• Pacattack57@lemmy.world
    7·
    54 minutes ago

    Hello I’m a software engineer for this knife! Kitchenaid’s newest model, the Ultrasonic Edge™! It is forged with self-healing nano-steel from Japan, the blade can automatically correct small edge imperfections over time, keeping it razor sharp longer than a traditional knife. The button on the handle cycles through several prep modes to assist in slicing and dicing. My favorite is heated mode which heats the blade to 28 C to assist in slicing frozen meats and vegetables. The knife occasionally receives software updates through its charging block, adding new cutting profiles and improving its internal motion sensors that track hand positioning and cutting rhythm. Tiny embedded LEDs along the spine glow softly to indicate blade temperature, battery life, or sanitation status after UV self-cleaning cycles. If you don’t have access to internet we can send you a usb device to install the software updates remotely. If you have any questions feel free to ask!

  • Tigeroovy@lemmy.caEnglish
    2·
    1 hour ago

    I just don’t understand why anyone would buy something like this. I bought a few of those smart speakers, really only so I can voice control my hue lights and listen to music on them sometimes, but a knife? What the fuck usage does it add?

  • BilSabab@lemmy.world
    9·
    5 hours ago

    i’m so behind times… why would anyone need firmware for a knife though? like for real - what do you accomplish with it?

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
      7·
      11 hours ago

      They used to be one in the hotel that I worked at and it definitely didn’t have an app or internet connection you just pressed the button and it did its thing. What’s the firmware for?

  • Etterra@discuss.onlineEnglish
    311·
    17 hours ago

    I don’t care if it’s sharp enough to kill a god, it’s still not worth it if it needs WiFi access.

    • nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca
      162·
      17 hours ago

      Ultrasonic cutting tech is really cool tbh. That doesn’t mean the fucking thing has to be internet connected and have firmware updates .

        • nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca
          2·
          2 hours ago

          They haven’t had the option until now so that’s trivially true. This is among the first times this tech has been put into a hand-held knife. Until now it’s been limited to industrial food processing where you’re cutting something sticky. Turns out you can prevent sticking just by vibrating the blade at a few khz. No chemical coatings required.

          I don’t expect wide adoption among chefs and this won’t at any point replace a substantial proportion of normal knives. And this implementation of the tech is silly and bears all the flaws of modern product design. But it is cool tech.

    • Zink@programming.dev
      26·
      20 hours ago

      I’m convinced that much of, if not most of, society sees technology in our personal lives as a way to (ideally) not have to learn anything or put in one bit of extra effort.

      I’ve been getting my hands dirty and doing more things myself over the past few years, and ya know sometimes the journey is more impactful on you as a person than the destination is. Learning things and interacting with the world around you is good.

    • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
      71·
      19 hours ago

      This knife is expensive, but actually pretty badass. It’s an ultrasonic frequency knife and the only non commercial use chefs knife I know of that does it and works. It cuts with no effort, but really the biggest perk is that absolute fuck all will even try and stick to the side of the blade. Still to richy rich for the benefits, but it is cool tech.

      • Donebrach@lemmy.worldEnglish
        315·
        16 hours ago

        If you think this is cool then let me tell you I have a device cool your room by nasa science 90 degrees 6 seconds. This item is so powerful it can’t even be spelled in stores tried 9 times and realtors refused sell it. This knife is so cool it won’t even overheat the meat in cutting and will help your grandma and dad when they are cooking the food without any problem

  • Synapse@lemmy.world
    1331·
    1 day ago

    I’ve seen this knife on YouTube. It vibrate at ultrasound frequency that makes it sharper than the blade really is and the ingredients don’t stick to it, or so they claim. If it really does perform as demonstrated, it’s pretty cool, but still overpriced.

      • mycodesucks@lemmy.world
        24·
        23 hours ago

        It doesn’t…

        But the kind of people who are impressed by a vibrating knife are also likely to be impressed by the ability to update firmware. They don’t know what firmware DOES, they just know it’s modern.

      • disorderly@lemmy.world
        69·
        1 day ago

        The incredibly silly true answer is that the software industry’s love for “deploy early, deploy often” has led to all embedded devices shipping with over-the-air (OTA) update support even when it barely makes sense. The earliest units of a given product run will ship with a minimally viable product build that has lots of bugs, but solid OTA.

