Radio Shack Gone? Try Sears!
erco
Posts: 20,256
I keep seeing suggestions for electronic parts from "Sears Marketplace" on Ebay. Grab a Craftsman socket and a hundred photoresistors: http://www.sears.com/bgood-100pcs-5mm-gl5528-light-dependent-resistor-photoresistor/p-SPM9943873025
Or maybe a Kenmore water filter and an HC05 Bluetooth module: http://www.sears.com/search=hc05?QParsing=1&s_tnt=62651:1:0
It appears that they are trying the Amazon shotgun approach of selling anything and everything through fulfillment houses. I guess they have nothing to lose at this point. IIRC Sears is also on the ropes, just as the Shack was.
Or maybe a Kenmore water filter and an HC05 Bluetooth module: http://www.sears.com/search=hc05?QParsing=1&s_tnt=62651:1:0
It appears that they are trying the Amazon shotgun approach of selling anything and everything through fulfillment houses. I guess they have nothing to lose at this point. IIRC Sears is also on the ropes, just as the Shack was.
Comments
At least now when I order the light bulb for my dryer, I can drop a bluetooth module in the shopping cart too, LOL.
ps. Erco, somehow you started two threads so I merged them which created two initial posts.
-Phil
That reminds me... after I graduated college in 1982 and got a job in FL at Pratt & Whitney, I bought my parents some "thank you" gifts for putting me through college. I got Dad a RadioShack printer, DMP-something, and Mom got a fancy new Kenmore fridge with an icemaker. When we had their estate sale in 2013, the printer still worked and the fridge was still going strong. 30 years ain't bad, and "I doubt if they still make 'em like that". Wow I sound more like my Dad every day.
BTW, I noticed that the gadgets listed on the Sears website are being sold by an outfit called New Occidental. Based on the anticipated ship times, I suspect they're in China.
-Phil
That's because we're old enough now to actually have owned things that last!
There's no profit in reliability. Washers, dryers, fridge, TVs, Phil's Mercedes, etc. used to classified economically as "durable goods". Today, I imagine they are all lumped in with with "consumer/commodity items". Build in obsolescence with a pinch of technology and a dash of peer pressure makes for a vibrant economy....for the countries that actually MANUFACTURE things anymore.
Sorry, feeling a bit nostalgic as I dig through my vintage film camera collection today.
Seems to me that the pace of technological change drives how long things last. Most things don't stop working, they just become unsuitable for the task based on advances in technology.
That old cloths washer might still work as well as the day that it was made but it uses twice as much water as the newer front loader. Maybe if it hadn't been made so well it would have been replaced years ago and the world would be a slightly better place.
Ah for the good old days when men cared clubs and had brains the size of walnuts!
Sandy
If they can sell a $7 module for $37 then they should be profitable soon.
And it gets worse - a couple of months ago I had to ditch my perfectly working Sony Ericsson K810 mobile phone, a perfect phone in many ways. Long battery time, the right size, non-slippery surface. The reason? The carrier forced me to update the SIM card because they introduced 4G in my town. That phone doesn't need it or use it. *I* don't need it. The new SIM card works in my hometown, but it does not work in that phone when in Japan! Unlike the old SIM card. The new SIM card works in a new smartphone though. Go figure. That new phone needs to be charged daily and is a pain to use compare to the old K810. I don't need the smartness. I need buttons, to type text messages, not the on-screen tiny buttons. So now the K810, one of the best phones I've ever used, is just another item in the pile of perfectly fine phones in the drawer.
If I could, I would set up a company called "General Products" that *only* produced long-lasting, high-quality products. They wouldn't need to be cheap. I have bought stuff in my youth which was so expensive I had to save for six months or a year to buy it, when I could have bought something cheaper the same day. Turns out the price doesn't matter, because due to the quality they work perfectly fine to this day. Never had to buy another. A company turning out only those kind of products would be able to survive just fine I think, it's just that it probably couldn't be a public company due to the short-sightedness of shareholders (or even boards).
-Tor
I'm not sure which is worse, increased water consumption or the 3 generations of "durable goods" items taken to landfills for each 30 year old "durable good" item. You are right, maybe if it hadn't been for planned obsolescence, fashionable appliances or technological one-upmanship, the world would be a slightly better place. Sometimes, you do get water savings and energy savings and safer materials, other times, you just get cool colors or features that your neighbors don't have yet that you will probably never really use. I guess we'll never know which world would be a slightly better place.
Maybe walnuts were bigger in the good old days, "half gallons" of ice cream and other things that are shrinking in the modern world!
"futile gasp of bittersweet air so they can live one last day in the sun grasping at fleeting memories of their halcyon days"
Is that what you were searching for?
Sandy,
My wife and I are holding onto our 30-year-old (at least) washer & dryer for as long as I can keep them going. I agree that the new units save water and energy, but...
We have a dishwasher with the electronic controls. We gave up trying to do anything special because it's hard to figure out what's going to happen with just a few led's. So it's set to "1-hour wash".
The new front loader washers (and matching dryers) need pedestals to be usable, and they're not cheap.
Why are devices that are used in poor lighting designed with low-contrast and small font text for the controls? My wife has less-than-optimal vision so this is a big issue.
And the new units have umpteen gazillion options. Of which we'll end up using exactly one. Looks really impressive in the store, I guess. We prefer the old-fashioned dials, which are still available on some of the new top-loaders and dryers... but aren't that much more efficient to make up the purchase cost (unless, of course, our units bite the dust).
I'm all for energy efficiency, and I don't have a problem with technology. But there are a lot of people out there that don't need the whiz-bang features or controls and just need an easy-to-use appliance.
Maybe something like a Jitterbug phone.
Or a washer-wringer
Walter
But now the new front loader experiment is growing Mold.
Consumers Charge Defects in Front-Load Washing Machines Lead to Mold and Mildew: http://www.lieffcabraser.com/Case-Center/Front-Loading-Washer-Litigation.shtml