What companies make good air fryers? What models are good?
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I’m not sure a high temperature oven with a convection fan can truly be “buy it for life”, the fan is going to die eventually, it’s got a lifespan built in by physics. No form of maintenance-free lubrication or magnetic bearing is going to be able to survive such extreme temperatures for very long. As far as I know they’re usually built on sacrificial bearings. Without frequent replacement or maintenance it’s just not practical to keep the moving parts moving forever, and nobody wants to do regular oil changes on their oven or dig into its guts to replace a fan. Should we? Maybe. But I’m not sure if anyone is even attempting to cater to that market.
In general, the more expensive the appliance and the more significant of an installation it requires, the more likely people will go to more extensive lengths to repair it. From that point of view, a proper convection oven is likely to be more repairable than a small desktop air fryer. You can get an appliance technician to come to your house to replace the fan on your convection oven, not so much on an air fryer. And at the end of the day, they’re pretty close to the same thing. Just one is bigger and more repairable. You might need to adapt recipes a bit.
I’m not sure a high temperature oven with a convection fan can truly be “buy it for life”
This community also allows for things that won’t literally last forever. Just lasting significantly longer than average is enough :)
i’ve always thought of buy it for life ethos as rejecting disposability
Agree 100%.
Everything can be bought for life if we die early /s
Of course physics apply, I’m not asking for science fiction. I’ll just replace the fan. But before I choose a product, I want to find a good option.
No electrical device is literally “for life”, but there are still some that last a long time.
Sorry if I came across as pedantic, I was just trying to be clear about the main design obstacle it faces. Also I know edits don’t always come across properly across the Fediverse, but I tried to provide more practical advice in the second paragraph:
In general, the more expensive the appliance and the more significant of an installation it requires, the more likely people will go to more extensive lengths to repair it. From that point of view, a proper convection oven is likely to be more repairable than a small desktop air fryer. You can get an appliance technician to come to your house to replace the fan on your convection oven, not so much on an air fryer. And at the end of the day, they’re pretty close to the same thing. Just one is bigger and more repairable. You might need to adapt recipes a bit.
I don’t have a specific brand or model to recommend so I can only offer general advice, sorry if it’s unwelcome, I’m not trying to be unhelpful or rude.
Interesting, I cannot see the 2nd paragraph for some reason. Thanks for pointing that out.
My Cuisinart air flyer is pretty nice. It’s mostly a toaster oven, but adding a fan to a toaster oven is easy, so it does double duty. It’s not particularly repairable, and they don’t sell individual parts. The coils are a little weaker than they used to be, but it’s not too bad. Maybe not “for life”, but 10 years of near daily use is a pretty good run in this context.
Oddly enough, Alton Brown’s latest YouTube upload of Alton Brown Cooks is a DIY project of building your own air fryer using hot air guns and it immediately came to mind seeing the thread.
IMHO they are pretty useless once the novelty wears off. You use it a few times and put it in the closet. So even a cheap model will be BIFL.
I have an air fryer and probably use it every 2 to 3 weeks. Depends on what you cook, it’s great for reheating things quickly that you don’t want to wait for the oven for.
I felt the same way until my wife talked me into one. We use it almost every day now (it’s great for veggies, so much faster than my convection oven). I bought a cheapish one and am now regretting it since it’s broken and become uncleanably messy. So this is a well timed thread, since I’m looking for a new one.
Not really. I use mine every day, but I’ve been given a cheap one from someome getting a larger model and that thing isn’t good quality and starts falling apart.
So now I want to get a decent unit now that I know I use it all the time.
Not Cosori, or maybe ours is defective. Had a Cuisinart one that made the best sweet potato fries from scratch fast, but a switch in it went defective, apparently common breakdown and very difficult to fix.
i had a gourmia before because it was on sale.
avoid it.
they made it hard to repair by design.
