Any home tech gadgets. Robot vacuums, smart lights, smart thermostats, internet connected TVs and appliances, most kitchen gadgets especially if they require power. None of it lives up to the hype and it's all e-waste in a couple of years if not sooner.
Can't speak to most of those but smart lights are pretty nice.
I made sure to buy zigbee ones so that I'm just tied to home assistant which even if it goes out of business will still work with whatever binaries I've downloaded already (as well as it works locally so I can control them during internet outages). I'm sure somebody else can explain why you should get Thread or Matter nowendays but I never bothered to learn the differences.
But yeah, the average life of a company is what 1 year? Don't get any product you want for more than 5 years from a company younger than 5 years if you need that company to exist for it to work.
Robot vacuums are the worst. I have to help it every thirty minutes. And anytime I close a door or move something it wants to create a new map. The old randomized ones were actually better.
Exactly. We changed from some fancy one that my boss gave me to a cheap one that you operate with an old-school (can't believe I'm saying that) infrared remote. It doesn't "think". It just works like our other reliable dumb machines - diswasher and washing machine. We don't own a regular vacuum cleaner as I just do a regular sweep with a broom when we want a thorough job done.
All other home tech gadgets friends and family have acquired live in limbo land stored in the back of the draw or on top of the cupboard, never opened or tried once but got stuck downloading some stupid app. But we can't just throw it away yet, as there's guilt around acquiring that smart tech thing in the first place even though we know there's already so much e-waste.
I was worried about this. Especially as a roboticist who deals with making tools to help people do this for fleets of robots. But I thought I’d try this $450 Eufy bot and the thing is pretty much foolproof. Just have to clean up the Lego first…
What kind of Robot Vacuum did you have? I had mine map the house once downstairs, and once upstairs and it's been fine navigating around stuff ever since. It comes into the kitchen area while I'm cooking and will eventually just come around for a second pass after my feet are out of the way. I have the roborock Q5+.
The only complaints that I have are:
1) I have mine set to notify me when it's done cleaning. Sometimes it will do it immediately after it's done, while other times the notification might come two or three hours after the fact. Still other times, not at all.
2) I have to clean the vacuum more frequently than I would like. That means: cutting out hairs from the "side brush" on the front of it, cutting hairs out of the "main brush" that sucks up most of the debris, and wiping the sensors clean. In fairness, I'd probably have to do the same sorts of thing with the rollers on a normal vacuum cleaner after a while too, though.
3) There's been a handful of times over a 2-ish year period where it'll go to the other room to start cleaning, and while a normal trip might take 15-20 minutes, it'll claim to be done in about 5 minutes. I suspect that blankets may have fallen on the ground or something, so it became too "blocked" to be able to clean properly, but it could be some kind of software error.
I worked on an IoT project at one of the big German car makers and it was a mess. More money than sense. They didn't really have any idea why they were putting software into stuff. Just some vague notion that some software systems needed to exist to then present its existence to the next boss up; presumably all the way up and out to investors. Discussing the actual functionality or how the product(s) would actually be experienced in the real world was essentially taboo.
There was a podcast called garbage.fm [1] with one of the hosts working for General Electric at the time it was recorded. It sounded like GE were yet another one of those incumbent companies doing "smart" Internet of Things products just because they were worried about being left behind.
People want to spend money to fix a problem that fundamentally requires effort on their part, not tech.
Vacuuming is actually the easiest bit of cleaning a house IMO - getting the floor clear (if you have kids, or out of control hobbies, or are just lazy or a bit of a horder) is hard.
People aren't stupid, they kind of know this. But just like buying expensive gym equipment they think that a new toy will incentivise them do the hard bits.
"If I buy a new gizmo I'll finally start cooking healthy delicious food" is a great pitch.
It was “easy” to vacuum before but we never did a thorough job. All too often we just vacuum what we can see, never under the couches, etc.
Now that we have to move everything so it can complete the full map we have a much cleaner house. It encourages us to move all of the chairs, toys, etc.
Alexa. I use Alexa constantly, except my Echos drop off the network and have to be manually restarted by unplugging them. And I curse every time one of them starts up with, "by the way...."
I have several smart power strips that stopped responding; I have had better luck with individual smart outlets.
Digital audio players with Wi-Fi radios that support AirPlay. I've purchased three, two from Hiby and one from FiiO. The idea was to stream AirPlay to the DAP from one of my PCs, getting quality audio over wired headphones, while I walked around the house. The Hiby models would drop the stream occasionally and both had batteries that died in a year or less. The FiiO would accept streams from Apple devices, but not third-party AirPlay streams. I ended up listening to my phone.
I found bone conduction headphones don't come anywhere close to audiophile quality.
