Michael Hession/NYT Wirecutter

The Gulaki Neck Fan is a simple but effective cooling device that sits comfortably around your neck, directing gentle wafts of wind up toward your head. With three speed settings and a ring of 72 air slots for the fan to exhaust through, it can cover everything above your neck without blowing directly into your face (which would be annoying).

Plus, you can hold down the power button and turn each end of the neck fan into a fun color-changing LED light show. Who wouldn’t want that?

It has one of the best fan-speed ranges we’ve seen. With three power settings, the Gulaki fan can go from a subtle breeze at 1.3 mph to a powerful gust at nearly twice that speed. It’s one of the most powerful fans we’ve tested, tied with our upgrade pick, the Torras Coolify 2S. By contrast, the fan on our also-great pick, the Egopp 1S Cool Down, maxed out at 1.3 mph.

It’s also especially easy to use. The Gulaki fan has only one large button, on the front right side to cycle through the fan speeds. The button is recessed just enough that most people should be able to find it by feel without having to remove the neck fan and look for the spot to press. Most of the other models we evaluated had small rectangular buttons, often hidden on the underside or back of the fan, that were difficult to locate and activate without our taking the fan off to look for them.

The fan’s streamlined style is both subtle and comfortable. It has a discreet design that doesn’t attract much more attention than if you were wearing a pair of over-the-ear headphones around your neck; in fact, several people mistook the Gulaki fan for a pair of Beats headphones when they saw it.

It weighs only about a half a pound. You’ll barely even notice it while wearing it, and its 8.5-inch diameter should allow it to comfortably fit around most necks without sticking to sweaty skin. It’s available in a variety of colors as well.

The rechargeable battery should have just enough juice to get you through the day. Like most of the fans we tested, the Gulaki fan comes with a 4,000 mAh lithium-ion battery that can last up to 16 hours or so, depending on the fan-speed setting. It’s a particularly good companion for a full workday, especially if you work outdoors.

It usually costs around $30, about the same as other, similar neck fans. Plenty of other brands sell nearly identical (or maybe even entirely identical) devices for around the same price—including the Penkou Portable Neck Fan, which we previously recommended as our top pick. Like those other models, the Gulaki fan doesn’t come with a warranty. But if it’s any consolation, our test unit was durable enough to survive several drops off a moving bicycle and onto the pavement. (Oops.)

Did we mention that it also has color-changing LEDs? Hold down the power button on the Gulaki fan, and the circle at each headphone-style rounded end illuminates in a fun, ever-shifting LED light display. Yes, it’s sort of silly. But so is wearing a fan around your neck. You may as well go all the way and have some fun with it. Unless you hate fun, in which case, you can just not turn the lights on. (Our previous top pick, the Penkou fan, looks and performs identically to the Gulaki model, minus the LED option. It doesn’t save you any money, though.)

Michael Hession/NYT Wirecutter

Neck fans in general can sound sort of annoying, but the Gulaki fan is the quietest model we found. In our tests, we measured the volume of the Gulaki fan at 46 decibels on the lowest setting and up to about 56 decibels on high—quieter than any other fan we tested, and comfortably below “normal” conversation levels. The noise isn’t particularly bothersome, either, even though the fan is essentially blowing straight at your ears. If you wear headphones with it on, as I did while walking or working, it’s basically unnoticeable.

That said, the volume of the fan at higher speeds can interfere with conversations a bit. I already have some auditory-processing problems to begin with, so sometimes it would take me a moment to realize that the problem was the fan, not just me. Keep it running on low, however, and you should be fine.

It is still a relatively low-cost neck fan. We hope that anyone shopping at the low end of the neck fan market is not bringing a discerning eye for high-quality craftsmanship. You’ll find no impressive feats of design or engineering here to celebrate. The Gulaki fan has tested well for us and outperformed other models in its price range. We’ve seen an uptick in quality since these devices debuted, but their longevity in general remains a question mark, and at this price, there’s a chance that the Gulaki fan’s components won’t last.

It’s just 8 a.m., and the sun is already punishing. Shahbaz Ali, a 32-year-old ride-hailing motorcycle driver, is drenched in sweat before his day has even begun.

Sleep deprived from regular power outages in the hot weather, he heads off into the choking traffic of Karachi, Pakistan’s main port city, for nearly 12 hours of work. By midday, temperatures can exceed 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius), with high humidity along the Arabian Sea pushing the heat index past 115.

“It feels like living in a furnace,” Mr. Ali said one day last month, steering his motorcycle over uneven roads as I rode on the back. “But what choice do I have? If I stop working, my family won’t eat.”

Down comforters

If you want a great goose-down comforter that’s almost as nice as our Feathered Friends pick: The L.L.Bean Baffle-Box Stitch Goose Down Comforter Warm is a former top pick. And, next to the Feathered Friends comforter, this is the best one we’ve ever tried. But it’s often sold out. We still think it’s well worth the investment if you don’t need it right away.

If our other picks sell out and you’re willing to put up with possible delays: The Riley White Goose Down Comforter is another former top pick, and we still think it’s a good comforter: It’s warm and durable, with no feather leaks or damage in testing. But the comforter is heavier than the Brooklinen, it isn’t as lofty as the Feathered Friends, and it’s often sold out.

