I’m Dan and I’ve been designing kitchen gadgets
for more than 40 years.
I’m gonna test some portable gadgets
and see if I can find a way to make them better.
You wanna look like that a little more?
Give it something that you’d be able to push against
maybe a handle and two rollers.
These are the gadgets I am going to test.
Hines ketchup packet squeezer,
Crunch Cup, portable bag slicer and re-sealer.
Orry kit, pocket size cutlery and chopsticks.
[upbeat music]
Hines ketchup packet squeezer.
It’s purpose in life is to squeeze Every drop of ketchup
out of a packet.
It is also a cute keychain.
Let’s see how effective it is.
Now, I need a packet.
So I’ve got a ketchup packet here
and I’ve got a portion of the device,
the gadget where I’m gonna stick this in,
pull it across and hopefully it’s gonna cut that corner open
and it did, although I spilled a bit.
Now my next step is to start feeding this in
and I’m gonna have to line this up with a slot.
I’m gonna start to roll.
I’ve got some ketchup on my hand
but let’s see how we do with getting the ketchup out.
Go, go, go, go, go.
Now, of course, when I’m at the very end
I’m gonna get some ketchup into the gadget
and I do have a bit of cleanup to go
and I have squeezed out ketchup into the bowl,
on my fingers and onto the gadget.
Let’s try that again.
This time I’m gonna line things up
so it goes a little more smoothly.
This time I’m gonna try cutting the entire top off.
Let’s see if that works.
No, this doesn’t work
’cause really this only fits the corner.
So I guess it’s designed to cut the corner.
Now I am going to insert this into the slot.
Okay, second time around.
It was a lot cleaner.
Tastes like ketchup.
Let’s see if these hands can ketchup to the packet squeezer.
[upbeat music]
So let’s give this an Effectiveness Rating.
I’m not gonna go very high.
I mean, I guess in terms of effectiveness
it did squeeze out the ketchup
but it took a little bit of work.
It was a little bit wasteful.
I think in effectiveness,
I’m gonna go right down the middle.
I’m gonna give it three outta five.
I don’t think we need a left-handed oil test
’cause as you saw I was using both hands to do this
and there’s not a lot of force in doing this
but there is a bit of accuracy that’s needed.
That’s said, I’m not sure I’m gonna learn anything
by oiling up or making my non-dominant hand slippery
and trying it again.
Let’s talk about Usability.
I thought this was way too fussy.
As I pulled this open, it was a little sloppy.
I was getting some ketchup
already on my hands when I’m slicing this.
And the other usability issue is that
in order to get the packet to align with the roller
I’ve got to look really closely
and see when this gap is really visible
and it’s not easy to see at all.
So usability two outta five.
It’s got its curiosity aspect to it
and honestly I was looking forward to trying this.
Let’s talk about a Redesign
and I am kind of curious to see
what I’m gonna have to say say about this.
So one thing that would be relatively easy
is I would make this inner roller a different color
so that it’s really, really visible when you have this
in the right position to insert the back end of the packet.
So even though the rollers on the inside
it is round and circling here,
I would even put an indicator here
that would make it really, really obvious
that the slot is aligned and it’s time to insert the packet.
There’s no reason for this little slot arrow
where you actually start the packet to be so small.
I think I would enlarge that
and maybe even change the three dimensional shape of this
so that it slides in more easily by itself.
I’d also do something
to make this a little more finger-friendly
so that this piece will pop out more easily
so that you can clean it.
If you really need to
get all that ketchup outta your packet,
I think I would make something
that probably has maybe a handle and two rollers
so that you’re pulling it through
like an old washing machine
and it would be a much more simple device.
It’s not that difficult
to tear open the corner of the packet.
I would just make two rollers
that are kind of passive rollers
and feed them in and pull it across.
In terms of washing this or cleaning it,
everything is hidden in here.
Honestly, I would rethink this thing significantly.
Now I don’t think this is necessary.
I’m not giving it any better than a one.
It’s kind of cute.
It has its amusement factor if you use it once
but I don’t think you use it more than once.
