Curious what people think is their biggest tech buying regret they wished never happened.
Pixel 7a phone. Purchased for work, intended for infrequent use. I created a new Google account since I didn't want the phone associated with my personal account.
After a couple of months of inactivity, I needed access again. The finger print didn't work (not accepted after a time of inactivity), and I cannot remember the PIN or Google account. I'm essentially locked out.
I can easily prove I'm the rightful owner with an invoice or bank statement, however neither the retailer nor Pixel will do anything, despite multiple conversations.
It raises the question of who owns the device: The person who purchased it, or the person who initially set it up? The Pixel is designed for the latter. I would argue it should be the former since transactions can be verified through intermediaries, whereas anyone could have set up the device, however I understand the complexities of Google verifying retailer receipts.
So I'm left with an unusable device, and I've run out of possible PINs to try.
Hopes for the future:
- On initial setup, a big ugly warning about being permanently locked out, and that I should ideally add recovery options to the new account, and be careful in choosing the PIN
- Requirement for retailers that stock Pixels to accept refunds in these situations, either through the kindness of Google's non-evil heart, or consumer law ("fit for purpose"?).
Any suggestions for what to do with a "bricked" phone would be welcome!
Thanks for sharing your story. While I think that "forgetting" you pin is something that should not have happened, I understand why it did and it is another example of google not being able to give a proper way to prove your identity.
That's exactly the reason why I've started using GrapheneOS on a < 200 bucks smartphone lately (indeed I paid 90 bucks for a Pixel 4a). Pretty unlikely that someone would steal it (and if so, just buy another one), there is no google or generally FFANG at all and it's pretty usable with only FOSS apps. Of course the camera is not the best but it is good enough for more than snapshots. For banking stuff I keep an old iPhone at home locked in the safe - iPhones have real good software / app support and don't require a google account...
If you can't reset from Settings or you can't use your screen, try a reset with your phone's buttons.
If your phone is on, turn it off. Learn how to turn off your Pixel phone. Press and hold the volume up button and power button at the same time for 10–15 seconds. For Pixel 6 and newer devices: Press and hold the volume down button and power button at the same time for 5–10 seconds until the 'Fastboot mode' screen shows. If you hold the buttons for too long, the phone restarts. If this happens, try again from step 1. Use the volume buttons to change the menu options until 'Recovery mode' is displayed on screen. To select, press the Power button once. On your screen, 'No command' is displayed. Press and hold the Power button. While you hold Power, press the Volume up button and let go of both buttons quickly. Android recovery options should be displayed. With the volume buttons, scroll to 'Wipe data/factory reset' and press the Power button. With the volume buttons, scroll to 'Factory data reset' and press the Power button. Factory reset should start. At the bottom of your screen, when the reset is finished, 'Data wipe complete' is displayed. With the volume buttons, scroll to 'Reboot system now' and press the Power button. To set up your Pixel, after the phone completes the OS install, tap Start. Follow the on-screen instructions to set up your phone and restore your backed-up data
IIRC on modern Android phones, doing this will prompt you to log into the original Google account when setting it up after resetting. If you can't log in, the phone is effectively still locked. It's supposed to be an anti-theft measure so that thieves can't just factory reset and make the phone useful again
Edit: This feature is called Factory Reset Protection, read more at https://support.google.com/android/answer/9459346?hl=en
> If you can't give this information during setup, you won't be able to use the device at all after factory reset.
Isn't your experience exactly what would happen with any other modern smartphone? What you ran into is called Factory Reset Protection, which basically all Android phones have, and iPhones have Activation Lock, which is just their name for the same thing.
You can wipe or factory rest without a pin. There are many articles and exact instructions at the top of search results for “reset pixel without PIN”.
As for who owns the data, that is most definitely the person who sets up that account with a PIN, not the device owner. If you forget the PIN, that’s a nasty situation, but unfortunately working as I think most would agree is best.
If you dont need the data two options 1. Install GrapheneOS on it. It's absolutely a more secure option. 2. Reflash it using stock android at flash.android.com
Flashing must be enabled in the OS settings. Without that, the bootloader can't be unlocked.
Yes sorry forgot that. First thing to do when buying a phone is to enable Developer settings and unlock bootloader I guess
A recent Motorola smartphone. Only advantage: it's cheap.
* it's a Tamagochi that keeps crying all day long. "Please set this thing up". "Notification about settings". "Help I shat!"
* Loses connections too often.
* Good old apps, like internet radio silently crash.
* If you happen to listen music over Bluetooth and there's incoming call, it
a) shows you modal windows -- "should setting ______ be set forever?"
b) to turn off Bluetooth speaker, you must notice and click a tiny drop-down menu, and select from "speaker" (which is phone's own loud speaker), "bluetooth" and something else -- basically you gotta guess where is "normal" call with phone at the ear. All this must be done in like 10 seconds of caller's patience.
* Unconfigurable at all. You set it to "don't disturb" and whatsapp/telegram still ring loudly!!! IDK, if this setting changes anything at all. Seems that every app has own overrides.
* tries to add junk stuff like "smart wallpapers" -- and after I found a way to turn it off, showed me "The notification will be shown in 24 hours again."
* wakes up if slightly shaken and shines with the screen -- must put it screen down to avoid bright light randomly shining at night.
Maybe it's the recent Android OS such a pile of accumulated crappy features, like CSS in the wild, that is impossible to sort out... Whoever approved to buy crappy noname smartphones and brand them as Motorola, had no brain.
> IDK, maybe it's just the newer Android OS is such crap
I have a fairly new Pixel (so up to date OS) and none of these problems. Odds are it's something Motorola/Lenovo have messed up.
For better or worse, Android experience depends largely on the specific vendor.
I have a Lenovo tablet and it mercilessly kills background apps, no matter what you do.
I sprung for the extra version with 12Gb RAM as well, so it's just so pointless. It has double the RAM of my Android phone that doesn't do that at all.
So forget about syncthing or anything else you actually want to run all the time in the background. I need to remember to run it manually if I want things to actually be synced.
I could go through the rigmarole of installing a different firmware but it looks really complicated to do, and there are pros and cons of doing that too.
This is so interesting, I used to use exclusively Samsung but bought a Motorola phone for travel and the experience was so good I got rid of my main Samsung and bought another Motorola.
Sonos speakers. I got a big system during COVID and it got me through isolation. But then they decided to redo the app and the new one is terrible (not that the old one was ever great; software is not their strength). It's still a buggy mess to this day. Some of the hardware died too, and they don't offer repairs. Their customer service sucks too. You can't email them anymore and you have to wait hours on the phone.
I went from loyal supporter to wanting to get rid of the whole system. Buyer beware. Company has really gone downhill. I wish they'd fire the CEO.
Sonos were originally great, when they were a platform to injest your music and stream to your various rooms.
That was years ago, and now they want to own the whole thing, from music to speakers, and are willing to brick old devices to force you onto more isolating versions of their app.
I'm very glad I never switched to them (was close when Logitech killed squeezebox), and would not recommend them to anyone for any reason.
Just did a CTRL-F to find this. I fell for the shiny marketing and thought Sonos had a great reputation. The app is bad, the native voice control is bad, and Alexa doesn't work properly for me (cannot get it to drive Spotify no matter what I do).
I bought the cheap IKEA variant and it uses the same crappy software. I once spent a couple of hours adapting a new device into the system.. in the end I had to flash it first and setup everything from scratch. I will not buy any more devices.
Also I don't understand why they can't play sound from any android device since I can make a radio station on Linux and stream audio to it. I mean playing podcasts on the Sonos speakers would be great..
Their software stack is just terrible. Even after multiple resets, many of their devices would not work. Some of their error screens are secretly stateful too, requiring you to do the same thing 4-5x before it'll let you try an alternative workaround (which will sometimes work). The old app was mediocre, but predictably so, and you could usually work around issues with the community's help. The new app is so bad and unstable that half the time server issues will prevent you from being able to finish setup even if you do everything right. It's aggravating.
The FOSS Soundsync used to work with Sonos speaker but I think they blocked them: https://github.com/geekuillaume/soundsync
A friend of mine built his own clone using Raspberry Pis and generic speakers and that works way better than the Sonos stack.
That's the way to go... I guess I always knew, in the back of my head, that a proprietary cloud app was a bad idea... I just didn't think it would get THIS bad. I thought the company would work to protect their reputation and users, especially after they already had at least one similar debacle in the past (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonos#Controversies). I was wrong. Very, very wrong.
We really need a hero on the inside to drop the code
The way I understand it, the employees "yelled" and "screamed" to not launch the app because it wasn't ready: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/09/it-was-the-wrong-dec...
Leadership ignored them, launched the app anyway, lost a ton of their stock value, and then laid off 100 employees.