If you and your partner sleep at different temperatures: We initially thought The Company Store’s LaCrosse Premium Down Light to Medium Warmth Down Comforter was a gimmick, but it seems to work. The comforter is split down the middle, and one side has less fill and smaller sewn-through boxes than the other, to keep it cooler for hot sleepers. It’s available in a light/medium and medium/extra weight. If you don’t like the idea of using separate twin comforters, European-style, this could be a good alternative.

If you want luxury and don’t mind waiting for a sale: The Garnet Hill Signature White Down Duvet – Medium was among the best we’ve tested in the past few years. The medium weight is lofty and warm but not too hot, and it feels super-light to sleep under. But it’s usually about $100 more than our Brooklinen pick. If you’re looking to invest in something that is a step above the Brooklinen comforter, we think you’d be better off going with our Feathered Friends pick, which feels much loftier. However, Garnet Hill has frequent sales throughout the year. If you can wait until this comforter is discounted, it’s an absolute steal for the quality. It also comes in Light and Winter weights.

If you need a colorful comforter in a twin XL: Like the Garnet Hill Essential Down comforter we recommend, The Company Store’s LaCrosse Premium Down Light Warm Comforter doesn’t need a duvet cover. Overall we prefer the Garnet Hill comforter because of its lower price, feel, weight, and construction. But the LaCrosse comforter comes in a longer twin XL size for dorm rooms (or tall teenagers), and it’s available in more colors (which change throughout the year).

Down alternative

If you’re a hot sleeper but still like the weight of a comforter: Even though SleepNumber’s True Temp Blanket is called a blanket, it feels more like a light comforter, and it drapes on the bed like a comforter. I spent months using it without a duvet cover, and it was consistently cooler than any other lightweight comforter I’ve tested. I’ve also washed it several times, and it’s durable. It didn’t completely eliminate my hot sleeping—I still moved around in the night to find cool spots as my body heat warmed it up—but it kept me comfortable through several seasons on its own or layered with a cotton sheet.

The outer fabric is 80% cotton and 20% “polyester with 37.5 technology” according to the website’s description, and the fill is polyester also made with 37.5. I can’t say whether the SleepNumber blanket kept me cooler because that technology really works (I’ve tested sheets with 37.5 and been unimpressed with them) or just because it’s thin and mostly cotton on the outside. But it did work well for me.

Even though it’s thinner than any of our picks, it still has some heft. I’m going through perimenopause, so I sleep hot, but I also love to be buried under a pile of covers when the weather cools. The True Temp gave me a nice balance of both, especially when I wrapped up like a burrito in it and left my husband to fend for himself with whatever covers were left. It isn’t as cool to the touch as the Rest Evercool Comforter, but for a top layer on the bed I prefer the SleepNumber blanket. The Rest comforter was so slippery that in testing I spent a lot of time pulling it up off the floor during the night. The SleepNumber blanket just stays put, and it looks better when the bed is made.

Other materials

If you’re looking for a wool comforter: Coyuchi’s Climate Beneficial Wool Duvet Insert is the best of the two wool comforters we’ve tested. It is warm enough for winter but breathable enough to use in summer on cooler nights. You can machine-wash this comforter, on a delicate cycle, but it needs to air-dry. I spread out the tester over an ironing board and left it for a couple of days, and it dried completely with no wet animal smell (which can happen with wool or down if damp). It’s normally nearly $600 for a queen size, though. And since we’ve tested just two wool comforters, we’re not ready to declare one of these pricey investments a pick until we’ve tried a few more. But if you want a wool comforter now, so far we think this one is excellent.

If you’re looking for a silk comforter: J-Life’s Kakefuton/Kakebuton is a Japanese-style comforter made by an American company. It’s filled with mulberry silk, and the outer shell fabric is polyester. This is the only silk comforter I’ve tested so far. I don’t have anything to compare it to yet, and I have questions about the ethics and sustainability of silk comforters in general. But it was cozy to sleep under during the transition from winter to spring temperatures in 2025 (the polyester shell makes it a little hot for warmer weather). It’s thinner than a down comforter but not as flat as the wool comforters I’ve tested, and it had a nice drape and weight.

Michael Murtaugh/NYT Wirecutter

The Coyuchi Pebbled Handstitched Organic Quilt has been a pick in our blankets guide since 2020, and it’s still one of the best quilts you can buy. It comes in a few earth-toned colors that change seasonally; matching shams are available.

Why it’s great

It’s a quilt for all seasons. The Coyuchi quilt combines a simple design with high-quality materials and beautiful craftsmanship. It’s an excellent year-round bed topper—cool on the skin in summer, toasty enough on its own for spring and fall, and easy to layer with a comforter during the winter.

Each quilt is unique. That’s because, while the seams around the edges are machine-sewn, the quilting is done by hand in India using embroidery floss, which is thicker than thread but thinner than yarn. The result is a simplified, modern version of the colorful Bangladesh and India kantha quilts that inspired this design—with contrasting stitches that are not all consistently sized or spaced. They give the surface a gently stippled look after it’s been washed.

The stitching on the Coyuchi Pebbled Handstitched Organic Quilt (shown here in the undyed fabric option) uses thick, multicolored embroidery floss. Michael Murtaugh/NYT Wirecutter

It’s made with soft, long-staple cotton. Long-staple cotton tends to have a better feel and lasts longer. This is why we look for long-staple or extra-long-staple cottons in our picks. It’s not listed in the specs, but the company’s design director, Whitney Thornburg, told us Coyuchi uses long-staple cotton for this quilt. The cotton for both the outer fabric and the inner batting is organic and GOTS-certified. Note, however, that organic cotton isn’t necessarily softer, more durable, or even better for the environment, than regular cotton.