Wi-Fi in general, living in a row home in a neighborhood crowded with 2.4 GHz transceivers.
I bought and stored away a large drawer full of microphones, headphones, mice, and keyboards before I settled on the models I like.
I've never used a Windows trackpad that was worth spit. I can't use a Mac without a trackpad next to my keyboard and mouse. The difference on Windows is maddening.
I was getting frustrated with the battery in my old Apple watch as it got older, but now that I have two watches and can switch between them, I wear one or the other 24 hours a day.
I got a Garmin watch after being frustrated with the tech company watches lasting only hours on a charge. I charge this watch once a week and it does everything I realistically want from a smart watch:
- shows notifications
- tracks workouts
- silent alarm clock
- home assistant shortcuts
Garmin watches are great! I wish the lighter/smaller models also had solar charger, but last time I checked only the bigger "ultra-durable" ones had it, but they're not that comfortable to wear.
I cannot agree more. The battery not even lasting a day is what prevents me from using it. When I want to go for a run with it, it's always out of battery.
I had this exact problem with my Apple Watch. My family got me an Ultra as a gift, and I really didn't think I was going to use it (I didn't even want it), but it ended up being a total gamechanger, and now the Ultra is my favorite gadget and a huge motivator to get into better shape.
My Apple Watch is now so old that it’s unsupported by new WatchOS, but the battery still lasts a day without problem. It probably helps that I disabled the always on screen. Lasting all day has never been a problem, though.
I solved the battery problem with an ultra, but I couldn't solve what is consistently off heart rate monitoring.
It now feels almost unusual for it to get the heart rate correct. And I'm not talking about off by a few or feeling off. I'm talking about full on max heart rate when I'm doing a easy run or 1/2 and 1/3 off which is impossible to miss.
My suggestion would be to start with a refurbished or last-gen normal watch on sale. See if they like it. Upgrade to Ultra a few years later if they do.
It’s a hit or miss product category. My wife and I like ours and most of my friends like theirs, but I have a couple friends who got a smartwatch and then never liked it. Would be a shame to buy an expensive one for someone who doesn’t even like it.
For instance I never liked the default band, but the Milanese loop is great. My wife never wore her series 5 but I got her a series 11 which is a few grams lighter and thinner and she wears it all the time now.
I was on the fence about getting an ultra but for some reason never liked the size and shape (big rectangle with a huge crown bulge) since I have small wrists. I ended up getting a garmin epix pro at a big discount which is slightly smaller and round.
At the end of the day they are great if you want to collect data on yourself. Even though my wife didn’t like her series 5 the hypertension features were worth trying a newer one.
Mysa thermostats - don't integrate well with Home Assistant and can't even reliably follow schedule.
Every Samsung phone I've ever owned - great hardware, but the software is a mess, especially with all of the Samsung apps that duplicate the Google apps.
Sony smart TV - was excited about running Android TV apps, but the onboard hardware is so bad that everything lags, and I actually ran out of space after installing 10-20 apps (it only has 4GB of flash storage). Also, its Ethernet adapter has a hardware bug that occasionally freezes up my entire network by spamming it with flow control frames.
SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro headset. Microphone quality is just worse than it should be for the $320 I paid, and the battery doesn’t last as long as I hoped. This was after reading many reviews.
Gaming headsets, especially the expensive ones were a trap I fell into for a long time. They’re overpriced for sure, quality varies but they usually last a few years. They’re always all so uncomfortable too.
I broke out and ended up getting a DAC/AMP, some good cans and a mounted microphone and I’ve never looked back. I miss the wireless part a little, but taking the headphones off to get up is a cheap price compared to $200+ garbage.
Seconded, "oh I'll always have a charged battery", but the real experience is spending much more time swapping batteries than I used to spend plugging in. More frequent and longer duration interruptions.
Nest started out great for me as an early adopter.
The recent iterations are just frustrating. The apps are laggy. It’s always prompting me to join an energy savings program no matter how many times I say no. We had to disable the home/away detection because it went from working well to thinking we were away 5 times per day.
Nest stands as my example of a product that went from great to terrible through complete mismanagement and customer neglect.
My Nest works great other than the app trying me to get to change my account to Google, which I just close out of every-time. Basic functional UI and works as billed. The unit itself has a nice sturdy feel to it with a very intuitive wheel-and-click interface. It's the only smarthome thing I have besides Hue lightbulbs
Yep. I have an Ecobee currently and have had a Nest previously. Am totally perplexed why people like these things. Just opened the Ecobee app and literally at the top is an ad saying "The Holiday sale is here. Shop now." Irritates me to no end.
Really not getting much value out of it, despite being all-in on Apple otherwise (iPhone, Mac, AppleTV, Homepods).