Crunch Cup.
This is the Crunch Cup.
It’s purpose in life is to allow you to eat cereal
on the go without the need of a bowl or spoon.
This is probably designed for people
who can’t decide what goes in the bowl first,
the cereal or the milk.
Let’s see how effective it is.
So let me explain how it works.
Cereal goes in here, milk goes in here.
There’s actually two parts here to the cap.
If you look very closely, there’s a fill line on here.
[cereal pouring]
Let’s screw that piece on.
Stick this in.
I’m gonna trust the line.
I think we’re ready to walk around the house
and have Froot Loops.
Hmm, my milk to Froot Loops proportion isn’t quite right.
I’m gonna try my technique and I may have to
actually block some of the milk pouring out
until I get enough Froot Loops into my mouth.
So let’s give that a try.
[cereal rattling]
[crunching cereal]
I don’t know how it looks but it doesn’t feel that graceful.
I’m noticing I really have to open my mouth wide
to get any Froot Loops in there
and also do some tongue blockage on this little spout here
that’s gonna release the milk.
It’s not giving me an immediately great first impression.
It’s also curious, I think
that it doesn’t really cover up the top.
So in a way it’s portable but you have to be careful.
You have to walk around,
like you’re walking around with an basically an open cup
and I’m not actually sure
I would want to walk down the street with this.
Let’s compare the Crunch Cup
with putting your milk and cereal
in a more standard travel tumbler.
Stand back.
Surprising to me that actually worked better.
What you could also do is do that and bring a spoon
and I guess that would really be my choice.
Let’s give it an Effectiveness Rating.
I’ve gotta go not high on this one
because I think it is very odd to have an open container
that’s not really portable or at least if it’s portable
you’ve gotta be careful you don’t spill it.
Without the aid of a top,
I think this is not as portable as I would expect.
Effectiveness two out of five.
I don’t really think
you’ll be walking around very far with it.
I don’t think it makes sense to challenge myself
lefty or righty or, you know, make my left hand slippery
because it’s no real force involved here.
So in terms of usability, it’s just too difficult
to get the right ratio of milk
which means the milk may pour in your mouth
or you’ve gotta block that little spout with your tongue.
Just didn’t want to work as well as you may think.
And I can’t go much better than a two outta five.
Let’s talk about a Redesign.
One of the issues I’m finding
is that the cereal is not pouring out as well as it should.
I would wonder if this inner surface, this inner part,
would want to be, instead of a straight cylinder,
if this would actually wanna be a cone.
But you really have to tilt this far up
to get cereal to pour out.
So if you really wanna keep the milk and cereal separate
I would try angling this, which means that when it tilts
this here’s gonna flow more freely
and then well I would rethink the shape of the spout
because I really had to open my mouth wide
to catch all that cereal coming in.
So I would make this more of a spout
but what I would certainly do
is give this some sort of lid
that would actually allow you
to walk around with this without spilling it.
And I think that lid just needs to seal off
this little seal here where the milk comes out
and the rest of it I think is pretty easy to contain.
So I would make this really a lot more portable.
So let’s talk about a Buy Rating.
For the life of me, I can’t figure out
why they did not create a cover for this,
some sort of cap or lid.
I don’t think I can recommend the Crunch Cup
to too many people.
I think it’s a lot of plastic
that can be better served in other ways.
So I would give this a one outta five.
You’ll thank me later.
Portable bag slicer and re-sealer.
So in front of me is the portable bag slicer and re-sealer.
It promises to help you open your snack bags
and then re-seal them.
Let’s see how effective it is.
So I’ve got a bag of chips
and I’ll explain to you what’s going on here.
There is a slide switch here
that’s gonna expose a knife that seems a little dangerous
the way they do it here.
It is battery operated
and it looks to me like what happens here
is something slides this way
and I believe once these contacts are made
it’s gonna apply some heat to reseal the bag.
I’m gonna expose this enough
so that the heat unit is exposed
and there’s a little click here
and because I know I’m gonna be be resealing this
I’m going to try to slice it open pretty carefully
[bag rattling]
and let me make sure that’s open.