It’s durable and easy to wash. I tested the king size, and it was easy to launder in my home washer and dryer (although it did take a few hours to fully dry). In testing, the quilt was durable and maintained its good looks through several washings, plus all of my attempts to destroy it, including repeated abrasion tests and a good tug-of-war with my dog.

It has a generous return policy. Coyuchi accepts returns within 30 days for a full refund (even on used items) and within 365 days for store credit. The company also offers a recycling option for your worn-out quilts through its Take Back Program (which we haven’t tested yet).

Flaws but not dealbreakers

It’s expensive. Like the Garnet Hill Agnes Linen Quilt, the Coyuchi quilt is almost twice the price of The Company Store’s Company Cotton Voile Quilt, but you’re getting something that will possibly last a lifetime.

There aren’t many colors or sizes to choose from. It comes in only a few subdued colors, and it’s not available in twin or California king sizes.

Key specs

Sizes: full/queen, king

Colors: three; colors vary seasonally

Materials: organic cotton fabric and organic cotton batting

CAIRA: Well, now I want to know what’s better about a $120,000 stove than the one that’s like, I don’t know —

RACHEL: Beyoncé owns it. La Cornue.

CAIRA: Of course she does.

RACHEL: It comes in pretty colors.

CAIRA: Is it made of gold?

RACHEL: Actually, yes, it is.

CAIRA: Of course it is.

RACHEL: Yeah.

CHRISTINE: I’m Christine Cyr Clisset.

CAIRA: I’m Caira Blackwell.

ROSIE: I’m Rosie Guerin, and you’re listening to The Wirecutter Show.

CHRISTINE: This episode is called: “The Death of Durable Appliances.”

CHRISTINE: Caira.

CAIRA: Christine.

CHRISTINE: We’re the only people in the studio today.

CAIRA: Rosie needs to stop leaving us unsupervised.

CHRISTINE: Actually, though, Rosie has been dealing with something that we’re going to talk about today. Her refrigerator broke a couple weeks ago —

CAIRA: I know.

CHRISTINE: — and she had to deal with it.

CAIRA: That sucked. I think her refrigerator was out for, like, a week.

CHRISTINE: Which is so inconvenient. If you have a family, you’re trying to cook, what are you supposed to do? You don’t have a fridge. I have honestly heard this from a bunch of people over the last couple of years; I’ve had several friends whose refrigerators have just died. They’ve come home, the fridge is dead, all the food is rotten. And I think a lot of people end up in a situation where they’re like, “Do I fix it? Do I just replace it?” There’s this whole cost analysis that happens. And this relates to a piece that I just finished editing with our senior staff writer Rachel Wharton, who specializes in large kitchen appliances.

CAIRA: Love Rachel.

CHRISTINE: She’s awesome. And she spent the last six months doing this very intense deep dive to answer the question of whether appliances die faster than they used to.

CAIRA: I need her to answer this question, because I’m so tired of hearing my parents say, “They don’t make things like they used to.” They don’t sound like that, but that’s how they sound in my head.

CHRISTINE: Well, I mean, I hope they’re listening, and they can fact-check you on this, but yeah, I think it’s a common belief that people have, that appliances die sooner than they used to. And the interesting thing about Rachel’s piece is that the answer is pretty complicated. There’s a lot of nuance to it, and I think that a lot of listeners will be surprised by some of the answers.

CAIRA: Oh, man. I wanted it to be simple, cut-and-dried —

CHRISTINE: Never.

CAIRA: — but I’m really interested to hear about this. So when we’re back, we’re going to talk with Rachel Wharton about some of the biggest reasons your fridge, or your stove, or your washing machine, or dishwasher may not last more than a decade.

CHRISTINE: And a little later we’ll get Rachel’s best advice for how to buy appliances that really can last decades, because they do still make these. We’ll be right back.

CAIRA: Welcome back. With us now is Rachel Wharton, who is a large kitchen appliance writer who has a master’s degree in food studies from NYU, where she currently teaches graduate-level food writing. She has also co-authored more than a dozen cookbooks, and she’s won a James Beard award for her food writing. So cool.

CHRISTINE: Welcome to the show, Rachel.

RACHEL: Thank you so much for having me.

CHRISTINE: You and I have been talking a lot lately, because I have been one of your editors on this feature that we’re going to talk about today. So I hope you’re not sick of me.

RACHEL: No, not at all.

CAIRA: You don’t have to lie to her.

CHRISTINE: Rachel, you really have an interesting background for reviewing kitchen appliances. You’re the type of writer we’re really lucky to get at Wirecutter, where you have this very deep well of knowledge about your topic. So I’m really curious, because we in our office do not have a setup where you can test big ovens and refrigerators. So that means that you actually have to review these large appliances in a different way than most of our writers — you’re not getting everything in the office and testing. So tell us, how do you go about reviewing all of these large kitchen appliances?

RACHEL: I spend a lot of time walking around the aisles at Home Depot, and Lowe’s, and showrooms. I cobble it together by spending as much time as possible where these appliances live, opening them up, and hoping that the guy who works at Lowe’s isn’t going to get mad at me for taking the bottom of the GE oven out. Every time he would turn the corner, I’d take it in and put it out, and I’d open them and turn the knobs. And anytime I visit any friend, I’m like, “Oh, what fridge do you have? What stove do you have?” And I just cobble it all together in that way, and go to trade shows and spend more time than anyone else at those trade shows in the little showrooms they have set up, and one way or another I make it work.

