[ok_computer]

This is a QVC product with the name of a US tech city slapped on it.

Signed, a guy living nearby the home of QVC in a decidedly non-tech area of the US.

Ps. don’t buy future e-waste kitchen ware unless you have accessibility reasons. You can get a good-enough victoronix 8” chef knife for $65 (I paid $36 a long time ago) and a world class chef knife for less than $250.

[thebenedict]

This is nonsense and your cynicism is unwarranted. I personally know Scott. He's worked on food tech in Seattle for decades, and developed the product and fundraised for Seattle Ultrasonics locally.

Ultrasonic knives are historically large footprint devices used in commercial/industrial food prep. The innovation here is making ultrasonic hardware compact enough to fit in the knife handle.

[satiric]

Sadly Howard Schultz moved the Ultrasonics to Oklahoma City a while back.

[lightedman]

"The innovation here is making ultrasonic hardware compact enough to fit in the knife handle."

I was using ultrasonic scalpels back in 2002. They were smaller than this knife.

[thebenedict]

Were they standalone devices, or was the ultrasonic hardware in a separate enclosure connected by a cord?

[lightedman]

Standalone but bulky, about as thick as a dry erase marker.

[tptacek]

Say more? I'd love to see a takedown of this, but this isn't one. QVC does not appear to sell this product, nor would its performance differ whether or not QVC did.

[Moto7451]

QVC might not be a well written takedown of it, but he’s right that you don’t need an electronic knife.

My first job was at a knife shop so I’ve seen everything from stamped steel fantasy nonsense to traditional style hand forged items. There’s a lot that goes into making a good knife and you don’t need to spend a lot to get one. Similarly you can spend a lot of money for marginal to no benefit.

In general a hard edge with a softer back is necessary for a strong knife that will cut well. This is a function of heat treatment. A knife that is tempered the same the whole blade is fine for smaller knives but it’s possible to break the tips or edges off larger knives. From there metallurgy affects the edge retention and how easy it is to sharpen. Plain 440C will make a fine enough knife if heat treated properly but can also make blades that can’t be made particularly sharp and can’t easily be sharpened. These knives will be very stainless so this is why poor quality and good quality knives will be made in 440C. The next tier of knives beyond singular steel forging will be a very hard edge steel wrapped around a softer core steel. The sky is the limit from there in terms of metallurgy. The highest end knives will use powdered steel where precisely composed steel bars are made using uniform grains of steel and other attractive metals and doping materials as part of the forging process.

Once it gets home a good edge has to be maintained.

People do all sorts of things to dull perfectly good cutlery (I cringe when I see people use glass or marble serving/cheese boards as a cutting board). A off hand toss of a knife into a sink can roll the edge.

The worst offense is when I see someone at a farmers market with the grinding wheel “sharpening” a knife by crudely removing the hardened steel edge of a knife. Good luck cutting much with the softer core steel or softer tempered back steel.

While having an Evangelion style ultrasonic knife is cool, it’s certainly not necessary and I expect it can be ruined in many of the same ways a $400 traditional knife can be.

At home I have Henkels for the holidays and some forged food service knife’s for general use. When visitors throw the food service knives into the sink I just take out the sharpening stones and don’t cry all that much.

[crazygringo]

Literally everything you've said is about regular knives. You haven't said a thing about ultrasonic knives. So I'm not sure what you're trying to argue?

[Moto7451]

Knives are already high tech and the GP’s point that you don’t need an ultrasonic knife is valid even if “QVC product” is inaccurate. They’re not just hunks of steel. Sharp knives can be dulled by abuse which something that vibrates will be vulnerable to as well.

This is akin to the already established very expensive powdered steel knives. Do you need this to have a sharp knife? Nope. Is anyone wrong for wanting it? No.

[crazygringo]

This product isn't about not having to sharpen your knife.

It's about a knife that is ~equivalently sharp to begin with, but slices with less force and less sticking, and can therefore slice things more exactly/easily than otherwise.

Of course you don't need it, but it's fundamentally different from existing knives, which you seem to not be acknowledging. When you say this is akin to "powdered steel knives", no it isn't. Powdered steel is about hardness. Nothing to do with ease of slicing or lack of sticking.

So you're talking about things that have nothing to do with this particular technology.