I dunno wtf the board was doing at the time, but they should've removed the leader, rolled back the update, apologized to everyone and then worked to rebuild the experience and trust from the ground up. They never bothered with that, instead doubling down on the new app, keeping the CEO, and gradually restoring features. It still hasn't reached feature (or stability) parity with how it was a few years ago. I barely ever use my system anymore because it's so bad. (I really should sell it, but I just don't even want to touch the software to reset it, or try to support the buyer if they run into setup issues... which they will... because it's that bad.)
Apparently they're trying to make some changes with adding advisory boards, etc. But that won't help if leadership doesn't change. It was arrogance that brought them this mess, and the same people are still in charge. https://www.audioholics.com/news/sonos-backpedals https://www.cmswire.com/customer-experience/sonos-pledges-ch...
Empty promises from people we don't trust is not a way to win back loyalty. It's just lame PR damage control that fools nobody. They've been doing that for months now and the system is still half broken. Every week I run into issues and I've stopped trying to even report them anymore. RIP. I used to love my Move so much =/ At least that will keep working in Bluetooth mode... I hope.
Never going to buy a smart speaker system again. Dumb old cables is the way to go.
> Never going to buy a smart speaker system again. Dumb old cables is the way to go.
Most things with "smart" in the name are never worth the investment.
The audio sync is really hard to get right on homemade setups (I tried).
Sonos really sucks at software, but they get that right. And the speakers are good quality.
There are zero audio sync issues between speakers all wired to the same receiver. You can get an input cable that connects to a headphone jack to make an iPhone resemble a CD player input on the back of the receiver. Also need an apple dongle for phones w/o headphone jacks.
The very mild inconvenience of using different speakers in different rooms to me is very tolerable vs. the horrible experience with my Sonos speaker deciding to stop working or can't connect, forcing updates, etc. when I just want some chill vibe background music.
Have you tried recently? I’ve been playing with music-assistant, snapcast, and shairport-sync on some raspberry pi zeros. Synchronization has seemed to work incredibly well during my experiments.
My highly customizable split mechanical keyboard. Not naming the product because it's my fault that I regret it. It's very high quality and does exactly what it claims to do, and I'm sure many users are happy with it. It cost nearly $400.
It's a ~60% keyboard, which means it's missing a lot of keys. Notably the F keys and the navigation keys (pgup, pgdn, ins, del, etc). There are ways to remap the blank keys to what you really need, and of course there are all the key sequences and chords you can use. But you have to memorize this stuff, because many of the keys are unlabeled by necessity.
I use it on my PC, Mac (work), and Linux (steamdeck). It's a lot of cognitive burden remembering shortcuts and which modifier keys do what on which OS, with the added headache of having to remember which unlabeled or remapped keys are which modifier keys. I love the feel of it and for normal typing it's great, but anytime I stray from the basic keys (A-Z, numbers, etc) it becomes difficult. I end up doing embarrassing things like using right click on my mouse to do things like copy/paste.
If I was on exactly one OS all day long, I think I could make it work. But juggling 3 is annoying.
If I could redo it all over again I'd realize I didn't need a split ergo keyboard, and would have gotten something more traditional.
Keyboards are easily replaceable - why not just leave off from the sunk cost here and get one that's more to your liking?
My experience has been a bit better than yours. I had the same concerns you've raised here and opted for a more standard layout and got a Mistel MD770, a lesser known brand but it was important to me that the layout is familiar and it has F keys and honestly it's been great, had it for about a year now. I use it on all 3 OSs too. I'm now looking to buy another one for the office as it's too much of an effort to carry it and I've been looking for other keyboards but there aren't (m)any that have standard layout (no columnar stuff), split, pre-built, F keys and ideally hot-swappable switches. The closest is probably dygma raise but it doesn't have F keys which is unfortunate. I think I'll end up buying another MD770.
If you spend the day working with F-based applications, this may not be a solution. But if you require those keys for tasks like renaming files, etc it may be enough to configure SuperKeys on the Raise: keeping the key pressed for 250ms can trigger any other symbol, including the Fs. It might be more natural than switching layers.
I also bought this not naming split mechanical keyboard that costs nearly $400 :)
Not entirely dissatisfied, but disappointed.
Functional keys, cursor, home/end/pgup/pgdn are painful. The default layout is complete garbage. I made 3 iterations with functional keys over 4 months, still struggling. I connect the kbd to the laptop via the monitor, and recently noticed myself switching to the laptop to get things done quicker.
I bought a 2-unit Dell R730 server to crunch through a specific big data problem. I needed dozens of TBs of disk and hundreds of GB of memory. The cost of running it in the cloud one time was $2000+. I figured why not spend that on hardware and use it forever?
Well I got everything set up, turned it on, and it sounded like a jet airplane taking off in my basement. I knew it was going to be loud but this was ridiculous. It was an obnoxious high-pitch whine and I could hear it through the walls and in all rooms of the house. Plus it idled at 100+ watts so it was an energy hog.
Needless to say, I crunched the data that needed crunching then turned it off. I rarely spin it back up. I had some vague ideas about water cooling to avoid the fan noise but that's on the back burner. For now it's just taking up space.
FWIW, I'm in a similar situation right now. I was able to massively decrease noise (and air flow) by switching to Noctua NF- A4x10 FLX fans. As long as my workloads aren't sustained temperatures are fine and noise has from gone ~70-80dB to ~40dB, with the power supply fans being the loudest part now.
Upgrade took me an hour and cost $80 via Amazon.
Oh, I think it was something like this! I need to downgrade idrac. https://gist.github.com/slykar/f90ad596b18d5ab1eb1c66b2ccf51...
I used to suffer from GPU fan noise on my T640. I couldn't adjust it in idrac, I could force it with ipmitool, but I don't remember how...
Huh interesting, I have a T430 and an R710 in my bedroom and the noise of both doesn't bother me. I think it depends on the person.
I once bought an Apple XServe and had the same experience. I sometimes don't always learn my lesson though. Years later I bought a Dell tower server. It wasn't as bad as a rack server, but still too much heat and noise. It's been sitting unplugged in my office ever since with my stereo components sitting on top of it.
I had some fun with a HP DL 380 G8 but it's also 110W idle or 75W with 25% reduced performance. The noise is is indeed bad, even with closed doors.
I've replaced it (lab) with a KVM kluster of tinyminimicro machines (1L pc).
Now I just need to throw away the G8.
My Roomba.
It's ok-ish but too noisy, takes too long to do its job and as vacuum it kinda sucks I guess.
It also needs an app that doesn't really work at all. I was forced to install it to solve a random problem with the unit, but now it's useless. It doesn't trigger the Roomba sometimes.
I replaced it with a Bosch vacuum that has the bonus of using the same batteries as my cordless drill and other Bosch devices. Yay. The Bosch is also WAY quieter than the Roomba (also quieter than a Dyson, that was surprising), which is great since I have a cat. Also it doesn't have IoT capabilities so it's amazing.
Every device that requires IoT or an App needs to die die die.
I bought Phillips robot cleaner specifically to have a device without any IoT features. It just works.
After 3 years, though, the experience tells me that it's not such a revolution -- in an apartment with kids, you have to move lot of things out of its way, and this only pays off if you wash the floors afterwards. Otherwise there's little gain compared to wiping the floor manually.
I guess, if it were slightly bigger and could do washing, it would have had much more value.
I'll second the Roomba. I've got several "highly-rated" models that were recommended by Wirecutter a few years ago, and I scooped them up on a sale. These things are pretty terrible. They regularly get stuck on common household obstacles such as the carpet, the rug, and even the wall. More often than not, our main floor Roomba's charging station is empty because the Roomba itself got stuck somewhere and died, or it just decided not to return to its base and powered off under the dining room table. We also have a recurring problem where the Roombas will sit on their charging stations but won't charge, depleting their batteries until we notice several days later and slightly adjust the contact points to get them charging again.
Terrible purchase, stay away from Roomba.
I upgraded from a Eufy (meh) to the Wyze Robot Vacuum and love it. I love it so much I got a second one for my basement and have evangelized my whole family on them. My two sisters and parents now have their own. We’re all big fans.
Which Eufy? We got a Eufy X10 Pro that mops/vacuums back in June. We love it. We have an older roomba for a different floor/level, and that thing is always getting stuck on something.
I had to buy an Ecoflow river 2 max because of outages, it was quite good for some time. But as it turned out you have to fully discharge and charge it back every 6 months (if you don't do it, you lose the warranty). I didn't do it, and apparently something happened either with one of the batteries inside or with the sensor that gauges the charge level. I cannot charge it, because it thinks it's 99%, and I cannot discharge it because it's actually 0 and it dies immediately. Previously, I was able to discharge it slowly (it would die but after a while I'd get it to 98, 97 etc) but not anymore. I can't say I wouldn't do it again because I didn't have much choice at the time.
