Homeware Buddy Motorized Knife Blade Sharpener Review
There are a lot of motorized blade sharpeners out there, and Homeware Buddy’s offering doesn’t do enough to set itself apart from the mediocre pack. The device’s design looks good and built-in guide works well, but this sort of motorized sharpener is not particularly effective at actually sharpening knives. The body is made up of plastic so it feels pretty cheap, plus the sharpener itself is quite tedious to use. I believe there are a variety of colors to choose from, but I do not see the point of this. A blade sharpener doesn’t need to come in a variety of colors, right?
Look, the Homeware Buddy Sharpener gets points for being very affordable (10 bucks only!) as well as compact space-saving design. Honestly, its sharpening ability is just terrible. The problem is the sharper works way too slowly—waiting around for the motorized component to do its job gets old quick. The motor produces too much noise and the catch tray meant for collecting blade shavings doesn’t fit properly contributes to the malaise. I could see the sharpener’s motor being used more appropriately for a better, higher quality knife sharpener though.
Look, the Homeware Buddy Sharpener gets points for being very affordable (10 bucks only!) as well as compact space-saving design. Honestly, its sharpening ability is just terrible. The problem is the sharper works way too slowly—waiting around for the motorized component to do its job gets old quick. The motor produces too much noise and the catch tray meant for collecting blade shavings doesn’t fit properly contributes to the malaise. I could see the sharpener’s motor being used more appropriately for a better, higher quality knife sharpener though.
Interest Diminished
It’s very unfortunate because I actually like sharpening knives to a keen edge and being able to cut meat and veggies effortlessly as much as the next guy, but this Homeware Buddy Sharpener almost takes the fun out of blade sharpening. The 15 minutes it took to sharpen a standard kitchen knife is so annoying and mind-numbing that I quickly lost interest in the device and its loud motor.
The Homeware Buddy Sharpener is more like a cordless type electric knife sharpener with less precision, power and really, really noisy motor. A couple of my buddies who bought it, in fact, decided to return their sharpeners to the store within a day of use. Yes, I plan on returning it – just as soon as I’m done writing this review.
My buddy, Eric, told me he lost count of the number of times he smacked the device and screamed, “I hate this stupid sharpener” while trying to sharpen a boning knife. Frustrating just isn’t the word. It may have a motorized sharpening system that’s supposed to zip along restoring the edge of any blade, and it may come with a thick, fully illustrated instructional manual, but it has a nasty habit of annoying you within minutes of turning the device on.
Using the sharpener for the first time, I thought it seems extremely responsive, but after a few minutes, at no point it makes any kind of attempt at trying to be even the remotest bit effective. Hearing its motor at work is fun at first, but the sound can drive you insane after a short period of time.
Badly Scripted Instructions
All of the instructions included in the user manual by the manufacturer (press this, hold that, determine sharpening angle...etc., etc.) result in nothing more than instructional scripted nonsense and you don’t get the impression that there is really any motorized system driving the sharpening responses. My knife always turn up the same even after sharpening for 10 to 15 minutes, and sometimes the device would make this really weird sound, though it does seem to run quietly when sharpening a small pocket knife.
Woo-hoo! Careful, such feature will make me giddy. Yet, another motorized cordless knife sharpener that exhibits a preference for style over functionality. Very nicely constructed design, awful functionality! For the big kids among us however - there’s a button for turning on the device’s LED…In the end, this is a below-average, and totally forgettable motorized knife sharpener.