[Moto7451]

I’m not taking a negative view on this knife or technology. I believe you’re misunderstanding the intention of my color commentary? “Do not need” is not equivalent to “this is terrible.”

Powdered metallurgy, to parry your point, is not about hardness but about having the most precise composition of a metal. I.e you can have better wearing 440C, better machinable 440C, etc. most of this was intended for manufacturing high end industrial equipment. For kitchen knives it’s unnecessary even if it’s cool. It’s incrementally better but like this product it’s not necessary.

Similarly this isn’t “new technology” aside from the packaging of industrial technology into a chefs knife. You can get X-Acto knife sized versions of this already. Ceramic blades came from industrial alumina production. Cool, not necessary, but nothing wrong if it’s your jam.

The classic “QVC knife” is the Ginsu knife which has a lot of the same claims/qualities from a far. It’s an implementation of pattern welded steel and when you use a microscope you’ll see its thousands of serrated edges. Their ad shows the user cutting a can and then thinly slicing a tomato. Works fine until the edge gets rolled and since it’s cheaply processed steel (lacking the points of good construction I mentioned above), that’s usually what happens. I’d expect the company this whole discussion is about doing a lot better here since they’re not trying to sell a three knife set for $29.95 with free shipping.

My point about things being easily damaged with mishandling is that most people simply don’t handle knives well enough to see a benefit from high end knives, not that they aren’t nice/better/valid/different/etc. All of that can be true and the knife no longer cut because the edge is damaged. A Ferrari is a technologically complex car but not a very good car if the tires are all flat. If this thing doesn’t have an edge it isn’t going to cut well.

This is a point they make on their own site:

> Is the knife dishwasher safe?

> Updated 13 days ago

>

> No, but neither is any sharp knife. Dishwasher detergents contain micro-abrasives that dull and chip away at knife edges. If you enjoy using sharp knives, never put them in the dishwasher!

This is actually a more strict take than I have on edge retention, but I wouldn’t complain if my cutlery were treated this way.

Like I said a few posts up, I have knives that cost several hundred dollars. I keep the cheap ones out so I don’t cry when they get lobbed into a sink with the dirty dishes. When sharp they all cut very well. The expensive ones are better at edge retention and can be made a little sharper. After a friend helps clean or cuts some cheese on the cheese board the knife that was used is dull and not a great tool, be it the $30 food service knife or the $400 Henkels knife. You just can’t cheat physics.

[pukexxr]

This is a semantic argument. This product smacks of being a garbage kitchen gadget. Whether or not it's a QVC product, it certainly looks like cheap white-label alibaba junk. Just look at that handle. Did they just slap a knifeblade into an electric nosehair trimmer?

I'd try one out of professional/academic curiosity (I'm a chef), but am highly skeptical of this product. It looks like absolute trash.

All the people saying this knife does anything remarkable clearly have no experience in maintaining a decent knife blade. I've got knives that I've had for over 20 years that perform as well as this thing appears to (in the slick prepared advertisement).

Having said all that, you won't find an accurate takedown of a product that isn't on the market yet. Still, I can't help but wonder if the person behind this had dedicated that effort towards helping mitigate the water crisis, deforestation, or any number of other inarguably nobler pursuits.

[SilverElfin]

They actually had an industrial design studio come up with the design. It isn’t white labeled “Alibaba junk” and to my eyes, it doesn’t resemble that either.

> I've got knives that I've had for over 20 years that perform as well as this thing appears to (in the slick prepared advertisement).

You have knives that can not have potatoes stick without scallops in the blade? Or that can atomize lemon drops? Or that can cut through bread easily without a serrated edge? What I’m seeing in the video is a lot more versatile. But I can see needing a smaller utility knife still.

[sithadmin]

Why on earth would I care if a potato sticks to my blade, and why would I need to atomize lemon juice with my knife?

[the_sleaze_]

I worked in some of the best kitchens on the planet and for every hipster with a blue paper #2 carbon steel hand made japanese chefs knife there was an old gray beard with a row of old busted victorinoxes hanging on the wall. Both of these cooks would filet a halibut beautifully.

It isn't the knife.

[mhb]

Because it's annoying af when you're slicing potatoes.

[ash_091]

> Or that can cut through bread easily without a serrated edge?

