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Ask HN: What tech purchase did you regret even though reviews were great?

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Re: Ask HN: What tech purchase did you regret even though reviews were great?

#131

Post by myvoiceismypass »

darreld wrote: post #67

Synology 923+. Turns out I’m the only one that connects to it in the house. I don’t actually need it. I’m now retired and really only need some external drives or some HDD’s in a hard drive docking station. I just got a docking station. I’ll grab a couple HDD’s and be done with it. Sell the Synology

I have a DS220+ and I use it pretty heavily as a local plex server for music and videos. Actually barely use it as a backup solution (Time Machine kinda sucks, need to find a better solution for backing up my mac to it)

Re: Ask HN: What tech purchase did you regret even though reviews were great?

#132

Post by myvoiceismypass »

pram wrote: post #25

Rio Karma. Amazing MP3 player at the time, and could play OGG Vorbis and FLAC!! It was a cheap piece of shit though and all the plastic pieces rapidly came apart. The rubber coating on the handle disintegrated too. In contrast my iPod survived 10+ years in a glove box and was still immaculate.

OMG, what a blast from the past. I loved my Rio Karmas - I had several, because they kept breaking and Best Buy (extended warranty) kept replacing for me, until they could no longer replace with a Karma and let me switch to an equivalent iPod (but no further replacements after).

I remember that there was a technique where you could smack it at a certain angle and it would "fix" some of the hard drive issues for people.

Re: Ask HN: What tech purchase did you regret even though reviews were great?

#133

Post by myvoiceismypass »

Anyone else here have Sonos? When it works, it is great, but when it doesn't - super frustrating. Sonos pushed out some really awful software to end users a year or so back that completely degraded the experience for pretty much everyone. It is mostly fixed but seems much flakier than when I originally put my system together.

Re: Ask HN: What tech purchase did you regret even though reviews were great?

#135

Post by itsdrewmiller »

bilsbie wrote: post #42
EspadaV9 wrote: post #30

Not sure I'm at the regret stage, but the 3D printer has been sitting mostly unused, and I'm not sure that'll change. There have been a few things that were good to print, but mostly used to print fidget toys for the kids and their mates.

I’d use it all the time but the workflow is obnoxious. Download a model, manually run the slicing software. Load it onto a usb. Plug it into the printer. If I could click print from my phone I’d be running it constantly.

Bambu printers have this ability - works amazingly well.

Re: Ask HN: What tech purchase did you regret even though reviews were great?

#136

Post by bilsbie »

itsdrewmiller wrote: post #135
bilsbie wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d use it all the time but the workflow is obnoxious. Download a model, manually run the slicing software. Load it onto a usb. Plug it into the printer. If I could click print from my phone I’d be running it constantly.

Bambu printers have this ability - works amazingly well.

How do they handle the slicing? Just make good default assumptions and slice for you?

Re: Ask HN: What tech purchase did you regret even though reviews were great?

#137

Post by kcplate »

eudamoniac wrote: post #125
kcplate wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So are a lot of chairs at a fifth of the price. I gave them a quality evaluation and have had occasion to sit in them for long periods at client sites. I am all for spending for quality and generally am a BIFL type consumer, but these chairs just don’t carry the value for me.

I don't think there is one chair at a fifth of the price or even half the price that is as adjustable. Please post one if true, as I'd love to have such a discounted feature.

I can’t really get you specifics. Three years ago when my wife and I were chair shopping after an office deco/design change, I came across a number of highly adjustable chairs in the “less than $600” price point that we were shopping during that time (We share the office and were buying two). What was important to us was they fit a specific design aesthetic (Aerons did not), that they were the same chair (for design symmetry), and that they were comfortable and adjustable to our individual needs. We ended up with 6-way adjustable chairs that met our needs and came in around $550 each. Because of our criteria, it took the better part of a mo th of active shopping to find our unicorn.

Google tells me Aerons have 8-ways of adjustability. The missing adjustability I don’t have are arm height and tilt. I don’t miss it. And if I did, it’s not worth the extra grand it would take to get it.

Re: Ask HN: What tech purchase did you regret even though reviews were great?

#138

Post by krackers »

brailsafe wrote: post #110
krackers wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Matias is sort of notorious for stuff that looks good in theory, but is plagued by reliability issues they just can't seem to sort out. I didn't know it was possible to mess up a scissor switch keyboard, but apparently Matias found a way to do so. They've also been trying for 10 years to make a 60% keyboard (see the infamous thread on geekhack). Granted they do seem to refund anyone who wants it, but it's har…

> I didn't know it was possible to mess up a scissor switch keyboard, but apparently Matias found a way to do so. That indeed does seem to be the sentiment, and seems true, but to be fair, Apple also botched their laptop keyboards to the point of class action for years. But the current Macbook Pro keyboard seems fine so far.

Apple was using a novel butterfly keyboard mechanism instead of standard scissor switches during that era. The M1+ MBPs went back to scissor switches.

Re: Ask HN: What tech purchase did you regret even though reviews were great?

#139

Post by cbull »

reaperducer wrote: post #85
lesuorac wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't speak to most of those but smart lights are pretty nice. I made sure to buy zigbee ones so that I'm just tied to home assistant which even if it goes out of business will still work with whatever binaries I've downloaded already (as well as it works locally so I can control them during internet outages). I'm sure somebody else can explain why you should get Thread or Matter nowendays but I never bothered to lea…

smart lights are pretty nice… I made sure to buy zigbee ones The connectivity doesn't matter when it's the actual filaments/LEDs that burn out after only a year or two. Even buying a big name like Sylvania doesn't help. I had eight Sylvania smart bulbs burn out or go into endless flicker fits in under a year. They're all in a landfill now. Of course, that's better than when Feit Electric sent out a firmware update th…

You must have some funky electricity at your place, I have two smart bulbs (a TP-Link wifi and a generic Zwave) that get daily use and have been running fine for 7 years now.

Re: Ask HN: What tech purchase did you regret even though reviews were great?

#140

Post by mrbadguy »

currency wrote: post #71

Alexa. I use Alexa constantly, except my Echos drop off the network and have to be manually restarted by unplugging them. And I curse every time one of them starts up with, "by the way...." I have several smart power strips that stopped responding; I have had better luck with individual smart outlets. Digital audio players with Wi-Fi radios that support AirPlay. I've purchased three, two from Hiby and one from FiiO.…

Yeah bone conduction headphones are awful, I don’t know how people tolerate them.
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