Comment by dbg31415 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dbg31415 | Hacker News Reader

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While I don't disagree, I think the main reason they failed had to do with spreading themselves too thin. Competing where they had no business competing.

When they launched, they made an Instant Pots, and it was a fairly good product, with good marketing. There were other pressure cookers before, but this was beyond easy to use -- and super Instagram and Facebook friendly to share cooking videos.

But then they expanded out to... Air Fryers, Coffee Makers, even Air Purifiers... and it's just too much. They weren't going up against old pressure cookers that hadn't really been updated in 40 years, they were going up against established modern brands like Nestle and Keurig, and whoever else.

And they never really established a reason for all the different devices to live under that brand... and probably lost quality control (as you said). And yeah, I mean... I got an Instant Pots as a housewarming gift in 2010, and I loved it. So I gave Instant Pots to a bunch of friends as housewarming gifts... and it never seemed like a hit with the people who received it. At one point someone told me, "Thanks, but I already have one..." So I figured I'd replace my old one, and holy hell the quality in like 2017 or so was not good.

Like you pointed out the measurements on the sides were not accurate. And every dish I had made in the old Instant Pot didn't cook right in the new one. (Probably because the temps were off.) I was an idiot and tossed the old Instant Pot I had before really trying the new one out... then when the new one sucked I stopped using it all together and never bought another one.

Edit... here's a pressure cooker from like 2004. It was such a pain to clean and no matter what I did it splattered steam and liquid all over when it was turned on. Instant Pot was so much easier to use than this thing was.

https://www.overstock.com/Home-Garden/Wolfgang-Puck-7.5-qt.-...

I’m confused reading these posts about recent Instant Pots being considered low quality. I’ve been using mine every other day for over five years with zero issues whatsoever. Maybe it works too well as I haven’t checked up on the company since.

What do you make every day that you can stand to eat for 5 years?! (=

The original was good, but the version I got later has issues. Like sone of the button controls stopped working, and the pressure seal leaked and sputtered even when it was “locked” in the close position.

> What do you make every day that you can stand to eat for 5 years?! (=

They didn’t say they were cooking the same thing every day.

I use the pressure cooker function of mine probably 4-5 times a week. Risotto, stew, chicken stock, tomato sauce for pasta, etc.

me, daily, for about that amount of time: steel-cut oats.

I eat a (large) breakfast of 1/2 cup dry oats, 3/4 cup whole milk, 1/2 cup water, cooked for 10 minutes at pressure, with a bit of brown sugar and any of dried cherries, raspberries, blueberries.

The massive advantage of an instant pot is if you cook w/ milk on a stove top, it requires constant attention to not burn the milk and have the burnt milk weld itself to the pot. Whereas in my instant pot, I throw the ingredients in with my first cup of coffee and come back in 30-40 minutes for hot breakfast and coffee #2.

Also, it makes a pretty good (not great, but I have a tiny kitchen, so I have to cut somewhere) rice cooker. Recipe: wash rice, drain, add same amount of dry rice and water by volume, pressure cook for 4 minutes. Depending on the type of rice, 3 minutes may be better. After cycle finishes, let depessurize on its own for 10 minutes, then open. Mix with a fork.

Others have answered well enough, but I didn’t say I ate the same thing. Steel-cut oats, curries, chilis, soups, etc. Mine is the Ultra not the original. It may have been manufactured between 2016-2017.

ps -- I had some issues with the pressure seal; pulling the (presumably silicone?) seal out and reseating it in the lid periodically seems to make everything work better. Also, you shouldn't feel any resistance when you rotate the lid into sealed position. If you do, pull the lid back off; juggle the seal a bit; then reseat and twist to seal again.

There's a whole generation of pressure cookers after that thing with electronic controls, presets for different food items, etc, that precede the Instant Pot. I have one that I got for free somewhere that has all of those features. Which was why I wondered what the big deal was when everybody started raving about the Instant Pot.

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/OdoAAOSwPFNkUgOY/s-l1600.jpg

imo, it's the standardization that a universal device offers. Perceived or actual. But it's one big variable in preparation removed.

I wish everybody on the planet had the same couple of ovens too. Then your recipe for preparing cookies or whatever will have one big variable removed.

But because we don't have that, we waste time and energy pre-heating the oven, just to be sure that we're all cooking at the same temperature. And even then, ovens will vary in how they control temperature and grrrrr.

Same for soft/hard boiling eggs: the only error-proof way is to boil your water first and stick eggs in there for X minutes and then drench them in cold water. But that's a huge waste of the heat in the heating process. If we all used the same amount of water on top of the same heating source in the same place, we could use that pre-heating process as a part of cooking.

> I was an idiot and tossed the old Instant Pot I had before really trying the new one out...

You put a working appliance in the trash?

I don't know much about the business side, but I've been using their Air Fryers for a while and they're excellent.

Yeah the Vortex was quite well rated and I got one recently for half price. I'm not sure if it's enabled anything my oven can't do yet, but it is much quicker and more efficient especially for something like reheating. So I'm using it more than I thought I would.

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