[crunching chip]
Yep, it’s open.
Let’s assume I’m only eating one chip.
That never happens.
I think what I’m gonna do is pull this in
and let’s see if I go across what’s gonna happen.
So I can feel it;s a little warm.
It applied some heat
and it has reconnected the open path here.
[bag rattling]
I unfortunately am no longer able to get at chip,
but it definitely resealed.
Who would’ve thought?
Let’s try this again
with a tiny bag of Lay’s chips.
I’m going to carefully slice the bag open.
[bag rattling]
Eat this chip.
[crunching chip]
So let’s try that.
And I went pretty quickly there
and let’s go quickly in the other direction.
But you know what happened that time?
I lingered a little bit
and I burned through the bag.
Now instead of the battery powered version of bag sealing,
I’m gonna double this over and use a spring clip.
[upbeat music]
Personally I think I would go with the clips,
folding the bag over two or three times.
I think it’s gonna seal it without any problem.
So let’s talk about an Effectiveness Rating.
I can’t fault it too much there.
I think in terms of sealing the bag,
again it takes a couple of tries to get your technique down
but I would give that four outta five.
It’s not that it didn’t work
it definitely re-sealed the bag.
Lefty or righty?
I don’t think I need to do a left-handed oil test.
I think it actually has some faults with either hands.
So let’s talk about Usability.
There are like enough faults on this
that I don’t think is very usable.
So for instance, sliding this piece
to expose the heating element.
It’s supposed to snap into place,
but it’s not easy to slide.
There’s nothing here really you can push against.
It’s not that well designed.
Also in terms of identifying itself
it doesn’t, anywhere, identify itself what it is
or what it could possibly be used for,
which is important if you have this sitting around the house
or in the drawer.
And also I think usability of this blade is just all wrong
and the fact that it actually is not that easy
to push with your thumb and pull it out.
So you may get the idea
that I’m not gonna give it a very high usability rating.
I’m gonna give it a two out of five.
So let’s talk about a Redesign.
In a redesign, one of the first things I would do
is do something different about this razor blade button.
First of all, it’s not really meant to slide easily
because there’s just a little bit of texture here
and you’re pushing that way.
It springs back so there’s really no reason
to be able to pull it back.
But if there was some way to interlock it
so you cannot slide it open accidentally.
If there was some second action that you could do
that would be something that I’d work into it.
I would put a shape in there
that would allow your finger to easily push that way.
In terms of locking it,
there are a number of ways you can do that.
It could be a second action,
it could be a second piece here,
it could be a press and lock thing.
The other thing I would watch is this piece,
this battery piece that is meant to slide
needs to be pushed open.
So this part clicks open and this can push open
but there’s nothing here really to push against.
So I would give this either
some sort of curvature shape
so you have something to grab against
as you push it back and forth.
Or you can do that same thing from this direction,
give it something here that you’d be able to push against
and if it was a shape like this
you’d be able to push this way and close it up that way.
One of the thing I would look at,
is whether or not there’s more of a visual indication
of where the edge of the bag may wanna sit.
So I was thinking that maybe along the top here
there’d be some graphic that would tell you
or give you an indication
of how far you really should go to seal up the bag.
And so if there was a indication there
the bag would be able to sit like that
and the heating element would be far enough in
so that you’re not falling off the edge of the bag.
So for a Buy Rating, I’m giving it a one outta five.
I know I gave it higher ratings for effectiveness
because it is effective, it does air tightly seal a bag.
I just don’t know if you need it.
This does not exactly have my seal of approval.
Ori kit.
This in front of me is the Ori kit.
This gadget claims to use the art of origami
to transform itself into six different kitchen tools.
Let’s check its Effectiveness.
I have a pan of scrambled eggs here.
So the tools it comes with
is a tiny spoon which needs to be held together.
This is a slightly larger spoon
and when it comes together there’s a magnet
although the magnet is a little weak to hold it together.
Here’s a larger spoon.
Same thought.