CHRISTINE: And you’re also relying pretty heavily on —

RACHEL: Reporting.

CHRISTINE: — research and reporting, right?

RACHEL: Yes.

CHRISTINE: So tell us about that. How do you find out about durability, and what people are liking and not liking about certain appliances?

RACHEL: I talk to everybody. I talk to repair people and product designers, and I talk to literally everyone I know about what they own and what they have, and the issues that they find. And I just keep my eyes and ears open, because everybody has a stove, an oven, a microwave. Everybody has these things, so everyone is a source.

CHRISTINE: That’s awesome.

CAIRA: I love that. So you just finished this reporting on this epic deep dive on why appliances don’t last as long as they used to, which I think that’s something a lot of people have been suspecting. I know that I hear my parents and my grandparents talk about it all the time, but it’s not like the average person has much proof. Did you always assume that to be true? Why did you choose to do this piece in the first place, after years of using kitchen appliances?

RACHEL: So around last year, there were all kinds of stories and consumer surveys about how appliances weren’t lasting as long, according to the people who said their appliances weren’t lasting as long. And there were a bunch of consumer market-research reports that said the same thing, but they didn’t have any background data whether it was really happening, and if so, why. And I’m a reporter, and I’m like, “A, is this even true? Do they not last as long? And B, if not, what’s going on?” And I just wanted to answer those questions.

CAIRA: Okay, so can you spoil it for us? What did you find? Are appliances less durable than say, 20 or 30 years ago?

RACHEL: Well, definitely 40, 50 years ago. Breaking news, appliances do not last as long as they used to.

CAIRA: So people are right.

RACHEL: But it’s not by anywhere near as long as people used to think they lasted.

CAIRA: Then the why is the real question. It’s not like a whodunit, it’s a why done it.

RACHEL: Why done it, yes. Every bit of this surprised me. Nothing was what I expected to learn, which is always the case, and that’s why this is fun. One of my favorite quotes is, one guy was like, “Everybody thinks about that one 50-year-old fridge in their grandparents’ basement, and they don’t remember the other 4.5 million from that period that are now in the landfill.” Lifespan has gone down, but most everyone I spoke to said it was never 30, 40, 50 years. It was, like, 20 at most, 10 or 15. So it’s going down, but not by anywhere near as much as people think.

CHRISTINE: Rachel, I think one reason that a lot of people would assume that appliances don’t last as long as they used to is planned obsolescence. And that’s the business practice where corporations are intentionally designing products to break faster so that you’ll buy more, and just feed this consumer train that happens, that we live around.

CAIRA: Capitalism.

CHRISTINE: Capitalism, yes, thank you. Thank you, Caira. So your finding was much more complex than this, right? It wasn’t just planned obsolescence. But how does planned obsolescence play into why appliances don’t last?

RACHEL: I definitely found that planned obsolescence does exist, and like many people I had just assumed that planned obsolescence was truly brands making things to fail at a specific time. But I talked to a lot of people who were product designers who worked for many, many different kinds of brands, and they helped me define what it really means in the industry, which is that they design products to last a certain lifetime. So they do have a target lifetime, and it’s for the ultimate cost of the product, what they want it to cost at the end. And they usually also target the element of the appliance that’s going to fail first, so they work around those two things. So that’s planned obsolescence. They know that it’s not going to last forever, and that’s how they do it.

CHRISTINE: Even though they could design these things … if they weren’t designing for the weakest element, they could take an approach where they make something that lasts a lot longer, right?

RACHEL: Yes. And as part of my reporting, I really wanted to talk to the super high-end luxury-appliance makers, stoves that cost $125,000 —

CAIRA: Oh my God.

RACHEL: — because I wanted to hear what they did. How did they ensure that their things would last forever? And I also talked to product designers who make similar kinds of appliances for the medical industry, where they cannot fail. So I knew that it was possible, and I also talked to people who restore old stoves to learn how those are made, to see … with the same resources and tools, we could make an appliance that lasted forever.

CHRISTINE: So it’s possible, technically. We have the technology to make things last forever, or close to it, but most people are not going to have access to those —

RACHEL: And they cost a lot. They would cost a lot more, too.

CHRISTINE: That’s right.

RACHEL: Most of the time. People who study product obsolescence actually break it down into multiple kinds, which is really cool. And one of the ones that’s most prescient to this conversation is psychological, which is where it’s actually us. We want the new product, we want the new product because we think it’s cool, or trendy, or hot. So, even if our old one still works, we are choosing to replace it with something that we want more.

CHRISTINE: That sounds like something we’re all dealing with all the time, for all products.

RACHEL: Yeah.

CAIRA: It’s funny to put it in the light of large kitchen appliances, though, because as somebody who’s renting, I’m not thinking like, “Oh, I want the fancy new oven,” but I could totally see that allure.

CHRISTINE: You have to live with certain things when you rent, but when you own, you can switch it up if you want.

RACHEL: Yes. And so, designs are now increasingly modern. So you want the modern look, you don’t want the side-by-side fridge that has the obviously 1997 dispenser.

CHRISTINE: Right, exactly.

RACHEL: Yeah, I heard from a lot of people that what’s happening is when people renovate their kitchens, maybe you didn’t use to replace your appliances, but now when people renovate — which happens maybe every six to eight years in American homes — people are getting a new appliance too at the same time.

