Why is a decent benchtop DMM more expensive than a scope?

[Fungus]

TRMS is mandatory to me.

17B+ is not TRMS and not the same resolution.

Obviously they left out some critical measurement functions so as not to affect sales of the 87V. 

What I meant was that the physical build is very similar, it's going to last just as long... and it's only $100.

Still it's one tough meter and held up to my life cycle test better than any other I looked at.

Yep. It also passed all your electrical zapping tests.

(...although it's vanished from the latest spreadsheet.  )

[tautech]

 
15/17B models are China market only and their design limitations vs the more expensive Flukes are deliberate.
Fluke also deliberately restricted them to China where outside that market they have zero warranty and instead offered the 115/117 range for the rest of the world.....which in some respects are a lesser DMM than the 15/17B range.

[kcbrown]

.... unless it were truly exceptional in some way that is very difficult to replicate (such as precision, which requires temperature stability), which would make it too expensive to sell into the market you're in, which means it wouldn't be worth producing for that purpose.

Not necessarily. We now live in a software world, a meter could have an internal temperature sensor and be calibrated for a range of different temperatures (eg. at 5 degree intervals), then interpolated. That could even reduce the BOM by reducing the need for components with very high temperature stability.

And what exactly makes that difficult to replicate?

You don't seem to understand the problem.  Fluke could do some of the things you suggest, but which markets would make the R&D worth it, much less worth it for a meter they intend to sell for many years?

I said "difficult to replicate" for a reason.  The reason is that if it's not something difficult to replicate, then some other competitor (e.g., Brymen) can do the same thing for a lot cheaper and steal the new market right out from under them, thus trashing their R&D investment.  And since it would be a new model, it would either have to hit a market they already own (meaning it would need to appeal to people who value things other than the sorts of things you're talking about, since if the things you are talking about appealed to those customers then Fluke would already have a meter for them), or it would have to hit a new market that the other players couldn't hit.

More digits is nice but not necessarily a goal. I've already mentioned some areas where the 87V is out of date. A "tour-de-force" meter would be able to measure more than a 10mF capacitor and would have more than 20hKz AC bandwidth.

The 287 and 289 both have a 100 kHz AC bandwidth and can measure up to 100 mF.

The 87V may be "out of date" but you're not the market it targets.  Why do you keep talking about the 87V here?

Auto-ranging could also be instant, or at least "Damn, that's fast!" speed. I've got an Aneng that can measure a voltage faster than the continuity test on some other meters. You can literally tap the probe on the wire as fast as you can move your hand and you'll have a hard time not getting a reading.

I don't know what tradeoffs were made in the Aneng that gives it that kind of autoranging speed.  So this is something I can't talk intelligently about.

Really small resistances, really small capacitances... another area where a "tour-de-force" meter could shine.

How small, exactly?  And how big is the market that needs that?

In short, I'm not imagining a smartphone with a new model every six months, just the best possible "Fluke-like" meter using today's tech.

Well, if Fluke comes out with something like that, then it'll be because they perceive enough of a market demand for it from their existing customers.  So where's that demand among their existing customers?

(And the ability to select DC current mode as default)

Fluke 287/289.

The problem here is that "exceptional in a difficult to replicate way" almost automatically means "expensive".

Simply not true. Fluke currently sells a $100 multimeter with roughly the same build as an 87V. It use the same fuses, the same type of case, pretty much the same everything. Our Joe torture tested one and it hold up perfectly to the tests both electrically and mechanically.

And what, exactly, makes that difficult to replicate?

They don't play in the "latest technology" product market, at least for handhelds.  I don't know that they ever have, really.

 

Of course they have! Back in the day Fluke innovated more than just about any other company. How do you think the 8060A and even the 87 came about? That was Fluke pushing the absolute limits with custom silicon, etc.

And back in the day, what was Fluke's competition, and how was the pricing of that competition?  What was Fluke's reputation?   What was it that their customers valued?

If you're a younger company without a long and exemplary reputation for building top-notch equipment, then not only can you afford to innovate in the way you're talking about, you pretty much have to because it's the only way to attract customers.

Once you've matured, you have to somehow hang onto your existing customers while making R&D investments that will pay off.


So, again, what market do you think Fluke will wind up dominating with a completely new meter that meets the specifications you're talking about and isn't the 287/289?   And how big is that market?

