Spare parts / CMS discussion

[DeformedTree]

even if you could get the part, is it worth it? Making tools easy to repair and get parts for makes sense when they are well designed tools designed to be around for a long time.

Darn right it is worth it, the trimmer was only 6 months old. I had my previous corded Philips trimmer for almost 15 years. The Philips is still good, but I wanted the new one because it was cordless and very cheap. Guess what? I can still order a new blade for my old Philips.

Suffice it to say, I bought a cordless Philips now. I am NEVER, EVER buying anything from Remington again, and I will diss the brand at every occasion I get. Remington just scored a life sized -1 with me.

Right, which is just my point. Some items are built to be supported, they also tend to be tools that are built well.  I was thinking originally you were talking outside string trimmers / weed whackers. Now I get you are talking face trimmers (shavers). I suppose you could use either type of tool for either job if you are careful.  But both fall into the same place where some are made to last and be supported, others are not. The key is picking the right one. I've run into similar with the trimmers that they just stop making the blades, sometimes on models not even that old.  These products also tend to have manufactures that change things just for change, or create a bunch of different models where you can't even tell what is what, I think Braun makes a new model every few weeks and they are unique to each state you live in.

When you said Remington, my first thought was the gun maker. But the same name tends to also get slapped on all sorts of consumer products. Buying anything that isn't from a real company is a big issue (generic/store/house brands). Where the same no name company makes the same thing under 30 different brands, and you have no way to sort out where to get support for it.

 

[Coen]

Oooh. Companies that invent rules like that get an invented receipt from me, no problemo.

Hehe, I didn't think of that. Could have easily made something up in photoshop, they only wanted me to send a picture over the mail.

[smile]

Still happier with the Philips now, which is better quality overal.

Philips is hit and miss. Something are total garbage, like their mixers (kitchen use). The edges on the plastic parts / ultrasonic welds are so sharp that it could cut thing skin...

But happy with the Philips hair trimmer yeah.

 

[DeformedTree]

Wow, I didn't know they even made kitchen appliances (Philips), had to look it up, apparently they do even in the US.  I see their stand mixer "discontinued".  Any company trying to challenge KitchenAid on a stand mixer just sounds like a business model for "what is a great way to loose money and fail badly".

Also funny that most the kitchen appliances they make (in the US anyways), are functions all done with a kitchen aid stand mixer.  Way to completely target a massive fail. Like to see that meeting.  "so there is a US company that makes many things, but is mainly know for one appliance, they have existed in every kitchen of every house in the US virtual unchanged except for trendy color of the time for a half century, and has specialty add-ons to do everything one can think of. Are built of steel and so over constructed they cannot be destroyed, are available used for next to nothing because there are more of them then people and folks buy new ones just to change the color. So we think we should challenge that market"  ....  wow.

And Philips makes a "soup maker" which I'm struggling to understand what that is. The description almost makes it sound like philips thinks they have new inventions like "the pot"  "a spoon"  "heat".

 

[Coen]

Wow, I didn't know they even made kitchen appliances (Philips), [...]

Philips is also in the business of selling off their brandname to the highest bidder. In the Netherlands a lot of (especially old) people have this image of Philips only making high-quality products and continue to buy products from Philips that are just junk but with the Philips brand on it. I guess it made for some nice bonus of an executive...

They also have "Philips USB 3 sticks" that dont even saturate the USB 2.0 bus...

As for the kitchen aid stand mixer... I see them more in American movies / series than in real life in Europe, hehe.

 

[DeformedTree]

Wow, I didn't know they even made kitchen appliances (Philips), [...]

Philips is also in the business of selling off their brandname to the highest bidder. In the Netherlands a lot of (especially old) people have this image of Philips only making high-quality products and continue to buy products from Philips that are just junk but with the Philips brand on it. I guess it made for some nice bonus of an executive...

As for the kitchen aid stand mixer... I see them more in American movies / series than in real life in Europe, hehe.