Another thing I bought which I regret is a used system76 laptop. I originally planned to use it during said outages, but battery life is very far from what I expected (I guess it being old and me using linux doesn't help too).
Hey, that's very helpful to know. I'm semi-shopping for a battery to take out for ham radio things - looking at the River 3 and an Anker C300. Haven't dealt with EcoFlow before but Anker has taken care of me on a couple of warranty requests in the past. Thanks for the heads up!
For ham radio, I would strongly recommend buying some 12v LiFePO4 batteries, or a product based on them. It seems many of these consumer "power bank" products (like ecomax) are built on lithium ion batteries, and with that comes much less useful lifetimes, finicky care requirements, and much higher possibility of fire/explosion.
It's pretty easy to convert 12v to anything you might need. Most ham radios will work on 12v. I'm very happy with my DIY setup with 48AH batteries (24AH x2 in parallel) in a harbor freight dry box, some anderson plugs, and a cigarette lighter adapter that I can plug a real AC inverter into, and/or a nice USB PD based charger.
I'm sure there are companies out there that have this all packaged up as a product. I think the key is to look for LiFePO4 batteries.
For the system76 laptop I bet you can replace the battery. They are pretty easy to open up and work on (at least Lemur that I have).
Remarkable. It was great for doing math, annotating texts, and taking notes for a couple of months. The device became less and less sensitive to the pen over time, which eventually became intolerable. I had kept it around to turn into an eink ssh terminal at some point except I found the iPad that replaced it superior in every way.
Hopefully stupid question but were you replacing the pen nibs? My screen has been solidly responsive for several years of heavy usage, but the fiber nibs do get worn down and need replacing every few weeks/months (by design) or the pen starts exhibiting this behaviour.
I have to admit I have also switched back to real paper for a lot of tasks but I still like the remarkable as an e-reader, and enjoy writing on it occasionally, so I wouldn't say it's a big regret.
My Remarkable 2 does not maintain a battery charge (when not used / on a shelf) such that each time I see it and think "oh yeah I own this, I should throw it in my bag and use it for journaling today", I pick it up and click the power button and see that it's dead, plug it in to charge it, and then the cycle repeats. Also very heavy for what it is (I have the Type Folio accessory).
Interesting! I have a BOOX Nova Air3 C I bought back when it was the only color option on the market. Now that Remarkable has a color option, I've been wondering if the grass is greener. One thing that's always bugged me about it is, unlike my old Kindle 3G, rather than going to sleep after a period of inactivity, it straight-up powers down. So essentially any time I pick it up to use it I have to wait for it to boot.
BUT -- I can't remember the last time I charged it. It's possible it's still on its original factory charge from a few months ago. As someone whose phone is perpetually below 20% charge I greatly appreciate that feature -- given the choice, I'll always choose "needs to boot" over "needs to charge". Your anecdote has therefore reduced my own buyers' remorse.
Make sure the software is up to date. You can also just do a full shut down if you know you won’t be using it for a hot minute.
I had to buy a laptop on 24 hour notice for a consulting gig I had. I really regret getting an Acer. Cheap construction, no discernible thermal management, and the screen would regularly go completely blank with the IBM MDM/corporate spyware the customer required, I had to do a paperclip reboot several times each time I used it. Also terrible IRQ latenecy for audio.
Besides that, any wireless speakers using Bluetooth - it's a garbage consumer technology that I can't believe became a standard. Curious if there was a superior "Betamax" to its "VHS".
Oh, Bluetooth is such a pile of crap... Never works properly, always lives its own life, deciding for you what to connect and what not to.
"Streaming tape backups." Several different hardware formats, various software interfaces, native OS and commercial.
Backups are important, but only restores count. Thousands of dollars and years down the tape rabbit hole, I eventually realized (major denial factor there) that the number of successful restores was 'zero'.
By that time I could buy an external hard drive and enclosure for about the same price, and it would work perfectly. Particularly if I simply did a recursive copy of the files instead of using some backup software's weird-Harold file format.
HP Spectre X360. The wifi card started failing less than 1 year in and there was no way of getting it fixed. It was touted as Linux compatible, but the stylus barely worked with the latest kernel. Sound NEVER worked from the integrated speakers (in Linux, Windows was OK). I digged through so many alsa and pulse-audio posts that it was probably 10% of that year's time wasted. It wouldn't go to sleep when closed (randomly, 8 times out of 10 it would) , so it kept overheating in my backpack.
HP + Linux, never again.
Dang I almost bought that machine but got an XPS instead. Worked great with Linux.
2016 Macbook Pro - was a total lemon with 3 keyboards, 2 screens and a logic board needing replacement. All handled under Apple Care but I was without the machine for a total of about 2 months across all those repairs. Even after repair, the keyboard was an abomination to type on.
Galaxy tab s6 lite. It's a decent tablet, nice screen, fast enough. It's the first tablet I've ever owned, and I just can't figure out what to use for it. I planned to use it for taking notes, but writing on it is very uncomfortable because I can't rest my hand anywhere while writing without activating the screen. But even if I could write comfortably, I think I still prefer paper.
And I just can't figure out what else a tablet is useful for: it seems to be an uncomfortable compromise between a real computer and a phone but doesn't do either very well. The OS isn't good enough to handle complex apps, and it's just a bit to big to hold comfortably like a phone.
I don't know about this specific tablet but tablets that can be used with pens usually feature palm rejection, and you can rest your hand while writing without any issues.
They're all Samsung. The Gear S3 was utterly useless due to the bespoke OS they immediately abandoned, the Note 10 was bloated as hell, un-rootable, and would forcibly restart to apply 30-minute updates while I was using it to show something to a client. One of said forced updates also bricked the damn thing. Never buying anything from Samsung again.
Other than that, I regret buying a Nintendo switch. I played the big Zelda game when it launched and that's about it. Nothing else in Nintendo's library interested me, not for a $70 download-only two years after release.
Try Switch Sports maybe? My family really enjoy that title, you can get some exercise and hone your bowling skills!
Gear S3 was pretty good and still works today. I wish they hadn't abandoned Tizen tho. Android Wear is a hog.
yeah I can see that - unless you're really into first party titles (Zelda, Metroid, Mario) - it's not really worth getting a Switch over something like a Steam deck.
Shokz OpenFit ear phones. I bought them to be able to go running or cycling while listening to music and hear my surroundings. However it doesn't really work, because as soon as there is a little bit of noise around I can't hear the music anymore. A passing car, or a little bit of wind(which happens quite often on a bike) is enough to not hear anything that comes out of them.
Shokz OpenSwim Pro. Waited for years for these to come out. The jump from 4GB -> 32GB sounds great, until I found out that whatever decoder chip they are using doesnt support folders. So you are expected to put 32gb of mp3's on the device (since bluetooth doesnt work under water when swimming), and then navigate file by file. Insanity.
Could be wrong but I don’t think the OpenFit version is for running or biking - it’s mainly for the gym.
I have the OpenRun version and use it for biking and running and it’s great. I’ve been using these a lot running and I prefer these over my Sony noise canceling over ear headphones. There is just something about being outside and still being connected to surroundings - yes for safety but even beyond that - I just run better with my ears open to the air.
I’ve tried several of the bone conducting variety. Shokz is the easiest to use. They also just released a new version that has even better sound called the OpenRun 2 or something similar and it seems to have an even bigger bone conducting audio device.
I got those and I love them, but that same thing happens to me if my sideburns get in the way of the speakers. It's a good signal to me to get my hair cut.
Mostly, I use them to listen to stuff in the house and still be able to carry on a conversation without having to doff my headphones, just pause whatever I'm listening to! A friend also uses them in a wood shop that doesn't allow headphones, but he listens to podcasts to help get through the day.
I'm sorry they don't fit your use case, and I'll have to keep that in mind as I get back on a bike next year.
> A passing car (...) is enough to not hear anything that comes out of them.
Isn't this part kind of the point?
Wondering if he means the thresholds are off. I imagine erring on the side of caution is the smarter thing to do re: liability. Imagine if a cyclist couldn't hear a quieter electric car and turned into its path because the headphones are geared towards a low band pass.
I mean that at one point the surrounding sounds are louder than the music. Of course I could turn the music up, but at one point it's just too loud.
They are just speakers on top of the entry of your ear. So the music competes with the surrounding sounds.
I see — have you tried Jabra? Their in-ear headphones have a great pass-through mode (as well as ANC/others) that work really well for me when I'm running.
I was expecting that the surrounding sounds blend in with the music instead of drowning it out. Like you can hear music coming out of a speaker while a car passes.
LED light bulbs. They are better than they used to be, but they are still awful compared to incandescent bulbs.
They are also inescapable, which means we are cursed with ugly, unpleasant lighting basically everywhere.
