Manual kitchen tools - fork instead of mixer, string pull food processor instead of electric.
Less washing, space, cost, and I can take them camping.
Ask HN: What are some example of low tech improving your life?
51–60 of 171 posts
Re: Ask HN: What are some example of low tech improving your life?
#52French press coffee maker, silicone dish sponge, manual food processor machine, sliding glass shower doors, and an old radio/tape player.
These are all things I've purchased recently to replace the standard way of doing things that are outperforming the alternatives.
For example, I wanted some coffee one day. I had coffee and a coffee machine (a kcup machine) but no pods. I couldn't make coffee. I realized that while the kcup machine has it's use cases, as a home coffee machine it was way over engineered for the problem.
Re: Ask HN: What are some example of low tech improving your life?
#53box cutter. I get so many boxes and having a tool actually designed for this is just so awesome. It's cheap, the blades are cheap, and it just does the job.
Re: Ask HN: What are some example of low tech improving your life?
#54I hired a housekeeper that comes every other week. This raised the base line of how tidy my home is that I can focus household chore time on organizing and refining my living space. This has created a virtuous cycle of constant improvement and much more enjoyment at home.
Re: Ask HN: What are some example of low tech improving your life?
#55Ever since graduating and getting my own place, I love my dishwasher and laundry machine. I love setting the delay for the dishes to wash at night, and I wake up to clean dishes! It really is robots doing something useful for us
There’s some story where they ask 2 very old ladies (100+) what there favorite inventions were of their lifetime, and they both answer laundry and dishwasher, because it saves them so much time!
Re: Ask HN: What are some example of low tech improving your life?
#56It's not as low-tech as some of the examples here, but I'll say that an e-reader with Pocket sync functionality has dramatically improved my life. Reading long form articles on an offline device with no incoming notifications, no games, no podcasts etc has been a great boon to my ability to focus and really dig into what I'm reading. Plus these days, getting any kind of screen-off time is valuable.
does this work with kindle?
Not OP, but also interested in this. Looks like the main option is to use 3rd-party tools: https://help.getpocket.com/article/1127-using-pocket-on-kind...
Re: Ask HN: What are some example of low tech improving your life?
#57I don't know if this counts as low enough tech, but I disabled the equivalent of "auto advance to next episode" on my Netflix and Prime Video subscriptions. This means that watching the next episode of a show has to be a conscious choice on my part as opposed to the inertia of just letting it happen. Just the small added friction of having to hunt down the remote control and hit "Play" gives me a few seconds to (albe…
I did this too! Huge quality of life increase, especially with Amazon where they barely give you a second to process what you just saw before starting the next episode. Plus, sometimes the music in credits is really good - I'll just sit there and think for a while.
Re: Ask HN: What are some example of low tech improving your life?
#58I don't know if this counts as low enough tech, but I disabled the equivalent of "auto advance to next episode" on my Netflix and Prime Video subscriptions. This means that watching the next episode of a show has to be a conscious choice on my part as opposed to the inertia of just letting it happen. Just the small added friction of having to hunt down the remote control and hit "Play" gives me a few seconds to (albe…
I did the same thing and I enjoy Netflix much more. My maim gripe was that it always treated the ending music and credits as disposable. However, sitting and listening to the music and reading the credits helps me reflect on what I just watched and get the full experience the artist intended.
Re: Ask HN: What are some example of low tech improving your life?
#59For most of my very high tech life, I ignored gardens.
Now in my later years, my garden is one of my most treasured pursuits.
It is pretty low-tech, although you'd be surprised at how valuable debugging skills can be when it comes to the seed-box and sprouts and things.
Mostly, you just do a couple basic things - care for the plants, encourage a system, use your resources - and things will grow.
A garden will always heal you.
Re: Ask HN: What are some example of low tech improving your life?
#60Exercise. Standing desk. Focusing on productivity. Dieting (not that goal-oriented, just trying different diets (keto, vegan, carnivore, paleo, IF) and seeing the effect they have on my body). Meditation (not as much as I'd want though). Talking to people (come in positive, usually making a funny comment on something or just introducing myself). Buying stuff (carefully chosen... like new socks, new gym shorts, kitchen aid like a stick blender... with high total lifetime expected value).