The last 25 years? The phrase "resting on their laurels" comes to mind.

Mature companies with large numbers of existing customers tend to do that, most especially when the needs of their customers don't substantially change.

Now, if their customers suddenly develop new needs, they'll have a solid reason to develop something new.   But absent that, what you're talking about amounts to new markets, ones that are generally already addressed by younger and cheaper players that haven't yet built their reputations or a stable customer base.

[tooki]

Probably because of a factually incorrect statement you made, one which is a common refrain among Mac haters: that you are restricted in what software you can run. That’s simply untrue: you can run whatever software you want, from whatever source. Yes, in later versions of Mac OS you have to change the default settings to run unsigned/unnotarized software, but it absolutely will let you do it.

That is super annoying, and it seems to re-enable itself after a while when I have disabled it. The biggest issue I have with that particular feature is I don't trust Apple to not make it more restrictive in the future.

I haven’t run into (nor heard of before now) it changing the setting on its own. Note that I am referring to the system setting. The per-app override is saved based on the app file itself, so depending on how a non-notarized app gets updated, it can require reauthorization after updating.

Already I cannot find a way to permanently disable the OS upgrade nag. There are few things in modern technology that irritate me as much as forced update and update nags that I can't disable. I will upgrade MY devices on MY terms, period, this is not negotiable. I'm not interested in being lectured about the risks.

Well, it doesn’t force updates. The upgrade nag, however, I completely agree with you on. (It’s particularly irritating on my 2008 Mac Pro: whatever dingdong wrote the nag code forgot to include a compatibility check, so it periodically nags me to upgrade my OS even though the system is already on the last so version it supports!  )

And while the inability to disable the nags is a serious oversight, having them to begin with is absolutely the right thing to do. Remember that you and I are not typical users. We understand computers well. 99% of users do not, and are best served by updating religiously. They plain and simply need someone else to make sensible decisions for them, since they don’t have the background knowledge needed to decide for themselves. Absent an always-available IT person to hold their hand, it makes sense for Apple to make those decisions. (And by and large, they’ve done a good job at it.)

That is, however, orthogonal to the issue of whether Apple would ever permanently restrict macOS to only run authorized apps. And there is zero indication that that’s even distantly envisioned. For one thing, it’d weaken the platform’s attractiveness dramatically. Secondly, as of right now, the sandboxed environments are nowhere near capable of running everything that a desktop OS needs to run. Third, macOS is THE development environment for all Mac, iOS, watchOS, etc apps. You can’t develop Mac software on an OS that can’t run self-compiled apps…

Remember, too, that Apple runs its entire $275B/yr business on Macs. They know what serious computer users need because they are serious computer users themselves.

The fact that Apple has pushed increased OS- and hardware-level security (as everyone else has, too, and rightly so!) doesn’t mean they want to stop third party apps altogether. They have no incentive to do so, quite the contrary in fact. But it makes eminent sense to corral normal users towards “safe” options. I can tell my elderly mom “go ahead and install whatever you want from the App Store” because the chances of it causing harm are vanishingly small. The same absolutely cannot be said about apps sourced elsewhere; she doesn’t know how to determine which websites are legit and which aren’t, nor how to get herself out of trouble if she makes the wrong determination. Apple’s current approach of restricting default app sources, while providing a simple way for advanced users to lift the restrictions, is a very, very sensible approach.

[Fungus]

.... unless it were truly exceptional in some way that is very difficult to replicate (such as precision, which requires temperature stability), which would make it too expensive to sell into the market you're in, which means it wouldn't be worth producing for that purpose.

Not necessarily. We now live in a software world, a meter could have an internal temperature sensor and be calibrated for a range of different temperatures (eg. at 5 degree intervals), then interpolated. That could even reduce the BOM by reducing the need for components with very high temperature stability.

And what exactly makes that difficult to replicate?

You don't seem to understand the problem.  Fluke could do some of the things you suggest, but which markets would make the R&D worth it, much less worth it for a meter they intend to sell for many years?

I'm not sure what you're after.

Nothing the Fluke currently does is difficult to replicate. Unit-T already replicates the 289, Brymen already replicates the 87V, Aneng will give you all the measurement functions you'll ever need for $25, Fluke themselves will give you "Fluke build quality" for $100.