CAIRA: Six to eight years. What are we, millionaires?

RACHEL: Well, there’s no place to move, so everyone’s just renovating.

CHRISTINE: Yeah, so they’re reinvesting in their current house. Yeah.

RACHEL: It’s funny, the real estate … I’ve heard from so many people, also, how real estate is so tied to appliance sales and renovation, and what people do.

CHRISTINE: That makes a lot of sense. So beyond obsolescence, you found four major reasons why appliances are less durable. Efficiency and safety regulations have changed the way appliances are made, price wars from international competition have influenced durability, appliances have become more like computers, which we’re going to get into a bit. And then, repairability is now complicated, probably because of all of the factors we just mentioned. So let’s talk about those four points, one by one. Let’s start with efficiency and safety regulations. How has that decreased durability of appliances?

RACHEL: Well, first I just want to say that every single service technician I spoke to was like, “Rachel, don’t even get me started. It’s the government.” That was their immediate answer. I was like, “Why don’t they last as long as they used to?” “It’s the government.” So it wasn’t until, really, the early 2000s, and that’s when you started seeing changes. So appliances had to meet efficiency standards, which is both the fuel that they use and the water that they use. And so they had to do all kinds of modifications to make that happen, making them lighter weight, all kinds of other stuff.

CHRISTINE: And some of these regulations actually made appliances safer, right?

RACHEL: Oh, yeah. So we no longer have pilot lights in our gas stoves burning away all the time. And refrigerators, and washing machines, and dishwashers are light years more efficient than they used to be. I mean, now we know that hand-washing dishes or hand-washing your clothes uses more resources than these appliances do.

CAIRA: Yeah, that’s so wild.

CHRISTINE: So they’ve made appliances more efficient, they’ve made them in many cases safer, but it’s also meant that manufacturers have had to change the way that they make these appliances. And in some cases it has decreased the longevity of these machines. Certain parts fail faster now, or the materials that they use, they’re just less repairable.

RACHEL: Repairability is the big issue most of the time. So for example, copper is now aluminum, and all the service techs were like, “You could wail against copper with a blowtorch and completely repair it a million times, and just melt it down and put it back together.” And they were like, “Aluminum, you can’t do that at all,” so you basically have to replace the whole piece.

CAIRA: What’s the difference between copper and aluminum in terms of efficiency? How does that make it more efficient?

RACHEL: Aluminum is lighter weight, and lightweight is something that you look for across the board with appliances, because then they they require less energy to be shipped, and they require less energy to do almost everything. Also, aluminum didn’t rust the way copper did. That move did a lot of things, it gave them a lot of benefits.

CAIRA: That makes sense.

CHRISTINE: But it’s just inherently not as repairable as something like copper —

RACHEL: I don’t think you can repair it.

CAIRA: You just have to replace the whole part.

RACHEL: Yeah. So if you have a leak … I mean, I know a lot of people who would call repair people to come fix the leak in their refrigerator every six months, and they just kept the fridge running that way. And now that’s not possible, you can’t keep your fridge running. You would have to pay to get this thing replaced, which is expensive.

CAIRA: At that point, why not just buy a new fridge?

RACHEL: Foreshadowing.

CAIRA: Can you tell us a little bit about how international competition has impacted appliance durability?

RACHEL: Yes. So in my reporting, people told me that there was this really big shift, maybe, like, 2010-ish, when LG and Samsung in particular, probably others, entered the United States market. They had already sold consumer electronics, but they started selling fridges, and stoves, and dishwashers, and they were packed with features that Americans had never seen before. They would have a screen, or they’d have really beautiful lighting inside the fridge, and they also would mess around with the pricing — like, once or twice a year the prices would be just impossibly low. And then everyone started to try to race to actually do both of those things.

CHRISTINE: So they were racing, manufacturers were racing to have more features for less money, essentially.

RACHEL: Exactly, yeah.

CHRISTINE: And an interesting finding in your reporting is that appliances today are actually, when adjusted for inflation, cheaper than they were a couple decades ago, right?

RACHEL: Yes. Almost everyone I spoke to who’s in the industry would scratch their heads, and they would be like, “But my car, when adjusted for inflation, is now, like, $60,000 as opposed to $30,000, and it’s, like, the reverse with my fridge.” Many people would make the point that it’s actually the same price. You can get a fridge for $800 in 1950, you can get a fridge for $800 now, or less.

CHRISTINE: Right, which, when adjusted for inflation, that’s bonkers, right?

RACHEL: Yes, yes.

CHRISTINE: And a lot of that has been caused because of this international competition, where you’ve got these other brands coming in and competing with US manufacturers.

RACHEL: Right. And manufacturers … what I was told was that they have to be able to meet that price and not lose money somehow. And one of the ways you do it is, you think about how your machines are made.

CHRISTINE: And then you end up making your machines with cheaper components to meet that lower cost.

RACHEL: And many people made sure to say that it doesn’t affect the performance, what it often affects is repairability. You use one big, modular plastic piece instead of 10 metal springs. I was just in a repair shop yesterday, and she was showing me the element that changes the heat in your oven from the ’80s, and the one that changes the heat in the oven from the 1960s, and the one now, and there’s increasing amounts of plastic in it and fewer pieces, and they’re less repairable.

