An electric under-blanket - you can lower bedroom temperatures (saving money at current European gas prices) and be quickly cosy in bed. Pair with a plug timer and wake up cosy, too.
Ask HN: What sub $200 product improved your 2022
331–340 of 1001 posts
Re: Ask HN: What sub $200 product improved your 2022
#332Instant Pot. Can be used as a rice cooker, slow cooker, pressure cooker (mostly known for this last use) Though probably not as good for rice specifically as an actual high-end rice cooker, it greatly increased the range of foods I eat. Makes it easy to make nice one pot meals overnight for multiple days, you can make really good broth soups from chickens etc quickly, or slowly if you prefer. If you like to try tough…
Me too. Instant pot for the win. Haven't tried meat in it. It's been Indian curries and lentil soups & such. I also bought a 3 quart version for my motorhome!
Do you follow any recipes online? Those sound great and I would love to expand my instant pot game beyond pressurized rice making.
Re: Ask HN: What sub $200 product improved your 2022
#333- all matching socks. No more time spent pairing. - clothes drying racks that hook onto radiators. Reduces drying time and clothes crumpling - wired mechanical keyboard. Wired is simpler than wireless. Quality ones have n-key support - bicycle fenders - digital wrist watch so that I check my phone less.
>all matching socks.
I have 12 pairs of the same lightweight Darn Tough socks that are perfect for year round use (I don't live in snow). I've had them for ~10 years now and when a given sock gets a hole in the bottom, I put them in a pile and wait until I have 4 then send them back for two new pairs of socks. They were initially expensive, but after each being replaced a couple times, they are dirt cheap (even when factoring in one-way shipping). Thankfully, they have kept the exact same style all these years. Fingers crossed that they stay in business and that 80 year old me will have saved a lot of money by not buying socks.
Re: Ask HN: What sub $200 product improved your 2022
#334An air fryer. It’s really a badly marketed product. Its real utility isn’t that it uses less oil, but that it cooks incredibly fast. Essentially an oven on steroids. It’s made cooking so much easier. I usually toss some boneless chicken in with a light coating of soy sauce and cornflour. While the chicken cooks, I prep a basic Asian sauce on the stovetop. The chicken and the sauce are both done within 10-15 minutes.…
Any recommendations for one from OP or anyone else with one they’re pleased by?
You'll get some proper recommendations, but I'll mention that I have a very cheap no brand thing that cost under $50 at a grocery store. A skeptical, low investment purchase. It's amazing.
No fancy features, the design could clearly be improved, but chuck anything in this small chamber, crank up the timer and delicious food comes out 10mins later. I've gifted nice models to others, without feeling any need to upgrade my own. Maybe when it breaks.
I would suggest sticking with a small one though. Quicker to heat, better circulation etc
Re: Ask HN: What sub $200 product improved your 2022
#335I am not trying to derail the conversation, but I just have to comment on the product you listed. I am clearly not the target market (I think?), but that marketing video on their home page “describing” what this is, has to be one of the worst marketing videos I have ever seen. I watched it and still have no idea what it does. I am guessing it allows you to switch the app that you are streaming? I give up… https://www…
It’s basically physical buttons you can customize. I use mine with a few useful shortcuts:
- a global mute button
- a screenshot button
- a button to show/hide my terminal
- and a few others depending on the focused app
Re: Ask HN: What sub $200 product improved your 2022
#336I am not trying to derail the conversation, but I just have to comment on the product you listed. I am clearly not the target market (I think?), but that marketing video on their home page “describing” what this is, has to be one of the worst marketing videos I have ever seen. I watched it and still have no idea what it does. I am guessing it allows you to switch the app that you are streaming? I give up… https://www…
It allows you to program macros for streaming. Things like reconfigure your screen share, change the audio input levels and source, anything that you can imagine a television producer might want to do for their broadcast.
It presents an array of hardware buttons with small displays in them to let you do all of that easily in a live broadcast environment.
Re: Ask HN: What sub $200 product improved your 2022
#337A one-hour shopping session with a personal stylist, at about $175. I desperately wanted to break out of my t-shirt/blue jeans habit, but parsing clothes sizes, trying things on, and getting opinions is equal parts sorcery and torture for me. (I'd tried Stitch Fix and felt like it wanted to reinforce my habits rather than break me out of them.) After sending her details about my problems and the kinds of styles I adm…
I don't want to belittle your experience as stylists can be helpful for achieving a certain look, but often department stores (especially Nordstrom) have sales associates trained as stylists.
They will spend a lot of time helping you with your style for free, albeit you'll probably want to buy from that particular store. Nordstrom clothes are a bit on the pricier end, but ~most~ are often good quality.
Re: Ask HN: What sub $200 product improved your 2022
#338An air fryer. It’s really a badly marketed product. Its real utility isn’t that it uses less oil, but that it cooks incredibly fast. Essentially an oven on steroids. It’s made cooking so much easier. I usually toss some boneless chicken in with a light coating of soy sauce and cornflour. While the chicken cooks, I prep a basic Asian sauce on the stovetop. The chicken and the sauce are both done within 10-15 minutes.…
It's a small convection over marketed as an "Air fryer". It's genius marketing!
Air fryers blow significantly more air than a convection oven. Even my Breville toaster oven which is touted as an air fryer clearly isn’t - I find I need to cook foods somewhere between the convect instructions and air fryer instructions.
Re: Ask HN: What sub $200 product improved your 2022
#339Airpod Pro 2 They are basically bionic ears. Headphones, headset, earplugs, hearing protection, hearing aids, extendable ears, and more. Wish they could act as universal translators, but I suppose that's still yet to come.
Do they actually provide hearing protection? Hearing protection requires a pretty tight seal, which I wasn't aware of any headphones providing aside from in-ear monitors.
any noise cancelling makes the london underground noises bearable to travel.
Re: Ask HN: What sub $200 product improved your 2022
#340I gave up on flaky WiFi mesh networking and connected the APs to my home's inactive cable wiring using MoCA adapters. Local bandwidth increased 4x, and I was able to achieve solid coverage throughout the house. I also replaced a rock, a brick, and a rubber wedge with magnetic door holders, each about $5. Now when we're bringing in the groceries, we can keep the door open without the rock, and it's easy to close when…
How did you spend less than $200 on APs and MoCA adapters? Each MoCA adapter is like $50 and you need at least 2 of them to be useful. It seems like cheaper APs can run ~$30 but only support 2.4Ghz/300 Mbps.
I just invested in 4 MoCA adapters and a Ubiquiti UDM/2 small APs (tall & skinny row home with 3 floors but now I get 500 Mbps everywhere in the house including the roof) but it ran way over $200.