What are the worst tech purchases you or your family have ever made?
I watched a video recently and wanted to know what other have bought over the years.
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An out of date, yet new, drawing tablet. Obsolete at the touch of a finger…
Anything Samsung. The appliances fail fast (TV & washing machine in my case), and the smartphones are constantly getting more and more enshittified (speaking as a long-time customer since the 1st Galaxy S all the way to S23).
Replaced my samsung phone with a unihertz Atom – Definitely not for everyone, but I love it. With samsung I’d gone from my phones never breaking to two phones that seemed to jump out of my hands and crack if you looked at them funny, so I gave up on the brand and looked for something small and rugged. I swear I could chuck the Atom off a building into concrete and it’d be fine. I do wish there was a newer version to update the software, but you get used to the older interface pretty quick. Hopefully Unihertz will go back to the atom series and make one with linux software, but I was thinking of just buying another and seeing if I can install linux.
I got a SG fe 20 last one. Moving to pixel.
Tablet - it was a middle ground that I never found a use for
If I’m out and about, I’m not dragging the tablet with me and will just use my phone.
If I’m home, I’ll use the computer.
I’m not saying that tablets are bad or useless, they just aren’t for me.
Haha the running joke anytime my wife sees the tablet is she just goes “porn”? So now it’s embarrassing to even try to find a use for it lol. She doesn’t use it either.
Same. Got a tablet when i changed mobile operator.
Only good use i found for it was to look recepies when cooking.
I actually get a lot of use out of my tablet, mostly for reading manga and comics. Sometimes for books too
Mother bought a pair of “light therapy” glasses many years ago from a Russian quack site. It was basically a pair of blacked-out safety glasses with ~8 LEDs for each eye and a button cell to power it all. All circuitry and wires fully exposed and visible. You’d set your program and it would cycle through different colors for a predetermined time. Also came with a knock-off Chinese iPod and some gas-station headphones, preloaded with “relaxing sounds from nature.” You were expected to lay there for 30 minutes with your eyes closed as it did its thing. This cost around 600€ in 2019. What an absolute scam.
During Covid I ordered a little screen replacement kit from a cheap Chinese company, and they said it was delayed due to Covid, so I was trying to be patient, but then the company disappeared. Unfortunately, I was too patient and the six months went by so I couldn’t reverse the charge. Only time I’ve ever gotten scammed, and I was pissed because I had even looked them up before I ordered and they seemed to have decent reviews until after and everyone was calling them out. I don’t know if they were legit then collapsed during covid or they put a lot of effort into looking legit with fake reviews. Lesson learned I guess.
Easily 1000% my Samsung TV.
Each update somehow makes it slower, it always loads up whatever the Samsung TV app thing is before it will do anything with a menu so you can get out of it, I believe it requires a Samsung account before it will allows you to do anything, and every now and then it locks up so hard that I have to factory reset it to get it to work again.
I refuse to buy anything from Samsung ever again.
Ah, there’s the problem — you connected it to the internet. I’ve had decent experiences with Samsung TVs, but I just plug them into an apple tv and let the box do the work. I’ve had to see their UI on a couple occasions though and yeah it’s trash.
same with my LG. I never connected it to the internet directly. I chose instead to plug in an rpi
Last TV I had (besides my current CRT for retro games) I used an RPi 4 (later upgraded to the 5) for a media center and a steam link (purchased for $1 during a bundle sale) so I could game off of it from my desktop. I did also have a Chromecast but honestly with a wireless keyboard I would have been fine with just the steam link.
Every consumer TV is subsidized by the advertisements they (plan to) put on it and your data they’ll sell. I bought a mid-range Samsung TV last year, used it for TV, movies, gaming, and I love it. But I haven’t connected it to the internet, I use a separate device I can easily discard if need be. Not blaming you because it’s counter-intuitive, but you can’t update consumer TVs. They know it will live in your… living… room for several years and want to make money off displaying ads. Do you really think they’ll update it to be less intrusive and show fewer ads so they make less money!?? Obviously, I just guessed right; I’m not a genius, nor do I have precognition. I’ve even heard stories about TVs connecting themselves to open networks, but I’m not sure sure I believe them…
Why oh why is your Samsung TV still connected to the WiFi? I kicked mine off WiFi within three months of getting the device and I’ve used it for four years now and it works like a charm!
