I'm a bit surprised to see how much snark there is in the comment sections of this video. The requests for "let's see an independent chef use this knife to do real kitchen work" make total sense, but the moralizing around e-waste and losing fingers etc feels off balance.
People spend hundreds of dollars and many hours sharpening kitchen knives, of course there's a viable market for sharper kitchen knives. And for e-waste, you are never going to make meaningful progress by telling consumers to feel bad for buying fun things. The problem is so much bigger than that, the energy is better spent in a different place.
This is a cool and novel tool, at least as far as its genuine utility can be verified. It doesn't seem harmful to let people get excited about it.
Elsewhere on the thread I pointed out that I'd noticed the video doesn't show anybody doing actual prep; making an easy but deliberate thin slice of a tomato is one thing, quickly dicing an onion or a bell pepper is a very different thing.
To that observation I'd add (h/t my Slack friends) this interesting site Seattle Ultrasonics stood up:
One thing I notice here is that Japanese knives (and my trusty MAC) fare really well on the BESS and CATRA scale, but relatively poorly on the "Food Cutting Rank", which is based on an ad-hoc seeming performance scale of how well their robot fared with a bunch of cutting tests that included stuff like bread and cheese (h/t again Slack friends) --- which nobody uses a chef's knife to cut.
That's a weird scale to plot chef's knives across --- unless the purpose of building that scale was to showcase an electronic knife that does well on tasks people don't normally use chef's knives for, but maybe not as well on chef knife daily driver tasks.
I personally watched Scott spend years working on the project and obsessively iterating on the steel, the vibration pattern, the circuitry, the handle, and the form factor. Scott is a hacker, one of us for sure. I mean, the guy built a custom robot just to measure cutting efficiency...
The knife is amazing and exactly as shown in the video. Rand Fishkin has a nice short on LinkedIn trying out the knife too. I think he shows one his (sharp) kitchen knives slicing through a lemon, then the Ultrasonic. It's astounding.
Disclaimer: I am a (tiny) angel investor in Seattle Ultrasonics.
I feel like the demo video embodies a lot of startup advice I've seen on HN about product vs team.
This video makes me like Scott and Seattle Ultrasonics. I feel I can trust Scott's expertise. His backstory fits what I imagine I would do if I were obsessed with a project like this. This makes me compelled to learn more and to maybe become a customer? Why? Because I want to see Scott succeed and would feel proud to be a part of that. Even if this knife didn't end up performing to my expectations or if I didn't really need a knife like this, I want to see Scott make more things. He has a very well-proven record of delivering and I would bet he could do it again.
Funny, that! Whatever type of marketing this is, it works on me.
Maybe I'm just a sci-fi nerd who loves innovation, but this is so cool!
Clearly, this product is not intended for the mass market, and may find purchase with people who have tennis elbow and who can afford it, etc. <insert other critiques about practicality and applicability here>. But still, when was the last time someone tried to re-invent something as basic as a knife?
Why is it people here seem so unusually sceptical?
It's expensive (but not really, only compared to knives - a $500 GPU isn't expensive). It's probably mostly good in certain niches and using a $10 knife that's sharpened properly is probably 95% as good in almost every application, and using a $10 knife that is only reasonably well sharpened is probably 90% as good. Slicing stuff for hotpot or yakiniku or Korean BBQ is what I thought of when I saw the ad, while for a lot of things it's probably not worth it. But a lot of stuff is like that - good in a niche, OK elsewhere, and there's always a cheaper option that's more flexible and almost as good even in the niche.
I feel like hn is upset by the lack of marketing. This looks like a direct sales ad that you'd get on Facebook, rather than the hype research marketing that mostly targets the b2b types who mostly dwell here? The marketing isn't the kind of marketing they normally get targeted by, so they notice it's marketing?
I notice this on other forums. If marketing isn't slick and well targeted, people get upset and suspicious because it's marketing. But functionally, they're not upset because it's marketing (almost everything is), they're upset because it's not enough marketing, and functionally they want more marketing that targets them better.
A good quality well sharpened knife already works incredibly well, doesn't cost $500, doesn't need to be recharged, and isn't going to be e-waste in 5 years (when the battery fails).
It's a cool idea, and I hope it is commercially successful, but not for me.
I think if this can keep a knife effectively sharper than the equivalent nice steel with less maintenance, then it’s going to find a market.
I’m a nerd, but Ive found that once I’ve mastered a hobby I eventually gravitate towards convenience, optimizing my time over absolute performance. I’ve built five PCs in my life, and now I only own a macbook. I spent loads of time optimizing my hifi setup, and now most of my apartment is sonos. And I have probably 1k worth of nice japanese knives + whetstones, that I would happily replace with a single knife that needs little to no upkeep.
While I think this is neat, I doubt the added complexity of the device, extra space required for storage of charger and the chore of charging it are worth the benefit of a slightly better, easier slice. Might be nice for people with certain disabilities though.
