By Claire Reilly

On day two of our Best of 2011 story series, Current takes a look back at all the big appliance news that we covered this year – including the new products, new brands and new innovations.

Pod-coffee experts Nespresso continued to experience a meteoric rise this year, thanks to their near monopoly of the portioned coffee market (a category that almost doubled in unit sales and average sales price over the year, according to recent GfK figures). For Mother’s Day, Nespresso launched the compact Pixie coffee machine and also ran a cashback promotion on its full range. Readers were keen to get all the details, and this became our most-read appliance story for 2011.

Another new arrival to the coffee world was Breville’s Dual Boiler espresso machine – billed by the smalls manufacturer as a “world-first”. The machine was targeted at consumers looking for a barista-style coffee experience at home, with two boilers that allowed for simultaneous coffee extraction and milk texturing and precise temperature control. The story was certainly popular this year and so was the machine – the Breville team recently assured Current that sales are still strong.

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In what also felt like a world-first, one manufacturer actually beat the ACCC to the jump this year by voluntarily announcing its own product recall. LG announced that it would have to recall 24 models in its side-by-side refrigerator range due to an error with a micro-switch inside the ice maker. According to LG, “no risk is acceptable to its consumers” and the anticipatory action was necessary to maintain public trust.

2011 was also the year of the ‘high-end induction war’ – many manufacturers brought the convenience and speed of induction to more consumers with a range of new products this year. Gaggenau’s $12,000 zoneless induction cooktop was a winner with readers, no doubt for what the company called its “unlimited flexibility,” as was the zoneless Le Piano surface that was launched by De Dietrich.

Finally, at the end of the year, Turkish appliance giant Beko launched in Australia, exclusive to Narta. From the moment that Current broke the news, interest was piqued. Many readers came to the site to learn more about the new brand and how it would fit into a marketplace that already has more than 80 brands jostling for space.

Top Five Appliance Stories of 2011:

1. Cashback promo for new Nespresso Pixie machine.
2. LG voluntarily recalls 24 side-by-side refrigerator models.
3. Breville launches world-first Dual Boiler espresso machine.
4. Gaggenau raises the bar with $12k zoneless induction cooktop.
5. Turkish appliance giant Beko to launch in Australia.