had a bag pop properly without starting to get the burning scent is 2:30 but most need stopped at 2:15. 2:40 would be burnt in the last three microwaves I have used.
TIL “Kirky Sig” 😂
I too like to pop corn but I can’t beat hot beef tallow on the stove with some melted butter or chicken salt tossed through post popping
Higher end brands might have a microphone to listen for delay between pops
NGL, that’s pretty damn dope!
Why would you lie
Humans learn to lie before we learn to talk. It’s in our very nature to lie and lie often.
Society itself is held up loosely by a web of agreed apon lies.
We learn to hit eachother at you young age as well but nobody would use that to justify hitting people once they’re adults.
Sometimes hitting people is necessary, correct.
Lies don’t always hurt people. Most lies we tell help maintain our society. Like not insulting grandmas cooking.
See the roadblock you are hitting is you think I’m “lies are never wrong!” What I’m saying is it’s natural and not inherently wrong.
Pooping isn’t right or wrong. It’s something we have to do tho. That doesn’t mean you should shit ON people. It means you are going to shit it’s natural and normal. There is a time and place for it. Once you accept that you can plan around it. You learn to control it.
Same with hitting. Hitting isn’t inherently good or bad. We hit nails with hammers, we hit people when attacked. The reason is either good or bad. Hitting is nutral. We hit things all day every day.
Ask yourself honestly: if you had never known the concept of hitting someone else, you had no ability to ever hit anyone. Would you be better off?
Cheating your partner also doesn’t hurt them for as long as they don’t find out.
Telling white lies indicates that you consider yourself to be a better judge of the other person’s ability to handle uncomfortable information. You’re treating them as emotionally immature person who needs to be sheltered from the real world like a child. You’re not only lying but also disrespecting them.
Unless you’re hiding Anne Frank on your attic, there’s very few situations that justify lying. Same applies to violence.
Here’s a simple queston: in what situation would you want to be lied to?
Cheating on you’re partner is wrong. That’s the wrong thing in that situation. I’ve never cheated on anyone.
“Telling white lies indicates-“ it really doesn’t. When a baby fake cries it isn’t being mean. It isn’t judging someone’s else’s maturity.
Everyone is constantly sheltered from the real world. We shelter ourselves with something called “society”. We flat out made up civilization. We maintain it partially by lying.
Emotional maturity. Let me ask you this: you are at thanksgiving with the entire family. Grandma asks you how the turkey was. You say in front of the hole family “I hated it”. Would youre family be proud of you? Would grandma be happy you valued her enough to tell her the truth? Or would the whole table look at you like a monster?
What situation would I like to be lied to in?
Well you mentioned Anne frank. Let’s go back there because there is a part in the book with a funeral.
The parents tell all the kids a family member died and all the kids are sad. Anne looks into the coffin to find it’s empty. The family lied to her. She was hurt. Then soldiers come in to question them. All the other kids didn’t realize there was a problem because they thought they were at a real funeral. Anne was scared because she knew the truth and now had to hide it.
In that situation I’d rather not know.
Another personal example. My ex wife and I lived in the same small town. I was a district manager for dollar tree. My exwife was around town and heard two of my managers complaining about a task I had asked them to do. They were talking shit essentially.
She shouldn’t have told me. They didn’t say anything that I needed to worry about, they weren’t confused about the task, it didn’t happen at work… there was nothing I needed to do with that information. People complain about thier boss after work sometimes. That’s natural.
I wish she hadn’t told me because there was nothing for me to say or do, nothing actionable with that information. She just wanted me to know they were talking shit to try an upset me.
So let me ask you this: was her telling me the useless information just to hurt me ethical? Would keeping it to herself be less ethical? Should my employees tell me everyday I’m there that working is hard and it would be easier if I don’t give them tasks? Would that honesty help anyone? Should I pull them aside and tell them I don’t like it when they complain about me outside of work? Should I tell them my ex wife is nosey and crazy?
Who need to know what? Who’s acting ethically and who isn’t?
Actually my exwife was cheating on her new husband at that time. I knew but didn’t tell her husband. I ALSO knew her husband was cheating on her and didn’t say anything. That had nothing to do with judgment, anger, or who can handle what. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t care and didn’t want to be involved. Is that unethical?
Should I tell my son his mothers crazy? Should I tell him his mother cheated on me so I left her?
What about outing someone who’s gay or trans without thier permission?
What if someone’s mother dies and they say “she’s an angel now watching over me” should I correct them that angels are not human and humans are not angels? Is it a good time to explain that the Bible never says anything about seeing our family in the afterlife, instead it heavily implies you won’t miss them or look for them? Should I just tell them god doesn’t exist and dead is dead?
There are loads of time where we have to lie to have a society and exist with other people.
That fact sounds like a lie.
It doesn’t sound like anything. It’s text. But yes babies can fake cry.
No we fucking don’t.
Babies can and do fake cry. Being deceptive is a vital part of living in a society. You cannot have this world we live in without lies.
It’s true we have to learn to lie well but the want and ability to be deceptive when it suits us is something we are born with.
I have a shitty old hand me down microwave with a display that barely works that I know had to have been the cheapest model. It sets the popcorn button at like 1:20 and it’s always been great. I never assumed the popcorn button could be a lie…
Okay; lot’s of memey answers here.
But I saw a video from “Technology Connections” and as I understand it most popcorn buttons are just timers.
However some microwaves have weight sensors and hydrometers. Most microwave buttons suck but some are actually good.
Another thing to watch out for a new microwave is whether or not low power mode means 20% power or 100% power 20% of the time.
Look for the word inverter. An inverter microwave can actually adjust its output power. Expect to pay a bit more but the cooking is better and if you have a circuit in heavy use it can let you run the microwave at half power and the toaster at the same time.
Another thing to watch out for a new microwave is whether or not low power mode means 20% power or 100% power 20% of the time.
Is that even a thing? I’m under the impression that magnometers have to be run at full power, and all you can change is how frequently they are on during the cycle (which is never the full time, even at 100%)
Inverter models can modulate their output power. They’re better and consequently more expensive.
I think it’s modern technology allows switching on and off the magnetron so fast that it’s effectively 20% power, kinda like PWM on a LED. Versus older cheaper technology that just switches on and off every second or two
It was one of the very first early tests to see how much the powers that be could dick with the general population. Quite a lot, as it turned out. /s
This post lacks [US] tag.
Just because the microwave has a button it doesn’t mean the button does the right sequence of steps.
Technology Connections has a good video on it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Limpr1L8PssThat video also taught me about the sensor button. If you’re reheating and your microwave has a sensor button, use it. So much better than trying to guess a time.
Came here to post this!
shrinkflation. original popcorn bags =~ 3.5oz.
today : as low as 1.1oz up to 3.3oz.the machine was programmed for a certain volume of food. it changed. most machine’s have an adjustment for amount of food. there’s only one variable on the machine we change - time.
This is the house brand from LIDL. Cheaper than the name brand, larger packaging and both contain fat, salt and corn.
The fats in those things might as well be bearing grease.
Better yet: Why are microwave interfaces so complicated? I don’t want twenty buttons for different foods, or press up/down buttons fifty times because you didn’t include a number pad
Haptic knobs ftw
