Yet there's still no begginer-friendly way of doing any of that without diving head-first into the DIY home growing literature. Your comments are coming off as gatekeeping for no other reason than speculation and the fact you're already familiar with the space.
This product seems to simplify the entire process of home growing, which is a bit more involved than squeezing juice out of fruit. As long as it's priced and marketed appropriately, I don't see a reason why it shouldn't exist. Whether there's a market for it is another question, though.
This product simplifies nothing, honestly. The ‘hardest’ part of growing mushrooms is keeping things sterile for the inoculation and colonization phases. This does nothing to address that besides offering it pre-made. Which you can already buy at tons of places for reasonable prices.
This device only actually involves the easiest part of the entire process - fruiting. And you’ll get the same results by just throwing your colonized media in a $2 shoebox as other people have already stated.
I like the comparison to juicero others are making, that’s essentially what this is.
And by the way, absolutely none of this is too complicated for your average person. There are tons of literally step-by-step guides online for free.
This device only addresses the final step of the process which is in fact the easiest step (when dealing with home scale cultivation).
There are already many companies which will sell you pre-inoculated bricks which are delivered to you in a cardboard box which you use as the fruiting chamber. The only difference here is that this company made the fruiting chamber out of plastic instead of cardboard.
In terms of complexity, IMO basic home cultivation is somewhere between baking a simple loaf of bread and assembling an IKEA shelf unit and installing it on the wall. It takes basic web search skills to find info on front-to-back DIY technique, and one can find colonized media online or at the farmers market.
That being said, every level of simplification grants a hobby a new audience. I think the objection here is the attempt to create a Juicero model, where you get a fancy machine that requires (maybe DRM'd? not sure) media pods in perpetuity if you want to keep using it.
(edit: doesn't appear to be vendor locked media, but the machine is $299... I spent less on that for my pressure canner, mason jars, fruiting chamber, and food dehydrator put together. sort of puts into question who this is for.)
> basic home cultivation is somewhere between baking a simple loaf of bread and assembling an IKEA shelf unit
It's a bit more involved than that, no? I'm not familiar myself, but don't you need to take into account things like temperature and humidity as well? If their mushroom blocks can tell the box the ideal conditions for each particular strain, and those can be maintained to produce a better end product, that already seems like a win over doing all of that manually.
> the machine is $299
Yeah, that's a bit much. They have to factor in mobile app development somewhere, right? :)
Again, I'm not saying that this particular product will succeed. But I think there might be a segment of the market that wants to get into home growing, but doesn't want to mess around with the DIY aspects of it.
If you can clean your kitchen/bathroom properly, and you can follow the instructions to bake a loaf of bread, you can almost certainly follow some of the simpler procedures.
During the fruiting phase, things are pretty easy. Once the substrate is colonized you sort of just take the lid off of your fruiting chamber, mist it with a sprayer, and wave the lid at it to blow the excess CO2 out. Once a day. That's what this $299 box does for you.
The part that's akin to baking bread is the initial media preparation and inoculation. You need to measure your media, hydrate it, put it in a hot thing (bread:oven::mycoculture media:pressure canner) for the requisite number of minutes. My first mycoculture attempts were far more successful than my first attempts at breadmaking.
The comparison with Jucero was unfair. This device does automate temperature control, misting and light. Which I understand is necessary for mushroom fruiting. I’m not sure what they do for the colonization phase which I understand is a necessary prep step. Although I bought a colonized Lions Mane log for $20 at the farmers market so it can’t be too complex. That being said the instructions I received for fruiting are pretty simple too so I’m not sure I’d buy this device unless I wanted a kitchen counter conversation piece. Or a science fair type toy.
Also Jucero was even worse than you think. It squeezed juice out of little plastic packets.
You are over estimating the complexity of fruiting commercial strains of edible mushrooms at this scale. You really only need to worry about automation when working at scale. For a single brick you just need to put the bag in a mostly clean area, slash it open on the sides, and mist it with a spray bottle.
>Your comments are coming off as gatekeeping for no other reason than speculation and the fact you're already familiar with the space.
On hacker news it is considered gate keeping to invent ever simpler ways of doing things that are more accessible and are proven to work. In a parallel world someone figures out how to just throw spores in a bucket with rice with no thinking, no preparation and someone on HN will call that person out for gatekeeping because it is not using a fancy shaped box that uses microcontrollers and internet of things and all sorts of other pointless extras that have nothing to do with mushrooms but detract from learning how to grow them.
for edible gourmet mushrooms (lions main, oyster, king trumpet) its as simple as buying a fully colonized block, slashing open the package and letting it grow with some occasional misting. its a great activity for kids. mushrooms are incredibly resilient and want to grow. below is a good video on how easy it is.
"This product seems to simplify the entire process of home growing,"
Eh, it can be difficult. The most difficult part is sterilization and inoculations/transfers. This doesn't help with that. You can literally hook up a mister to a timer to get the same effect (I know, I've done it as a newbie).
But I agree that people will buy it, as they do many things that aren't truly necessary (doesn't bother me).
This product seems to simplify the entire process of home growing, which is a bit more involved than squeezing juice out of fruit. As long as it's priced and marketed appropriately, I don't see a reason why it shouldn't exist. Whether there's a market for it is another question, though.