Yes. Absolutely. IME a quality sharpened chefs' knife is far better at cutting bread cleanly than a serrated knife, which by contrast will leave a rough edge and loads of crumbs.

[crazygringo]

That is not my experience.

If you try to cut through a croissant, the amount of pressure needed will often crush the croissant before slicing through (though it depends on the type of croissant).

Meanwhile, while you can use a chef's knife to cut through a crusty baguette, as it's strong enough not to collapse, you need to apply so much pressure that it's not as safe -- the blade can slip to either side over the hard irregular surface. A serrated knife requires vastly less pressure and is therefore much safer.

Yes a serrated knife can leave a rough edge and crumbs, but that's better than smooshing something entirely or cutting your hand because the knife slipped.

[SilverElfin]

It depends on the bread. Many breads are basically impossible to cut properly with a straight edge knife. They end up disfigured worse than what you’re describing with serrated knives.

[derefr]

Have you ever tried a bread knife with so-called "micro-serrations" (really something like ~0.5mm tooth depth / pitch)?

The one I have seems to cut just as cleanly as a chef's knife once within a material, but has better ability to bite into material at the start of a cut, when a chef's knife would be slipping off. (Think: a freshly-baked loaf of high-sugar bread, where the outside is relatively stiff, but the inside is so soft that the outside tries to "squish away" from a non-serrated slice.)

I would never use it for dicing, but it's oddly goot at e.g. slicing watermelon.

[pukexxr]

Have you seen this knife do any of these things in action? Will it continue to do so? Nobody has, or will, until this gadget hits the market.

I remain skeptical in spite of your weird defensive reaction. I'm speaking about how a product appears to me as a professional. Not attcking you personally (unless it's your product... then I think you should do something good for society with your time)

[rplnt]

> All the people saying this knife does anything remarkable clearly have no experience in maintaining a decent knife blade.

Yes? I mean, that's one of the main points of the gadget, as said in the advertisement.

[xxs]

The blade must be sharpen regardless, the apex won't stay sharp on its right own. The vibration does help but it doesn't do any actual cutting if you dull the blade.

[goopypoop]

does nobody keep their knives in a pyramid anymore?

[tptacek]

Is that what they meant to say? "This looks like a gadget"? Then why did they say "coming from someone living nearby the home of QVC"?

I think basically the whole thread is acknowledging that this looks like a gadget!

[gcanyon]

Is there video online of any knife cutting off the ends of chives in mid-air?

[UltraSane]

The guy has a YouTube video where he claims to have spent 6 years working on this product. Is he lying?

[brandall10]

Check out Japanese knives. The Tojiro DP I got for an inflation adjusted $75 is a dramatically better knife than that Victorinox.

[serf]

i've had both, and the reality is that they're both just steel -- a good grind will make any shit steel knife cut like a 700 dollar Japanese blade for a few days.

(and yes the Japanese steel dulls too. No cheating physics.)

[xxs]

One note on high quality and carbon Japanese knives - they are way harder to sharpen, also usually come with 17 degrees apex.

Higher HRC would retain the sharp edge for longer, of course - but again much harder (literally) to sharp them.

[pa7ch]

Its my understanding of knife sharpening that carbon steel is easier to sharpen then stainless and that softer steels are more difficult then high hrc steel due to burr removal.

[Hikikomori]

VG10 in Tojiro DP is stainless steel, and even stainless goes up to 64+ HRC.

[rcpt]

I think a lot of German knives are moving to the same angle now

[arp242]

In the video he says he spent a lot of time making prototypes and perfecting the design.

Is he lying? He shows images of the prototypes. Did he create fake prototypes?

[RajT88]

It is only eWaste if you think our future does not resemble the Fallout games.

But if you do this will be excellent tech for melee weapons.

[luxuryballs]

now I want to see ultrasonic fencing

[parpfish]

i don't think they slapped seattle on it because of tech connotations.

i think they slapped seattle on it because of the Seattle Supersonics, their old NBA team that still has a cult following

[pier25]

how do you sharpen it?

[CBLT]

I use a knock-off of the edgepro I got for $30 online, with a nice set of compatible whetstones that click into the assembly that were $20 online. I did what everyone else does and hotglued some magnets underneath the piece you hold the knife on.