As for "massive R&D"? They could easily put the Aneng chipset in a 15B+ body and create a $125 meter that sold millions. What individual/hobbyist wouldn't want one? Companies like Brymen and Uni-T would see their sales drop through the floor.

Why do you keep talking about the 87V here?

Because:

a) It's the meter that's holing Fluke back. Everything they've done in the "high end" in the last 25 years do is based around not upsetting the 87V cash cow.

b) It's the most deified meter, it's always held up as the gold standard even though it's really not that special any more.

[james_s]

Probably because of a factually incorrect statement you made, one which is a common refrain among Mac haters: that you are restricted in what software you can run. That’s simply untrue: you can run whatever software you want, from whatever source. Yes, in later versions of Mac OS you have to change the default settings to run unsigned/unnotarized software, but it absolutely will let you do it.

That is super annoying, and it seems to re-enable itself after a while when I have disabled it. The biggest issue I have with that particular feature is I don't trust Apple to not make it more restrictive in the future.

I haven’t run into (nor heard of before now) it changing the setting on its own. Note that I am referring to the system setting. The per-app override is saved based on the app file itself, so depending on how a non-notarized app gets updated, it can require reauthorization after updating.

Already I cannot find a way to permanently disable the OS upgrade nag. There are few things in modern technology that irritate me as much as forced update and update nags that I can't disable. I will upgrade MY devices on MY terms, period, this is not negotiable. I'm not interested in being lectured about the risks.

Well, it doesn’t force updates. The upgrade nag, however, I completely agree with you on. (It’s particularly irritating on my 2008 Mac Pro: whatever dingdong wrote the nag code forgot to include a compatibility check, so it periodically nags me to upgrade my OS even though the system is already on the last so version it supports!  )

And while the inability to disable the nags is a serious oversight, having them to begin with is absolutely the right thing to do. Remember that you and I are not typical users. We understand computers well. 99% of users do not, and are best served by updating religiously. They plain and simply need someone else to make sensible decisions for them, since they don’t have the background knowledge needed to decide for themselves. Absent an always-available IT person to hold their hand, it makes sense for Apple to make those decisions. (And by and large, they’ve done a good job at it.)

Well it's possible something else has happened, I just know that several times I've had to update chromedriver because stupid Chrome itself silently updates despite my efforts to prevent it from doing so and then that breaks the automation scripts I'm writing and I have to waste time troubleshooting to get that working. The updated chromedriver refuses to run and I have to go dig up the command to disable that stupid thing. Maybe I did the per-app disable initially, I don't know, but with each new version of the OS it has gotten harder to control this stuff.

Oh I absolutely agree that having the nag there is a good idea, and even having it on by default, but give me the ability to turn it off! I'm a control freak when it comes to this stuff, I expect computers to do what I tell them to do, and when they refuse to obey me it makes me angry. I know what I'm doing and I understand and accept the risks if I choose not to update something and I don't want to be pestered about it, ever. I used to have it completely disabled and all was fine, then I had to upgrade for something else we use and now whatever OS is the one right before Big Sur now keeps nagging me to update to that and I can't completely disable it, it's infuriating. Nag nag nag nag.

[kcbrown]

And what exactly makes that difficult to replicate?

You don't seem to understand the problem.  Fluke could do some of the things you suggest, but which markets would make the R&D worth it, much less worth it for a meter they intend to sell for many years?

I'm not sure what you're after.

Nothing the Fluke currently does is difficult to replicate. Unit-T already replicates the 289, Brymen already replicates the 87V, Aneng will give you all the measurement functions you'll ever need for $25, Fluke themselves will give you "Fluke build quality" for $100.

Yes, but what Fluke gives you for that $100 is something the other manufacturers give you for half that or less.

You already indicated that one of your major gripes is the price Fluke charges.  Well, for the meter you're asking for here, would you buy it for a premium price or not?

Would you be willing to pay $200 for such a meter?   $300?   $400?   $500?   If you wouldn't be willing to pay an 87V price for a meter with better than 87V capability then you're not in Fluke's target market.   

And if you would be willing to pay that kind of price, then just exactly how large do you think that market is, and to what degree do you think it overlaps their existing markets? 