Otoh: this is NOT how a person cuts with a knife! Kills credibility of the whole complicated measurement with the robot. Just ask a chef to cut on a scale. You will be surprised. People can cut with semi-dull knife by pulling the knife towards their body not pushing down towards the cutting surface.
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.
Cool tool, however: the people who are going to spend $500 on a cook's knife likely already have the capability and motivation to properly sharpen a kitchen knife. The market for this feels extremely limited.
Also: I'd be curious how this feels in the hand due to the button and the extra weight.
all the comparisons in the vid show knives being pushed through the food. that's not a good way to use a knife.
if you used a knife to actually slice the tomato instead of chopping it, you'd get a much different force result.
not to say there's no benefit here, but def feels intentionally exaggerated.
also, i wonder how fast this blade will wear if you ever accidentally pressed the edge into the cutting block. my guess is that it will wear much faster.
Ultrasonic knives have been available for non-food uses for a long time. They are useful in certain narrow applications, such as cutting leather or some plastics.
That said, they come with two big caveats. First, if you push them into any harder material, the edge is destroyed almost immediately because of the micro-scale "jackhammer" action. So, hit that avocado pit and the knife is probably cooked.
Second, the constant motion heats up the blade, to the point of melting thermoplastics or causing the edge to lose temper if you're pushing a bit too hard, cutting the wrong material, etc.
It's your money, but I suspect this knife is more of a hassle, and requires more care, than a regular kitchen knife. And let's face it, the coolness factor aside, how often do you struggle to cut chicken, tomatoes, or bread? If you do, it's probably because your knife is dull, and this knife will get dull too.
It is a cool product, but I have the clumsiness of the average home cook. So my old style knifes are plenty sharp for me. I would not be comfortable using this. But if there were a version with the slipperiness he shows, just having standard sharpness, it would be much more interesting to me.
BTW I think the focus on knife sharpness is overrated for most kitchen tasks. At least for home cooks. Your knives should just have the necessary sharpness. More than that is a negative in my opinion.
I work with some bigger ultrasonic cutters/welders and the thing I didn't see in the video was the horrible noise they make. He says the knife makes no noise but they also don't have the noise on for the shots of the bigger ones so I'm suspicious.
This is super cool tech and I truly appreciate the grind this guy went through to bring a hardware product to life.
At the same time, I've been using a $5 chef knife for almost a decade and just giving it a few passes against a honing steel every few weeks. It gets plenty sharp after that, to the point where I don't feel I'm missing anything. Then again, I'm just a home cook who's super into kitchen knives so I acknowledge I'm not in the target market.
To me the main appeal of this is not that it makes cutting easier (you already reduce much of the cutting force needed if you slice across instead of pushing down, which this seems to be doing at a micrometer level) but the fact that food doesn't stick to the blade.
All of my knives have sticking issues, potato slices are the worst culprits. When doing a lot of prep work on veggies in a cramped area it's a pain and this seems like it could actually fix things?
OTOH, I'm not a huge fan of the design, I don't mind spending good money on a knife but between the blade profile and the chonky handle, it looks like an hybrid between an 8" fibrox and an electric turkey cutter.
If there was a premium release with a fancier handle (could wood work?) and a nicer blade profile (something like a gyuto or a french sabatier) I would be interested and I think it would reduce sticker shock (looks premium, expect premium price). I love the design of the charging tile though!
I watched the video and this seems pretty neat. Don't want to knock it or be negative. He's definitely right that most people's knives are dull – when I use knives in other people's homes I often just want to cry at how dull they are (also: pans – how the hell do so many people have dented damaged pans?) But you really don't need to splurge out €329 to have reasonably sharp knives.
All you need is a sharpening steel and use it once or twice after every usage. Even a cheap knife will last for years while remaining reasonable sharp. Mine was €6 or thereabouts at Tesco two years ago and is more than sharp enough.
Of course more expensive knifes (ultrasonic or not) are better and can hold an edge longer. You can spend more time, effort, and money on making them sharper than just a quick use of a cheap sharpening steel. If you want to spend the extra money: go for it! But for a normal home cook: you can go a long way with consistent use of a €10 sharpening steel.
I think it’s really cool, but not sure about the button design (seams to trap germs) and placement (index finger is not where I naturally exert pressure when cutting with a kitchen knife).
Also would be nice if it can be fitted to existing blades as handle retrofit, but I understand that might not be possible to properly tune the vibrations.
awful handle ergonomics compared to any "real" knife e.g Wustoff or Victorinox.
No tang whatsoever, so the knife has no strength. It's probably unbalanced, which makes it awkward to use with finesse and speed. A year of heavy use and the "haft" will degrade to the point that it's dangerous.
Buy a proper carbon steel knife. You can keep it sharp forever with 5 minutes on youtube and $20 worth of kit from Amazon. Plus, it will never go flat.
