The General Electric web site rejected my review of my new 27" wall oven / microwave which I bought to replace an identical 1994 GE unit that became obsolete due to lack of parts availability.
I thought my comparison of the units to be objective and fair. Perhaps they were off-put by the user name I had created for the review: SamePigNewDress.
By way of background the new oven replaced one installed in the house when it was built 20 years ago with all GE appliances: refrigerator, oven/microwave, dishwasher, down-draft exhaust electric cook top. I'm a retired manufacturing manager / reinvention specialist who over a 40 year career automated and streamlined each department I managed. I'm familiar with GE as a company and an admirer, but not fanboy of Jack Welsh, the now retired CEO who single-handedly change the corporate culture at GE. That's really more what this is about, how that corporate culture at GE influenced the design changes in the wall oven/microwave over the past 20 years and it's lack of innovation.
The Old Design Was Flawed
The decision to replace rather than repair the oven after the magnatron in the microwave was a reluctant one. The replacement part was $200 but other critical parts are no longer available. I learned this a few years ago when the clock started to flicker and several of the buttons (but not all of them) on the 0-9 keypad stopped working. I usually fix my own stuff if I can but that one had me stumped so I called GE repair.
The GE tech recognized the cause of the problem immediately. On the 1994 model GE located the controls on the right side of the microwave directly above the oven. Running the self-cleaning cycle generated enough heat to soften the solder on the control boards behind the key pad which operated both the microwave and oven.
Using the microwave during the cleaning cycle the shock of the door hitting next to the control panel had cracked the solder connection on the power inputs and other connections. There wasn't anything the tech could do to fix it; a replacement control board was no longer available and he wasn't allowed to repair the board. But I could, which I did in about 15 min with my soldering iron after he left, fixing the problem.
Not the smartest design in retrospect. But I guess the A-Team engineers at GE work on things like jet engines and power plant turbines as big as my house. But to their credit the engineers at GE Appliances in Louisville solve the melting control panel problem. On the new model the control were moved above the microwave and a cooling fan was added to exhaust the heat from the oven onto the floor in front of the oven.
Solving the control panel problem allowed the microwave oven to be make much wider, a plus, but it is now not as high and because the door is now very wide it now hinges down like the wall oven to open, 48" off the floor. I don't have a problem with that because I'm 5'-11" but my 5'-0" wife finds it less convenient.
Adding the exhaust fan for the external heat the oven generates allowed the use of less fiberglass insulation and the new oven racks are about 2" wider than before. A 1/2 sheet pan was a tight fit in the old one, it fits with plenty of room to spare in the new one for better circulation.
The GE was not our first choice. We had purchased a Kenmore (made by Frigidaire) which was on sale and $400 cheaper which had a convection oven. So in that respect the GE was less oven for more money. But the Kenmore has a 27-1/8 door and would not fit in the recessed space the builder had created for the 27" oven cabinet which was exactly 27" wide.
Because I was always looking for opportunities to "reinvent" and improve things at work I looked at the new GE oven with the fan added for exhaust and thought, "Why didn't they just add another fan on the other end of the motor to circulate the hot air in the oven?" Bend the sheet metal a little different, add a $2 part, improve the evenness of the cooking and the value perceived by me as a consumer.
I have no doubt some junior engineer had that idea but had it rejected by some GE cost analyst due to the $2 increase in cost or the marketing department who likely argued only putting convection on the premium models would allow them to charge $500 more for them. The cost analysts no doubt nodded in agreement. As a student in numerous management classes an reader of management books I see this as evidence of a company that gets more conservative and less innovative the more it grow.
The main difference in the units is how the controls operate. There are far more "smart" cooking, defrosting and re-heating options by food type and weight, and a mode that senses when food is done via the steam the cooking creates in the oven (which leaves the walls dripping with water and doesn't seem to work with a splatter over over the food).
But the green LCD display LOOKS LIKE AN MS-DOS MONITOR FROM 1981!