Fluke's reputation by itself is an asset that enables them to charge a premium for their products.   The way you take advantage of such an asset is by charging premium prices.  So the premium price is essentially non-negotiable.  In exchange for that reputation, and the price it commands, is the expectation that whatever they produce will be solid, reliable, safe, dependable, and supported to a degree that few other meters are.  So whatever they design here would have to meet that expectation.

If you're a company, you do not destroy your existing markets in favor of new ones without a really good reason.  Fluke's primary existing market is industrial and professional field users.  If those users were more price sensitive, then Fluke would lower their prices.  If those users were more sensitive to the feature set, then Fluke would offer models with those new features, while doing their best to balance that against their customers who like things just as they are.  Existing markets that you play in have a characteristic that new markets don't: they're a known quantity.  That's worth a lot in business, because every gamble you take is a gamble you could lose.  So the payoff of any given gamble has to be worth the risk.


See, part of the problem of this discussion is that you seem to presume that Fluke isn't doing the proper market research.  They've been around long enough, and have been immensely successful long enough, that you should know that to be false.  I think it's more likely than not that Fluke understands their markets very, very well.  And it is that understanding that guides their actions.

The question isn't whether or not Fluke could come out with a meter that meets the specifications you have in mind.  Fluke most certainly could.  It's certainly within their technical capability.  The question is why should they?  What's the business justification that outweighs the downsides?


Now factor in the fact that Fluke's parent company already owns a meter division that can and does produce meters like what you're talking about: Amprobe.  In particular, the AM-140-A and AM-160-A.  Yeah, they're Brymens, and they're excellent.  Why would Fluke produce a product that competes in the same space as their sister company's products on both capability and price?

As for "massive R&D"? They could easily put the Aneng chipset in a 15B+ body and create a $125 meter that sold millions. What individual/hobbyist wouldn't want one? Companies like Brymen and Uni-T would see their sales drop through the floor.

Really?  Why would Brymen and Uni-T see their sales drop when their prices would be even lower than the $125 you're talking about?  After all, Aneng's price is certainly much lower than that.

So again, it's a question of what market you're targeting.  Why would people who are already price sensitive buy the Fluke?  The only people who would are people who are looking for something that is a lot more robust than what Aneng, or even Brymen, produces (a condition that wouldn't last long, since Brymen, at least, would simply alter their design appropriately), or people who are willing to pay a premium for Fluke's reputation and support.  That's a small subset of the overall market for a meter with the capabilities in question.  And because Fluke's market is people who want robustness, longevity, support, Fluke's reputation, etc., now Fluke can't just slap a new chip into their meter, they have to characterize it, make sure it has the durability and other characteristics they need it to have.  And that presumes they can just re-use an existing layout and design.  The more things they need to change, the more R&D investment is involved.

And then there's the effort of going through all of the certifications that their customers demand, unless Fluke decides to forego their institutional customers entirely with the new meter.


And then, after doing all that in order to produce a $100 meter with better than 87V capability, what'll they have accomplished?  I'll tell you what: they'll have managed to force themselves to reduce the price on all their other offerings just to stay price-consistent, since otherwise customers will be asking them why they charge so much for arguably lesser meters.  There's a reason Fluke's 15B+ is offered only in certain areas of the world, away from their traditional customer base.

Why do you keep talking about the 87V here?

Because:

a) It's the meter that's holing Fluke back. Everything they've done in the "high end" in the last 25 years do is based around not upsetting the 87V cash cow.

That doesn't make sense.  Fluke's reputation is present for all their meters, not just the 87V.  Why would you talk about what capabilities the 87V lacks when the question is whether or not Fluke has a meter with the capabilities you're looking for?

But let's go with your above reason anyway.  Why would Fluke want to upset their 87V cash cow?  You acknowledge it's a cash cow, which means it's a massive revenue source for them.  What sane company would kill such a thing?

b) It's the most deified meter, it's always held up as the gold standard even though it's really not that special any more.

Well, on that we agree, certainly, at least in terms of capability.  But Fluke produces meters with even more capability than the 87V, so if it's sheer capability you're talking about, the 87V isn't the one to focus on.

That said, there's one thing the 87V brings to the table that a new meter wouldn't be able to: a well-understood and reliable history.  People buy the 87V in part because it's a known-good quantity.  It's a known quantity precisely because it's been around for a long time, and it's known-good because the meter has almost always performed very well.  It has a certification history, too.  The meter's history is by itself an asset of the meter, one that can't be had with a new design.  It's the history that makes it a "gold standard" as much as anything else. 