I've invested close to a thousand dollars in sharpening tools over the years. I keep my knives super sharp as a hobby more than anything. I'd still love to have one of these in the drawer for certain tasks. It's ugly and clunky but I'd probably still use it on a semi-regular basis for warm breads, cheeses, etc. I bet the action would help with sharpening as well.
I do wonder if a tuning fork or 'mass on a stick' hidden in the tang could provide enough vibration to help with the sticking. You'd probably have to smack it with every cut but it's so rarely a problem that would be fine.
Probably not great, otherwise they would have shown it, but being able to cut frozen food properly would be a game changer. The only things I found working are saws, and they are messy.
The concept of the knife is interesting. I could see myself buying one if I had that much money lying around.
Maybe if the home chef who needs a leg up sees this it would prevent them from spending that much or more on more expensive knives and maintenance products. For those of us who know our way around the kitchen I’m not sure how much benefit I would get out of it.
Also did anyone think some of the cutting segments, particularly the radish, seemed sped up? The movement of the blade and hand looked a bit unnatural.
Impressive dedication -- and what a refined looking product. Of course the real world use needs to match the advertising. I am not in the target segment (too expensive for me) but love to see such products and innovations across daily life tools -- hopefully this inspires others too.
I love these inventor stories, as the Chef's Knife does towards the end of the video. Another great one is Springfree trampolines, from NPRs How I Built This:
Why can't you just buy a cheap whetstone and sharpen your knives when they're dull? I have a mid chef's knife from wustoff or zwillig, don't remember which, that I just keep sharp periodically when I notice it's dull. I've had it for years of home cooking.
A different but far better piece of cutting edge technology is a modern, diamond-encrusted nickel/chrome-plated steel plate.
These things are now so sharp they can bring an edge profile back to a knife in five strokes without even needing lubrication (which is nice as water is a PITA when it causes corrosion between the steel bed and the plating.)
Every knife in your kitchen can be razor sharp in seconds and kept razor sharp whenever you need them to be. IMHO, far more useful than a single digi-vibro-knife.
Example product: Trend 300/1000 diamond sharpening kit.
I was just curious about two things - seems there might be some knife aficionados or experts here!
1. Sharpening - As a home cook, who doesn't know a lot about knives/sharpening - how hard would this be to maintain? Would it be plausible to get some basic home sharpening gear, and maintain this myself? Or should I take it to a professional knife sharpener - and if so, how do I even know if they're a good one, and won't damage the blade, or perhaps are good, but somehow get the blade out of "tune" etc?
2. Safety wise - is there anything at all to be concerned about with ultrasonic 40Khz blades? Should I be wearing any hearing protection when using this? (Context - I have hearing loss in both ears, and wear hearing aids - keen to preserve my remaining hearing, and am understandably cautious about this kind of thing for my family and me).
This product is a huge gimmick. Buy a $20 double sided sharpening stone on amazon and you can keep even the cheapest stainless steel knives sharp and chef ready for years. Just basic knife sharpening skills are needed which you can pick up in 10 minutes on YouTube.
Such funny (and odd) takes on knives. They are tools, nothing more. I sharpen ours weekly, using a sharpener that wears down the blades. When they get too worn, they get replaced.
If you're an amateur and really want to spend this much money, get a good enough knife (e.g. the classic victorinox) and a chef's choice electric sharpener, and you won't have any more issues.
I would get this for the same reason I'm planning to replace my couch with an optimal-for-moving-through-a-turn couch as soon as I find a carpenter willing to make it. The middle part will be evened-out by a separate, round cushion.
If you have a sharp knife and a wet cloth under your cutting board chopping is a joy, otherwise it's a dangerous, tedious, and exhausting task that turns so many people away from cooking entirely
As an aside, this feels very familiar as a sci-fi weapon, does that ring a bell for anyone? I was thinking William Gibson first but I can't place it there.
For $500+ you can get a really, REALLY nice Damascus steel chef's knife with a beautiful patina and wood handle. Yes: it requires a bit more maintainable but nice things often require some work. When it's properly honed & sharpened, it'll cut just as well as this.
The tomato test is disingenuous - no one slices a tomato by pressing the knife straight down - you slice it to break the thick skin and follow with a slicing motion. The rest of the graph basically shows no difference between the force used for ultrasonic one and standard knife used inefficiently?
I think a lot of the commentary here is missing the main point — while you may not (I mean, certainly do not) need an ultrasonic chef's knife, it's a cool origin story, and the guy has the receipts! Years of iterations of circuit board design, blade shapes, and the robotic cut-test arm... I personally would enjoy using this in my kitchen just for the hacker vibes.
Although not a pro, or even a good cook, I do like quality knives — but, like most people who develop a casual nice-knife affinity, I then bought a few quality knives, a couple of junk knives to try restoring with a whetstone, a hand-made Japanese knife with my name on it, and... then I had enough kitchen knives to last the rest of my life, and there was no reason to buy any more.