The magnet holds it together.
Here is a spatula that we’re gonna use for the eggs.
It’s got two magnets that should hold itself together.
This one is a strainer,
and this last one is a larger scoop.
So what I’m gonna use is the spatula version.
Seems a little floppy, but let’s try it.
And I’m not sure it’s gonna scrape,
but it will work like a shovel
to get the eggs onto the plate.
Can I now use one of these to eat?
I will try the, maybe I’ll try the smaller size one
and take a bite.
It’s not like they don’t work.
Let’s compare the utensils in the Ori kit
to their actual utensil counterparts.
[upbeat music]
No problem there.
It seems a little more secure.
I’m just a little less likely to drop it off the spoon.
But these certainly work.
Let’s give it an Effectiveness Rating.
We didn’t do any like tough work with it
like scraping the pan
and I don’t think it’s up to that.
I’m also a little concerned
that once I magnet these together, they flop open.
If I was really going somewhere
on a camping trip or something
I’m not sure I would want
to have my dinner or lunch depend on these.
I think there may be some better options for you out there.
So I will say they worked better than I expected
but I did not have high expectations.
So in terms of effectiveness,
I would give this no more than a two outta five.
I don’t think I need to test myself
with my left hand on these
because they are what they are.
They’re really passive devices.
For Usability, also not really high.
I think it worked, again, with the task I was gonna do.
If it’s gonna be something soft
and something that these floppy silicone things can handle
then maybe it’s okay.
Maybe this has some advantages
because it is, they are so portable
they don’t take any three dimensional space.
They do fold flat.
You may not even need to carry all six of them
depending on what you’re doing.
Again, I wouldn’t trust the camping trip with these
so I would give them no better than a two outta five.
Let’s talk about a Redesign
and I’m gonna use the spatula
as an example of some thoughts.
‘Cause this one really would take the most force
if you’re really gonna try to cook with it
not do this with it.
So first of all, and the easy thing to do
would be to use stronger magnets.
So I would look at ways
to incorporate some stronger magnets in here.
So I would increase that so that they hold together.
It may also be possible
to make the silicone a little bit thinner
so that they would, their magnetic force
would be a little stronger against each other.
But in either case I would strengthen these magnets.
This becomes a little floppy right here
because this is also a folding point.
So the point at which it folds,
that needs to be thin enough to bend
but when it comes into just two dimensions like this
it’s gonna do this naturally.
So I don’t have an instant solution for that.
The other thing I would consider,
again if I was gonna scrape something
I would think about incorporating either a edge on this
adding a harder piece of plastic here to the edge
or possibly making this entire piece overlaying the silicone
with a hard piece of plastic.
So you actually have a scoop that you could push on
and that won’t flop up this way.
Given the constraints of the fact that these are designed
to be things that fold flat like this
and it’s using the silicone to do it,
I think they could use some help
to be more effective and more promising.
As they are, they kind of fall flat.
So let’s talk about a Buy Rating.
Trying to find a need for people to have this.
And if you really, really need utensils that fold flat
this could be for you
at least it could be a partial solution
but I think these need to be improved
before I can actually recommend them.
So I’m gonna give it a generous two outta five.
Ori kit you’re designed to travel.
Have a nice trip!
[utensils crash]
Bye-bye.
Pocket size cutlery and chopsticks.
In front of me is the pocket size
reusable cutlery and chopsticks.
This kit contains collapsible utensils and chopsticks
and comes in this handy little metal case.
Okay, so let’s sort out what we have.
So the knife, the fork, and the spoon.
Easy to identify.
Now I’ve got a couple of closely related shapes here.
There are a couple of grooves on this
which I am going to pretty well assume are the chopsticks.
I am going to assemble
by screwing in chopsticks first
knife, fork, spoon.
I have in front of me a bowl of noodles
and what I’m gonna do
is see how I can do with the chopsticks,
but they are usable and they are chopsticks
and that would work
and I could shove this into my mouth.
Let’s try the fork.
I’m not sure if you notice that, but spinning a fork
when you have a very round silvery handle, is not that easy.
