The dumbass internet of things:

Yep, no key copies floating around.

You can actually do that stuff now, with several products like Kevo. But they aren’t really mature yet.

ARISE!

Everything about this is gold.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-04-19/silicon-valley-s-400-juicer-may-be-feeling-the-squeeze

tl:dr - A start-up raised $120 million to create an internet-connected juicing machine. You buy the machine for $400, and then you’re allowed to subscribe to the juice packets shipments. You can only buy the juice bags if you’re a registered owner of the machine. The bags have unique QR codes that the machine reads and checks against the server for validity and freshness - DRM essentially - so you can’t use generic bags of juice.

Surprise! People don’t want a $400 juice machine with internet DRM. The kicker? You can just squeeze the bags by hand and get the juice into a cup faster.

It’s awesome that they are apparently literally just bags of juice, and the machine is doing nothing besides checking DRM and then squeezing them.

What was the original pitch for this? I mean, what was the internet connectivity doing which was actually USEFUL to the consumer?

“Let’s see how much money investors will throw at our crappy idea before people realize how crappy our idea is.”

Oh, shut up.

The thing I don’t understand is that the juice comes in a bag. It’s not even fresh. Anyone willing to spend $400 on a juice machine is probably going to want, you know, actual fresh juice, right? The whole thing is crazy to me.

Also…

[quote]
In an interview with technology website Recode, he likened his work to the invention of a mainstream personal computer by Apple’s Jobs.[/quote]

How humble.

The thing that is hilarious is that it’s not like it’s actually juicing anything, is it? Like, the juice is already in juice form, in a bag, right?

It’s like a bag of juice, that you put in a machine, and then the machine pours into a glass for you.

Not really true, if you read the article it says it took a human over 90 seconds to squeeze a single bag for 7.5 ounces of juice. That’s actually a fair bit of effort. You could do the same thing to juice an orange by hand, but using a juicer is easier and more thorough-- same thing here; the juicer took 2 minutes and got 8 ounces.

That said, their business model is clearly out of whack. The money is in the blades not the handle.

Ya, if the system was doing something useful, then you could potentially make money selling the juice bags. Kurig makes money on its crappy coffee, because the convenience of being able to make a single cup of coffee by pushing one button is useful to people.

But this is just juice. It’s not hard to pour juice. This would only be useful if your only alternative was to juice things by hand or something.

My understanding is the bags were supposed to have unjuiced fruit and veggie parts in them that needed squeezed, so if you just poured it out you’d end up with a pile of produce in your glass.

It’s still a dumb product.

That’s correct, they’re full of vegetables and fruit. I guess they’re shredded up or prepared in such a way that they can be easily juiced because there’s no way a human can just squeeze a carrot or kale and get meaningful quantities of juice to come out.

You can just pour juice, but freshly squeezed tastes a whole lot better. And of course this is aimed at “juicers” who believe the secret to health and long life is well, juice. Freshly squeezed unheated juice.

Except there’s literally video of the Bloomberg reporter just squeezing the juice into a cup. There’s nothing special going on.

It’s basically juiced fruit, with the pulp mixed back in, that you can squeeze and get juice again. It’s nonsensical.

And I’m certain it’s pasturized, otherwise it wouldn’t be safe.

Right. What was expected and what they delivered are way different.

Though you’ve still got those who subscribe to the “more money than sense” newsletter.

I guess the original plan was that they’d literally be doing the exact same thing as a juicer, only with no cleanup… all the pulp and crap would stay in the bag.

If that were possible, I could see folks actually buying it. Because you’d then actually be getting fresh squeezed juice, with less mess.

But the problem that I’m sure they eventually realized, was that juicers aren’t just squeezing shit. THey are shredding it. Because that’s the only way to get juice out of most stuff. And if you’ve got to shred stuff before it goes in the bag, then you’re basically just making juice and putting it in a bag.

Well yeah, except for the final step of actually squeezing it and separating the juice from the pulp, skin, seeds, etc.

The new improved model!

https://www.juiceroplus.com/

haha, well that won’t be selling any machines any time soon.

Oh, man. The CEO’s Medium post is gold.