This is the first one I have considered in years. Not because I need it, or because it's necessarily better at cutting must things than the workhorse Sekimagoroku nakiri I use[1] but because it's fucking neat and radiates nerdium waves.
This knife should be celebrated for what it is: basically an epic nerd project. That can also cut at least a few kinds of fruit more easily (or at least more enjoyably).
[1]: KAI model AE5206 (which seems very much like a Shun knife, made by the same company, but cost me only $53)
So the issue with that tomato cutting test was that it was terrible form.
You obviously don't apply flat pressure on a tomato until it breaks, you slice it by sliding the blade forward as you push down. It's unclear to me that this blade offers any improvement over proper technique, and feels disingenuous to even offer that comparison.
What does this device accomplish in the kitchen, besides being able to make fine slices of vegetables more easily? Electric carver knives beat it for slicing meat.
And then for most any other situation of knife usage it isn't necessary at all, as knives are mostly used for chopping. The one (1) thing I can see this being useful for is a shrunken down version for paring, but whether or not that is mechanically feasible, I don't know. The curve and the handle are more important than this vibro-verbing.
Nice dialogue, btw. "Help chefs feel great about themselves in the kitchen", "access to sous vide". <Kitchen Woke> ?
TL;DR it's really freaking cool, though the blades do seem to get dull fairly quickly. That said, they are made of a radically different grade of steel.
If the tech in the NeoBlade has been adapted successfully to the chef's knife, then all of the haters are going to sound like all of the early "you don't need an air fryer" pundits who totally missed the point and were clearly wrong.
Also, all of the "why would I care if I can aerosolize citrus" commenters have clearly never worked in a cocktail bar. Which isn't a knock; this is Hacker News, after all. Just know that there are people who make fancy drinks who would pay a lot to be able to do this easily. If you are the sort of person who spends time thinking about clear ice, you don't need this explained to you.
I find it funny most of these comments are about how unnecessary this thing is.
To me it has immediate appeal to make cutting easier. It's also really not that expensive. I suppose this is the same site that is crazy about AI and thought Dropbox would flop. This thing has more utility than AI to me. I suppose being a software person can warp your perception of the real world.
I'm a bit surprised to see how much snark there is in the comment sections of this video. The requests for "let's see an independent chef use this knife to do real kitchen work" make total sense, but the moralizing around e-waste and losing fingers etc feels off balance.
People spend hundreds of dollars and many hours sharpening kitchen knives, of course there's a viable market for sharper kitchen knives. And for e-waste, you are never going to make meaningful progress by telling consumers to feel bad for buying fun things. The problem is so much bigger than that, the energy is better spent in a different place.
This is a cool and novel tool, at least as far as its genuine utility can be verified. It doesn't seem harmful to let people get excited about it.
Elsewhere on the thread I pointed out that I'd noticed the video doesn't show anybody doing actual prep; making an easy but deliberate thin slice of a tomato is one thing, quickly dicing an onion or a bell pepper is a very different thing.
To that observation I'd add (h/t my Slack friends) this interesting site Seattle Ultrasonics stood up:
https://seattleultrasonics.com/pages/knife-database
One thing I notice here is that Japanese knives (and my trusty MAC) fare really well on the BESS and CATRA scale, but relatively poorly on the "Food Cutting Rank", which is based on an ad-hoc seeming performance scale of how well their robot fared with a bunch of cutting tests that included stuff like bread and cheese (h/t again Slack friends) --- which nobody uses a chef's knife to cut.
That's a weird scale to plot chef's knives across --- unless the purpose of building that scale was to showcase an electronic knife that does well on tasks people don't normally use chef's knives for, but maybe not as well on chef knife daily driver tasks.
I personally watched Scott spend years working on the project and obsessively iterating on the steel, the vibration pattern, the circuitry, the handle, and the form factor. Scott is a hacker, one of us for sure. I mean, the guy built a custom robot just to measure cutting efficiency...
The knife is amazing and exactly as shown in the video. Rand Fishkin has a nice short on LinkedIn trying out the knife too. I think he shows one his (sharp) kitchen knives slicing through a lemon, then the Ultrasonic. It's astounding.
Disclaimer: I am a (tiny) angel investor in Seattle Ultrasonics.
I feel like the demo video embodies a lot of startup advice I've seen on HN about product vs team.
This video makes me like Scott and Seattle Ultrasonics. I feel I can trust Scott's expertise. His backstory fits what I imagine I would do if I were obsessed with a project like this. This makes me compelled to learn more and to maybe become a customer? Why? Because I want to see Scott succeed and would feel proud to be a part of that. Even if this knife didn't end up performing to my expectations or if I didn't really need a knife like this, I want to see Scott make more things. He has a very well-proven record of delivering and I would bet he could do it again.
Funny, that! Whatever type of marketing this is, it works on me.
Maybe I'm just a sci-fi nerd who loves innovation, but this is so cool!
