[Electronics-Talk] My Microwave Shopping Experience

[Ray Foret jr]

Now this is a very interesting post.  To my mind, this demonstrates quite effectively the difference between accessibility and actual usability.  I think that too many of us confuse the two and, in  our minds, we reckon that if it doesn’t talk, it cannot be used at all by a blind person.  Not so, so says my own and apparently your own actual experience.


Sent from my Mac, The Only computer with full accessibility for the blind built-in

Sincerely, The Constantly Barefooted Ray,

Still a very happy Comcast XFinity Voice Guidance, Mac, Verizon Wireless iPhone7+ and Apple TV user!

> On Nov 5, 2016, at 6:38 AM, Gerald Levy via Electronics-Talk <electronics-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> A few days ago, I posted an announcement on this list that BlindMiceMart had the Magic Chef talking microwave oven on sale for $314.49.  By some amazing coincidence or maybe just bad luck, that very evening, when I pressed the Start key on my 15-year-old Panasonic microwave to reheat some leftover rice for dinner, I heard a loud zap like a bolt of lightning, and suddently, poof, just like that, this trusty kitchen workhorse went completely dead.  I guess some Halloween gremlins must have infiltrated it, and it bit the dust forever.  Anyway, because I cannot function well in the kitchen without a microwave, I immediately went to work researching a new unit online. Fortunately, Home Depot had Magic Chef microwaves on sale, and I was able to download and read the PDF manuals for a few models I was interested in from their web site.  The following mornig, my sighted lady friend and I and her sister, who has been staying with us, proceeded downtown to the Home Depot store on 23rd Street in Chelsea, just down the block from Selis Manor, the residence for the thblind in front of which a terrorist bomb exploded in September.  I figured this particular store had a lot of experience dealing with blind customers.  We were greeted by a very helpful salesman who showed us the three Magic Chef models I was interested in.  I finally settled on the Magic Chef HCD1110B 1.1 cubic foot 1000 watt microwave, which was on sale for $59.88.  This model is essentially the conventional equivalent of the talking model sold by BlindMiceMart and other merchants.  Although the carton was bulky and weighed about 30 pounds, the three of us managed to lug it home in the subway.  Really.  I unpacked the carton, placed the new microwave on my microwave cart in place of the old one, and plugged it in.  To my great relief, it beeped immediately to indicate that it was working.  My lady friend placed tactilemarkers on the Start, Stop,Popcorn, and numpad 5 and 0 keys, and I’m back in business.  I can easily set the cooking time by touch and make microwave popcorn with a single touch of the Popcorn key.  By repeatedly pressing the Start key, the cooking time can be increased in 30 second increments up to a maximum of 5 minutes.  So to set the cooking time for 3 minutes, all I have to do is press the start button six times.  What could be easier?  I use my microwave mostly for reheating and cooking salmon and TV dinners.  Magic Chef is apparently the house brand for Home Depot, and they have a range of models from 0.7 cubic feet to 1.6 cubic feet.  All models share the same flat membrane touchpad with similar key layouts which can be labeled with tactile markers as desired.  Just out of curiosity, I checked the instruction manual for the Magic Chef talking microwave and was absolutely shocked at its dearth of features.  Unlike my new conventional Magic Chef, which had five one-touch cooking keys (beverage, dinner plate, pizza, potato and popcorn), plus four auto cook keys and an auto defrost function, the talking Magic Chef has no such features.  It just has tactile keys to set the cooking time and clock, and that’s about it.  It doesn’t even have a display for the benefit of sighted users.  And setting the cooking time on this unit sounds like a royal pain.  So for $315 on sale and $370 when it isn’t, the Magic Chef talking microwave is one of the biggest ripoffs in the blindness products arena.  How can the blindness merchats justify selling this model for five times the price of my conventional Magic Chef microwave, which has more features and is easier to use?  As my experience demonstrates, it is still possible to find a reasonably priced microwave with a membrane touchpad that can be made accessible with tactile markers. There is no need to spend hundreds of dollars for a unit with speech output.  If MCA International Inc., the Chinese company that produces kitchen appliances under the Magic Chef brand name can make a conventional 1.1 cubic foot model that sells for $60, there is absolutely no reason why a talking model of similar size and wattage from the same company should cost five or six times as much.  This is pure price gouging by the blindness products merchants, plain and simple, and we blind consumers need not be taken advantage of.
> 
> Gerald 
> 
> 
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