Show HN: IKEA Complexity Index

(ikea.greg.technology)

57 points | by gregsadetsky 7 hours ago

10 comments

  • juujian 0 minutes ago
    Time estimate is way off for the Smastad loft bed, that thing was such a pain.
  • xxs 20 minutes ago
    What's the assembly time based on?

    IKEA in general is piss easy to assemble except for leveling stuff where you'd need a laser and often times another person. Some of provided tools (the famous L 6mm hex key made of cheese) and hardware (nails) tend to be very poor... and sometimes it'd need a visit to buy extra hardware - e.g. low-profile head, non-counter sunk screws to attach to the wall.

    Repairing furniture or addressing mistakes tend to be fixable by a mix of wood shavings/dust and epoxy in most cases.

    So the assembly would depend on previous experience, available tools, and free space.

  • selcuka 2 hours ago
    I believe this table needs a column for the disassembly process as well.

    I bought and assembled a TUFFING Bunk Bed years ago, and even though the complexity of assembly is reported as 4644 on this web site (which is also suspiciously low), as far as I can tell the only way to disassemble it is to use an angle grinder.

    • xxs 8 minutes ago
      > use an angle grinder.

      I do use wood glue on all dowel pins, so most stuff is assembly once only. Unless the furniture provides metal inserts for machine screws, I do not consider it disassembly material. It's likely to exhibit the spontaneous disassembly on its right own otherwise (or squeak soon enough)

    • gregsadetsky 33 minutes ago
      the comments on ikea's site seem to agree with you - lots of extremely negative ones about the assembly

      I did not do sentiment analysis on the comments (to modify my fudge factor mentioned elsewhere - which is the bulk of my complexity rating computation), but that could be a good next step..!

  • lancebeet 2 hours ago
    If you look at the item number and it begins with an s, it means it's a combination of multiple articles. If you click "what's included" you'll see what articles it consists of. The assembly documents will include the assembly documents for each child article. On the top pax, you can see it actually consists of 20 distinct child articles (some of which require no assembly).
  • cisophrene 3 hours ago
    LÖNSET Slatted bed base King 302.787.13

    3h of fun for a mere $140.

    I've seen more expensive hobbies.

    • kandros 2 hours ago
      I have nightmares of these, I’ll gladly pay someone else to do it next time
      • microtonal 2 hours ago
        I hate building IKEA furniture, my wife loves building IKEA furniture. Problem solved :).

        Same with shopping at IKEA. I know all the shortcuts in our local IKEA so that I can exit the store as quickly as possible.

    • ece 1 hour ago
      This is the new version, the old one is called sultan laxeby. Easily 1.5x the amount of time.

      PDF for assembly is still up on the website: https://www.ikea.com/nl/nl/assembly_instructions/sultan-laxe...

  • baq 32 minutes ago
    I’ve paid for putting twin PAXes with doors together. Two pros came in at 9 am and I was wrapping up vacuuming by 10:30. Best money spent ever
  • ItsYan 57 minutes ago
    I don't believe this. The sundvik series feels way more complex than brimnes but wardrobes have the same complexity score.
    • gregsadetsky 52 minutes ago
      Feel free to give me some real assembly time values - happy to adjust my very simple formula of steps x number of parts x fudge factor :)
  • joshdavham 5 hours ago
    Where did you pull this data from?
    • mawadev 3 hours ago
      I think its AI sentiment generated data, no way someone needs 6.5h for a bed frame. I needed at best 2h...
      • gregsadetsky 54 minutes ago
        It’s rather a very simple math formula based on the number of steps and parts.

        I adjusted the formula by researching online what people reported as the time it took them to build some of the items. ie there’s a linear regression “fudge” factor - but it’s still an extremely simplified “model”, if you can call it that.

        • mawadev 8 minutes ago
          Very cool then, my personal experience and experience in general with assembling furniture could be different to what regular people who never did it before have, seen it with friends
      • Maxion 2 hours ago
        The time it takes to assemble Ikea furniture is very dependent on your experience with it, and if you're using an assembly driver or not.
        • imhoguy 2 hours ago
          ..and space, try to assemble bulky bed in small bedroom
        • vasco 2 hours ago
          Yes but this website seems to assume that one will need to Google what a screwdriver is for an hour before they start assembling anything.
        • mschuster91 2 hours ago
          > and if you're using an assembly driver or not

          Not a good idea on modern Ikea furniture that's basically engineered wood and cardboard. Way too easy to strip out the threads.

          • mawadev 9 minutes ago
            Very true, I do it with regular screwdrivers but I watched people in the past ruthlessly overscrew and hammer stuff in, its not supposed to be done with force. My furniture so far survived 2 moves and 14 years with full disassembly and assembly in between..

            These days I wouldn't recommend Ikea to anybody with the prices and build quality, Jysk is a good and cheap alternative in germany.

          • jasode 1 hour ago
            >assembly driver

            >Way too easy to strip out the threads.

            An "assembly driver" or "installation driver" is meant to describe low-torque powered screwdrivers. They don't strip threads especially when used on the lowest torque settings that can barely turn a screw before the clutch-release mechanism clicks. On the other hand, the high-torque powered screwdrivers that can turn drywall and deck screws and the impact drivers that can spin the lugs on car wheels are a different beast.

            The bigger risk with IKEA furniture is hammering in the metal dowel pins (that interlock with the rotating cams) at a perpendicular angle to the flat board. You have to gently tap them with a hammer because it's too easy to puncture through the particle board.

            Actually, the majority of "screws" to turn in a lot of IKEA furniture (e.g. bookshelves) are the cams instead of typical threaded screws. The cams only rotate 180 degrees so there's no time savings in trying to use a powered screwdriver.

          • xxs 16 minutes ago
            Any drill nowadays would has a clutch. Use it, so it limits the torque. It applies for pretty much any kind of work (e.g. including mounting intake manifold on a lawn-mower, but then it's likely to use a torque wrench too)
      • tchalla 2 hours ago
        I needed 45 min. Should it be 45 mins then?
      • mschuster91 2 hours ago
        Apparently there used to be a built in estimator in the checkout process [1]. I member having seen that somewhere as well, but it's been ages since I ordered online from Ikea, I always go in person to stuff myself full of hotdogs and meatballs LOL

        [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/TaskRabbit/comments/13dm7lu/comment...

  • hdgvhicv 1 hour ago
    Tried 4 different items and none are listed.
    • gregsadetsky 55 minutes ago
      Sorry to hear! The products are from the US site, and I’m hiding products where the extraction pipeline couldn’t get all of the information (steps, parts count) reliably.

      What are the missing products?

  • lightthemad 5 hours ago
    [dead]