I switched my entire home back to incandescent lights, and put dimmer switches on everything to make them as dim, and warm as possible. High quality incandescent bulbs last effectively forever when dimmed.
Our bodies do so much better when it is dark near bedtime, that the idea of “efficient lighting” to save energy just makes little sense. A person only needs about 20 watts of warm incandescent lighting to read or talk to family after sunset- which costs essentially nothing. We overlight everything because it is so cheap to do, but harms us.
I would like to do this. Are you able to find filament bulbs? What dimmers are you using?
I usually buy them by the box on eBay... but any hardware store will have "special purpose" bulbs even in places where they are banned for general lighting sales, some of which are still basically regular bulbs but labeled for "appliances," "marine," or "rough service." You can also get old fashioned edison bulbs on eBay. Any standard dimmer switch will work.
Are people really still mad about this?? In my country we switched to LED lights like… 10 years ago, maybe more? It’s not a big deal, we had light, we still have light. I don’t see what makes it "awful, ugly, unpleasant", is it really that bad? That just sounds like a gross overreaction to me but maybe I’m missing something?
I am. LED lights are too bright, wrong colours, etc. I will want incandescent lights (including incandescent Christmas lights). We don't need to be very bright, nor does not need to be on all the time (especially, Christmas lights can be made flashy and don't need on all the time). But, often, they are using LEDs that are too bright and wrong colours. (Actually, I had also heard on CBC radio that some scientists also say so, even the ones that they try to make more red than blue, are still wrong)
My house is about 55 years old, originally it had 3 x 60W bulbs in the living area. So dark. Now it has LED downlights and 2 pendant lights - I added it up to just over 60W, and much brighter. I'll take the modern lighting thanks!
LEDs with a low color rendering index (CRI) make everything look "flat" and even "fake". It's hard to describe.
Part of the issue is that if you go to a hardware store this is what it will be.
A couple of years ago I looked through all the bulbs at my hardware store, they had Chinese brands and name brands like Philips and Osram. None of the bulbs had a CRI higher than 80.
Yes! LEDs are the wrong color, flicker, and are directional plus they burn out in just as much time as a good old incandescent but cost more than 10 times the price and when that happens you can't just dispose of them in the regular household garbage (actually one could). They are only better than the compact fluorescent that were all the rage for a while.
Err LEDs do not burn out at all in the same timeframe as incandescents. If this happened to you, the LED bulbs were defective.
Or the use case. LEDs are quite sensitive to heat, so use in closed or inverted fixtures will decrease their lifetime dramatically.
Well that's the problem. There are a lot of low-quality, defective LED bulbs being sold. Consumers don't have an easy way to find good ones. Just paying more or looking for a trusted brand name is no guarantee of quality.
This is true of all consumer products, not LEDs specifically. LED lighting has been mainstream long enough now that you can find plenty of information on which specific brands and models are decent.
My personal anecdote is that I have yet to have any Philips LED bulbs die on me. The oldest ones I have are from 2012.
>> this happened to me
> no it didn't
Whatever.
Light bulbs once had a cartel making them worse. LEDs probably do too but now we have fewer manufacturers.
>> this happened to me
> no it didn't
If this is how you think the conversation went, I suggest you reread both your own initial comment as well as my reply.
Low color rendering index (CRI) is often the culprit. Quality LEDs absolutely exist, one must simply do a bit of research in enthusiast forums.
https://budgetlightforum.com/c/other-light-types/led-light-b...
I bought about 20 halogen ceiling lights for my housei last year when we remodelled. The electrician installing them could not understand why I didn't go for LED. I mumbled something about CRI and R9, but it seemed to just confused him more.
Best decision ever. The lights are dimmable and they have such a beautiful glow. It's so noticeable that guests comment.
I also now buy halogen on sight from the hardware store and stockpile, as their days are surely numbered.
I doubt that is the reason I tend to hate being subjected to bright LED lights for more than about 20 minutes a day.
Most agree that the light from most LED light bulbs (i.e., having a pronounced spike in intensity in the blue wavelengths) is bad for you in the evening and in the night time, but I'm saying I don't even like it in the morning if my exposure is too long (and when I'm having a bady day "too long" might be as short as 10 minutes).
CRI should actually somewhat capture that. If your spectrum looks drastically different from daylight, it will affect color reproduction.
https://www.crslight.com/images/kelvin_cri_comparison_chart....
CRI cannot be the issue with GGGP because he writes that LEDs "are still awful compared to incandescent bulbs" and we know that incandescents (being very low in the blue part of the spectrum compared to its output in the orange and the red) have worse CRI than even the crappy LED bulbs.
CRI is also not why I dislike most LED light bulbs either.
very happy with my waveform lighting LED bulbs:
https://store.waveformlighting.com/products/superwarm-1700k-...
Eh. I agree that there are a lot of shitty LEDs out there, but any of the Philips bulbs that say "EyeComfort" are actually pretty decent. I have replaced tons of incandescent bulbs with them and it has pretty much always been a noticeable upgrade. No weird shadows, no flickering (I'm super sensitive to this, unfortunately), and their CRI numbers seem legit.
Not sure what you expect from your light. But from all the random bulps I've seen and tried I still very much like all my WiZ bulps, their light and also that I can control them with a HTTP API without awkward hacks our cloud weirdness.
IKEA bulbs are cheap and 2700K, and have also had good results with the Feit electric.
For bed time applications, a guy here was selling the "bed time bulb." I got one and liked it.
The M2 iPad Pro with Apple Pencil and Magic Keyboard.
I got it so that I could do some writing and note-taking away from my main work computer. Forum posters and tech reviewers assured me the device was up to the task. But the reality is that while iPadOS can do about 60-70% of what macOS can do, the remaining 30% is entirely impossible to accomplish unless you have access to a computer.
I learned this the hard way when I was traveling with just my iPad and somebody sent me a ZIP file that had a hidden file in it (in the UNIX sense, i.e, with a name starting with a period). At the time, there was no way to view or open this file using the iPad Files app. I could pay for a third-party file manager, or I could use iSH to edit it in Vim. Why make it impossible to see dotfiles at all?! Why not give me a checkbox I can enable to temporarily view those files? I understand that it's rare to receive a dotfile over email, but it's not an impossible event.
At some point I discovered you can't install custom fonts on an iPad. Apps can bundle their own fonts, but installing a font globally requires a nasty workaround: use a third-party app to embed your font files inside a security profile, then install that security profile via the Settings app. For a device that targets designers, video editors, and musicians, not being able to install your own fonts is such a bizarre choice.
There were other weird papercuts too. When exporting tracks from Logic, I couldn't put the app in the background. I had to sit there and wait for it to finish. Many apps had iPhone and Mac versions, but no iPad versions. For a while the Magic Keyboard's trackpad cursor didn't send hover events to web pages in Safari, which meant some webapps were unusable. The Apple Pencil could send hover events, though, which meant I had a fun week navigating the WordPress admin interface using the Pencil instead of the trackpad. They eventually fixed this issue.
You can't play more than one sound source at a time. A one second looping sound on a webpage can permanently stop playback in Spotify or Apple Music. This behavior might be fine for a phone, but for a tablet that claims to be a computer replacement? Weird choice.
I could go on and on about this. After all these years, the iPad is still pretty much a consumption device unless you're a digital artist who relies on the Apple Pencil for work. Besides digital drawing and handwriting, there is very little you can accomplish on an iPad that you can't accomplish far more easily on a Mac.
My iPad Pro is basically a Kindle now. Sometimes I use it to watch YouTube, but only sometimes. The YouTube app on iPad is far worse than the website, and it's easier to just reach for my Mac.
> Besides digital drawing and handwriting, there is very little you can accomplish on an iPad that you can't accomplish far more easily on a Mac.
Synth apps are superior on a multitouch screen. Whenever I try them on a Mac it's like I just have one finger. You can set up external MIDI control for apps, but the iPad is just immediate with no extra hardware. (And of course there are dozens of great, cheap synth apps for iPad.)
Games may be content consumption, but multitouch enabled games (board games, card games, rts, etc.) are great on the iPad. Also Apple actually cares about iPad gaming, while their commitment to Mac gaming is lukewarm at best.
Duolingo may also be content consumption, but I greatly prefer its web app on the iPad to the Mac version.
I learnt the same lession with M1 iPad Pro and Apple Pencil. It is fantastic hardware held back by mediocre software. I do sometimes open it up to draw and play games but most of the times, it stays in the drawer.
I was considering getting an iPad+Pencil specifically for drawing and watching YouTube. Can I buy yours?
iPhone 3g. Bought it new yet within a month of purchasing it Apple released iOS 4 which slowed it down so much it might as well have been bricked.
That, plus the lack of OTA updates, needing to plug into a PC/Mac with iTunes (horrible app) to load music, backup photos or update lead me to never purchase an Apple product again.