        Fun anecdote: I had a TV backlight die after about 3 years, and the root cause was a shitty embedded app that incorrectly regulated the voltage for the LED strips.

        • bright@piefed.socialEnglish
          25·
          1 day ago

          I don’t think that actually answers OP’s question. If all it does is vibrate then it doesn’t need any software. It presumably just has a single button that turns vibration on/off and maybe cycles through vibration levels. A dumb circuit without even a single chip in it could do that.

          • OwOarchist@pawb.socialEnglish
            25·
            1 day ago

            Ah, but what if you want it to vibrate to the beat of your favorite song? Did you think about that?

          • disorderly@lemmy.world
            15·
            1 day ago

            I’m just guessing here, but it’s probably for battery management and wireless charging, which are tricky problems you’re not gonna solve with a 555. I generally trust EEs to not put MCUs where they aren’t needed, so this must have been the cheapest/easiest option.

          • ℍ𝕂-𝟞𝟝@sopuli.xyzEnglish
            71·
            1 day ago

            Because it’s cheaper to buy a commodity chip and program it rather than get an application specific chip made.

            • bright@piefed.socialEnglish
              51·
              21 hours ago

              As i said in my original post, “A dumb circuit without even a single chip in it could do that.” Vibration units can literally just respond to voltage. It’s how electrical devices worked before chips, like old pinball machines and old radios. It works just like how a standing fan works - there’s a mechanical motor, and you literally just need to attach plain copper wires onto the motor’s contact points and stick the other ends of the wire into the slots of a wall power outlet.

            • HikingVet@lemmy.ca
              94·
              1 day ago

              You don’t need a chip in a vibration circuit. Hell a potentiometer is more than sufficient to give you different levels of vibration

              • wabasso@lemmy.caEnglish
                8·
                23 hours ago

                I don’t know why I’m replying this deep to play devils advocate for some stupid knife, but I could see a situation where you haven’t completed the research on optimal frequency and ship it out while that’s ongoing. Maybe the window of optimal frequency is narrow enough, or unknown enough, that it’d be difficult to calibrate a potentiometer such that the end user could find that ideal point.

                • Bilb!@lemmy.mlEnglish
                  3·
                  23 hours ago

                  I want an update that let’s it play audio files by vibraing the blade.

      • KraeuterRoy@feddit.org
        17·
        1 day ago

        Don’t you think it would vastly improve your stabbing experience if the knife could vibrate the Halloween theme while you’re at it?

      • OwOarchist@pawb.socialEnglish
        25·
        1 day ago

        we’ve engineered the bolster connection to withstand up to 50 lbs. of pushing force, so you can chop without worry. (Our human arms could only muster 30 lbs. This is why we’re nice to the robot.)

        Noodle-armed motherfuckers could only manage 30 lbs of force with their arms?

      • baggachipz@sh.itjust.works
        3·
        20 hours ago

        But when you press the orange button, the knife cuts with up to 50% less effort

        Well, up to 50% less effort for that low price? Sign me the fuck up!

      • Paddzr@lemmy.world
        3·
        21 hours ago

        JapAnESe sTEeL!!1°!

        Then demo cuts the most basic shit any other half decent knife would have no issues with.

      • merc@sh.itjust.works
        21·
        24 hours ago

        “Hmm, the stab wounds show that this guy was stabbed by an ultrasonic vibrating knife!”

        “Really? Those must be rare, what can they sell, maybe a dozen of those per year?”

      • Synapse@lemmy.world
        3·
        24 hours ago

        Remember that I am not a certified lawyer so you shouldn’t take my advice at face value. But, yes.

    • theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world
      8·
      1 day ago

      This is good as an accessibility device for people who have trouble doing the proper circular knife cutting motion, but if you can use the proper technique without trouble, it is not really much better or worth the cost.

      • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
        1·
        21 hours ago

        I don’t see accessibility as the main benefit. I see reduced need for sharpening. Yes, you can always sharpen a knife, but it’s not as easy as people pretend. And it’s another chore you have to do.

    • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
      1·
      19 hours ago

      It does work and it is super cool from any videos or info I watched on it. Because metal is flexible, the size, length, thickness, and weight of the blade all gave to be taken into account in order to get a vibrating frequency that works. If you ever watch videos of this or ones like it (this is the only good working home use kitchen knife I know if) it’s pretty bad ass, if for nothing else than just for how anti stick it is. I’m still not willing to pay like $400 for it. I’m a big knife sharpening and cooking guy, but I don’t think I’ve paid over about $50 for any of my kitchen knives or over $230 for a pocket knife. Now if I ever wound up seeing one of the Seattle ultrasonics somewhere new or used and still looking good for under $200 I’d probably break down and buy it. Blade stick is pretty annoying when you want to cut something very consistently and not spend a bunch of time to do it.

        • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
          1·
          6 hours ago

          Those seem fast if you don’t know how to use a knife very well. Plus then you got to clean the thing. Plus you’d be using it a long time if you were trying to make something like fries. Plus they don’t work with things like tomatoes. Then let’s see how a mandolin does with cilantro or green onions.

          A mandolin is generally a tool for a novice.

    • gens@programming.dev
      72·
      1 day ago

      Stuff sticks to knives because they are flat. They need to have dimples for stuff not to stick. Even with ultrasonic vibrations things will stick because things are elastic and sucktion.

      I doubt this knife has the power for its vibrations to make a meaningfull difference in cutting.

      That’s my opinion at least.

      • herrvogel@lemmy.world
        8·
        23 hours ago

        Ultrasonic vibrations have been successfully used to make cutting tools more effective for a long time. It doesn’t make the cutting edge sharper or amplify the force, it just moves it back and forth slightly, in microscopic imitations of a cutting motion. That does work. Though at the end of the day it won’t magically make a dull knife sharp.

        Ultrasonic vibrations have also been successfully used to get shit off of surfaces for a long time too. It is a common and effective method. Though it usually involves a bit more than just shaking the thing, but still…

        Theoretically this knife could very well do both of those things. Probably not well enough to be worth 425 dollars, but probably entire useless either.

      • OwOarchist@pawb.socialEnglish
        5·
        1 day ago

        Even with ultrasonic vibrations things will stick because things are elastic and sucktion.

        Eh, perhaps not.

        Ultrasonic vibration causes tiny cavitation bubbles to form at the interface between metal and liquid, and then those bubbles collapse a tiny second of a fraction later … quite violently. If it’s well designed, then it should clean stuff off of itself just like materials you put in an ultrasonic cleaner.

        But these cavitation bubbles are strong enough to eat away at the metal itself as well. I expect this knife might not actually last very long if you use the vibration a lot.

    • ALoafOfBread@lemmy.ml
      62·
      1 day ago

      I doubt the vibrations would do anything to make it cut better, but to make things not stick you could also just put little dimples on the side like those of a santoku knife. So goofy.

      • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
        5·
        1 day ago

        People freak out over the dimples because it means that some day they won’t be able to sharpen the knife anymore.

        Which ignores that once you are even two millimeters worn down it is probably time to get a new knife regardless due to ergonomics and the like.

        And yeah. Vibrations only make sense if you are sawing through food. That is why those (cheap) electric carvers are genuinely amazing and worth grabbing if you are hosting a big roasted meat party (e.g. American and probably also Canadian Thanksgiving). Non-serrated blades don’t do that. If you need to saw through your food with a chef’s knife then you should have sharpened that years ago. And if you actually CAN saw through your food with the chef’s knife, odds are the blade is so fucked up that it is not salvageable to begin with.

        • gens@programming.dev
          3·
          1 day ago

          I got a knife my grandfather used, that has been sharpened so much it looks like a fillet knife. Ergonomics? It cuts, I don’t care. It’s a good reserve.

          Good point about dimples though. But thinking about it why wouldnt I be able to sharpen it? A knife’s like 2mm thick while a dimple is idk I don’t have one such knife, but it’s probably much less then 0.3mm and the edge obviously tapers.

  • AeonFelis@lemmy.world
    6·
    21 hours ago

    I’m sorry, but when AI eventually gain sentience and turns over humanity - do we really want the knives on its side?