I really feel like it absolutely should be more integrated into the other devices. Set a timer on the phone? Can’t see on watch. Stuff like this bugs me like hell. And I think there’s too much of it.
Synology 923+. Turns out I’m the only one that connects to it in the house. I don’t actually need it. I’m now retired and really only need some external drives or some HDD’s in a hard drive docking station. I just got a docking station. I’ll grab a couple HDD’s and be done with it. Sell the Synology
Steam Deck. An awesome piece of hardware, a leap forward for Linux gaming, but as an early adopter I got the black screen of death (common issue) fairly soon. Tried everything to no avail. Now it's a very shinny and barely used brick.
The MacBook Pro with Mini-LED has this terrible vignette effect. I do not understand how no one mentions it, it’s completely unacceptable at this price point. Also any backlit keyboard that isn’t shine through. Also linear switches but maybe that’s a preference thing.
I’m probably risking a lot of downvotes with this one, but for me it was a Home Assistant setup. Not really a purchase because it’s an open project, but I invested a lot of time into reading the docs and setting it all up only to realize I didn’t actually like it better than using the smart home products directly. It seems like a great option for people who like to tinker and get a thrill out of getting some cheap Aliexpress gadget or ESP32 project to work with their home, but I just wanted something simple that worked for my house without extra complexity.
Not sure I'm at the regret stage, but the 3D printer has been sitting mostly unused, and I'm not sure that'll change. There have been a few things that were good to print, but mostly used to print fidget toys for the kids and their mates.
I’d use it all the time but the workflow is obnoxious. Download a model, manually run the slicing software. Load it onto a usb. Plug it into the printer.
If I could click print from my phone I’d be running it constantly.
I’m actually surprised I didn’t hit this problem. My 3D printer has been wildly useful.
I seriously thought it would be another fad hobby that I drop immediately. But now I’ve gone as far as learning 3D modeling which I never really expected to do. I actually have more projects going on than I have printing capacity for sometimes.
I wish I had perfect advice for getting the most out of it.
Maybe this one will help: remember that even cheap plastic products are often more expensive than printing your own. That $10-20 doodad from the store is still more expensive than a LOT of filament. I’ll list out some stuff I’ve printed:
- Planter pots
- Knock box (for espresso)
- portfilter stand for tamping (espresso)
- espresso machine mod kit enclosure
- A loom for a friend who weaves
- “neon” LED signs with custom words (designed by me based on YouTube tutorial)
- Same concept but used to make might up address numbers for the house
- A triangle-shaped piece to guide the extending kitchen sink sprayer hose so it stops getting caught on stuff under the cabinets
- A replacement clip for a Packit reusable container
- Designing your own wall or under-desk mount for any custom size object is trivial
- Tea bag organizer
- Bookmarks
- Name tags/3D labels (you can pause prints and change filament colors at a specific layer even without an automated material system)
- Bag clips
- Toothpick dispenser
- Toothpaste squeezer dispenser thing to keep the tube neat
- storage organizers, including a whole pegboard system hanging up all my tools and junk
- Contact lens storage boxes
- Replacement latches for plastic bins
I haven’t printed them yet but I’m very interested in some of the cool mini-racks, mini NAS systems, and small form factor PC cases you can print from scratch rather than buying them. For example there’s a design on makerworld where you grab a cheap mini PC, an nvme to SATA adapter, and an AliExpress SATA 3.5” backplane, and boom, you’ve built a consumer NAS alternative for a fraction of the price.
Hopefully some of these ideas inspire you to get more use out of your machine!
Quest 2, I still think it's great but I got unlucky and bought it at the time of the increased price, a few months before it went back down and then even more down a year or two after. Admittedly my own fault but still regretful due to the fact I could've saved over a hundred $ had I waited.
Beeline EQR series nuc. On paper it’s got a blazing cpu and gpu, in practice it can’t even maintain any legit clock rate without sounding like a jumbo jet is taking off.
I'm on the opposite side: I paid extra for a PS5 with disc drive, but I have never since bought a disc game. Although I have used the drive this year to watch some old DVDs.
The diskless systems point is a good one — the convenience is real, but the loss of resale, lending, and long-term ownership adds up more than reviews usually acknowledge.
Do you think that trade-off was obvious at purchase time, or did it only start to feel painful once storage filled up and the library grew?
On the Apple Watch side, was the battery issue something you noticed early, or did it become frustrating over time as usage increased?
ModRetro Chromatic, great handheld game system but didn't know I helped fund a military arms dealer that will maim and kill innocents with autonomous systems. :(
By far the most disappointing for me has been the Roomba x2. I love the concept and when the first one didn't live up to the hype I somehow convinced myself the newer version surely had the bugs worked out. Neither lasted working in my house for longer than a few weeks. Not because they were broken but I spent more time dealing with them than I did just vacuuming. Haven't tried another robot cleaning device since.