I tried a compatible strop that clicks in but it's not worth it imo; just use a normal strop.

[xandrius]

Whetstones, pretty cheap only and not as hard as it seems.

[appcustodian2]

just want to point out that maintaining a knife is a whole hobby that requires a time investment of learning the skill and storage of additional tools and materials. i'm surprised at all the apparent knife enthusiast posts trashing this device. I take my victorinox (which is absolutely nothing special and surprises me that it costs $60+ dollars) to the farmers market for sharpening but sharpness isn't even the problem. Potatoes in particular stick to the blade like a strong magnet and it takes me 5x longer to prep. I enjoy cooking but not chopping endless veggies and i'm hoping this thing can carry some of that weight without looking like i'm using an oversized electric toothbrush.

[non_aligned]

> just want to point out that maintaining a knife is a whole hobby that requires a time investment of learning the skill and storage of additional tools and material.

You're right that's a hobby. But the hobby's definition of "proper maintenance" and what it "requires" is basically just people nerding out about things that don't matter the slightest in the real world.

To maintain a kitchen knife so that it cuts a tomato without squishing it, you don't need a book on knife science. Further, that nerdery is probably actively harmful, because instead of simple solutions, people are told they need an inspection microscope and a variety of jigs and other implements. So they buy an objectively bad electric sharpener and move on.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

Also: use serrated knives for tomatoes. They don't squish.

[nkrisc]

> just want to point out that maintaining a knife is a whole hobby that requires a time investment of learning the skill and storage of additional tools and materials.

Properly maintaining a knife does. Most people don't need to properly maintain a knife. You can do it good enough with a honing steel and some crappy automatic sharpener.

I enjoy cooking good food for my family and myself, but cooking is not a hobby of mine. So if my knife can slice a tomato without crushing it, then that's good enough for me. I don't need to shave a tomato so thin that the slice is transparent.

Does the crappy automatic sharpener work? Well the knife cuts better after I use it, so yes, it does.

[appcustodian2]

Yes as I mentioned I use often-recommended knives (victorinox, shun) and have them occasionally sharpened professionally and at least in my case the ultrasonic knife appears to solve some very real problems that knife maintenance cannot.

[its-summertime]

it takes no skill to make a blunt knife sharper. To make a sharp knife sharper, sure, but in a good vast majority of home knife situations, just doing anything with any flat sharpening surface is an improvement.

I can attest to this as I have improved knifes day one of trying despite my lack of any sort of skill

[xandrius]

Is 10min per knife every 3-6 months a hobby?

Because that is just general maintenance to me.

If you don't put your good knives in the dishwasher and wash/dry them right after usage, they'll last a long time.

[cyberax]

You need one diamond two-sided plate, holder for it, and a stropping leather. All of that can be bought for $60 on Amazon.

This is enough to get your knives to be sharp enough to shave hair.

Time investment is more individual. It took me about 3 hours to get good enough.

[ripley12]

Sharpening a knife to r/sharpening standards is hard. But just honing frequently and occasionally using a cheap sharpener will get you further than 95% of home chefs.

[rcpt]

I decided it was hard and never got very good at sharpening. Now I've got a Chef's Choice XV and my knives are sharper than they've ever been.

[asah]

my new favorite kitchen gadget is small deli slicer, $75 on amazon.

minor pain to clean, but MUCH faster than a knife, totally safe (pusher keeps fingers away from the blade) and you get precise thickness cuts every time, which means they cook precisely too.

Especially good for vegetables like potatoes, onion, eggplant, etc.

[ricardobeat]

Is it worth the cleaning hassle? I often avoid using a mandolin or food processor just because cleaning my knife is so much easier.

[its-summertime]

for firm things its fine, clean the moment the work is done and it shouldn't be much effort, and having nice consistent slices feels good too

For anything other than ideally firm things, the cleanup can be a nightmare

[peteforde]

I did this too! I love being able to buy a large chunk of deli meat and slice off what I need at whatever width I want.

Home cook deli slicers are the most slept on, underrated pantry upgrade.

[Ertuit]

Yes, and a pass with a honing steel every day to maintain the cutting edge between proper whetstones sharpening every few months.

[kminehart]

don't use honing steel. at best it doesn't do anything, at worst it damages your knife.

here's a closer look at it with a microscope. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4ReQ83CZOQ

[ricardobeat]

Ceramic honing rod. Works amazingly well and is appropriate for japanese knives.