Reputations take a long time to build.  Fluke's reputation would obviously be behind whatever meter they produce.  But the meters themselves also have reputations, and the 87V's is very good.   Fluke would be insane to not take advantage of that.

[Fungus]

Would you be willing to pay $200 for such a meter?   $300?   $400?   $500?   If you wouldn't be willing to pay an 87V price for a meter with better than 87V capability then you're not in Fluke's target market.   

Yes, I'll go on record and say I'd pay 87V prices for a meter that was: "Nobody does it better!"

Now factor in the fact that Fluke's parent company already owns a meter division that can and does produce meters like what you're talking about: Amprobe.  In particular, the AM-140-A and AM-160-A.  Yeah, they're Brymens, and they're excellent.  Why would Fluke produce a product that competes in the same space as their sister company's products on both capability and price?

The "AM-140-A" is actually the Brymen I own (ie. the BM857). I believe it's as-good/better than an 87V in almost every way.

(except for not having temperature, which I deliberately chose not to have because I have other gadgets for that and I'd rather have less function overload on the dial).

The AM-160-A/BM859s has even better specs for not much more.

As for "massive R&D"? They could easily put the Aneng chipset in a 15B+ body and create a $125 meter that sold millions. What individual/hobbyist wouldn't want one? Companies like Brymen and Uni-T would see their sales drop through the floor.

Really?  Why would Brymen and Uni-T see their sales drop when their prices would be even lower than the $125 you're talking about?  After all, Aneng's price is certainly much lower than that.

Because they're not yellow. The Amprobe is very capable but I don't see anybody here creating threads about them.

(and they're fugly besides... the original Brymen is prettier!)

Aneng doesn't count because they don't put the right sort of protection/fuses in theirs.

And then, after doing all that in order to produce a $100 meter with better than 87V capability, what'll they have accomplished?  I'll tell you what: they'll have managed to force themselves to reduce the price on all their other offerings just to stay price-consistent, since otherwise customers will be asking them why they charge so much for arguably lesser meters.

If they also made a tour-de-force meter at the 87V price point they'd have a too-good-to-resist meter at every level. This gives them almost the entire multimeter market to themselves. What CEO doesn't want that?

(All except the $25 meters)

But let's go with your above reason anyway.  Why would Fluke want to upset their 87V cash cow?  You acknowledge it's a cash cow, which means it's a massive revenue source for them.  What sane company would kill such a thing?

Who said "kill"? The idea is to make people like me buy a meter at that price level, too.

That said, there's one thing the 87V brings to the table that a new meter wouldn't be able to: a well-understood and reliable history.  People buy the 87V in part because it's a known-good quantity.  It's a known quantity precisely because it's been around for a long time

Yep, and that's the only thing. It doesn't add any more measurement abilities so I for one am not buying. I can have a Brymen and $250 to spend on something else.

[bdunham7]

[Fungus]

OK, I think I figured it out:

a) Fluke belongs to Fortive, which in turn belongs to Danaher.

b) Fluke makes a meter called the 87V which a lot of people want to buy (irrationally or otherwise). Fluke doesn't give a hoot about the 87V*, it just knows a lot of people want to buy them.

c) Danaher sells better meters under other brands for less than half the price of Flukes. If all you want is a good multimeter and you can see past the yellow color then you should probably get one of those instead.

(*) This is that part that was confusing me. I was under the illusion that Fluke cares about their products. They don't.

I really don't know much about Fluke or the 87V.    It may use a masked part with some minimum buy.  They could be sitting on a last time buy.   They may also be out of code space.  It may not even be something that could be addressed in firmware.  For that matter, they may not even have the source or the talent to roll a changes if they wanted.  If they could change it, they may not have the resources to qualify it.

Joe was very close when he said that^.

Danaher probably moved Fluke's R&D team somewhere useful. They're not needed at Fluke.

[kcbrown]

Yes, I'll go on record and say I'd pay 87V prices for a meter that was: "Nobody does it better!"

If the new meter in question really is something that is more capable than anything else Fluke produces, then it'll command an appropriate price.  You'll be paying more for it than you would a new 289.   Still going to claim you'll buy it?

Yep, and that's the only thing. It doesn't add any more measurement abilities so I for one am not buying. I can have a Brymen and $250 to spend on something else.