Same happened here with brands like RCA and GE among others. People kept buying RCA tvs for a long time, I think ironically they might have been the same company who was making Philips tvs.  GE was probably the worse.  All the appliances, and so forth, they just kept selling to old folks, still do, where most folks have moved on to European and Korean brands for stuff.  GE even sold off the light bulb division (or tried to).  Today they basically make Trains, Jet Engines and medical stuff, they used to make everything.

Funny on the mixer, I remember the issues a few years ago when the "Great British baking show" got rid of the kitchenaid mixers. The kitchenaids came back in later seasons.

 

[AlexThePalex]

Yeah, Philips is not doing well lately. I agree with Coen they're a hit and miss, some products pretty good, others pretty bad.

There was a time they made almost every electronic device you could find in a house, but they're dropping out of that sector more and more. For some odd reason they made very ugly designs for a long time. Even if the products was good quality, it looked so ugly you just didn't want that on your shelf. Sort of how Hitachi suddenly chose to make all their tools look like cheap sneakers and laser guns.

Now, it seems they just don't bother anymore. They're losing out on modern developments like phones and tablets and other smart devices. Once they were one of the biggest light bulb producers of the world, but it seems like they don't even bother to get on the LED train. They make LED bulbs, but they're bad and 4 times as expensive as the rest.

I like their hair and beard trimmers though, but I would not quickly buy anything else from them.

 

[Coen]

They make LED bulbs, but they're bad and 4 times as expensive as the rest.

The Philips non-dimmable LED bulbs at least dont tend to flicker. The Calex lamps, available in the bigger DIY stores... definitely do, in a horrible way.

 

[Cheese]

The best LED's I've found for garden lighting are from Philips. They aren't dimmable but the construction is incredible and they last forever...well almost forever. On an outdoor system that runs from dusk-to-dawn they've lasted for over 8 years.

The entire housing while looking like plastic, is actually cast aluminum which is used as a large heat sink to maintain bulb life. Unfortunately, they're no longer available, last production run was 2017.

[attachimg=1]

 

[bertv]

Philips’ lighting division has speen spun off a few years ago. So that’s another 'mainstay of Dutch manufacturing' gone. BTW: the firm was founded bij mister Philips on rip offs from American and English lightbulb tech at the end of the 19th century — copyright laws were only introduced in the Netherlands in 1918, so Holland was kind of the China of its time. Same thing for engine manufacturers etc. — blatant copies of UK and German tech.

Wasn’t it David Bowie who said "It is hard enough to be clever, you don’t have to be original."?

 

[Coen]

Philips’ lighting division has speen spun off a few years ago. So that’s another 'mainstay of Dutch manufacturing' gone. BTW: the firm was founded bij mister Philips on rip offs from American and English lightbulb tech at the end of the 19th century — copyright laws were only introduced in the Netherlands in 1918, so Holland was kind of the China of its time. Same thing for engine manufacturers etc. — blatant copies of UK and German tech.

Wasn’t it David Bowie who said "It is hard enough to be clever, you don’t have to be original."?

The whole patent system is ofc to benefit current powerful players. Funny thing was in the early days when communication took forever the same thing got patented in different places by different people who never knew about each other.

Most stuff that is patented should have never been. Like Apple claimed the sole right to "slide to unlock"... something that is just the digital edition of something the Romans already used.

The bottomline is that it benefits layers, attorneys, courts and judges. Wealth and innovation... not so much.

 

[mino]

The whole patent system is ofc to benefit current powerful players. Funny thing was in the early days when communication took forever the same thing got patented in different places by different people who never knew about each other.

Most stuff that is patented should have never been. Like Apple claimed the sole right to "slide to unlock"... something that is just the digital edition of something the Romans already used.

The bottomline is that it benefits layers, attorneys, courts and judges. Wealth and innovation... not so much.

It is not that simple.

Take the Domino. There is no way (any) company could justified the development costs if they has no exclusivity period and competitors could take the completed design and just sell it out.

A century ago, I would -possibly- agree. At the time figuring out which exact material type was used was non-trivial. NO spectrometers for the folks.

The problem is not the patents. The problem - in Apple case and similar - is the practical cost of a prior-art challenge. And that is more of a US legal system issue than anything.