What has brought you joy?
Companion to the last question :)
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For me the best tech purchases aren’t really the ones that bring me joy. They’re the ones that become invisible because they take away points of friction.
So I would say my Brother printer is one. It’s been incredibly reliable for more than a decade now.
Switching over to Ubiquiti Unifi access points for wifi has been worth it too. It’s a pain to run wires for them, but having a solid signal everywhere in the house in all kinds of weather is just amazing. They’ve been running for a decade too, though I did just replace one so I can have a 6GHz connection in one room. Not really sure that particular upgrade was actually worth it, but the system as a whole has been so nice. There’s just never anything to fix about the wifi anymore. (Well, okay, occasionally there’s something to fix with the Internet, but it’s usually just “Comcast is down,” and we have to wait until they fix it, and sometimes also reboot the modem. The wifi itself is pretty bulletproof.)
So yeah. Tech that works reliably and invisibly for years on end is what I find really valuable. Gadgets can certainly be fun, but great tech is just there in the background making things easier.
The most recent, best tech purchase was the Nintendo Switch 2, and not for the reasons you think.
So, this is Denmark. A Switch 2 with Mario Kart World goes for 4000 DKK (€535, $630). With my budget there isn’t a chance in hell I could afford that. Even if I could, the Switch 2 simply isn’t worth it, especially considering I have a Steam Deck.
So what’s the story?
Well, last year a telecommunications company rebranded themselves into “Norlys” (“Northern Lights”) and started making some deals to attract costumers. One such deal was a 20% discount on a Switch 2 with Mario Kart World bundled, if you subscribed to their most expensive service. Yeah whatever, that’s still 3200 DKK (€428, $504) and then you’re stuck paying 300 DKK (€40, $47) every month for six months.
But…
I have a friend who works for Telenor, and he has a friend who works for Norlys, and my friend of a friend called my friend with a real hot insider tip; someone royaly fucked up somewhere, and anyone buying the Switch 2 and the six month subscription lock-in will get it for 99 DKK (€13, $16) and no subscription lock-in!
So yeah, me and my friends all got a Switch 2 and a game for a tiny fraction of the cost.
Nice
Always feels like you won this life
Not a purchase per-se, but Linux - investing time in learning it has paid for itself hundreds of times over. A MacBook Air with apple silicon - it hurts to use anything else. ESP8266s / ESP32s with ESPHome - being able to craft real world solutions with very limited electronics skills is amazing.
- Steam Deck (I spend 90% of my time gaming on my couch than at my desk)
- Minidisc Players (There was some MD hate in the other thread but community-made software has come a long way)
- Kobo (Freeing myself from Amazon’s DRM)
- DAS (Creating my own media collection on Jellyfin)
Appreciate the MD love. Super fun format and slick tech. It’s over 25 years old and still feels like the future.
I have heard of NAS to but What is a DAS?
Direct Attached Storage. It’s kinda like NAS but not in network. One could argue it’s just an external hard drive. If I remember correctly I went with one because it was more affordable. I was on a tight budget at the time.
an ereader (a decent, 3rd party software compatible one, not amazons ewaste)
I recently went on a trip to Italy and my e-reader was the unexpected MVP of that trip. Any downtime at the hotel or on the plane instead of staring at a tiny screen I was reading books and felt refreshed instead of drained afterwards, and it took up less space than if I brought just a single book with me. I also didn’t need to charge it once on the entire 10 day trip because eink is so freaking amazing
Two right now. One is a Kobo e-reader. The other is a bone conduction headset. The latter allows me to ride my bike with my tunes but allows me to hear traffic and other environmental hazards. Very comfortable to wear too.
How’s the sound quality?
Really depends on the fit. If the induction pads sit on your head properly the sound is honestly better than similarly priced earbuds, with the added bonus of no occlusion sounds, which I hate. I get the best results with mine when I wear them under over-ear nose protection earmuffs. Also they can be drowned out easily by regular sounds like traffic. I took them on a flight and couldn’t hear a thing over the engine nose.
TLDR try before you buyThanks!
My ebook reader. In the German speaking area, there are even some DRM free ebooks available that I can buy.
