• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Gizmodo reviews $400 Tea machine. DRM tea cups and smart app via bluetooth.

clav

Member
http://gizmodo.com/a-400-smart-tea-machine-gave-this-brit-an-existential-1796219286

cYJAG1K.jpg

The Leaf will only brew Teforia’s own teas—Sips (Selective Infusion Profile System)—which come in K-Cup-like pods. The Leaf ships with 15 samples, but if you buy them yourself from the Teaforia website they cost between $1 and $6, and only contain about two servings of tea each.

Instead of popping the entire pod into the machine as you would with a K-cup, the tea itself is dumped in the Infusion Globe, which sits in the Nest, into which you slide the Carafe. Yes, every Part is Capitalized. The lid of each Sip contains an RFID tag that the Leaf reads to determine how, exactly, to brew the tea, including the temperature of the water and the amount of water it uses. The RFID chip is scanned on the top of the Leaf, which tells the device what recipe to use.

That RFID tag also complicates the company’s claim that their Sips are fully recyclable. The Sips container is compostable, but you’ll have to take your Sips lids to an e-recycling center.
 

mjc

Member
The height of a product that literally nobody ever asked for. Fucking heat up water and steep it like a normal person.
 

poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
What happened to the loss leader approach to selling gadgets like this. The printer ink approach. Now they want their cake and to eat it to.
 

moggio

Banned
The Teasmaid was invented in 1891. It'll also wake you up.

Here's an adorable Bakelite version from 1966:

131363.jpg


Why is this better except being over-priced and adding DRM.
 

Fuchsdh

Member
What happened to the loss leader approach to selling gadgets like this. The printer ink approach. Now they want their cake and to eat it to.

Because like with printer ink the reality is someone else can do it for cheaper and as soon as they can do it for cheaper while maintaining quality, they've lost their entire business model.

Mostly I find these things abhorrent from a waste standpoint. No one is going to save their lids to take to an e-waste recycling event, you asses. There's also the fact that for brewing so little tea, the gadget has to be so freaking huge.
 

NOLA_Gaffer

Banned
I make my tea with an $8 kettle I put on the stove and I can guarantee it tastes just like what comes out of this thing.
 
Legit question: What is up with this silicon valley tech types?

Why do they never seem to have someone on their team that just goes "this sounds like a bad idea, dude."
 

foxdvd

Member
K-cup filled a need for me...make a decent single serving of coffee..


I am not a tea snob...so for me it is already VERY FUCKING EASY to make a single serving of tea...
 

mike6467

Member
Guys, what else can we DRM? Pet food maybe? Internet connected and lets you monitor their food remotely? Don't use bootleg packets though, or your pet will die.

I'm particularly bitter about this stuff after buying non-HP cartridges for my laser printer (4 cartridges, 1 black/3 color) for $50 when HP was charging $100 for each cartridge. The first set wouldn't print in color (except for the demo page and whatnot!), but they sent me a second set that works beautifully. I hate this business model with a passion.
 

GeeTeeCee

Member
The Leaf will only brew Teforia’s own teas—Sips (Selective Infusion Profile System)

I'd love to be the person who gets paid to spend all day coming up with acronyms for things that don't need acronyms.
 
Legit question: What is up with this silicon valley tech types?

Why do they never seem to have someone on their team that just goes "this sounds like a bad idea, dude."
Who cares when you can get VCs to dump their wallets all over you by telling them how Disruptive you're gonna be
 

hobozero

Member
Stop. Please stop... just stop... please...

Bhes8hZCYAAz3Jp.jpg


If there is not a DRM-enabled subscription toilet tissue service available yet, I am 100% sure it will be announced before 2018...
 

Kinokou

Member
I kind of like the aesthetic of the leaves in the globe and the customization seems neat, but I'm not paying up for that.
 

Akuun

Looking for meaning in GAF
One day, someone is going to realize that not fucking everything needs some sort of fucking cloud connectivity.
 

Slayven

Member
One day, someone is going to realize that not fucking everything needs some sort of fucking cloud connectivity.

Saying cloud to venture capitalists is like waving shiny keys infront of babies. You will always get a smile and a go ahead
 

wildfire

Banned
Which is worse? DRM juicer or DRM tea maker.

I would say that juicing article I noticed at the end of this tea review article was even funnier.


http://gizmodo.com/juicero-ceo-begs-you-do-not-open-our-juice-bags-1794507811

A sample


The value is in how easy it is for a frazzled dad to do something good for himself while getting the kids ready for school, without having to prep ingredients and clean a juicer.

It’s in how the busy professional who needs more greens in her life gets App reminders to press Produce Packs before they expire, so she doesn’t waste the hard-earned money she spent on them.


0_o
 
Top Bottom