Roomba as well. Awesome at first when we bought our first home.
But then we filled it with stuff and got a doggo. Those hairs fast-track the process of jamming the wheels and sweeper. Why do we need a robot vacuum when we still have to vacuum by hand?
Kinesis Advantage360 SmartSet. If you need an ergonomic keyboard for any reason, do not use Kinesis. RSI is preferable to interacting with the arrogant twits who work there.
Now, to their credit: The keyboard itself is of a reasonable build quality, aside from the fact that it will just occasionally completely die on me until I unplug it for a few minutes and try again.
On the other hand, their customer service was not only unhelpful but actively antagonistic and rude towards me. I gave basic feedback once or twice, and asked for an updated technical manual on the keyboard I purchased and I was treated like I shit on their cat.
---
"Hello, I can only find (this) and (that) manual regarding the 360 SmartSet. One document appears to be an outdated version of the other, and the more up-to-date version is no longer accurate. Do you have an up-to-date manual I can work off of? I was able to parse out some other functions like XYZ by looking at manuals for (devices that are no longer for sale) but I think I'm still missing some crucial information."
"It's on the site, but since you can't find it yourself, here you go." (It's the more outdated manual that I already referenced by name and included already.)
---
"Hello, I noticed it occasionally has issues when I use it with my KVM. Is this a known problem, or should I perform an RMA?"
"Well, that's why we say don't use a KVM!" (Take a wild guess at what information was not listed on any page of their website in regards to the 360 SmartSet.)
---
"Hi, some of the marketing material on your site on (this page) is inaccurate. It would be good to update it to reflect how this thing work now. I've provided a few points to consider updating. (Two or so changes)"
"Too many people have complained about this! This issue is closed now!!" (The entire page is subsequently deleted, making it even less clear how things are intended to work, what future customers will be paying for, giving even less information about their products.)
---
To be clear, I know that some times people will overstate things and make it sound much worse than it actually are, but I really am just trying to tell things as they were. If anything, I've probably understated how rude some of their responses have been. I have never had a positive experience interacting with any person at that company.
Moral of the story is: Never buy from Kinesis, even if it causes you physical pain.
IMO they’re great - if you get it secondhand for cheap.
I have one I got from a coworker for $100 when he was moving. 13 years later it’s as good as it’s always been, and I don’t even know how old it was when I got it.
Interesting. I agree with most items on this page as overrated, but with an L5-S1 disc herniation, the Aeron is about the only chair I can sit in for an extended period of time without hurting. Then again, I haven't tried dozens of office chairs, but at least for me it was worth the purchase cost.
Not an Aeron chair, but I bought a used Steelcase Leap 2 for $500. I've had it for 15 years and all the hardware is still like new. A year ago the reupholstered fabric on the seat started to rip revealing the original fabric which was stained but in one piece.
I don't think you would get the same mileage with an Ikea office chair.
I never understood the appeal of these. Last time I went chair shopping I sat in a ton of different chairs including these and they were middle of the road in comfort and at the top end in price.
Any home tech gadgets. Robot vacuums, smart lights, smart thermostats, internet connected TVs and appliances, most kitchen gadgets especially if they require power. None of it lives up to the hype and it's all e-waste in a couple of years if not sooner.
Can't speak to most of those but smart lights are pretty nice.
I made sure to buy zigbee ones so that I'm just tied to home assistant which even if it goes out of business will still work with whatever binaries I've downloaded already (as well as it works locally so I can control them during internet outages). I'm sure somebody else can explain why you should get Thread or Matter nowendays but I never bothered to learn the differences.
But yeah, the average life of a company is what 1 year? Don't get any product you want for more than 5 years from a company younger than 5 years if you need that company to exist for it to work.
Robot vacuums are the worst. I have to help it every thirty minutes. And anytime I close a door or move something it wants to create a new map. The old randomized ones were actually better.
> The old randomized ones were actually better.
Exactly. We changed from some fancy one that my boss gave me to a cheap one that you operate with an old-school (can't believe I'm saying that) infrared remote. It doesn't "think". It just works like our other reliable dumb machines - diswasher and washing machine. We don't own a regular vacuum cleaner as I just do a regular sweep with a broom when we want a thorough job done.
All other home tech gadgets friends and family have acquired live in limbo land stored in the back of the draw or on top of the cupboard, never opened or tried once but got stuck downloading some stupid app. But we can't just throw it away yet, as there's guilt around acquiring that smart tech thing in the first place even though we know there's already so much e-waste.
