After purchasing the top two Wirecutter picks for electric kettles (Cuisinart and some gooseneck kettle) both died within a year. The gooseneck one was rusted on arrival, clearly awful build quality.
I decided to try paying much more for a Fellow Stagg EKG, and it was a great decision. It’s lasted over 3 years and has been an absolute joy to use compared to the prior mass market garbage.
I often wish for a Wirecutter-like site that prioritizes quality and especially longevity above all else. Wirecutter always focused too much on cost, and even their “upgrade picks” tend to suffer awful quality issues. For years their top blender pick was an Oster that had hundreds of angry reviews about dying within months. Wirecutter ignored the feedback for years despite so many people streaming into their own comments section to vent about it.
Honestly, I had spent 20 years in the US and we consistently bought the cheapest appliances ever.
When I bought my house I finally said "screw it, let's see what decent appliances look like".
Japanese rice cooker set me back $95 and I thought I would never hear the end of it, and after 4 years, it had already paid itself off (we were doing $14 rice cookers every 6 months). Air fryer was $70 but the previous $40 only lasted 13 months. Basic coffee maker was like $60 but made non-burnt coffee. A little combo oven/toaster is what I ended up on since we had one in the last apartment since we never used a full oven.
The ones that are honestly pretty difficult to find were dishwasher but one of our friends suggested bosch because we wanted a quiet appliance.
There's also just a... man, I don't know how to describe it. Kind of a mental benefit to using slightly nicer things.
When I was young, almost everything I owned was the cheapest possible version of that thing. Everything just kind of sucked, brutally cost-optimized to the point of being somewhat nasty to use and barely functional.
I was still very fortunate: I had food to eat, clothes, etc. A lot of kids in the world would have traded places with me.
Now that I'm older, I have no interest in "luxury" goods, but there's that subtle intangible benefit to using e.g. the $95 rice cooker vs. the $14 rice cooker. You feel like somebody who's worth more than the cheapest possible piece of disposable shit, I guess. Or at least I do.
It makes better rice, too, of course. And there's the ecological benefit of not tossing a $14 rice cooker into the landfill every couple of months. But there's also a bit of self worth involved, or something.
In the US, the $95 cooker lasts no longer, and works no better, than the $25 unit. (There is no $14 one.) You might be able to do better with a Japanese brand, but it is vanishingly unlikely you will get the same one as they would have sold in Japan, unless you actually get it shipped from there.
I make rice in a saucepan on the range top. I have to come back and turn it off when it's done. Otherwise, it is the same. If you care about how good your rice is, you are starting with short-grain rice. Or red, or black, or arborio for risotto.
I've had a Zojirushi for 20 years, and my mom has had hers for 30. Probably paid $250 when new. We use it nearly every day. My kids know how to make rice with it, and it comes out perfect every time. I wouldn't trust a ten year old to make rice on the stove, but they can do it with a rice cooker no problem.
They can do it with your exact rice cooker, no problem.
I grew up with Zojirushi rice cookers. They always worked. The last one I bought sputtered starch water all over the counter. Stuff you can buy in the US today is not the same as what we could buy even 20 years ago.
The one I bought from them 4 or 5 years ago is great. Same with the water boiler. But I made sure to purchase models that are still made in Japan —- not all of their models are.
I bought them off Amazon, do sourcing isn’t difficult, but some research might be in order if you want Japanese manufacturing. You’ll pay more for these models as well — they aren’t the cheap or maybe even middle-priced options... (I believe my rice cooker was nearly $300, 5 or so years ago...)
For kitchen stuff, America's Test Kitchen has amazing equipment reviews.
In addition to their testing process itself, they actually dogfood their advice by using their own picks in their test kitchen so they get used by tons of people way more often than any testing process could accomplish so they can get a real sense of how good a recommendation holds up over time.
Last Yule I bought a toaster for my brother. All of them felt kinda like crap, flimsy cheap, scratchy action... I was not even looking at cheapest but something I imagine to be reasonably mid-range that is around 50€ mark. After all it is a moving platform, some heating elements and case. Not at all complicated.
Commercial toasters (and, I imagine, commercial electric kettles) are 'good' in the sense of being well-built and long-lasting. I've got a 1980s Dualit toaster which is essentially bomb-proof (the clockwork timer will eventually stop working but is easily replaced; even the elements can be readily changed out if they get damaged).
Of course, the downside is that new ones start at £150 or so. So it's difficult to make a financial case (as opposed to an aesthetic, or a principled one) over a £10 special from Tesco.
The problem with ‘commercial’ kitchen equipment is that most of it is just up branded domestic equipment.
When you do buy ‘commercial’ kitchen equipment you’ll notice lots of things that are just downright worse. Energy efficiency, safety features, and noise reduction are all things that are _way_ worse than with their domestic counterparts.
"Real" commercial kitchen equipment is often totally different.
Commercial fridges will stay cool even if their door is opened 20 times an hour. Commercial glass washers take a tenth of the time a home dishwasher takes. And if they're noisy, ugly and they need to be cleaned every day without fail, that's just normal commercial equipment.
I bought a store brand 9A kettle and it's fine [1]. They're simple products and shouldn't break unless you have very hard water, in which case a round of vinegar should clean that. What are you running into?
