Pohl Schmitt Electric Can Opener: The Replacement I Thought Was Garbage

Our old electric can opener had worked for years, so when it finally died I thought replacing it would be one of the easiest purchases imaginable.

It was not.

I bought a Pohl Schmitt electric can opener in 2021. My lasting opinion of it is pretty simple: I thought it was garbage.

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The exact Pohl Schmitt electric can opener I bought was a conventional countertop model. Amazon was still offering the listing in my order history when I reviewed my purchases.

My short version: I bought this because our longtime can opener died. I did not like the replacement, and a few years later I went in a completely different direction with a small automatic opener that travels around the top of the can.

I wasn’t looking for anything fancy

This is what makes the purchase memorable to me. I was not trying to upgrade the kitchen. I was replacing something boring that had stopped working.

The old opener had done its job so reliably that I barely thought about it. The Pohl Schmitt was supposed to fill the same role.

Instead, I disliked it enough that the experience eventually pushed me to try a completely different style of opener.

The useful part of a bad purchase

I am not going to invent a list of technical failures years later. I did not keep notes on every can I opened or every little annoyance.

What I do remember clearly is the conclusion: I did not like this opener and did not want another one like it.

That turned out to be useful because it led me to the Bangrui automatic can opener I use now. That little opener looked odd to me at first, but I ended up liking it much more.

Would I buy the Pohl Schmitt again?

No.

That is not based on a comparison chart or somebody else’s review. I bought it, used it, and came away unhappy enough to replace the whole style of opener rather than simply buy another countertop model.

Sometimes that is the most useful thing I can say about something I bought.