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[–] 127 points 6 months ago (88 children)

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.

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  • [–] 150 points 6 months ago (52 children)

    If all it does is vibrate why does it need a firmware update?

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  • [–] 66 points 6 months ago (33 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 24 points 6 months ago (32 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 15 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 5 points 6 months ago (28 children)

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

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  • [–] 4 points 6 months 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.

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  • [–] 6 points 6 months ago (26 children)

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

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  • [–] 8 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 33 points 6 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 13 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    So you’re saying it’s ideal for murder because it brings home less damning evidence?

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  • [–] 5 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 8 points 6 months 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.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (5 children)

    if you want to cut something very consistently and not spend much time to do it you use a mandoline

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (4 children)
  • [–] 7 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    I mean, the increased damage compared to a regular knife is noteworthy.

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  • [–] 4 points 6 months ago* (3 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago* (1 child)

    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.

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