Clearly, this product is not intended for the mass market, and may find purchase with people who have tennis elbow and who can afford it, etc. <insert other critiques about practicality and applicability here>. But still, when was the last time someone tried to re-invent something as basic as a knife?
Why is it people here seem so unusually sceptical?
It's expensive (but not really, only compared to knives - a $500 GPU isn't expensive). It's probably mostly good in certain niches and using a $10 knife that's sharpened properly is probably 95% as good in almost every application, and using a $10 knife that is only reasonably well sharpened is probably 90% as good. Slicing stuff for hotpot or yakiniku or Korean BBQ is what I thought of when I saw the ad, while for a lot of things it's probably not worth it. But a lot of stuff is like that - good in a niche, OK elsewhere, and there's always a cheaper option that's more flexible and almost as good even in the niche.
I feel like hn is upset by the lack of marketing. This looks like a direct sales ad that you'd get on Facebook, rather than the hype research marketing that mostly targets the b2b types who mostly dwell here? The marketing isn't the kind of marketing they normally get targeted by, so they notice it's marketing?
I notice this on other forums. If marketing isn't slick and well targeted, people get upset and suspicious because it's marketing. But functionally, they're not upset because it's marketing (almost everything is), they're upset because it's not enough marketing, and functionally they want more marketing that targets them better.
Honest question, does it aerosolize pathogens that cause food-borne illness?
A good quality well sharpened knife already works incredibly well, doesn't cost $500, doesn't need to be recharged, and isn't going to be e-waste in 5 years (when the battery fails).
It's a cool idea, and I hope it is commercially successful, but not for me.
We made it! We’ve finally invented vibroblades!
Hard to watch the tiny video. Cannot be made full screen. Rotating phone sideways the website header obscures the video.
edit: https://youtu.be/cXjbSVt9XNM
I think if this can keep a knife effectively sharper than the equivalent nice steel with less maintenance, then it’s going to find a market.
I’m a nerd, but Ive found that once I’ve mastered a hobby I eventually gravitate towards convenience, optimizing my time over absolute performance. I’ve built five PCs in my life, and now I only own a macbook. I spent loads of time optimizing my hifi setup, and now most of my apartment is sonos. And I have probably 1k worth of nice japanese knives + whetstones, that I would happily replace with a single knife that needs little to no upkeep.
While I think this is neat, I doubt the added complexity of the device, extra space required for storage of charger and the chore of charging it are worth the benefit of a slightly better, easier slice. Might be nice for people with certain disabilities though.
This is the best demo video ever! Congrats on reinventing the knife!
Target market is a hobby chef nerd’s mom :)
Otoh: this is NOT how a person cuts with a knife! Kills credibility of the whole complicated measurement with the robot. Just ask a chef to cut on a scale. You will be surprised. People can cut with semi-dull knife by pulling the knife towards their body not pushing down towards the cutting surface.
The only actual benefit I find it has over a well-maintained sharp chef knife is the non-stick aspect, which looks really nice but not $300 nice IMO.
Most people don't sharpen their knives enough and therefore they have to expend a lot of effort to sharpen them.
If your knife is only slightly dull it takes 10 seconds to resharpen it, unlike if you've gotten the edge all folded over and such.
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.
Cool tool, however: the people who are going to spend $500 on a cook's knife likely already have the capability and motivation to properly sharpen a kitchen knife. The market for this feels extremely limited.
Also: I'd be curious how this feels in the hand due to the button and the extra weight.
The comments in this thread remind me of the famous HN Dropbox announcement.
To 99% of people, “just sharpen your knife regularly” is about as realistic as “just set up a Linux FTP server with rsync and…”
Pretty kewl, but, for some reason, this old site comes to mind...
https://www.tumblr.com/weputachipinit
all the comparisons in the vid show knives being pushed through the food. that's not a good way to use a knife.
if you used a knife to actually slice the tomato instead of chopping it, you'd get a much different force result.
not to say there's no benefit here, but def feels intentionally exaggerated.
also, i wonder how fast this blade will wear if you ever accidentally pressed the edge into the cutting block. my guess is that it will wear much faster.
Ultrasonic knives have been available for non-food uses for a long time. They are useful in certain narrow applications, such as cutting leather or some plastics.
That said, they come with two big caveats. First, if you push them into any harder material, the edge is destroyed almost immediately because of the micro-scale "jackhammer" action. So, hit that avocado pit and the knife is probably cooked.
Second, the constant motion heats up the blade, to the point of melting thermoplastics or causing the edge to lose temper if you're pushing a bit too hard, cutting the wrong material, etc.
It's your money, but I suspect this knife is more of a hassle, and requires more care, than a regular kitchen knife. And let's face it, the coolness factor aside, how often do you struggle to cut chicken, tomatoes, or bread? If you do, it's probably because your knife is dull, and this knife will get dull too.
What happens when the ultrasonic knife gets dull? At what point is a regular sharp knife better?
Most people don't maintain their knives well and they get really ineffective over time. Others who do, probably won't buy this...