I was worried about this. Especially as a roboticist who deals with making tools to help people do this for fleets of robots. But I thought I’d try this $450 Eufy bot and the thing is pretty much foolproof. Just have to clean up the Lego first…
What kind of Robot Vacuum did you have? I had mine map the house once downstairs, and once upstairs and it's been fine navigating around stuff ever since. It comes into the kitchen area while I'm cooking and will eventually just come around for a second pass after my feet are out of the way. I have the roborock Q5+.
The only complaints that I have are:
1) I have mine set to notify me when it's done cleaning. Sometimes it will do it immediately after it's done, while other times the notification might come two or three hours after the fact. Still other times, not at all.
2) I have to clean the vacuum more frequently than I would like. That means: cutting out hairs from the "side brush" on the front of it, cutting hairs out of the "main brush" that sucks up most of the debris, and wiping the sensors clean. In fairness, I'd probably have to do the same sorts of thing with the rollers on a normal vacuum cleaner after a while too, though.
3) There's been a handful of times over a 2-ish year period where it'll go to the other room to start cleaning, and while a normal trip might take 15-20 minutes, it'll claim to be done in about 5 minutes. I suspect that blankets may have fallen on the ground or something, so it became too "blocked" to be able to clean properly, but it could be some kind of software error.
I like my smart light, though I only use it to turn the light off without having to get out of bed
So true, why is that whole sector so bad?
Couple of anecdotes from the dev side.
I worked on an IoT project at one of the big German car makers and it was a mess. More money than sense. They didn't really have any idea why they were putting software into stuff. Just some vague notion that some software systems needed to exist to then present its existence to the next boss up; presumably all the way up and out to investors. Discussing the actual functionality or how the product(s) would actually be experienced in the real world was essentially taboo.
There was a podcast called garbage.fm [1] with one of the hosts working for General Electric at the time it was recorded. It sounded like GE were yet another one of those incumbent companies doing "smart" Internet of Things products just because they were worried about being left behind.
[1]: https://garbage.jcs.org
People want to spend money to fix a problem that fundamentally requires effort on their part, not tech.
Vacuuming is actually the easiest bit of cleaning a house IMO - getting the floor clear (if you have kids, or out of control hobbies, or are just lazy or a bit of a horder) is hard.
People aren't stupid, they kind of know this. But just like buying expensive gym equipment they think that a new toy will incentivise them do the hard bits.
"If I buy a new gizmo I'll finally start cooking healthy delicious food" is a great pitch.
Eh, our Roborock vac has been a net positive
It was “easy” to vacuum before but we never did a thorough job. All too often we just vacuum what we can see, never under the couches, etc.
Now that we have to move everything so it can complete the full map we have a much cleaner house. It encourages us to move all of the chairs, toys, etc.
Alexa. I use Alexa constantly, except my Echos drop off the network and have to be manually restarted by unplugging them. And I curse every time one of them starts up with, "by the way...."
I have several smart power strips that stopped responding; I have had better luck with individual smart outlets.
Digital audio players with Wi-Fi radios that support AirPlay. I've purchased three, two from Hiby and one from FiiO. The idea was to stream AirPlay to the DAP from one of my PCs, getting quality audio over wired headphones, while I walked around the house. The Hiby models would drop the stream occasionally and both had batteries that died in a year or less. The FiiO would accept streams from Apple devices, but not third-party AirPlay streams. I ended up listening to my phone.
I found bone conduction headphones don't come anywhere close to audiophile quality.
Wi-Fi in general, living in a row home in a neighborhood crowded with 2.4 GHz transceivers.
I bought and stored away a large drawer full of microphones, headphones, mice, and keyboards before I settled on the models I like.
I've never used a Windows trackpad that was worth spit. I can't use a Mac without a trackpad next to my keyboard and mouse. The difference on Windows is maddening.
I was getting frustrated with the battery in my old Apple watch as it got older, but now that I have two watches and can switch between them, I wear one or the other 24 hours a day.
Apple Watch. I'm not even sure when I last wore it, but it was at least 18 months ago.
Slighly laggy remote control for my phone, with widgets a little too small for my finger to reliably hit.
When I do proper long walks, the battery reliably dies on me during the walk.
I got a Garmin watch after being frustrated with the tech company watches lasting only hours on a charge. I charge this watch once a week and it does everything I realistically want from a smart watch: - shows notifications - tracks workouts - silent alarm clock - home assistant shortcuts
Garmin watches are great! I wish the lighter/smaller models also had solar charger, but last time I checked only the bigger "ultra-durable" ones had it, but they're not that comfortable to wear.
I cannot agree more. The battery not even lasting a day is what prevents me from using it. When I want to go for a run with it, it's always out of battery.
I had this exact problem with my Apple Watch. My family got me an Ultra as a gift, and I really didn't think I was going to use it (I didn't even want it), but it ended up being a total gamechanger, and now the Ultra is my favorite gadget and a huge motivator to get into better shape.