Um, which is it?  Are you going to buy a Fluke meter that does what you want, but at Fluke prices, or the equivalent meter at much less?

"Nobody does it better" will last all of a couple of years (if that), after which the likes of Brymen and Aneng will produce something equivalent or better for a lower price.  Because technology marches on.   Fluke is not going to get into a technological rat race with other manufacturers in the handheld meter space.  Not with their markets being what they are.  If they do anything of the sort, it'll be with respect to completely novel capabilities, not the sorts of things you're talking about.

If you're not going to buy an 87V with its capabilities because you can get a Brymen with equivalent capabilities for so much less, why in the world should we believe that you'd buy a new Fluke "better than everything else" meter at Fluke prices when you know that you can get the same thing for half the price if you just wait a year or two?

I'm deeply skeptical.  And I'd wager that skepticism is a skepticism that Fluke shares, and is why Fluke hasn't done what you claim it should.

[kcbrown]

Really?  Why would Brymen and Uni-T see their sales drop when their prices would be even lower than the $125 you're talking about?  After all, Aneng's price is certainly much lower than that.

Because they're not yellow. The Amprobe is very capable but I don't see anybody here creating threads about them.

No, this is incorrect.  You're missing the overall picture here.  It's Fluke's reputation that those people are buying, more than anything else.  If the reputation didn't matter, they'd already be buying a different brand meter.

How large do you think that market is, compared with the market that is more price sensitive than reputation sensitive?


Fluke's pricing and feature structure is the way it is precisely because of their reputation.

(and they're fugly besides... the original Brymen is prettier!)

Aneng doesn't count because they don't put the right sort of protection/fuses in theirs.

What makes you think such protection is going to matter for what amounts to a bench meter in a handheld form factor?  What makes you think a meter with such protection but at a much higher price would sell to new buyers when the vast bulk of those buyers would have no need of that protection?   Fluke would put such protection in because it's Fluke and they'd want to hold onto their safety and robustness reputation.  But that has a substantial cost attached to it, all on its own, one which reduces the overall appeal of the meter compared to a much less expensive meter with all the features save for the protection.  If the meter were targeted at industrial use then it'd need the protection, but that use is precisely the use that doesn't need the features you're looking for.  For that use, the 87V is apparently sufficient.  It wouldn't sell as well as it does, particularly into that market, otherwise.

And then, after doing all that in order to produce a $100 meter with better than 87V capability, what'll they have accomplished?  I'll tell you what: they'll have managed to force themselves to reduce the price on all their other offerings just to stay price-consistent, since otherwise customers will be asking them why they charge so much for arguably lesser meters.

If they also made a tour-de-force meter at the 87V price point they'd have a too-good-to-resist meter at every level. This gives them almost the entire multimeter market to themselves. What CEO doesn't want that?

You think Fluke is too stupid to have done precisely that analysis?  I strongly disagree.  I think they have done that analysis and found it wanting.

Like I said, Fluke remains successful precisely because they understand their markets very well.  If things get to the point where a meter such as what you describe would sell enough to overcome the risks and damage to other product lines, they'd do it.

But let's go with your above reason anyway.  Why would Fluke want to upset their 87V cash cow?  You acknowledge it's a cash cow, which means it's a massive revenue source for them.  What sane company would kill such a thing?

Who said "kill"? The idea is to make people like me buy a meter at that price level, too.

Well, seeing how you've already executed in a different direction, exactly why should we believe that you'd want a Fluke instead of a (much less expensive) Brymen of equal capability?

It would kill their 87V market because the new meter would be equal to or superior to the 87V in every capability, be the same price as the 87V, and have the Fluke reputation behind it.  What sane person would buy the 87V under those circumstances except those who need the 87V's track record or certification record?  That's exactly why it would kill the 87V's market.  Granted, there would still be buyers of the 87V, but the numbers would be significantly reduced.

I fully expect that we'll see something like what you're talking about (though perhaps at a somewhat higher price than the 87V) at whatever point Fluke perceives that the vast majority of the buyers of the 87V are the ones who need its track record.

But until then, the presence of such a meter with the capabilities you describe and the pricepoint you describe would do nothing except to divide up the 87V market into two smaller segments.  I think it's highly likely that the number of new buyers of the new meter, that didn't come from the 87V market, would be small in comparison, because those people would:

1.  Somehow need Fluke's reputation, and yet
2.  Be refusing to buy a Fluke because there's nothing Fluke currently offers that satisfies their needs.