Going from that to an HTC Android phone was like going 10 years into the future.
That’s a long time to hold onto a bad memory
If Apple didn't have such a paternalistic attitude towards their customers, I might have forgotten. But they do. I definitely care about my ability to do what I want with stuff I've purchased...
My experiences with Asus have been terrible.
First Asus purchase ever. USB Bluetooth dongle. Stopped working in 2 weeks.
Second. An Asus GTX 770. It broke in 3 months.
Third. Asus Xonar PCIE Sound Card. Optical did not work, started hissing/having static in less than a year.
Fourth. Asus motherboard for 1st gen Ryzen. Tried to update bios on arrival, it bricked.
I am never NEVER buying anything Asus related ever again.
I've had many ASUS products and have always had a good experience. Maybe it's because I buy from their high end lines? (ProArt, Strix, etc)
It shouldn’t be a tech purchase but our Bosch refrigerator. Our options were limited during the pandemic so we got the smart one and the setup process was so bad that it should’ve been a warning: they cheaped out and didn’t put Bluetooth on it so you have to let it be a hotspot, connect with their mobile app, give it the password for your device network, etc., all with lowest-bidder unreliable software at every stage.
After all that, it turns out that they didn’t do anything useful: no way to even see the current temperature and after a high temperature alert, there’s no way to see how high it got for how long. They advertise remote support but the one time it came up, it turned out that was completely fictitious and they insist on sending a technician.
I bought a Mi Smart Kettle Pro and the "smart" features are really pointless. You can change a couple of settings, which they could have just made button presses on the device. I thought you'd be able to schedule it to boil, but you can't do that or even turn it on from the app.
I don't care too much though, as it is stainless steel inside and was cheaper than the equivalent dumb Philips kettle.
A Surface Go 2. After a whole day of Windows Updates, I tried to use it to draw, as it was meant to replace my laptop and my notebook. I made a doodle and passed the tablet to my friend. When I was going through the file save dialog to save my drawing before closing the software, I decided to return it. I couldn’t imagine myself fiddling with that dialog again, nor using Windows Explorer to flip through my drawings. This device was everything I hate about computing made small enough to experience it everywhere. It gave me Windows Mobile flashbacks.
Now I have a MacBook Air and an iPad Mini. Two of my best hardware purchases. Procreate and Notability are genuine notebook replacements.
Samsung monitor. I decided to upgrade my WFH situation, and bought their 49" G9 Neo (5120 x 1440, 240 hz). I've always gone with Alienware/Dell in the past, but I assumed there were always better products out there. The Samsung display died on month 13 (one month out of warranty). The repair would've cost almost what I paid for the monitor outright. $1500 down the drain.
Level smart lock. I have a handful of issues with it, but the big one is that it falls in the category of "tech product never tested outside of California" because the thing just does not work outside of the Goldilocks days where it's not too hot, cold, humid, or dry (for me, it works maybe half the time during the summer, and never during the winter). To hardware product designers: capacitive touch sensing is not reliable in the cold.
Yale Real Living electronic locks have been great for me down to -30ish F. I’ve never used any of the wireless smarthome bits tho - just standalone locks.
I had the nest lock for a long time and was really disappointed with battery life and reliability.
The Schlage encode plus smart lock is the only one that seems to work right at the moment (it also looks the worst). NFC is the way to go for most uses, and matter over thread beats WiFi anything by a long shot.
Not sure about capacitive buttons, but I can see real buttons wearing out or allowing moisture through.
There are a variety of outdoor rated pushbuttons you can buy that don't have their electrical properties change due to the moisture content of a user's fingertips, or lack thereof.
But just to be clear - the level doesn't have buttons. It has touch sensor on the enclosure to lock/unlock by just touching the lock, while it looks like a plain-old deadbolt. The problem is the sensor is garbage, so it's basically a plain-old-deadbolt but costs 5 times as much
I've used the cheapo Wyze Lock (https://www.wyze.com/products/wyze-lock?variant=423027510806...), which is a deadbolt-only replacement with the $20 keypad (https://www.wyze.com/products/wyze-lock-keypad?srsltid=AfmBO...) and it's worked well for a few years. The buttons never gave me any issues, and indeed I use that instead of the app to unlock.
After a few years and several doors/apts, the deadbolt itself seems to be showing some issues sometimes (have to pull the door close tightly for it to lock right)... I'm not sure if that's a door alignment issue or maybe a thermal freeze/thaw issue or something... need to debug it further... but it's a lot cheaper and more reliable (and uglier) than most smart locks I've tried, including the much fancier ones.
Level has a keypad as an extra, so I thought you were talking about that. They also support NFC, but that has nothing to do with capacitive sensors. Anyways, I never heard anything good about that lock and so never bothered trying it. The Schlage Encode Plus is pretty reliable (I researched a bunch of reviews before buying) for how up I use it, if only it weren’t so ugly.
I bailed on Level (now using a Schlage Encode Plus) after the second time a battery died in it with zero notification from the app. Given time of the year, I suspect it probably wasn't helped by temperature.
Their website doesn’t even list an operating temperature range. Huge red flag for a piece of equipment that is installed outdoors.
If you buy something that is installed outdoors, make sure it’s from a company that has previously manufactured things that are installed outdoors, or it will be a piece of shit.
This Schlage model has a listed operating temperature range, because Schlage has been manufacturing things that are installed outside for over 100 years: https://www.schlage.com/en/home/products/BE489WBCENFFF.html
I recommend the encode plus rather than the encode, since the former is matter over thread and not Wi-Fi, and will be more reliable with better battery life.
Those throwback re-releases of Sega or Atari consoles with a bunch of games built into them. They're fun for the first few hours and they work well, but they end up collecting dust. Turns out those games aren't as fun as they were when I was a kid and didn't have many options for gaming.
I've found this as well, nostalgia factor is fun for a limited time. Then it becomes a question of if I have the patience and dexterity to slog through a game to the end much like I did when I was younger.
If given the chance, playing for nostalgia reasons is fine, just set the expectations lower on how much fun it will be. Spending a lot of money to play? Probably not worth it, find a bar-cade or someone else to loan you a system for a day or two.
Heh, similarly, I bought the C&C Remastered Collection (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1213210/Command__Conquer_...) because it was such a large part of my childhood.
I played for a few minutes, listened to Hell March (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3YzmjmAGoI) for nostalgia, and then remembered why I moved on. Games sure have changed a lot in the intervening decades, lol.
Xbox with Kinect. I was impressed by the original Wii and thought, hey, kinect can do it with bare hands. It didn't work all that well and I am not much of a gamer, so the whole thing was a waste. To top it off I even bought a spare controller because it was available for sale on Prime day and didn't even open the box!
A touchscreen laptop, I thought it would be incredibly useful and fun back when they were getting popular, but when I got one, I completely stopped using the touchscreen after a few months. I just didn't find it useful.
It not only costs more but usually comes with a less bright screen.
You can also just buy a $100 usbc touchscreen if you really ever need one.
Apple MacBook Air 2020, intel edition. Such a piece of junk and shame on Apple for releasing it knowing that they’d have launched the M1 in just a few months. Maximum corporate greed.
I have this one and love it. The M1 would have been worthless to me anyways since I wanted 1 laptop to run MacOS and Windows. Unfortunately I think this is the last Mac I’ll be able to get because of the transition.
Do you need to boot into win? If so, I see why the new machines are not for you. If you can get away with virtualization, VMware Fusion is now free.
I used Fusion for my previous job from the start of the pan until last year (so first on an Intel Mac, then on an M1 MBP) and it was good enough for what I needed. Win for Arm was obviously faster than Win x86 on the previous machine, even when it was a preview release. Then again, my needs were not extreme.
8 months (though I imagine sales may have tanked in June when they announced the transition to Apple Silicon, so Apple probably only got 3 months of sales.)
But it was in fact the fastest intel MacBook Air - and it still is.
What few people outside Apple (or even inside given Apple's notorious secrecy) probably realized in early to mid 2020, even after the WWDC announcement, was how great the Apple Silicon/M1 MacBook Air was actually going to be, and how it would transform expectations for performance and battery life in a fanless laptop.
Perhaps Apple should have offered a trade-in scheme like they did for the Lisa/Macintosh XL. I wonder if they offered upgrades to the buyers of the October 1999 Power Mac G4 (PCI Graphics) which was replaced by a better model only two months later.
Let's also recall that the 2020 MacBook Air launched in March 2020, at the onset of the pandemic. Nobody knew how serious that would be and what the impact would be on tech manufacturing, especially in China. It was the last major launch before global lockdowns set in and it wasn't clear when the next one would be possible.
Dell XPS 9440. Worst keyboard I've ever seen on a Dell laptop. I'm not a fan of the MacBook keyboard either, and this is worse. The touch-activated F row makes accidental activations of Delete / Insert too easy. The flat keys are harder to distinguish, making accidental activation of caps lock a common occurrence. It was a work laptop and so fortunately I didn't have to pay for it.