Not a shill, but I honestly love my Samsung TV. I took it out of the box, plugged in an HDMI cable to connect it to my PC, and use it as a monitor. I’ve never connected it to my wifi, so it has no internet access. I’ve never had to enter my Samsung account info to use it.
Similar experience here. Good panel, solid colours, good angles and handles sunny rooms well. However, TV OS’s are one of the most asinine things to exist though. Never connect that thing to the internet if you can help it and it’ll work great.
Same, no account, no internet connects to my steamdeck and works perfectly
I love my Sony. Iirc, it wanted Internet for initial setup, but I unplugged the Ethernet cable soon after. It just works and displays what I want without issue.
My girlfriend brought a tcl roku special when she moved in. That blinked a very bright white LED unless it was connected to the internet. And now whenever I turn it on, it screams and displayed a fucked up picture from my media device until I go and use the “restart tv” option.
Fucking POS.
I got a Google TV box and disconnected my Samsung TV from the internet. A week later I got an email about how connecting them helps me because it sends the data and my preferences back to Samsung.
… It sends thousands of information pings each day.
If you haven’t already done this: wipe all the apps and run the cache-cleaning or whatever it is in the system menu. That should get it back down to where the memory and storage aren’t at 100% and fixes most of the problems. I’ve kept my 2017 Samsung usable that way. Also, if you have a pi-hole you can set it to use that as the DNS and block the advertising domains, retaining most of the smart functionality without all the crap.
That’s a software issue and user error. Don’t use the “smart” features is rule one for a consumer television.
I bought a Samsung for the display not the interface. I’m not sure if I’ve ever really even seen the built in interface, maybe when I initially set it up.
I heard turning off Samsung live tv and removing the app helps the performance tremendously, I have yet to try it as my wife for some reason is willing to tolerate a menu that takes over a minute to navigate one click at a time so she can keep the live tv feature, it is unusable to me
This is standard Samsung TV behaviour.
I had one and never again. Friend only just got one a few months ago and already loathes it.
We have one of the Samsung frame TVs, it’s a nice TV, it fits a specific need for us in a bit of a weird spot in a bedroom where a regular TV would look out of place.
But man is the software trash. It’s laggy, a lot of the apps seem really poorly-optimized, and half the settings are just randomly unavailable for no apparent reason.
And since I had to install a box in the wall to hide the one connect box behind it, I kind of don’t want to use it with another streaming device, something about putting too much stuff in that box kind of rubs me the wrong way.
I’m not sure if they count is a “tech purchase”, but I bought all new Samsung appliances in my previous home (washer, dryer, refrigerator, and dishwasher). The washer and dryer failed catastrophically within 6 months, the dryer drum cracked and shredded a whole load of clothing into confetti and the washing flooded my kitchen and ruined my cabinets (it was a weird house layout). The refrigerator just had random parts dying over and over (water dispenser, lights, sensors, ice maker) until it finally died at the year mark. The dishwasher made it nearly to year two before the control panel died and the replacement part was more expensive than an entire new unit. Never again Samsung!
I came in here expecting Samsung hate, and I am not disappointed. They’re like 13% of South Korea’s GDP, they should make shit that lasts longer than a year!!
You don’t get rich by selling something people only buy once…
That being said I have a Samsung oven that’s about 12 years old now and still works perfect aside from one element doesn’t trigger the “burner on” light, but the “hot surface” light still works, so I’m not overly concerned.
We just moved into a new house and it has all Samsung appliances. So far so good but I’m concerned.
If you’ve ever made a cell phone or a TV I will NEVER buy your appliance.
Got “burned” by a Samsung induction stove. Never again.
Samsung used to be awesome up until, say, 10-15 years ago? Then they just got so big and quality just went off a cliff
I have a Samsung flat screen from 15 years ago, the thing is a tank and won’t die. A new Samsung flat screen is lucky to make it 5 years tops
This is interesting to me… I’ve had two sets of Samsung wash and dryer, over the span of about 15 years now. Only replaced the first ones because I didn’t want to move them across country.
I found them easy to work on and get parts for general maintenance… maybe I’m just lucky?
fuck samsung!
Their appliances are garage. They aren’t even overpriced, they shouldn’t exist because of how big of pieces of shit they are.
They should be parked on the street for how garage they are!
you park your garage on the street?
I street my garage in a park.
Interesting! Our washing machine is turning 10 this year, hasn’t skipped a beat, yet.
