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Comment by jtchang | Hacker News Reader

I freaking love OXO products. Why? When you browse the kitchen utensil aisle at target you have a choice:

Do you go for the cheap ass $1 dishbrush or do you splurge and get the awesome OXO brush? Time and again I think OXO does a great job at delivering a quality product that puts up to all the crappy abuse I dish out.

Most large corporations wouldn't even bother with an article like this. OXO is simply trying to stay true to their roots. I respect that.

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I like Oxo products, but their silicon brush is a bad product. The silicon brush is glued into the plastic handle, and it eventually falls off.

> I freaking love OXO products.

As do I until I made the mistake of buying their kitchen timer which has one redeeming feature (many hours of timing - most are limited to 90 minutes) and sucks in every other way possible: buttons that don't work well, bizarre modes (clock, timer, expired timer, repeat last time) and a hard to read display.

It has a second redeeming feature: it has a numeric keypad for quickly entering times. Most digital timers don't, which makes them harder to use than mechanical ones that you twist. Most digital timers squander their potential, but oxo gets that one right.

The modes make sense to me, so I see those as a plus. I agree with you though about the hard to read display and the hard to press buttons.

The problem with the modes is that you can't tell which it is. And I really don't need another clock - devices are pointlessly littered with them. I'll grudgingly accept one providing it keeps itself synchronised via radio/WWVB.

Try the Pampered Chef timer - yes, it's a multi-level marketing company (aka pyramid scheme), but they make some good basic tools. I have one that I've been using on a weekly basis for 3+ years on the original battery, dropped frequently and still works.

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