I dare say that is a minuscule market.  Why?  Because whatever they'd need would somehow be something that neither the 87V nor the 289 can satisfy.

Why should Fluke expend the R&D necessary to produce the meter you speak of, only to see their 87V market fractured?  Where's the additional profit going to come from?  I'm not seeing it at all, your claims to the contrary notwithstanding.

That said, there's one thing the 87V brings to the table that a new meter wouldn't be able to: a well-understood and reliable history.  People buy the 87V in part because it's a known-good quantity.  It's a known quantity precisely because it's been around for a long time

Yep, and that's the only thing. It doesn't add any more measurement abilities so I for one am not buying. I can have a Brymen and $250 to spend on something else.

I rest my case.  You're not Fluke's target market.  The situation you describe above will always be the case.  Always.  Fluke would have to come up with some brilliant one-of-a-kind patentable capability that nobody else would be able to match.  That kind of thing doesn't happen on demand, it happens by accident.   Now, maybe at whatever point that happens, we'll see Fluke come out with a meter with that capability that will draw you in.  Until then, it's not gonna happen, and Fluke's business is more likely than not better off because of that.

It's always possible that Fluke is missing a golden opportunity here.  But frankly, this opportunity has always been there.  What makes now different than before?

Fluke's market isn't the buyer who is looking for the latest and greatest.  It's the buyer who is looking for solid reliability, ruggedness, and safety from a company that's willing to back their products to the hilt.  What you're talking about is the market that is comprised of the former type of buyer, not the latter.   Little wonder Fluke doesn't address it. 

[bdunham7]

OK, I think I figured it out:

a) Fluke belongs to Fortive, which in turn belongs to Danaher.

b) Fluke makes a meter called the 87V which a lot of people want to buy (irrationally or otherwise). Fluke doesn't give a hoot about the 87V*, it just knows a lot of people want to buy them.

c) Danaher sells better meters under other brands for less than half the price of Flukes. If all you want is a good multimeter and you can see past the yellow color then you should probably get one of those instead.

(*) This is that part that was confusing me. I was under the illusion that Fluke cares about their products. They don't.

I really don't know much about Fluke or the 87V.    It may use a masked part with some minimum buy.  They could be sitting on a last time buy.   They may also be out of code space.  It may not even be something that could be addressed in firmware.  For that matter, they may not even have the source or the talent to roll a changes if they wanted.  If they could change it, they may not have the resources to qualify it.

Joe was very close when he said that^.

Danaher probably moved Fluke's R&D team somewhere useful. They're not needed at Fluke.

Oh good lord, what a heap of errant speculation! 

Fortive is no longer a Danaher subsidiary, they are an S&P500 company (FTV) with $7 billion/year revenue and a 10% profit margin.  A product like the 87V doesn't really stand still too long on an internal basis--the PCB has probably been revised 10X during its run so far and just making sure all the components remain available, or knowing when they won't be and planning necessary revisions, is probably a full-time job for at least one person and a part-time responsibility for many more.  Their R&D team has been cranking out new products continuously, just not the bargain-priced swiss army meters that you apparently crave.  Just like Coca-Cola come out with new soft drinks, expensive bottled water, etc etc--but nobody is going to f*** with the original Coke ever again. 

Your fantasy that Fluke is just doddering along assembling meters that they don't understand from parts designed by long-gone engineers is, well....

[Trader]

I think Fluke charges 50% more just because of the Lifetime Warranty.

[Fungus]

Just like Coca-Cola come out with new soft drinks, expensive bottled water, etc etc--but nobody is going to f*** with the original Coke ever again. 

You've heard of Coke Zero, right? If we use "Fluke logic" Coke Zero shouldn't exist.

Well, it exists and they've even reformulated it twice despite people saying they shouldn't:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola_Zero_Sugar#2017_reformulation

Why isn't Fluke doing anything like that?

Your fantasy that Fluke is just doddering along assembling meters that they don't understand from parts designed by long-gone engineers is, well....

A "slight exaggeration"?

[bdunham7]

You've heard of Coke Zero, right?

So what?  A diet cola that doesn't compete with original Coke?  I'm not sure what you are getting at.  Overapplying analogies leads to silly results.