My Apple Watch is now so old that it’s unsupported by new WatchOS, but the battery still lasts a day without problem. It probably helps that I disabled the always on screen. Lasting all day has never been a problem, though.
Yep, I am puzzled how so many people seem to like it that much.
I solved the battery problem with an ultra, but I couldn't solve what is consistently off heart rate monitoring.
It now feels almost unusual for it to get the heart rate correct. And I'm not talking about off by a few or feeling off. I'm talking about full on max heart rate when I'm doing a easy run or 1/2 and 1/3 off which is impossible to miss.
I wanted to buy my so an apple ultra watch, is it a bad idea? It seems like a perfect thing that someone doesn't need that would.make a nice present
My suggestion would be to start with a refurbished or last-gen normal watch on sale. See if they like it. Upgrade to Ultra a few years later if they do.
It’s a hit or miss product category. My wife and I like ours and most of my friends like theirs, but I have a couple friends who got a smartwatch and then never liked it. Would be a shame to buy an expensive one for someone who doesn’t even like it.
It’s very subjective, like any jewlery purchase.
For instance I never liked the default band, but the Milanese loop is great. My wife never wore her series 5 but I got her a series 11 which is a few grams lighter and thinner and she wears it all the time now.
I was on the fence about getting an ultra but for some reason never liked the size and shape (big rectangle with a huge crown bulge) since I have small wrists. I ended up getting a garmin epix pro at a big discount which is slightly smaller and round.
At the end of the day they are great if you want to collect data on yourself. Even though my wife didn’t like her series 5 the hypertension features were worth trying a newer one.
Mysa thermostats - don't integrate well with Home Assistant and can't even reliably follow schedule.
Every Samsung phone I've ever owned - great hardware, but the software is a mess, especially with all of the Samsung apps that duplicate the Google apps.
Sony smart TV - was excited about running Android TV apps, but the onboard hardware is so bad that everything lags, and I actually ran out of space after installing 10-20 apps (it only has 4GB of flash storage). Also, its Ethernet adapter has a hardware bug that occasionally freezes up my entire network by spamming it with flow control frames.
SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro headset. Microphone quality is just worse than it should be for the $320 I paid, and the battery doesn’t last as long as I hoped. This was after reading many reviews.
Gaming headsets, especially the expensive ones were a trap I fell into for a long time. They’re overpriced for sure, quality varies but they usually last a few years. They’re always all so uncomfortable too.
I broke out and ended up getting a DAC/AMP, some good cans and a mounted microphone and I’ve never looked back. I miss the wireless part a little, but taking the headphones off to get up is a cheap price compared to $200+ garbage.
Seconded, "oh I'll always have a charged battery", but the real experience is spending much more time swapping batteries than I used to spend plugging in. More frequent and longer duration interruptions.
Nest thermostats. They were an endless source of frustration for me.
Nest started out great for me as an early adopter.
The recent iterations are just frustrating. The apps are laggy. It’s always prompting me to join an energy savings program no matter how many times I say no. We had to disable the home/away detection because it went from working well to thinking we were away 5 times per day.
Nest stands as my example of a product that went from great to terrible through complete mismanagement and customer neglect.
My Nest works great other than the app trying me to get to change my account to Google, which I just close out of every-time. Basic functional UI and works as billed. The unit itself has a nice sturdy feel to it with a very intuitive wheel-and-click interface. It's the only smarthome thing I have besides Hue lightbulbs
Yep. I have an Ecobee currently and have had a Nest previously. Am totally perplexed why people like these things. Just opened the Ecobee app and literally at the top is an ad saying "The Holiday sale is here. Shop now." Irritates me to no end.
My Apple Watch (Gen 6).
Really not getting much value out of it, despite being all-in on Apple otherwise (iPhone, Mac, AppleTV, Homepods).
I really feel like it absolutely should be more integrated into the other devices. Set a timer on the phone? Can’t see on watch. Stuff like this bugs me like hell. And I think there’s too much of it.
Synology 923+. Turns out I’m the only one that connects to it in the house. I don’t actually need it. I’m now retired and really only need some external drives or some HDD’s in a hard drive docking station. I just got a docking station. I’ll grab a couple HDD’s and be done with it. Sell the Synology
Steam Deck. An awesome piece of hardware, a leap forward for Linux gaming, but as an early adopter I got the black screen of death (common issue) fairly soon. Tried everything to no avail. Now it's a very shinny and barely used brick.
Ecobee.
They dropped access to the API for new developers.
Their air quality sensor is horribly inaccurate.
Their UI is actually very confusing.
The app is merely a way to shove ads in your face.