There’s nothing really to grab on as you’re spinning
you just have to squeeze a little harder.
I think there’s a compromise in terms of usability
of the utensils that you end up with
because the diameters of all of these are rather small
and completely round.
Not the easiest to use utensils
it sure beats a plastic knife.
So that is working.
I think the real question comes down to
is how portable are these once they are folded up
and supposedly portable as opposed to
how portable would a knife, fork, spoon,
and chopsticks be anyway?
In terms of working, I think they work
in terms of the effort to put them together.
I think a sleeve would actually save some space.
Let’s compare those
with their full size and solid counterparts.
[upbeat music]
I do see a difference in terms of Usability
that given the choice, I would prefer to use these.
Let’s talk about Effectiveness,
and for effectiveness, what I wanna look at is,
how much space are we actually saving?
If this is just about the size and shape and volume
of the already assembled utensils
or even utensils you already have in your house
and this is the portable size,
I don’t see a major advantage.
It’s gonna take some time.
I don’t think it’s worthwhile.
I’m gonna give it a one out of five.
So it’s time for the left-handed oil test.
And what this does,
is it highlights any deficiencies in design.
I’m gonna be using my left hand slippery, I’m right-handed.
I don’t know if I can even use chopsticks left-handed.
What I suspect is, because this is completely round
I’m gonna have trouble spinning this.
See I’ve got no action there at all.
If I compare this with a standard fork, I can spin this one.
If spinning was a thing you wanna do with a fork
I am out of luck trying to spin this fork.
So I would consider that in the design of cutlery,
and I’m not sure what we’re really gaining
in terms of making these collapsible or around or portable.
Same will certainly be true of the chopsticks,
although you don’t spin chopsticks
but I don’t know if I’m gonna be able
to use any chopsticks lefty
but I do feel that these are just
a little bit square-ish on the ends.
These are just a little bit more stable in my hand.
The other thing I’ll try,
is how difficult it is to either tighten or loosen these.
I’m gonna try to break this down
and I can do that if I squeeze hard,
I can get some friction on these.
It’s kind of of slippery going in the other direction.
I’m not gonna be able to tighten them very much.
So let’s talk about Usability.
I just don’t think you’re gonna wanna grab these
in place of things that you already own.
So let’s give it one out of five.
Sorry guys.
So let’s talk about a Redesign.
And again, I’m not that thrilled
about disassembling these or screwing these apart.
I’m wondering if instead of a screw mechanism
and having these handles so small
I think I would look for something,
look a way to design this with a more substantial handle
not completely round, either square-ish or oval in shape
and a little bit wider, maybe even flatter
and look for a way that these can snap together this way.
Probably what that means is some sort of release button here
or something that would help them snap together
and release when needed.
But again, I don’t see it anywhere
that I’m saving volume in doing this.
But that’s what my suggestion would be for a redesign.
For the design of the case,
I would just make this an envelope.
Let’s say it’d be half the size of a chopstick
probably gonna have a flap and probably a snap.
And this will fold over to the snap here
and this would contain the utensils.
So I think a soft case would make a lot more sense.
With this redesign,
[case snaps]
case closed.
So let’s talk about a Buy Rating.
One of the goals in the manufacturers
or designers creating this,
was to be more sustainable
so that you’re not using disposable utensils.
So at the same time, give them a little bit of weight
so that they have a little more quality feel to them.
Those goals are all fine and good,
but you can do that by grabbing the knives and forks
you already have and just wrapping them in a napkin
or finding some sort of envelope or container
that you can slip them into and traveling with them,
taking them with you that way.
But for most of the world, not an elegant solution.
One out of five.
So typically on Well-Equipped,
we choose gadgets that we are a little skeptical about.
Very often what we’re looking for
is some happy surprises like,
Wow that worked better than I thought.
Not today.
Today I’ve got a range here of disappointments
and we just have to be honest about these.
Ultimately, what we learned in this episode
that none of these gadgets
are worth replacing the things
that you may already have in your kitchen.