Personally I'd say my most regretted purchase was the Brand New Model F Keyboards "ortholinear" - It's modeled after an ErgoDox but critically both halves are not connected, so in reality it's two separate keyboards. I don't know how anyone could release something so useless for ~$700. I'm sure all of their other offerings are great, however.
The Dell XPS line I have bought once and will never buy again. I believe mine was a souped up 92xx. Less than a year later the battery bloated for no reason. Put another one, bloated again. Turns out there was some manufacturer issue with the charging unit in the motherboard and by that point it was out of warranty.
I will never buy another XPS. For all of apple's faults, with the exception of the 2018 model pros, I have never had much of a problem.
I too had the battery bloat issue back in 2020 with my XPS. I won't be buying one ever again.
Probably my Raspberry Pi Pico. I bought it when it got released because it was super super cheap and I had some good ideas to use it for. Unfortunately it’s been sitting on my desk unused ever since. Would love to try some stuff out with embedded Rust at a certain point though!
An iPhone. An employer purchased it for me but it truly is unusable in a lot of ways.
A consumer-grade HP printer for my home office.
Had a regular end-of-the-month printing need of about ~500pages. To my great frustration it still kinda works - needs monitoring for jams, bad prints, paper replenishment, wifi connection loss, you name it.
Should've kept(and very likely will go back to) using the services of a local professional print shop.
Brother monochrome laser is the only kind of home printer worth owning, honestly.
I’m a big fan of using older small form factor commercial office grade laser printers. You can basically get them free, especially if they lack wifi and usb, and most of the time they’ll last for years and years of hard use with essentially no maintenance- you can just drill a hole in the toner cartridge and pour toner in.
This. I have one and I think it may outlive me. That thing has been working flawlessly for over a decade.
A simple older HP office laser printer works very well as a home printer. It doesn't have an app, no wifi, no cloud services. Plug in ethernet and print, always works and the toner capacity is made for office use so it lasts a very long time in a home office.
Smart Pen and analog writing tablet.
It's actually amazing how much you can get done without a phone distracting you, but it's expensive and rarely used, and paper is fine for occasional initial brainstorming.
Mechanical Keyboard. I tried one with no page up/page down/home/end keys and hated it. I also wasn't a fan of how separate keyboards keep your hands farther from your eyes on the screen compared to a laptop, but that probably just takes a few months to adjust.
Pickit3. I learned a lot... But why didn't I start with Arduino?
RFM non-LoRa Arduinos. Nobody uses these, it's like $5 of cost savings. My custom protocol I built to do error correction with them was incredibly time consuming and not that much fun.
A loft bed and mattress. I could have probably just found a more durable cot really. The extra storage space didn't help that much, I would have been better off just.. buying less stuff.
Any brushed motor tool when brushless is available used for the same price as the brushed one new and on sale.
Earbuds. I lost the charging case on one, and an earbud on another. Not doing that again, I'll just use normal Bluetooth headphones or else not do headphones at all.
12v gear. Everyone who starts with electronics will at some point think about having a single 12v transformer and running their whole workbench on it. They will pick a connector and start building around their new standard.
I chose XT60 which requires a bunch of handmade cables. Such a hassle. Just use USB-C and you can run on 12v easily if you ever need to.
Tons of random parts and pieces, to the point where I'm trying to put together an Awesome List in celebration of all the super common parts and materials which are all you need for 99% of stuff.
Any product containing lead. I'm sure the amount of exposure was trivial but really there was just no reason to be messing with it when there are alternatives.
A catalytic butane heat gun. The one I have is just kind of OK.
A Hakko soldering iron. Those FX-888 type ones are so expensive especially for the older tip format.
I tried buying a monitor direct from a Chinese company (Innocn). It broke within 8 months. They never listed a warranty, but I (stupidly) assumed it was at least a year; but no, it was 6 months. After having such a bad experience, I went looking and apparently was not the only one. Many others had their monitors die and the company would purposefully drag out the RMA process past the warranty period.
Long story short, warranties still matter, and it should be a big part of any expensive purchase decision.
Shame, was actually considering this:
Android phone circa 2010
Every computer ever, I could have been a lumberjack and had a peaceful life
Secretlab gaming chair. Horrible to sit in. Sold it after a while but should have sent it back.
Secret Lab gaming chair. Just terrible.
And they don’t have returns, customer service also fails to admit that they suck by design and blame it all on me (even though i know other people who has exactly same complaints).
A naked king situation.
Why are there gaming chairs, and why do they look like race car seats?
I drive a sports car that can corner at ~1G and the seats have bolsters on the side to keep your body in place when cornering hard- but they also make the seat uncomfortable on a long drive, it is a substantial tradeoff. It would seem impossible for a seat on wheels to have any lateral forces at all?
They all suck, even the ones that don't look like race car seats.
At the very least, the gas piston will fail to hold the position afater a couple of years at most. I don't even care about my chair being easibly adjustable in the first place.
Then the "leather" is the cheapest material imaginable and will start to peel off even before the piston gives in.
The handrests are either not adjustable or completely flimsy.
The best office chair I’ve had was a ~50 year old surplus laboratory stool with no arm rests and a simple massive steel screw to adjust height. That thing will last 300 years and the simple shape and lack of support structure means I can keep my core engaged and upright for better posture and no back pain with long days of coding.
I believe it’s mostly aesthetic as gamers don’t want to sit in a regular office chair. Even Herman Miller makes gamer chairs now.
I have spent thousands on the cool noise cancelling bluetooth headsets. Each of them is garbage. (I just kept buying them, hoping that at least one of them is not only hyped, but have some substance also)
Also, just broke a cheap Hama mouse into pieces, literally today. It was only like ~$5, but the worst piece of trash I have had: it turns off after 2 minutes of inactivity, and on top of that it can't wake up always... (well, couldn't wake up. It's in the mouse-heaven now)
My Bose QC15 headphones (bought around 2009) are probably my best tech purchase ever. I've had to replace the foam ear pad pieces twice, but otherwise they're fantastic. These are wired (no bluetooth).
Out of curiosity, what issues have you had with them? (I'm not at all involved with their development, just a fellow user of them).
I had the Bose and Sony ones. They were OK, just uncomfortable. Been using the in-ear Airpods Pro for a few years now, for everything from work to flights to trains to exercising, and I love them soooo much... they're probably my favorite tech purchase ever (and I don't even have an iPhone). Pairing is always a pain in the ass (I just manually pair again with every device I want to switch to) but other than that, they've been so nice.
Personally, I'm not an audiophile, but I find the audio quality incredible (vs my Sonos speakers, wired Koss PortaPros, generic soundbars, Sony XM3 and Bose QC35s, etc.) and the comfort unbeatable. But some people hate the in-ear kind.
Anyway, not trying to convince you of anything, just wondering what made your experiences so different and bad?
My problems were very varied, depending on the specific model. Trying not to make it a full rant. While I have many types of music on my player, primarily I listen to rock/metal.
Common problem: ANC changes the music too. It messes with the mids and highs, regardless of the model. Some are better than the others... but of course ANC can be turned off, which I did frequently in the past years. Oh, and the low battery warning: "ATTENTION - battery will be empty in 4 hours, let me disrupt your music every 60-120 seconds till the end of time!".
Bose QC35, QC45: They are pretty much the same, both inside and outside. Very comfortable, can't argue with that. They randomly they cut off the first/last 2 seconds of the tracks (how did they even release them like that is a mystery for me). Also, no bass, no highs, just a pile of mids. Almost 0 dynamics - you will never hear any other instruments else during a bass-guitar heavy track...
Sennheiser PCX-550 ii: It sometimes sounded fairly decent, even with ANC, however rather uncomfortable. The touch interface is catastrophic (in humid weather all the controls activate at the same time. Literally: volume up-down, play-forward-pause-call, all at the once). It had the worst bug I saw so far: about once every 2 weeks it made some extra loud shrilling noise that made me shit my pants (I'd guess the ANC got into some self-amplifying feedback loop). After it came back from "warranty-repair", it did it again within 3 days.
Marshall Monitor II ANC: mushy pile of mids, sounds actually bad, especially for its price. I really thought that it was made for rock music, but no. It is mostly made for audible books. Controls look cool (5-way joystick), but hard to use in practice: if the button press is even half a degree off, it doesn't register. Especially unusable while walking. Used two different sets of this model (after a warranty exchange). Earpads break after 6 months (for both sets). The second set it literally a pain to wear: it makes the top of my head hurt after 20 minutes.