It certainly would be nice to have three or four independent reviews from people with knife skills.
It is a cool product, but I have the clumsiness of the average home cook. So my old style knifes are plenty sharp for me. I would not be comfortable using this. But if there were a version with the slipperiness he shows, just having standard sharpness, it would be much more interesting to me.
BTW I think the focus on knife sharpness is overrated for most kitchen tasks. At least for home cooks. Your knives should just have the necessary sharpness. More than that is a negative in my opinion.
I want to see what happens when it cuts your finger. Actually, I don't want to see it. But I'm curious.
This kind of thing is what I come to HN for.
This guy did a 6 year multidisciplinary grind to produce a stunning consumer product. Exemplary
I work with some bigger ultrasonic cutters/welders and the thing I didn't see in the video was the horrible noise they make. He says the knife makes no noise but they also don't have the noise on for the shots of the bigger ones so I'm suspicious.
This is a boon for elderly losing hand/wrist strength
This is super cool tech and I truly appreciate the grind this guy went through to bring a hardware product to life.
At the same time, I've been using a $5 chef knife for almost a decade and just giving it a few passes against a honing steel every few weeks. It gets plenty sharp after that, to the point where I don't feel I'm missing anything. Then again, I'm just a home cook who's super into kitchen knives so I acknowledge I'm not in the target market.
To me the main appeal of this is not that it makes cutting easier (you already reduce much of the cutting force needed if you slice across instead of pushing down, which this seems to be doing at a micrometer level) but the fact that food doesn't stick to the blade.
All of my knives have sticking issues, potato slices are the worst culprits. When doing a lot of prep work on veggies in a cramped area it's a pain and this seems like it could actually fix things?
OTOH, I'm not a huge fan of the design, I don't mind spending good money on a knife but between the blade profile and the chonky handle, it looks like an hybrid between an 8" fibrox and an electric turkey cutter.
If there was a premium release with a fancier handle (could wood work?) and a nicer blade profile (something like a gyuto or a french sabatier) I would be interested and I think it would reduce sticker shock (looks premium, expect premium price). I love the design of the charging tile though!
They claim to be the first, but a simple google search shows several other ultrasonic kitchen knives out there. (369sonic, etc.) dating back years.
I watched the video and this seems pretty neat. Don't want to knock it or be negative. He's definitely right that most people's knives are dull – when I use knives in other people's homes I often just want to cry at how dull they are (also: pans – how the hell do so many people have dented damaged pans?) But you really don't need to splurge out €329 to have reasonably sharp knives.
All you need is a sharpening steel and use it once or twice after every usage. Even a cheap knife will last for years while remaining reasonable sharp. Mine was €6 or thereabouts at Tesco two years ago and is more than sharp enough.
Of course more expensive knifes (ultrasonic or not) are better and can hold an edge longer. You can spend more time, effort, and money on making them sharper than just a quick use of a cheap sharpening steel. If you want to spend the extra money: go for it! But for a normal home cook: you can go a long way with consistent use of a €10 sharpening steel.
I think it’s really cool, but not sure about the button design (seams to trap germs) and placement (index finger is not where I naturally exert pressure when cutting with a kitchen knife).
Also would be nice if it can be fitted to existing blades as handle retrofit, but I understand that might not be possible to properly tune the vibrations.
"J. Robot Choppenheimer" is what earned my upvote.
If this knife works as well as the pitchman says, that's amazing. Just don't touch the edge.
I've gotten into the habit of using one of those slatted knife sharpeners before every use of my knife. It works well enough.
awful handle ergonomics compared to any "real" knife e.g Wustoff or Victorinox.
No tang whatsoever, so the knife has no strength. It's probably unbalanced, which makes it awkward to use with finesse and speed. A year of heavy use and the "haft" will degrade to the point that it's dangerous.
Buy a proper carbon steel knife. You can keep it sharp forever with 5 minutes on youtube and $20 worth of kit from Amazon. Plus, it will never go flat.
All I can think is how this would weaponize onion cutting.
I've invested close to a thousand dollars in sharpening tools over the years. I keep my knives super sharp as a hobby more than anything. I'd still love to have one of these in the drawer for certain tasks. It's ugly and clunky but I'd probably still use it on a semi-regular basis for warm breads, cheeses, etc. I bet the action would help with sharpening as well.
I do wonder if a tuning fork or 'mass on a stick' hidden in the tang could provide enough vibration to help with the sticking. You'd probably have to smack it with every cut but it's so rarely a problem that would be fine.
How well does it cut frozen food?
Probably not great, otherwise they would have shown it, but being able to cut frozen food properly would be a game changer. The only things I found working are saws, and they are messy.
How does this compare to the electric carving knives?
The concept of the knife is interesting. I could see myself buying one if I had that much money lying around.
Maybe if the home chef who needs a leg up sees this it would prevent them from spending that much or more on more expensive knives and maintenance products. For those of us who know our way around the kitchen I’m not sure how much benefit I would get out of it.
