[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.