Any Razer product ever. Shit company, laptop battery fucked itself, keyboard doesn’t work, mouse falling apart
I never had a Razer mouse last longer than 6 months since they moved over to optical/laser mice (yeah, I’m old). Their products are flimsy crap for the most part.
The last Razer mouse I used, the button parts you clicked were part of the same piece of plastic as the rest of the shell, and they just…broke off one day. Both of them. Now I’m using another Razer mouse where the buttons are separate pieces. My bf keeps buying these things when they’re on clearance, or I wouldn’t use them.
Razer, in my (very dated by now tbh) experience has really bad quality control but if you get a good one it’ll last for a long time. My mouse is 15 years old now and still working. Conversely my keyboard from them stopped working a little after the one year mark.
Idk seems that way for a lot of companies nowadays. Cheap out on QC and parts, hope people don’t bother contacting your support and if they do it’s cheaper to just replace some stuff and use a cheap 3rd party support center vs actually making sure the product is not a lemon.
Tbh I’ve had great experiences with Razer mice, although that’s the only product I’ve ever purchased from them
Even the Razer Skibidi?
I bought an HD DVD player as a youth. I don’t think I need to explain further
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This kills the Digg
Wow I never knew about the AACS encryption key stuff.
I’ve always wondered how much piracy really hurts companies or individuals. I mean, it seems to me even with piracy happening these corpos are making bank.
Use it for ripping.
That thing is long gone
Same. Young and stupid, and I already had the Xbox…
This is incredibly funny to me because I remember coming home for a holiday and seeing a new Blu-ray player under my brother’s PS3. My dad was so excited about it.
You have clearly not been to the library.
Is… The library bookstore full of HD DVDs people have donated? O.o
Well, true, maybe not HD, haha, but I was just referring to how to continue breathing life into a DVD player. But yeah, I didn’t even know HD DVDs existed, given Blu-Ray…
Haha yeah, I think HD-DVDs were a bit more budget friendly compared to Blurays, but they were the extremely short-lived “team red” in the format war, and ultimately they weren’t a huge improvement to upgrade to, unlike Blu-rays when everybody was jumping to 1080p.
But yeah! Absolutely! Hit up the library and enjoy those DVDs (and Blu-rays)!
I was just having a discussion with a coworker who was wondering why one would keep a DVD player around, and I basically explained how not owning your media gets it ripped away from you sooner or later.
Libraries sometimes even get DVD versions of streamed TV shows and movies that don’t get a retail disc release.
I don’t know about HD DVDs specifically but I do know they have plenty of movies usually in physical formats, depending on your specific location and whatnot.
Oh yeah! Totally! Big fan and advocate of the library. Mine’s even got Blurays and videogames now!
Haha yeah you probably won’t find HD-DVDs in the collection as it lost the format wars to Blurays , but maybe in the library book stores sold from donations. XD
- First generation Samsung Android Watch (Just plain useless)
- Asus Transformer TF101 Tablet (Bloated UI)
- Acer C720 Chromebook (a bit better after installing Xfce over ChromeOS)
- Fiio M11 DAP (it’s chunky and I just never use it)
A plex lifetime pass. Was okay until the company went crazy. Now I use Jellyfin and I’m happy.
I remember when I started using Plex it was great. And then each update made it harder and harder to use, until I was struggling to find my own media. I still don’t understand what was wrong with them. Jellyfin just works. It’s infinitely better.
On the flip side, it was one of my best purchases. The sync feature has historically been great and I’ve had over a decade of use out of it for that single payment. I hate every update they make, but Jellyfin clients still don’t have as good of a sync feature and that’s what I use a ton of for traveling.
Yeah, there’s also the big issue with Jellyfin remote access. The TL;DR is that Jellyfin has a few critical “anyone can stream your media without a login” vulnerabilities that mean it should basically never be accessible outside of your LAN. Jellyfin’s devs have openly stated that they have no intentions of ever fixing these, because it would require completely divesting from the Emby fork that the entire project is built upon. And that makes sharing with friends/family really difficult.
Sure, you can use Tailscale (or whatever your preferred VPN is) for personal use. Maybe you’ll even get your immediate family on board. But good luck trying to get your tech-illiterate grandma (who lives 4 hours away) logged in over the phone. And unless she has a router that supports VPN connections, (not likely) she probably won’t be able to get her smart TV on your VPN. Which means she can’t securely access your server from her primary method of viewing media.
