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Strange Design Decision: An Oven with French Doors
Does this make any sense to you?
I can't figure this one out. This Flexify Air Fryer Oven, by Chinese appliance brand Midea, was voted best-in-show by The Kitchn—and it has French doors.
For heaven's sake, why? The chunky handles not only obscure the view, but add a degree of manufacturing complexity; the doors are linked by a mechanism, so that opening one, opens the other.
If I take the product copy at face value, it seems they're trying to somehow enrich the UX. They refer to the door design as "elegant" before writing "This exquisite appliance features a one-pull, dual-opening door system, seamlessly blending chic aesthetics with unmatched practicality."
The aesthetics is subjective, but "practicality" oughtn't be, and I can't puzzle out how the arrangement improves matters. If anything, having two doors on the side means it requires a greater distance to pull the food out and clear the appliance, versus a bottom-hinged door.
I don't have air fryer experience. If you do, and there's something in the process that you can see benefitting from this design, please do sound off.
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Comments
I've seen these in commercial use. In a fast paced kitchen, a flopping single door is unweidy with two hands on a hot tray. Like others have said, there's the space savings too.
I own a counter top french door oven. I use it more than the drop down oven sitting next to it. With arthritis I have to straddle the pull down oven door, use a stick to pull the rack, carefully lift the hot item, shuffle back to stand up straight. Then lift the item over two feet o place on the counter. A french door oven takes less space to open the doors, remove the hot item then move over about a foot & half to counter, turn at the waist or take a step sideways. Much more efficient!!
Accessing the oven and lifting hot and heavy items is a challenge for many people. Neff's slide and Hide solves the same problem and sells really well.
French doors on ovens tend to be the most ergonomic option for one main reason - the length of the drop-down door pushes the user so far away from the oven cavity. It gets worse on a double oven configuration where - I would argue - the French door version is borderline a necessity on the upper oven.
On this countertop oven, they are clearly trying to take design cues from the commercial ovens. The benefit there is minimal at best.
Looks gimmicky as most air fryers are not excessively large. However in principle, I can see how this arrangement would give access to a larger volume oven-without the penalty of a larger single door.
It looks like a commercial convection oven. They are usually chest heigh and have the same connected doors.
I have a lower back injury and I can imagine having a regular-sized oven like this would be great for those like me, who sometimes has to squat and lift even little things with my legs.
It makes total sense to me. On high counters with tradition bottom-openers, you have to raise your arm up awkwardly to not burn your arm on the bottom piece. My wife is short, and the problem is magnified. Seems like they both need about the same counter space for door reach.
My guess would be to have less of the door protruding outwards saving space in tight kitchens.
The food service industry has used this concept for decades, often referred to as "salamanders"
If the sausage king of Chicago endorses this approach then it's good enough for me!
In a commercial kitchen, an extra foot or two could mean a lot. I'm just surprised that nobody has done this for the home user before