Sony 1000XM2: Very bad touch interface, it feels like the gestures are randomly changing function. Keep disconnecting and stuttering. Sometimes after 20 minutes, sometimes after 2 hours. The only guaranteed thing is that one of them happens sooner or later. If I apply a ton of EQ on each track one by one as they are played, it is possible to get decent sound of it. But usually I just want to listen to music, without messing with EQ every few minutes.
Airpods pro: Keeps disconnecting. ANC keeps turning on and off, living its own life. Sometimes only one side has sound. But it doesn't sound bad, when it works. It doesn't happen very often though. Too bad Apple ran out of SW developers.
I have only one BT headset that I keep using still, though exclusively for workouts: Sony MDR-ZX770: I got it like 8 years ago. It sounds crap, but very robust and reliable at what it does. If you want a bad sounding cheap headset, I recommend this one lol.
I had some random headsets from Amazon also, Chinese garden variety, but I won't even say anything about them.
But in a nutshell, that's why I have had enough. Now I'm just back to oldschool headsets, and hear every instrument without bugs.
> Airpods pro: Keeps disconnecting. ANC keeps turning on and off, living its own life. Sometimes only one side has sound. But it doesn't sound bad, when it works. It doesn't happen very often though. Too bad Apple ran out of SW developers.
Given the popularity of the product you’re presumably aware this isn’t a typical experience. I certainly haven’t encountered disconnects or ANC switching off uncommanded, and the only time I get one-sided sound is if one side runs out of battery. You might consider asking Apple to replace them.
And it's not only the Airpods that are very popular. All of them are popular and most of the people don't face this issues. I have some Sony XM3 and although the touch interface is weird you get used to it and I never face issues with connection as stated.
This is hilarious. The Devil's been urging me to buy one of high-end ones for the past year -- I specifically clicked on this post hoping to see someone regretting buying one of these things so I could use it as fuel against my utopian fantasies.
Have had great luck with my Soundcore by Anker Space Q45 Adaptive Active Noise Cancelling Headphones. They are cost competitive, but not perfect. Recommend.
Thanks, but the truth is, a few months ago I "accidentally" tried a good old cabled Audio Technica, and suddenly I realized that I haven't really enjoyed music for a good part of the past decade. I'm back in the middle-ages, when it comes to music listening, and there is no way I'm switching.
There's no better noise cancelling than as much bulk around your ears and as thick a wall around your room as possible! I too have a wired Audio-Technica (ATH-M40x) and can highly recommend it. I got immeasurable pleasure out of discovering that many of my favourite pieces of music had entire lines that I never knew existed when still using lesser audio equipment!
Another suggestion of mine is to listen to CDs from the late 80s, when record labels considered 'digital' a mark of quality and actually followed through with the marketing. They tend to be the best, in my opinion - they have good dynamic range which nowadays is usually compressed out of the recordings to maximise loudness, and they had just started using 192kbs bitrates, which I consider to be at the upper level of my hearing ability. No help for new albums, of course, but hopefully those will have FLAC downloads available as some consolation!
I don't understand your "192kbps" remark. It seems to be a reference to some sort of lossy compression, but the context was audio CDs (from the 80s, even!). Audio CDs are all uncompressed PCM at 1411kbps, nothing else is possible - especially in the 80s! Lossy audio compression was in its infancy, and mp3 was not defined until 1991.
Have you ever tried the Tidal streams (https://tidal.com/sound-quality) in FLAC? Are those at all comparable to these high-quality recordings you mentioned?
As someone who grew up later in the MP3 era (90s), I guess I never knew what "good" audio ever sounded like. I'd love to do a back-to-back comparison of the same song, one in "modern" shitty no-dynamic-range and the other in a higher-fidelity version to see if I can notice any difference at all. Between my consumer equipment and my aging ears, I dunno if I'll be able to at all...?
I have these headphones, they are great. Amazing price.
I recently bought a pair of Bose QuietComfort Ultra and sent them back because I had nothing but issues with them and they were barely any better than the Anker's when working. Certainly not worth the price difference.
Flipper Zero. I got it when it was new and never really used it.
I barely use mine, but I find it immensely useful when I do.
My apartment building's management would only give me one key fob so I cloned it into my flipper for a second key. I've cloned hotel key cards too.
The infrared remote is good to control things like TVs & air conditioners in a pinch - like when you misplaced the remote. Or when the TV belongs to someone else...
Same here. Rare use, but when I do it’s generally for a fairly major issue that would otherwise only be solved by some expensive specialty tool.
Same. Spent one whole day tinkering with it and now it's sitting at my desk like a paperweight...
Right now I’m thinking of my Razer PC laptop. Computer technology is always getting so much faster that yesterday’s expensive cutting-edge future-proof elite hardware is tomorrow’s slowpoke bottom-shelf e-waste. Now, I will say it overall has been a good computer. But I could have saved a lot of money getting something 10-20% slower and replacing it sooner.
Actofit body composition smart scale. They insist on tying measurements to phone numbers/profiles. I have to go to my phone, hit record and stand on it to sync. The login broke, so I left a play store comment and they denied the problem exists. Its very low in ratings thanks to too many angry fellow users.
Later I got one from Omron, an actual medical company. It stores my vitals without phone and displays almost all the data on device and autodetects user. There is syncing for my data which I can do once in a while. The app's headscratching/feature ratio is moderate but since it has no bullshit features its enjoyable.
HTC Vive Pro 2.
Unlike some of the other people listing VR headsets, I actually use VR regularly. But the Vive in particular was an expensive piece of junk: it lasted not even a year before one of the displays started to die, then experienced the same failure again 6-7 months after warranty repairs. Apparently this failure mode is common.
In general I think it's best to stay away from the high-end headsets: HTC, Varjo, Pimax, Bigscreen, everyone I know with them has experienced problems of some sort or other. Many of the midrange headsets are worse on paper, but seem to have fewer issues in practice.
VR headset with Valve Index controllers (~$1200 total) It was cool initially and Half Life Alyx was a great game, but overall it wasn’t worth the money with how little I use it and how many issues there are with VR and VR games.
The main value I get out of VR is hanging out with long distance friends over VR. I can't say I regret getting the Index, but seeing how much improved other headsets like the Quest 3 are for such low prices, the price tag on the Index stings a little.
Easy! The Vision Pro. It seams like Apple has already given up on that product.
PlayStation VR (v1) Great demo games no other games leverage the hardware in a meaningful way and the camera requirements and cords made it a hassle to use so it collected dust.
Wetek Play2 Android based TV box.
My first and last experience with an Android based TV device.
Since 2018 or so, I've been using a small Windows PC with a Hauppauge WinTV Dual USB tuner (ATSC, watch as you record a different channel in the backgroud) and DVBViewer software. Use a web browser for streaming.
Bought a cheap power drill, like "I can't believe how cheap this thing is". It broke after 15 minute of usage.
Never go cheap on tools.
Always go cheap on tools you are trying out.
If 6 months pass and you are still using it, and notice it not being enough for your use, then get a quality one.
I've seen many quality tools that have been used once or twice after years, bought out of impulse.
This is really the way to go. Most "cheap" tools will offer the same or similar performance to the name brand ones or like you mentioned you'll splurge on a nice one and realize you only need it for one or three jobs and the generic brand would have sufficed. I've been buying harbor freight tools for years I can think on one hand the amount of tools that have broken and it's usually not because they weren't up to par for the right job but because I did a hackjob and macgyvered them for something they were never meant for.
I bought the $15 HVLP spray gun and it performed very well for years. When it finally could not be cleaned up and repaired anymore, I just bought a new (now $17) one and have been using that one for years, too. $32 for a decade worth of spraying paint.
Can you point me to that HVLP gun for under $20. I have purchased two different ones for ~$100 each and they make this list of "things I regret"
I also subscribe to the buy cheap, if you use it alot and it's not working out buy a much better model. I've done that for years and have a hodgepodge of brands that make me happy. The only exception is battery powered tools, I did some research, decided that Dewalt would be a good choice. I didn't want to have 10 different kinds of battery packs around, so picked the battery ecosystem and went from there.
And when I buy a wood chipper, my Fujifilm printer will be the first thing through it. I have wasted more time and supplies to get pictures that look like a 2 year old colored it. So sad.
I sometimes buy quality tools for a single job. Generally, I can complete a job at 90% of pro quality at 30% of pro prices and that includes buying the tool. So if it is really never going to be used, I can always resell online.
I think it depends on the type of tool. If it's a specialty tool that I don't expect to use more than once or twice, I'll go for cheaper model. On the other hand, if it's something that I expect to use a lot then buying a quality tool (possibly used) is the better route. All of my cordless power tools are Makita but my 2 Makita drills were both bought used. For hand tools like combination wrenches and sockets my default route is used SK Tools bought at yard sales, pawn shops, eBay.
Counter point I have a harbor-freight drill that has lasted almost a decade. I recently replaced it because I needed more torque.