With Plex, you simply make the account, sign in, and get access. I even have a burner account that has access to a few of my libraries, so I can log it into my server at friends’ houses without them needing to make their own account.
Luckily, Plex and Jellyfin happily run side-by-side. If you prefer Jellyfin’s UI, then that’s great. You can continue to use it. But please don’t think that it’s secure just because you put it behind a reverse proxy.
Could you please provide some evidence for your statement?
The TL;DR is that Jellyfin has a few critical “anyone can stream your media without a login”
I mean, we can just look at the official GitHub’s list of security issues to find a few of them really quickly. And note that many of the previous security issues they have “closed” were only due to 120 days of inactivity, not because they were actually fixed.
Anyone who says Jellyfin is secure enough to put on the internet is either grossly misinformed, or outright lying. Lemmy has a lot of apologia for FOSS, and Jellyfin is one of the worst offenders. Many users will be quick to comment “lol my instance has been port forwarded for years and has been fine” like it’s a valid security audit. I love FOSS. What programmers are able to do in their free time, just because they see a need and want to fill it, is honestly amazing. It’s a modern world wonder. But that doesn’t mean we should excuse bad security practices, or encourage users to relax their threat models just because something is free.
Same. Jellyfin just isn’t there yet unfortunately. Maybe if a comparable plex4kodi existed. The jellyfin one isn’t aa good unfortunately.
Plex lifetime pass (if you already have it) is still worth it for secure remote access, 2FA login, ease of sharing, and (most important) PlexAmp.
Movies for my PSP. A lot of them.
With how easy it was to jailbreak/mod the PSP was awesome for on the go everything
I guess they had a burn-on-demand rental service in Japanese convenience stores, that’d be about the only way I’d watch UMD movies.
Zip drive
Let’s see… One that comes to mind that I guess is “tech” would be Substance Painter and Designer, back when it was independently owned and had an indie license.
“This will really take my Blender work to the next level. I’m going to LEARN this. Let’s freaking go.” I said, and “invested” like $150 into it.
I’m NORMALLY a FOSS nut, but this software was changing the game! Paint directly on 3d models with smart materials and layers and dynamics‽ AWESOME! Maybe it’s worth paying a chunk of my meager part time income for quality software…
Then comes the email:
Subject: “Substance is joining the Adobe family!”
Then the follow-up to all the pissed off customers:
“Don’t worry, it won’t be subscription only.”
Maybe a month later it’s part of the “cloud” and made subscription only.
I don’t care what’s “iNdUsTry sTaNdArD.” I refuse to engage with Adobe for any reason, and I’d rather put my hard earned money into supporting open source community tools than to ever get rug pulled by some shameless sellout ever again.
I agree with your frustration and dislike of Adobe but you can still get a permanent license through Steam. It is unfortunately an industry standard, only toolbag comes close afaik but it’s still a long way off
EDIT: Yeah, they did finally release a Steam version with a perpetual license. That’s a step in the right direction but I’ve already gotten burnt so bad lol.
You’re right, when it comes to the industry’s “cutting edge” unfortunately the likes of Autodesk and Adobe and their copycats seem to hold the hill.
But know what? I’ve actually quite made peace with the idea that I’m probably never gonna work in the AAA(A?) space where that top of the line cutting edge stuff is absolutely required.
In this case, Material Maker and Blender with some add-ons are providing some wonderfully intuitive materials workflows!
Despite my ambitions, my life just didn’t shake out that way and now people that are at least a decade my junior are far exceeding what I can do, with a lot better training and a back that can handle the long hours. :p (Honestly from some of the stories we’ve heard out of the industry, I feel I dodged a bullet sometimes.)
But yeah…
It’s kinda like when I say I work in Godot and people wanna say “WeLL uNrEaL’s GrApHiCs ThO…”.
They might be right but, ha! Am I, a little indie dev that might work alongside some other indie devs, REALLY gonna be making a project SO incredibly strenuous that it’s gonna break anything less than the full might of Unreal?! Probably not. :p
(Power to whatever tools people like using of course! The tools don’t make the artist. :) )
I’ve decided to dedicate my study and efforts towards empowering the Rest Of Us ™. The FOSS tool users, the industry’s rejected applicants, the amateurs, the little guys and gals; Especially the ones who are sick of being exploited by tools, employers, and corporations.
And I hope something good comes of it one day. <3