CHRISTINE: Okay, so I just want to pause for a minute and recap what we just talked about. So appliances are less durable than they used to be, but they’re not dying as quickly as some people think. Part of the reason is planned obsolescence, but that’s only part of it. There is some intentional designing of these products to last not as long, but it’s not as big of an issue as people might think. And then, a couple of reasons, truly, why these products aren’t lasting as long as they used to are efficiency and safety regulations that have improved the safety and efficiency of our appliances but have just inherently decreased the lifespan and repairability of those appliances. And then, what we just talked about, price wars, the pressures we’ve felt because of these international companies coming in and selling fancier features at less cost.

CAIRA: We’re going to take a quick break, and then when we’re back, we’ll talk through the other reasons appliances are less durable today than they were a few decades ago. Plus, we’ll get Rachel’s best advice for buying appliances that will actually last. Be right back.

CHRISTINE: Welcome back. Before the break we talked about some of the reasons appliances don’t last, planned obsolescence, regulations, and international competition. Now let’s talk about the next reason: Appliances have become much more high-tech. Rachel, how does technology impact the durability of appliances?

RACHEL: Yeah, I mean, I’ve basically been told by everyone, appliances are basically consumer electronics. They just also happen to clean our clothes and keep our food cold. How does that affect them? I mean, we all have phones and computers, how often do you change your phone and your computer? The same issue is with appliances — probably harder, because they have to deal with heat, cold, and humidity.

CAIRA: So, that’s like when we had Michael Sullivan on to talk about kitchen gear that will hopefully last for a lifetime, and he was saying that you can’t really expect your coffee machine or your electric kettle to last as long as something as simple as —

CHRISTINE: Like a cast-iron skillet.

CAIRA: Yeah. Or maybe even a really nice knife set, because the things that have more buttons that deal with heat and cooling just end up breaking faster. It sounds like the same rules apply.

RACHEL: Yes, and a lot of times you don’t even realize that your appliance has these digital computer components, because you tend to think of it as being analog. But these days, primarily because of the regulations, a lot of the tech that’s embedded started because it was to make them incredibly efficient. Compressors that weren’t just on or off, but worked at a set speed, which requires a computer, or sensors that know how much water’s in something, which requires a computer, or fancy lights that make your fridge look prettier, which requires a computer. But we don’t perceive them as being computer-driven, but they are.

CHRISTINE: And so, that’s a huge, huge difference between an appliance you could buy, say, in 1996 versus an appliance you would buy 30 years later, here today in 2025, right?

RACHEL: Yeah, they are loaded with computer boards —

CHRISTINE: They’re loaded with computer boards. And back in the ’90s, even, these appliances didn’t have very many computer components in them.

RACHEL: And there’s increasingly more in them, because our appliances do increasingly more things.

CHRISTINE: Which we love, right?

RACHEL: Yes. The problem is us. I mean, most of us don’t want an appliance that has zero features, that doesn’t have a digital timer display, it doesn’t ding when something’s done, doesn’t have lights inside the oven. And we want more efficient fridges, we want fridges with four kinds of ice, or even one kind of ice. We want convection cooking, and we want our no preheat air fry, we want all those things.

CHRISTINE: There’s nothing wrong inherently with that, but it will impact how long your appliance lasts, most likely, right?

RACHEL: Yes, definitely.

CHRISTINE: Just like you get a fancier phone that has all of the bells and whistles, you’re not going to expect to use it for more than maybe, like —

CAIRA: Seven years, maybe?

CHRISTINE: — seven years or something, yeah.

CAIRA: And that’s a long time for a phone.

CHRISTINE: That’s a long time for a phone.

RACHEL: I mean, yeah, you might even still have a rotary-dial phone, but you can’t use it to access anything, because you got to go boop-boop-beep-boop.

CHRISTINE: Right, but it still works.

RACHEL: The same thing with an appliance.

CAIRA: Well, I can imagine now the repairs must be so difficult, because it’s different per appliance in general. Do you expect that any guy that you can call up to repair your appliances has to know all these things? Or is he going to bring his IT guy with him? What’s happening?

RACHEL: Exactly. I mean, I was told by many people that the repair landscape is really broken, because there might be 25, maybe more, appliance brands. Each one of them has proprietary computer boards, and each one of them has a handheld tool, typically, that you always have to be certified to use it. And so they can end up with more than a dozen, two dozen of these, and then the appliances get updated, and that’s just one example of how it’s hard.

CHRISTINE: Right. So essentially — and this is the last finding you had in your reporting — it’s that because these machines are so complex now, it’s just become so much harder to fix them, A, but also it’s really hard to find a technician that can actually do it. People aren’t going to be trained on all the new stuff.

RACHEL: Yes, it’s unlikely that they could be, because it’s a lot of work and a lot of constant updating of what’s happening inside these machines.

CHRISTINE: We hinted at this a little bit earlier, but because it is harder to repair these machines now, it takes a lot of time, energy, money. You found that sometimes it’s better to just buy something new rather than have it repaired, right?

RACHEL: People definitely do that, because you do the math, you do the math, and you’re like, “For just a couple hundred dollars more, I get a new appliance, I restart my warranty, it’s clean, it’s brand-new, it has that cool new feature that I really want, like no-preheat air fry.” And at this point, service technicians are actually recommending it. I mean, one guy told me if the cost is 50% of a new one, don’t even think about it. 40%, think really hard. And if it’s a dishwasher, just go ahead and throw it away. I mean, what I actually see is, a lot of service folks are pivoting to also sales, because that’s so much a part of the service landscape now.