If you're careful there are so, so many harbor freight tools that likely come off the back of the same Chinese factory name brands do. Their "professional" line is about 50-70% less expensive and performs as well. The impact wrench is better than a Milwaukee, and their professional torque wrench comes within tolerance to a Snap-On.
For someone who doesn't need a QA cert for insurance/licensing reasons harbor freight is a miracle. Likely because it's the EXACT same stuff. Nothing is made in America anymore.
Used apple 2015 apple imac. I bought it to use as a second monitor because the retina displays is the only monitor I’d used for extended periods without my eyes aching. I did very little research, bought a used one to find out, nope you can’t hook it up as a second monitor and the hardware is awful
https://blog.lewislovelock.com/turning-an-5k-imac-into-a-mon...
You can convert them to monitors, if you want.
Apple stuff seems to have the biggest difference in usefulness between new and used. The new stuff is usually really great, but as soon as they cross some "too old threshold" they quickly become next to useless because of how closed everything is and because Apple (and, shamefully, third party developers) don't keep up software support and backward compatibility. I've got a bunch of 8+ year old iDevices and Macs and they are all of varying degrees of uselessness as Apple and the whole ecosystem has abandoned them.
Agreed! I wish Apple was more thoughtful about generating so much e-waste. The Mac Pro Tower (2006-2012) is a great example of where I thought they might have been on the right track.
A “gaming headset” with a built-in microphone. The sound quality was fine but the build quality was terrible. It broke apart while I was wearing it, after owning it for less than a year.
Now I just use a pair of Sennheiser studio headphones and a usb desktop microphone, and they’ve lasted for years with no issues.
There are also inline headset mics for sennhesier headphones that work reasonably well (they’re part of the cable that plugs into the headphones). More convenient than a desk mic imo.
Windows gaming laptop from MSI. It's not bad at all, but the battery life is horrible and gaming performance is OK. I finally built a gaming PC which I like a lot more. As for a portable machine, I should have just got a Macbook.
Hah, coincidentally I just made the switch from an Acer gaming laptop to a Macbook and couldn't be more pleased. All the games I actually play (nothing graphically intensive) still work on the M3 Macbook via Wine, and the performance is just fine. Meanwhile, the rest of the experience of actually using the laptop got massively upgraded. Better screen, better speakers, better touchpad and keyboard, way better battery life, and when I open the lid the Macbook wakes from sleep essentially instantly.
For more graphically intensive games, I still have a Windows desktop. I don't think I will ever buy another "gaming" laptop.
Funny enough, I inherited an MSI notebook that wasn't working to my parents' satisfaction (no idea why they bought it, their use case is pretty basic), installed Linux on it and it's actually a really great laptop (apart from the battery life lol). Great performance , lots of ram, nice screen, nice body, everything works (even touchscreen, stylus and fingerprint sensor). But free is free, for $3k of my own money I'd buy a Lunar Lake or Strix Point laptop and save some $$$.
Weird one: a ring doorbell. Started going off randomly between 3-5 in the morning, stuck on until unplugged. Replaced with an analog one, don’t miss it at all.
My Lenovo Legion 5i. It freezes while playing CS2 and takes up 15 minutes to wake from sleep. It's literally a regret.
My Macbook Air M2 is the exact opposite of that. Best purchase of the past few years, without a doubt.
My jaw was dropping as I started reading that second paragraph because it's unimaginable that someone would regret an m2 air.
I got a refurb 8gb/256gb m2 air somewhat impulsively when in the market for a use-on-the-couch laptop. It is NICE. My real laptop now never leaves the dock.
iMac 2010, I think all-in-one computer is a bad idea in general, because the cpu/mem/gpu age quicker than the monitor.
lenovo thinkpad, used as a linux notebook, but the trackpad is difficult to use under linux.
Surprised about the mac- I still have a maxed out 2010 Macbook Pro - 16gb ram and SATA- and it has aged so well it is still fully usable with most modern software and workflows, and feels fast. I also have a new Apple Silicon Macbook Pro and it is the screen and battery that mostly makes the newer one fundamentally nicer to use. I don’t game or do intensive things like video editing though- mostly just web and coding in a terminal.
Posting this from a thinkpad under Linux. I used my trackpad to click on reply. Just one more datapoint.
I have an all in one with a perfectly good monitor on it's way to ewaste. Computer gave up the ghost (not worth repair as 15 years old).
Didn't that machine support Target Display Mode so that you could use it as a Mini DisplayPort or Thunderbolt monitor?
I wish they would bring back a 27" iMac and Target Display Mode.
that imac can be used as a monitor, however it can't adjust height, and you have to start the whole machine to use it as a monitor.
Most of the headphones I've bought have broken within a few years. It's not a "huge" regret though.
Samsung Galaxy Watch 4. The battery life is absolutely atrocious and the health readings are unreliable.
I still want to give smartwatchs a chance but this definitely didn't convince me. Who wants another thing to charge every single day? I have enough with my phone already...
Big USB hubs. I have like a few ports and swap things when I need to charge them.
The Sega CD addon for Genesis. $300! when that was a lot of money and I was a lot poorer. Was happy with my Genesis and wanted to try CD+G and CD+games so it seemed like a decent buy at the time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_CD
It was kinda cool but they didn't support it long. Video was one of its selling points supposedly, but didn't have good replay-ability. I should have known that because I'd played "video" games like Dragon's Lair in the arcade. But the Sega CD was even worse, limited to (I think) 64 colors! Which looked like shit. At least I did not buy the 32X as well.
I did however learn a very expensive lesson about product support and being on the bleeding edge—let others live there.
A TCL TV. It broke exactly after the warranty expired (led issues). I was planning to replace the leds, then discovered that the screen is glued to the frame. I gave up in disgust.
We bought a few in 2018/2019 that are holding up fine. They get more use than our expensive Samsung TV!
+1, bought a TCL and returned it the next day and wrote off the brand forever.
+1, similar experience and warranty hell. Absolutely do not recommend TCL TVs.
Remarkable 2. For me, it's worse than pen and notebook, since I can search effectively in neither and the writing experience in the latter is much better. Tags aren't a replacement for search in notes, the screen is quite imprecise at times, the cloud sync is paid, and a lot of the features that would make it more than a paper notebook are missing imo (better overview over my notes and annotations, lack of infinite canvas for PDF annotation means I have less space in the PDF than with a printed one, etc.).
I would recommend Supernote instead of Remarkable, as that can sync the notes via Obsidian.
I had a R2 also and was thoroughly disappointed with it from an e-reader perspective. Not easy or straightforward getting files on the device and so few file formats supported.
Redmi phone after long iphone use, as an experiment. I used it for six+ months, made sure I get used to it before criticizing, then sold it to a colleague. The upside is, I got a new iphone instead and it felt like changing from new shoes to old comfy ones.
Well, the Redmi segment from Xiaomi is known to cut corners to give you the feature-packed phones at a low price, usually they are the least consistent experience compared to flagships and POCOs, their other cheap brand. Same warning goes for Oppo and Vivo cheaper series: they don't seem to have a good mix of specs, they pick one or two things as the main selling point but skimp on the rest. Middle range and flagships are fine tho.
I use iPhone mainly, but for Android I usually stick to either Pixels or Motorola, even the cheap ones have been quite reliable for me, both hardware and software, plus they are usually a good deal.
Hardware-wise it was fine, actually, wasn’t the cheapest one and watched some reviews beforehand (now I think it was mi, not redmi even).
Miui was fine too, it was generic “android experience” that made me hate it. I avoided sharing details cause neither HN does usually like it nor I want to remember. It was one of the biggest physical and psycological a reliefs in my life getting a new iphone afterwards.
An Oculus Go and Oculus Quest.
I don't have the floorspace to walk around, there's only one app I even use (Wander) and it gives me a headache after a few minutes. And now both of them are obsolete. Even the default environments are disappointing.
Anything with touch interfaces.
So far aside from cell phones and tablets nothing has worked right.
The Meta Quest.
I gotta find an excuse to use this thing.
In-browser games like City Sling VR/Mini Golf, YouTube VR, Remote Desktop, or using it as an alternative to notebook computer
I’m on my third unit (two quest 1s because the first one broke during the pandemic, then an 2) and still use it daily. To each their own.
My Logitech g915 keyboard, every day there is some key that randomly stops working and then restarts few minutes later
All Apple products.
The apple purchase I regret is the Magic Trackpad. Causes aches in my wrist and just not ergonomically practical for real use.
That's interesting, i've just switched to using one and haven't noticed any discomfort, yet.
Are you laying your wrist flat when using it? I could see maintaining a fully pronated posture leading to wrist aches over time. I try and keep my hand as neutral as possible when using it, in realist i'd estimate my wrist angle off the desk to be ~45deg, then I use my middle and ring fingers on the pad.