Libraries also lend e-books. Having fun isn’t hard when you got a library card 🐜 🐻 🎶
Macbook Air probably (Apple silicon)
Apart from the repairability it’s just THE perfect laptop
Formerly steam deck, now unseated by my AYN Thor. It can play 70-80% of the games the deck can in a package that fits in your pocket.
My breville coffee maker and bratza burr grinder. It makes the best coffee and doesn’t complain.
Also, my dolphin pool cleaning robot. Vacuuming a pool manually is such a hassle. Outsourcing that to a bot is truly amazing.
Anything that buys me back my time.
I recently got an AYN thor. What sort of things have you been playing on it? I’ve not ventured too far into a gaming library yet and was wondering how others are using it.
Soundpeats Wireless Airbuds. They are just really good wireless headphones for the price point. Pre tariffs I got them for like $40. I like that I don’t have to stress about losing them.
Number 2 is an electric vehicle.
Number 1 is a non-smart TV
Honorable mention; The Apple Watch SE 2 I bought for my wife so she stops thinking she’s going tachy or having a heart attack 9 times a year. Considering the cost of an average ER trip, and the hit to my sanity when these things only happen at like 3 AM, I’ll gladly upgrade her to the pro version or whatever when the SE kicks the bucket.
I’m in the market for a new TV, what would you recommend for a dumb screen?
I got an Insignia from BestBuy a few years ago. There was a smart version that was 2 inches bigger for 25 dollars less, and I opted out of that. To say the salesman was floored by this decision would be accurate.
The tv’s with really nice screen tech that is dumb usually costs more I find. Every time I go tv shopping I just end up getting angry about it and talk myself out of it again. I like some of the Hisense stuff but Samsung panels are really the best and the price reflects that.
My favorite tech buy is a good 3D printer.
The ability to imagine something, model it in 3D, and then send it to a box and have it “magically” become real via 3D printing will never not amaze me or stop being cool.
Plenty of other useful tech toys like a jellyfin PC or a 3D scanner, but the printer is the thing I enjoy the most.
Which printer did you buy?
X1C. The new version looks even better. Pretty happy with the XIC’s performance, though. Way better than my old Lulzbot.
Switching to macOS as my daily driver years ago. Seeing the enshittification of Windows in the last ten years has been pretty breathtaking.
Side note, switching to Linux (hell yeah CachyOS!) for gaming has been a pretty rewarding endeavor. It has plenty of pitfalls, but I work in tech, and that’s half the fun. The other half was that I re-imaged my Windows 10 gaming PC to be a CachyOS gaming PC, for free, and CachyOS wasn’t all like “your hardware is too old, create e-waste and buy a new one with a Copilot button on it”.
Switching to macOS as my daily driver years ago. Seeing the enshittification of Windows in the last ten years has been pretty breathtaking
Give it time, Apple will decide your Mac is not ”powerful” enough for their feature updates, that device will get left behind as well.
At least there is some hope of installing Linux on it but the driver support will likely be horrendous.
Yeah, I have seen the service life be in the 5-0 yer range. I see that as acceptable for a daily driver computer.
The Dirtywave M8 handheld music tracker. It’s a studio in your pocket. It looks like a goth Game Boy, using only 8 keys to create entire songs. It has multiple synth engines, a sampler, built in limiter, compressor, and effects, an amazing sequencer, and it just sounds awesome. It can be an audio interface, it can control other hardware synths, and you can use it anywhere.
Once you learn the basic controls and navigation, the user interface is easy and consistent. I suck at making music, but I can do it so fast on the M8 because it’s always with me and I can grab random chunks of downtime to work on songs instead of wasting time doomscrolling on Lemmy.
….wait
Strix Halo laptop.
After a little over a year with a Framework 16, which I had multiple problems with (garbage build quality and tolerances, multiple USB A and C expansion modules all utterly unreliable in any slot), I sold it and instead got an HP ZBook Ultra G1A. Really feeling vindicated getting a laptop with 64gb of 8000mt/s RAM last year given the RAMpocalypse.
Still wasn’t cheap but the thing is insanely powerful for its size, especially the GPU which is crazy good for “integrated”