[goopypoop]

just a guy abusing his knife to prove he can't fix it using the wrong tool badly

[Hikikomori]

No? The point was to understand what the tool does and when it can help. And he found out that if you have a Burr it can help. But if you have a properly sharpened knife without a Burr it won't do anything to help and will just destroy your edge.

[sleepybrett]

do not buy those garbage amazon whetstones. Buy a diamond sharpening 'stone'.

[dzhiurgis]

Wet stones are hard. Rolling ones are easy albeit “real” knife aficionados don’t like it.

[maqp]

They're really not. All you need is an angle guide you stick to the knife. Something like https://setamono.co.za/products/knife-sharpening-angle-retai...

With that all you need to do is pretty much go back and forth. Note that the whetstone eventually wears them out too.

Something to grab while you're at it, is a truing stone to take care of the whetstone as it _will_ wear out unevenly making the sharpening a pain.

[dzhiurgis]

Thats 2-3 extras over rolling sharpeners

[kminehart]

I used to sharpen my straight-knife planer blades, planing irons, chisels, and knives with whetstones / water stones. It was too big of a pain in the ass over time, so I switched to diamond stones.

Biggest advantages is that you don't need to pre-soak them and diamond stones don't develop a valley / have to be flattened.

if you plan on getting into sharpening I would just start with a coarse, fine, and extra fine diamond stone and a leather strop w/ stropping compound.

[xxs]

Same advice - don't use the soaking stones. Nowadays they are plenty of decent quality diamond stones (or ceramic ones)

[ReptileMan]

Whetstones were hard 20 years ago. Right now there is abundance of quality info and products. The community actually figured out idiotproof and effective ways to deburr, to strop, resin bound diamond stones are affordable (or even cheap if you just buy the abrasive from China and go the diy route).

[prmoustache]

In my case I just wait for the sharpening knife guy who pass once a week in my neighborhood. It is quite easy as I am working from home and he plays those distinctive panpipes notes.

[edferda]

That definitely sounds like Mexico.

[seasongs]

This happens in Italy aswell.

[pier25]

and Spain

[schrectacular]

And China

[stouset]

Honing is 1,000x more important than sharpening.

When it does come time to sharpen, I constantly see places offering knife sharpening services, and they’re usually cheap enough. Or you could get a gizmo that does a mediocre job (and shaves away far too much material) if you just want to get it done. Or you could learn to do it yourself which isn’t that hard or time-consuming but is somewhat of a labor of love.

[wredcoll]

What exactly is the difference between honing and sharpening.

[itomato]

Making the edge is sharpening. Removing the ripples in it is honing.

[wredcoll]

This is the first time I've heard someone say honing is very important, when I was first learning this, I was told that it was the next thing to pseudoscience!

[stouset]

Absolutely not. A blade can stay sharp for a much longer period of time than it can stay honed. The edge of a piece of paper is extremely sharp, but it only cuts you in specific circumstances due to being difficult to maintain a firm edge.

A knife's edge is closer to that than you'd think. At the scales of sharpness of a good knife, it's impossible to keep the edge straight for very long. A honing rod quickly brings these back in line. I hone knives after maybe a week of use; it only takes a few seconds.

And this is a comically easy property to test. Use a "dull" knife then hone it and try again. It will cut drastically better.

[m0llusk]

AUS-10 steel is fairly easy to sharpen, so stones are a good option but I prefer diamond sharpeners myself.

[itomato]

Carefully? Professionally? Except which knife stall at which farmers market wants the job?

Learning to sharpen the (correct) knife (for the task) will do as much or more for the chef who struggles here.

Prepping 1000 lemons? An ultrasonic knife is not your answer.

[lif]

umm, you raise a valid concern, afaict, however, e-waste is kind of a taboo word around here, or? Or maybe just another part of the 'inevitable' belief system.

Like, how about that _planned obsolescence_ of a vast majority of consumer electronics hardware? (If that ain't the case, would be happen to learn otherwise from someone with better knowledge.)

[Tempat1]

I guess with knives the thing is it’s very easy and cheap to get a version that works well lasts pretty much forever. Makes the other options look worse in comparison.