I wish I just got a new Honeywell.
The MacBook Pro with Mini-LED has this terrible vignette effect. I do not understand how no one mentions it, it’s completely unacceptable at this price point. Also any backlit keyboard that isn’t shine through. Also linear switches but maybe that’s a preference thing.
I’m probably risking a lot of downvotes with this one, but for me it was a Home Assistant setup. Not really a purchase because it’s an open project, but I invested a lot of time into reading the docs and setting it all up only to realize I didn’t actually like it better than using the smart home products directly. It seems like a great option for people who like to tinker and get a thrill out of getting some cheap Aliexpress gadget or ESP32 project to work with their home, but I just wanted something simple that worked for my house without extra complexity.
Not sure I'm at the regret stage, but the 3D printer has been sitting mostly unused, and I'm not sure that'll change. There have been a few things that were good to print, but mostly used to print fidget toys for the kids and their mates.
I’d use it all the time but the workflow is obnoxious. Download a model, manually run the slicing software. Load it onto a usb. Plug it into the printer.
If I could click print from my phone I’d be running it constantly.
I’m actually surprised I didn’t hit this problem. My 3D printer has been wildly useful.
I seriously thought it would be another fad hobby that I drop immediately. But now I’ve gone as far as learning 3D modeling which I never really expected to do. I actually have more projects going on than I have printing capacity for sometimes.
I wish I had perfect advice for getting the most out of it.
Maybe this one will help: remember that even cheap plastic products are often more expensive than printing your own. That $10-20 doodad from the store is still more expensive than a LOT of filament. I’ll list out some stuff I’ve printed:
- Planter pots
- Knock box (for espresso)
- portfilter stand for tamping (espresso)
- espresso machine mod kit enclosure
- A loom for a friend who weaves
- “neon” LED signs with custom words (designed by me based on YouTube tutorial)
- Same concept but used to make might up address numbers for the house
- A triangle-shaped piece to guide the extending kitchen sink sprayer hose so it stops getting caught on stuff under the cabinets
- A replacement clip for a Packit reusable container
- Designing your own wall or under-desk mount for any custom size object is trivial
- Tea bag organizer
- Bookmarks
- Name tags/3D labels (you can pause prints and change filament colors at a specific layer even without an automated material system)
- Bag clips
- Toothpick dispenser
- Toothpaste squeezer dispenser thing to keep the tube neat
- storage organizers, including a whole pegboard system hanging up all my tools and junk
- Contact lens storage boxes
- Replacement latches for plastic bins
I haven’t printed them yet but I’m very interested in some of the cool mini-racks, mini NAS systems, and small form factor PC cases you can print from scratch rather than buying them. For example there’s a design on makerworld where you grab a cheap mini PC, an nvme to SATA adapter, and an AliExpress SATA 3.5” backplane, and boom, you’ve built a consumer NAS alternative for a fraction of the price.
Hopefully some of these ideas inspire you to get more use out of your machine!
Rio Karma. Amazing MP3 player at the time, and could play OGG Vorbis and FLAC!!
It was a cheap piece of shit though and all the plastic pieces rapidly came apart. The rubber coating on the handle disintegrated too.
In contrast my iPod survived 10+ years in a glove box and was still immaculate.
Quest 2, I still think it's great but I got unlucky and bought it at the time of the increased price, a few months before it went back down and then even more down a year or two after. Admittedly my own fault but still regretful due to the fact I could've saved over a hundred $ had I waited.
Samsung tablets and TVs, in general smart watches and "intelligent" kitchen gadgets. Also most Windows notebooks.
Spam post. Check the account.
Still a useful thread. The two comments the account posted are really painful AI responses though.
Useful tho
Beeline EQR series nuc. On paper it’s got a blazing cpu and gpu, in practice it can’t even maintain any legit clock rate without sounding like a jumbo jet is taking off.
Ecobee smart thermostat. I’m the only one in the family that knows how to change the temperature now.
Digital only console.
Disc games are cheaper on sales + has actual resale value.
I'm on the opposite side: I paid extra for a PS5 with disc drive, but I have never since bought a disc game. Although I have used the drive this year to watch some old DVDs.
The Loupedeck S. Its been nothing but a pain. Should have gotten a Stream Deck
Diskless game systems. You run out of space quickly and you can’t sell / trade / loan your games.
Not necessarily regret but the Apple Watches have such crap battery.
The diskless systems point is a good one — the convenience is real, but the loss of resale, lending, and long-term ownership adds up more than reviews usually acknowledge. Do you think that trade-off was obvious at purchase time, or did it only start to feel painful once storage filled up and the library grew? On the Apple Watch side, was the battery issue something you noticed early, or did it become frustrating over time as usage increased?