A "slight exaggeration"?

You said:

Danaher probably moved Fluke's R&D team somewhere useful. They're not needed at Fluke.

and then quoted other comments about Fluke's possibly lacking the ability to make revisions.  It's very possible that they don't want to make revisions, but that is very different from not having the capability. 

[Fungus]

You've heard of Coke Zero, right?

So what?  A diet cola that doesn't compete with original Coke?

It directly competes with original Coke. It's been the company's biggest growth product over the last few years.

Overapplying analogies leads to silly results.

This is actually quite a good one.

The reasons given for buying a drink that costs four or fives times more than a store brand are very similar to the reasons people give for buying Fluke multimeters: Brand familiarity, they want to know know exactly what they're getting, etc.

Also: They didn't change their minds even after they chose the another brand in a blind taste test. People are stubborn that way.

[Trader]

and then quoted other comments about Fluke's possibly lacking the ability to make revisions.  It's very possible that they don't want to make revisions, but that is very different from not having the capability.

I think the Fluke 289, by far, is the best handheld DMM, others could be a little stronger, or had a better display (for outside use), but, summing up all the advantages, the 289 is excellent.

They did a complete board revision 3 or 4 years ago and also fixed the super cap leaking. Maybe they are keeping like that up to some competitor to surpasses them, but up to now, all of them are runner-up, and seems most of the competitors will keep the handheld DMMs accuracy around 60k counts.

[bdunham7]

Also: They didn't change their minds even after they chose the another brand in a blind taste test. People are stubborn that way.

It is easy to assign irrationality as the cause for others actions when you don't understand them, or try to apply a limited understanding and don't get the result you expect.  What is really going on is that you simply don't understand the reasons for what you are observing.  That applies to cola drinkers, politics and DMM buyers. And even if you studied it with some particular methodology, you still would only have a limited and likely flawed understanding.  For me, Coke Zero "competes" with Diet Coke and maybe Diet Pepsi--I grab whichever one is there.  Regular Coke isn't even a option I consider.  I'm not a big consumer of it, but I would guess that most diet cola consumers act roughly the same.  Perhaps I'm wrong.

Read the new Brymen 789 thread. Then tell me how the typical meter-buyer's decision making process works.

[Trader]

This "soda comparison" could be: Fluke 187 vs 189, 287 vs 289, and many other very similar models of DMMs, Clampers, etc.

[Fungus]

This "soda comparison" could be: Fluke 187 vs 189, 287 vs 289, and many other very similar models of DMMs, Clampers, etc.

The point is that the market leader in drinks *does* try new formulas, even at the expense of their own products.

The idea that Coke stopped innovating after the "New Coke" incident is ridiculous. At best it could be compared to the the 87IV when Fluke also retreated from a too-radical change.

The 87IV R&D wasn't even wasted, Fluke rebranded it as the 187 and sold it for a number of years, it's still one of their most sought-after meters among people who really want a good meter.

[Fungus]

I think the Fluke 289, by far, is the best handheld DMM, others could be a little stronger, or had a better display (for outside use), but, summing up all the advantages, the 289 is excellent.

Depending on your workflow and requirements, yes, it can do many things that most meters simply can't do.

Other people might not need all the logging/analysis functions and prefer a simpler interface and crisper display.

[bdunham7]

The idea that Coke stopped innovating after the "New Coke" incident is ridiculous.

Yes it is.  Who said that?

[doppelgrau]

Fungus, I think you miss the fact, that buying a fluke 87V is in many cases the cheapest option. Not for you the hobbyist, but for a company.
E.g. the maintenance electrician needs a new good DMM, either simply buy a fluke that fits the spec (or even the same as before), you can get it from a supplier already in your "list of authorized supplier", know where you can get it calibrated if needed, know all necessary certifications are met. So Spend 500$ in less than one hour, get the meter three days later.
Or you can start searching for meters, make sure all required certifications are met, start the process to add a new supplier to the list, make sure you're calibration service also services this new meter, wait 6 weeks for the meter since the "new supplier"-setup took so long ...
The amount of time invested was now way more expensive than that meter, and even than you might end up with a unhappy electrician (could be even more expensive).

[james_s]

This thread is just going around in circles, frankly it's starting to look like someone who is just trolling and not really listening to any of the replies.