Also did anyone think some of the cutting segments, particularly the radish, seemed sped up? The movement of the blade and hand looked a bit unnatural.
"Sorry honey looklike we have to eat out today because i forgot to charge my kitchen knife"
Super cool! I wonder if it would bother pets
Isn't this extremely dangerous? This will keep cutting without force through body parts untill it reaches the bone.
That looks really cool. Especially loved the wall of prototypes with raspberry picos etc.
Way outside the price range I'd consider personally but I look forward to having one in 5 years at a hopefully lower price point
I like this vibro-knife “demo” by Neil Blompkamp’s Oats Studios: https://youtu.be/zaeFgSR_DMU
Impressive dedication -- and what a refined looking product. Of course the real world use needs to match the advertising. I am not in the target segment (too expensive for me) but love to see such products and innovations across daily life tools -- hopefully this inspires others too.
I love these inventor stories, as the Chef's Knife does towards the end of the video. Another great one is Springfree trampolines, from NPRs How I Built This:
https://www.npr.org/2021/08/27/1031732394/springfree-trampol...
Why can't you just buy a cheap whetstone and sharpen your knives when they're dull? I have a mid chef's knife from wustoff or zwillig, don't remember which, that I just keep sharp periodically when I notice it's dull. I've had it for years of home cooking.
A different but far better piece of cutting edge technology is a modern, diamond-encrusted nickel/chrome-plated steel plate.
These things are now so sharp they can bring an edge profile back to a knife in five strokes without even needing lubrication (which is nice as water is a PITA when it causes corrosion between the steel bed and the plating.)
Every knife in your kitchen can be razor sharp in seconds and kept razor sharp whenever you need them to be. IMHO, far more useful than a single digi-vibro-knife.
Example product: Trend 300/1000 diamond sharpening kit.
Is this Hacker News or the TV Shopping Network?
What happens when you “oops”? All the way through the bone?
Does the vibration pass through the skin, via the handle?
This looks really cool!
I was just curious about two things - seems there might be some knife aficionados or experts here!
1. Sharpening - As a home cook, who doesn't know a lot about knives/sharpening - how hard would this be to maintain? Would it be plausible to get some basic home sharpening gear, and maintain this myself? Or should I take it to a professional knife sharpener - and if so, how do I even know if they're a good one, and won't damage the blade, or perhaps are good, but somehow get the blade out of "tune" etc?
2. Safety wise - is there anything at all to be concerned about with ultrasonic 40Khz blades? Should I be wearing any hearing protection when using this? (Context - I have hearing loss in both ears, and wear hearing aids - keen to preserve my remaining hearing, and am understandably cautious about this kind of thing for my family and me).
This product is a huge gimmick. Buy a $20 double sided sharpening stone on amazon and you can keep even the cheapest stainless steel knives sharp and chef ready for years. Just basic knife sharpening skills are needed which you can pick up in 10 minutes on YouTube.
Same vibes, different frequency...
https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/1245797052/vintage-60s-phili...
Its capabilities don't look any different from what I've seen in TV ads over the last few decades.
Such funny (and odd) takes on knives. They are tools, nothing more. I sharpen ours weekly, using a sharpener that wears down the blades. When they get too worn, they get replaced.
I have not many virtues but i always keep knives sharp wherever i am. With this tool the last bastion has fallen …
If you're an amateur and really want to spend this much money, get a good enough knife (e.g. the classic victorinox) and a chef's choice electric sharpener, and you won't have any more issues.
On safety, if the blade is vibrating and I put my finger perpendicularly under it, will it cut the skin?
They show the knife being touched from the side but of course that's safe
I would get this for the same reason I'm planning to replace my couch with an optimal-for-moving-through-a-turn couch as soon as I find a carpenter willing to make it. The middle part will be evened-out by a separate, round cushion.
If you have a sharp knife and a wet cloth under your cutting board chopping is a joy, otherwise it's a dangerous, tedious, and exhausting task that turns so many people away from cooking entirely
As an aside, this feels very familiar as a sci-fi weapon, does that ring a bell for anyone? I was thinking William Gibson first but I can't place it there.
Somehow after looking at the video, it is hard to believe that it is actually much different than your standard knife.
Speaking of ultrasonic vibration... Is the audio in the video have noticeable warbles and pops for anyone else? I wonder why that is...
It looks like a very cool product. Though it's too expensive for a regular guy who treats the cooking as a chore.
The demo videos show very poor knife skills.
Crazy stuff, the Quantified Knife project seems even crazier.
For $500+ you can get a really, REALLY nice Damascus steel chef's knife with a beautiful patina and wood handle. Yes: it requires a bit more maintainable but nice things often require some work. When it's properly honed & sharpened, it'll cut just as well as this.
I'm a sucker for good demos.
The tomato test is disingenuous - no one slices a tomato by pressing the knife straight down - you slice it to break the thick skin and follow with a slicing motion. The rest of the graph basically shows no difference between the force used for ultrasonic one and standard knife used inefficiently?