Amazon Fire Tablet, one of the only things I've ever returned.
Quest VR. It’s fine but I just get nauseous too easily
ModRetro Chromatic, great handheld game system but didn't know I helped fund a military arms dealer that will maim and kill innocents with autonomous systems. :(
In that vein: Spotify
Google Glass, the original one. It was my worst purchase ever for so many reasons. I want my $1500 back.
Never be an early adopter of hardware.
In fairness, it was not as bad as a desktop computer running Windows Me.
Microsoft was evil then, and Google has been evil since then.
By far the most disappointing for me has been the Roomba x2. I love the concept and when the first one didn't live up to the hype I somehow convinced myself the newer version surely had the bugs worked out. Neither lasted working in my house for longer than a few weeks. Not because they were broken but I spent more time dealing with them than I did just vacuuming. Haven't tried another robot cleaning device since.
Roomba as well. Awesome at first when we bought our first home.
But then we filled it with stuff and got a doggo. Those hairs fast-track the process of jamming the wheels and sweeper. Why do we need a robot vacuum when we still have to vacuum by hand?
Kinesis Advantage360 SmartSet. If you need an ergonomic keyboard for any reason, do not use Kinesis. RSI is preferable to interacting with the arrogant twits who work there.
Now, to their credit: The keyboard itself is of a reasonable build quality, aside from the fact that it will just occasionally completely die on me until I unplug it for a few minutes and try again.
On the other hand, their customer service was not only unhelpful but actively antagonistic and rude towards me. I gave basic feedback once or twice, and asked for an updated technical manual on the keyboard I purchased and I was treated like I shit on their cat.
---
"Hello, I can only find (this) and (that) manual regarding the 360 SmartSet. One document appears to be an outdated version of the other, and the more up-to-date version is no longer accurate. Do you have an up-to-date manual I can work off of? I was able to parse out some other functions like XYZ by looking at manuals for (devices that are no longer for sale) but I think I'm still missing some crucial information."
"It's on the site, but since you can't find it yourself, here you go." (It's the more outdated manual that I already referenced by name and included already.)
---
"Hello, I noticed it occasionally has issues when I use it with my KVM. Is this a known problem, or should I perform an RMA?"
"Well, that's why we say don't use a KVM!" (Take a wild guess at what information was not listed on any page of their website in regards to the 360 SmartSet.)
---
"Hi, some of the marketing material on your site on (this page) is inaccurate. It would be good to update it to reflect how this thing work now. I've provided a few points to consider updating. (Two or so changes)"
"Too many people have complained about this! This issue is closed now!!" (The entire page is subsequently deleted, making it even less clear how things are intended to work, what future customers will be paying for, giving even less information about their products.)
---
To be clear, I know that some times people will overstate things and make it sound much worse than it actually are, but I really am just trying to tell things as they were. If anything, I've probably understated how rude some of their responses have been. I have never had a positive experience interacting with any person at that company.
Moral of the story is: Never buy from Kinesis, even if it causes you physical pain.
CMF Buds 2 by Nothing. (Cheap AirPods clone at like 50 USD.)
Microphone/audio input sucks over BT. So many glazing reviews. I don't get it.
Aeron chair - nothing special, could have done with a 10x cheaper ikea chair
I paid full boat 20+ years ago but I’ve spent more time in that chair than my car and bed combined, and it’s always got my back. Best purchase ever.
Same. Whether an Aeron or another high quality chair, it's hard to not find value in something we use for huge chunks of our days.
I bought my Aeron chair over 20 years ago. Around $500, and I suspect I’ll be using for another 15 years. Chair has been solid.
IMO they’re great - if you get it secondhand for cheap.
I have one I got from a coworker for $100 when he was moving. 13 years later it’s as good as it’s always been, and I don’t even know how old it was when I got it.
Comfiest office chair I’ve ever sat in.
Interesting. I agree with most items on this page as overrated, but with an L5-S1 disc herniation, the Aeron is about the only chair I can sit in for an extended period of time without hurting. Then again, I haven't tried dozens of office chairs, but at least for me it was worth the purchase cost.
Not an Aeron chair, but I bought a used Steelcase Leap 2 for $500. I've had it for 15 years and all the hardware is still like new. A year ago the reupholstered fabric on the seat started to rip revealing the original fabric which was stained but in one piece.
I don't think you would get the same mileage with an Ikea office chair.
Presumably the real benefit comes over time; at least it’s worth picking up a used one.
I never understood the appeal of these. Last time I went chair shopping I sat in a ton of different chairs including these and they were middle of the road in comfort and at the top end in price.
I would have paid 2x retail for my Aeron and still be happy with it.
Been some 'scam' for decades.
i got 4 used ones 20 years ago, still have them, excellent for my sedentary existence.