CHRISTINE: That seems like a conflict of interest.

CAIRA: Yeah.

RACHEL: Yes. I guess, yes and no. I mean, those repair technicians, they got to keep in business too, right?

CAIRA: That’s true.

CHRISTINE: That’s true.

CAIRA: But how are you supposed to compromise with yourself on the sustainability factor of it all? What is that doing to the environment if every time my fridge goes out, I’m throwing it away after three or four years?

RACHEL: One of the nice things about living in New York City is we have that thing where we can actually put ours on the street —

CAIRA: Somebody will take it.

RACHEL: — and someone will take it, repair it, resell it, strip it for the metal parts. We’re very lucky. That might actually exist elsewhere, but we are extremely lucky to have that option. Otherwise, you have to do the work yourself. Lots of municipalities have programs to get it to the right place, but do not think for a second that if your big-box retailer hauls it away, it’s going to where you think it’s going. It’s going to the trash.

CAIRA: If somebody does want to invest in a great fridge, or stove, or some other kitchen appliance that will last potentially decades, what can they do? What is your best advice for how to buy?

RACHEL: Well, you can either go high or go low. So for most of us, that might be go low. They still make machines that are just the old-fashioned machines. They have three things that can break, and you could probably fix all of them yourself, if you really wanted to.

CHRISTINE: Give us a couple examples. What are these types of appliances?

CAIRA: I’m thinking, like, a classic white stove or oven.

RACHEL: Classic white stove, where there’s no window into the oven, there’s no timer, there’s no clock. You don’t know what temperature it is.

CAIRA: That’s exactly my oven. She’s describing my kitchen.

CHRISTINE: I have a slight upgrade. I have a Hotpoint, but it has a digital clock.

RACHEL: Oh, that is a slight upgrade.

CAIRA: Mine is just an oven with a flame.

RACHEL: And the fridges, you have one little knob where it’s, like, “Cold,” “Colder.” That’s basically it.

CHRISTINE: And specifically those top-freezer fridges, right? They’re very, very durable, they look the same as they did in the ’70s.

RACHEL: Yeah.

CHRISTINE: So you could go low. You could go for the cheapest, most durable appliances —

RACHEL: And those really could last you forever.

CHRISTINE: Right, okay. The problem is, a lot of people want something fancier, right?

RACHEL: I know. Hello, manufacturers, can you please make a version of this that’s just a few modifications, and it would look, like, totally rad?

CAIRA: If it just looked vintage, quote-unquote vintage, I wouldn’t be upset.

RACHEL: It’s not that hard to do. It wouldn’t be that hard to do. Please, hear our pleas.

CHRISTINE: Hear our call. So, what about the high end?

RACHEL: Yeah, high end, things can still break. They still have computers. They have some features, but they’re not loaded with features. Many people said, “It took us four years to add an ice maker, and it was, like, the most basic ice maker, because we’re not going to cram unnecessary technology into our products. We want them to work.” But also, they’re really designed to be maintained and repaired. Maintenance is a huge part of a really luxury machine. A lot of times you pay extra to have someone come and do it for you. We have Wolf stoves at our office, and someone comes and cleans them for us, so that we know that they’re going to last forever. And they’re also meant to be repaired.

Even the computer boards, with all of the other stuff that you can buy, if it breaks, you throw it out, maybe you throw out the machine. With the high end, trained tech folks will really rebuild the board and then recertify it, and it’s worth it because of the cost of the machine. So they can also last a lifetime. And many people even hand them down to their kids or their family members, because they’re so beautiful.

CAIRA: So it’s like the difference between buying a Honda Civic, which can be repaired by anybody, basically, will run forever, as Christine knows, she had one for, like —

CHRISTINE: I had a —

CAIRA: — my entire lifespan.

CHRISTINE: — Toyota Corolla for 25 years.

RACHEL: Oh, I had a Tercel. Oh, you can also get a vintage … you can get a vintage stove, which are all mechanical. They’re also very, very expensive, and they will also last forever. And then, a couple of the luxury ones, you can get some stripped-down luxury too. So, where you’re not only getting all mechanical, you’re also getting that nice look.

CHRISTINE: And when we’re talking high end, give us some of the brands. You mentioned Wolf, those are really famous for their stoves. What are some other brands?

RACHEL: There’s actually a whole world that I don’t even know. I mean, there’s, like, Wolf, Sub-Zero, BlueStar, Garland. They start at, like, $10,000 for anything. That’s low. And then they go up —

CHRISTINE: That’s the entry-point price.

RACHEL: And then go up from there. They’re expensive.

CHRISTINE: If someone cannot afford a Sub-Zero fridge or a Wolf oven, it’s just not in the budget, but they also want more features than they can get in this super-low budget class of appliances that will last a long time, they want something that’s more in the middle, are there any smart shopping strategies they can use to try to pinpoint appliances that will last longer?

RACHEL: Get the fewest amount of features that you can live with. Maybe skip the screen in the door or the newfangled ice that’s cubed, and squared, and round, and comes from three different places in the refrigerator. Skip the brand-new function that everybody’s talking about, and just go with the ones that you really think you need. Because the more features, the more likely anything is to break. The simpler machine, the less likely it is to break. So that’s step one. Step two, if you haven’t heard of a brand, if you’re like, “What is this?” That’s a really good sign maybe you should skip it for now. Wait until you’ve heard of it, wait until everybody has it. Same with new models, brand-new stuff. Especially these days, when people are pitching new features and technology the same way we hear about it from Apple and Samsung with phones, wait until that technology has been road-tested a little bit.

