As a general rule I agree (my wife bought an electric kettle for tea - against my wishes. I still use the microwave!) but if you make enough boiled (steamed, really) eggs this thing is pretty invaluable. Especially like the OP if you have the occasional habit of forgetting.
The eggs are perfectly done every time, you can control the done-ness, the shells practically fall off and it’s self timing.
If they are sludgy, they are overcooked. 
You mean the yolk, right? Because the perfect soft-boiled egg should have firm, custard-like whites and a warm, runny-ish yolk
I bet if you cook eggs long enough the shell will just dissolve.
I put a pot pie in the oven once and fell asleep. In the morning it was solid black. I tried to cut it open (out of curiosity) but it was too hard. I had to take it outside and put a hammer to it. It was black and hard all the way through.
I won’t lie, that sounds pretty awesome.
Schoolkids do that science project where you soak an egg in vinegar until the calcium leaches out and the shell is just a rubbery membrane. Water alone won’t do it.
I bet if your water is really bad it might.
But don’t eat those eggs.
Yup, that sucker is not going to spoil on a long ocean voyage!
psychopath
Putting on a fresh pot to boil.
Someone remind me in 12 mins.
May be, but at least you, along with me, are bucking the Alton Brown suggestion not to buy kitchen equipment that is single purpose.
Who are you to tell us what Eats are Good, Mr. Brown?!
To be fair, an electric kettle isn’t all that “single purpose”, unless you consider “quickly boiling a variable and pourable quantity of water” to count as just a single purpose.
I drink quite a bit of tea but I use my electric kettle for so much more: filling hot water bottles, soup-in-a-cup things, steaming vegetables, mixing washing or dyeing solutions, etc. No microwavable container that I own is that versatile or easy to use when it comes to making boiling water.
I actually own several.
Like, pyrex measuring cups/batter bowls with lids? Yeah, that would work, but none of mine have lids.
I’m also not crazy about the (small but nonzero) risk of superheating without boiling in microwaved water, and subsequent hot waterspouts.
If something is used for a single purpose that you do every day, it’s really nice to have that convenience. My morning coffee routine involves three unitaskers: the electric kettle, the coffee grinder, and the french press. I could instead make coffee with a saucepan, a blender, and a strainer, but that’s way more hassle than I want to go through every day. If had coffee once a month, then getting those unitaskers is a waste of money. But since I make coffee every day, sometimes twice a day, having those specialized devices removes a lot of hassle.
If I made boiled eggs every day, I could see getting that egg boiler mentioned above. The convenience would be well worth giving up whatever counter space the device took up.
Also, the electric kettle (like a stovetop non-electric kettle, of course), conveniently doubles as a heating pot and a pouring pitcher.
If I had to access three cups of boiling water by lifting a bigass pyrex batter bowl out of the microwave and gingerly removing the lid, it would be a pain. When the electric kettle boils, I just grab it off its base and pour the boiling water right out through the spout, like a kettle’s supposed to work.
And if I’m going to have any kind of kettle for that purpose, it’s going to take up about the same amount of space when not in use, so I might as well have the electric one that’s faster and more energy efficient.