Selecting cooking options requires pressing buttons on the front panel for mode then turning a knob next to the screen to scroll down menus, pressing the knob in to select.
Setting a 8-min cooking time on the old unit?
8-0-0- [start]
Setting a 4-min cooking time on the new one?
[Microwave] < panel button
Cook By Time < first menu option
[Push Knob In] < select mode
Turn knob to set time
[Push Knob In] < set time
Turn knob to set power (Level 10 is default)
Turn knob ( if needing less than full power)
[Push Knob In] < set power level
[Push Knob In] < to start cooking... Finally!
One panel touch, 1-2 turns of the knob, four presses of the knob just to cook a baking potato!
There is a 30sec button on the panel which the old unit lacked which is can also be used, either by pressing multiple times, or pressing once to start then turning the knob to raise / lower time as desired, then pressing knob in to set.
Considering that my iPhone as used a color touch panel since 2006 a more innovative company might have done way with all the panel buttons and the MS-DOS MONITOR LOOK in favor of that streamlined and less complicated approach. I might even have the option to operate the oven via Bluetooth using an app on my phone or iPad. The knob / menu interface? About as innovative as the touch wheel / display of the first iPod with knob that could have come off a 1930s GE radio in my grandfather's house.
GE IMAGINES... That what the ads on TV say.
Looking at my 2014 rehash of the same 1994 oven I imagine being a young hot-shot IT engineer fresh out of college, working at GE. The boss gives you the project to design new control software for the update to the oven, but says... And oh yeah, the display needs to look like MS-DOS green monitor, that's all corporate will allow in the budget.
Having programmed computers since the late 1970s and understanding the things bored, frustrated programmers will do when higher-ups put a damper on their ideas I notice some the quirks in the user interface.
The clock showing time of day moves around from one corner to another of the display randomly. This is something a bored programmer will figuring most will not notice but will bug the sh*t out of those who do.
The fan keeps running for minutes after reheating your cup of coffee for 30 sec.— with "Cooking complete, cooling" until the door is opened. Where before the the sound of the unit shutting off was the clue to go get your stuff out, now there is a chirping sound I can't hear over the sound of the fan and can't adjust louder, and the fan continuing to run says, "Hey idiot, you forgot your coffee is in the microwave."
There is a settings option to use C° temps, but all the "cook by weight" menu options stay in X.X pounds. I switched to measuring ingredients by grams years ago using a kitchen scale. Used in English unit mode the scale displays LB - OZ not X.X pounds requiring conversion in my head from 6.6 oz to 0.X? pounds to set cooking time by weight. The best option? The ability to change weight units independently from grams, X.X lb, or Lb-Oz. as best suits the convenience of the user. Me? It would be F° and Grams. The GE software engineers might have worked on that instead of making the time of day indicator move around at random.
The microwave can't be used at all during the self-cleaning cycle. This is no doubt due to the melting solder problem with the old side control design but likely unnecessary now with the controls on top and the fan to cool the oven. So don't clean the oven if you plan to warm up any leftovers for the next 3-5 hours.
Exhausting the heat on the floor in front of the oven. I'm sure my cat would love that, if I had a cat, and it keeps the kitchen cosy in January, but it is not doing the help the AC bill if I need to use or clean the oven in the summer. With a bit more thought and clever engineering I'm sure GE could figure out a way to recycle that heat back inside the oven instead of raising the cooling bill.
This might sound like sour grapes nit-picking but for the $2,700 it cost to buy and install the new unit I would have liked to see more innovation in the design in the 20 years which elapsed between 1994 and 2015. Especially considering someone might be using it until 2035. But I doubt the new one is engineered to last as long as the old one was.
It is the same pig in a new dress, and even the dress old and out of style unless you like the retro MS_DOS MONITOR LOOK!
Gezz GE, even the 1994 model had white numbers on the LCD.
Submitted January 27, 2015 at 10:08PM by pwcduffer http://ift.tt/1yrmKGs Appliances
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