I think a lot of the commentary here is missing the main point — while you may not (I mean, certainly do not) need an ultrasonic chef's knife, it's a cool origin story, and the guy has the receipts! Years of iterations of circuit board design, blade shapes, and the robotic cut-test arm... I personally would enjoy using this in my kitchen just for the hacker vibes.
Although not a pro, or even a good cook, I do like quality knives — but, like most people who develop a casual nice-knife affinity, I then bought a few quality knives, a couple of junk knives to try restoring with a whetstone, a hand-made Japanese knife with my name on it, and... then I had enough kitchen knives to last the rest of my life, and there was no reason to buy any more.
This is the first one I have considered in years. Not because I need it, or because it's necessarily better at cutting must things than the workhorse Sekimagoroku nakiri I use[1] but because it's fucking neat and radiates nerdium waves.
This knife should be celebrated for what it is: basically an epic nerd project. That can also cut at least a few kinds of fruit more easily (or at least more enjoyably).
[1]: KAI model AE5206 (which seems very much like a Shun knife, made by the same company, but cost me only $53)
I would buy the katana version, in Cyberpunk 2077!
Use a Hauser. German steel, whereas the Japanese know to forge a blade.
So the issue with that tomato cutting test was that it was terrible form.
You obviously don't apply flat pressure on a tomato until it breaks, you slice it by sliding the blade forward as you push down. It's unclear to me that this blade offers any improvement over proper technique, and feels disingenuous to even offer that comparison.
LOVED!!! the presentation.
What does this device accomplish in the kitchen, besides being able to make fine slices of vegetables more easily? Electric carver knives beat it for slicing meat.
And then for most any other situation of knife usage it isn't necessary at all, as knives are mostly used for chopping. The one (1) thing I can see this being useful for is a shrunken down version for paring, but whether or not that is mechanically feasible, I don't know. The curve and the handle are more important than this vibro-verbing.
Nice dialogue, btw. "Help chefs feel great about themselves in the kitchen", "access to sous vide". <Kitchen Woke> ?
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Um, no.
That non stickiness. I am curious if we do ultrasonic frying pan. Will it be non-stick as well?
Metal Gear Solid vibes.
Umreeka can have geniuses only in tv shows at this point….otherwise we are reinventing knives!!
100$ ...for a charger.
Knife skills are a necessary but not sufficient condition for being a good chef.
The wireless charging knife rest got me. I have utterly no use for this thing but it looks so goddamn cool that I want it anyway.
when your bag vibrates at airport security but, phew, it's not a sex toy it's ok guys it's just my knife everything's fine
I recently backed NeoBlade, which is an ultrasonic multi-blade cutting device for crafters. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hozodesign/neoblade
TL;DR it's really freaking cool, though the blades do seem to get dull fairly quickly. That said, they are made of a radically different grade of steel.
If the tech in the NeoBlade has been adapted successfully to the chef's knife, then all of the haters are going to sound like all of the early "you don't need an air fryer" pundits who totally missed the point and were clearly wrong.
Also, all of the "why would I care if I can aerosolize citrus" commenters have clearly never worked in a cocktail bar. Which isn't a knock; this is Hacker News, after all. Just know that there are people who make fancy drinks who would pay a lot to be able to do this easily. If you are the sort of person who spends time thinking about clear ice, you don't need this explained to you.
It’s a very impressive video, but the ‘world’s first’ claim is BS: https://www.369sonic.com/ultrasonic-kitchen-knife/
I think eventually you do need to sharpen it, this thing delays it. But it seems like a good gift if it ain't too expensive.
I find it funny most of these comments are about how unnecessary this thing is.
To me it has immediate appeal to make cutting easier. It's also really not that expensive. I suppose this is the same site that is crazy about AI and thought Dropbox would flop. This thing has more utility than AI to me. I suppose being a software person can warp your perception of the real world.
I have an ultrasonic knife for reverse engineering. It's wonderful. It's also great for crafting.
I'm highly doubtful it's useful in the kitchen. Sharp knives would seem to do the trick.
This looks amazing. I love tech in Lindy products that actually works well.
Your cat is gonna LOVE it!
Ok great, now Steve Jobs it and explain to my mom why she needs it
when I need a ton of whatever cut thin I just use a rotary slicer.
a knife is for detail work like stripping meat. on bulk/speed/uniformity you cannot beat a slicer with a knife.
Wait until Gillette figures this shit out.
cue the vibro-stab themed "thats not a knife....." and hey for extra murderyness it could be paired with a shock zapper
Hackers news is now sneaking more and more ads. That's disappointin
Don't buy dumb electronic kitchen gadgets.
Get a good steel knife, learn how to sharpen it properly, and you're set for life.
I lost three fingers watching this video.
I have a reciprocating saw in the shed already.
For $500 I'll just replace the handle of a regular knife with a vibrator.