I would also look for an extended warranty. Extend that baby. Extend that baby as long as you can. I also heard from so many people that one of the big reasons appliances fail is that we do no maintenance. I know we don’t want to do any maintenance. And by “maintenance,” it often just means cleaning your appliance, cleaning the jets on your gas stove, cleaning the inside of your oven, cleaning out the filters in your dishwasher, and your washer/dryer, and your lint from your dryer. We don’t do those things anymore, and they really do have an effect. I heard that from many, many, many people. Another thing you can do is read your manual. Number one, it often tells you things that you shouldn’t be doing that you never would have thought you shouldn’t be doing, and then you can save it from breaking.

And number two, usually they have five or six error codes in there, and they’re like, “If this happens, do this,” which you wouldn’t even know unless you looked in your manual. And you can also learn a little bit more about how to repair it. Maybe there’s some things that you can fix, or you at least know enough that when the repair person comes, you know if they’re headed down the right track.

CAIRA: Okay. I think a lot of people, myself included, might feel a little intimidated by the thought of trying to repair their appliances themselves. Are there resources that you found that really could help things that … reading a manual, maybe looking at YouTube, but things beyond those two simple things?

RACHEL: So a lot of folks told me that they’re seeing an uptick in people wanting to repair things themselves, which, given the state of the economy, you could completely see happening. But there’s an increasing amount of resources for people who want to learn how to repair things themselves, like websites that have schematics and a scale of whether as a regular person you should attempt this repair, links to parts that you can order, and other people who have fixed them. And there’s all these community clinics where you can go in with an issue, and people might be able to help you do it if you don’t want to spend money on a repair person.

CAIRA: I like that.

CHRISTINE: I love that.

CAIRA: Kind of like Reddit specifically for repairs. Before we wrap, we always ask our guest one final question: What’s the last thing you bought that you’ve really loved?

RACHEL: Vintage boots.

CAIRA: Vintage boots.

CHRISTINE: Tell us more.

CAIRA: Are you wearing them? They’re pretty.

CHRISTINE: Oh, those are cute.

CAIRA: A cute little teal color and a tiny little heel.

RACHEL: I got them from one of the bazillions of amazing thrift stores that are near my house in Brooklyn, and I took them to my cobbler, who’s around the corner. And I took him three pairs at the same time, and he was like, “You like vintage shoes?” And I was like, “Yes.” And he’s like, “Mink oil. You got to promise me you’ll start rubbing them all with mink oil so that the leather doesn’t crack, and they last a lot longer.” He was very concerned that I wasn’t protecting my vintage boots.

CAIRA: Very Wirecutter answer of you, Rachel.

CHRISTINE: Yes, very much so.

CAIRA: Love it. Well, thank you for being here.

RACHEL: Thank you so much for having me.

CHRISTINE: Caira, are you ready to go buy a bunch of new appliances?

CAIRA: Oh my God, I would love to, just if I had $30,000 to spare in my rental. But wow, Rachel knows so much.

CHRISTINE: She really does, that was a very interesting conversation. I think it really opens up how complicated this topic is. So, what are you taking away today?

CAIRA: I mean, it’s interesting, because I’m not in the market for any of these things right now, but I still love to hear it, and it’s great advice to know that when I’m eventually going to do this, I think I’m just going to go middle of the road. I’m going to get something that’s moderately priced, has been around for a minute so it’s been tested and has a bunch of reviews, and just not too many bells and whistles. I don’t really need a fridge with an ice dispenser, I can live without that. Stuff like that.

CHRISTINE: Yeah, the ice dispenser is actually something we found in consumer surveys breaks really frequently. It’s, like, one of the things that breaks the most on fridges.

CAIRA: I mean, I remember that from my childhood fridge. The ice never worked.

CHRISTINE: Yeah. So I am taking away from this episode … I think it’s so interesting that at the very low end and at the very high end, you can still get these very durable appliances, for different reasons, but essentially they’re simpler than the stuff in the middle of the road. And I think that’s really interesting. And one other thing that was really fascinating in editing Rachel on this piece, and then just even in this conversation, is this idea of psychological obsolescence and how I think this is something we all fall into — we’re marketed at, we see stuff on Instagram. But I will think about that. Does something really actually need to be replaced, or can you get more life out of it?

CAIRA: Yeah, that’s really good. If you want to find out more about Rachel’s coverage on large appliances or planned obsolescence, or if you want to check out any of the products we recommended today, go to nytimes.com/wirecutter, or find a link in the show notes. That’s it for us, until next week.

CHRISTINE: The Wirecutter Show is executive produced by Rosie Guerin and produced by Abigail Keel. Engineering support from Maddy Masiello and Nick Pitman. Today’s episode was mixed by Catherine Anderson. Original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Elisheba Ittoop, and Diane Wong. Wirecutter’s deputy publisher is Cliff Levy. Ben Frumin is Wirecutter’s editor-in-chief. I’m Christine Cyr Clisset.

CAIRA: I’m Caira Blackwell.

CHRISTINE: Thanks for listening.

RACHEL: You might even still have a rotary-dial phone, but you can’t use it to access anything, ’cause you gotta go boop-boop-boop-boop.