Gadgets I regret buying: let's open the graveyard properly
Trey Robinson@techwithtrey
Y'all, I made this topic two days ago and the first thing I want in here is pain. Real pain. Money you will never see again. 💀
Here's the thing: I review gadgets for a living and I still buy dumb stuff. So I'll go first. Prices are what I paid, USD, all bought with my own money:
- A "smart" desk lamp, $89. Needs an app. Needs an account. Needed a firmware update before it would turn on the first time. It's a lamp. My grandma's lamp has a chain and it has never asked me for an email address.
- A phone gimbal, $119. Used it twice. Both times the battery was dead because it drains sitting in the bag. Now it holds a door open.
- A 3-in-1 wireless charging stand, $65. Phone, watch, earbuds, all at once. Also cooks your phone. Mine kept pausing the charge because it got too warm. Went back to a cable.
- A VR headset, $399. Week one: amazing. Week three: the strap gave me a headache. Week ten: very expensive dust cover for my shelf.
- A "gaming" phone fan clip. I'm not even gonna say the price. It sounded like a hair dryer and scratched the frame.
The pattern for me is always the same: I buy the thing that solves a problem I have once a month, not every day. Real talk, the gadgets I never regret are the boring ones. A good cable, a good charger, decent earbuds, a laptop stand.
Your turn. What did you pay, where did you buy it, how fast did you regret it? Rule 1 of this place: say the currency.
Verdict on this whole thread: Skip the impulse buy. Wait 48 hours. 📦
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Comments
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Sign in to commentSam Whitaker@segfault_sam
lamp that needs an email address is the most 2026 sentence ever written
also you forgot to list the 40 chargers in your drawer 💀
Trey Robinson@techwithtrey
Those are not regrets Sam, those are REVIEW SAMPLES. There's a difference. (There is not a difference.)
Matt O'Brien@pi_tinker_matt
AU$45 smart plug that only worked through the vendor cloud. cloud went down for a weekend and my fish tank light stayed on for 3 days straight. flashed it with Tasmota and never opened the app again. honestly the regret turned into my favourite plug
Nadia Benali@nullbyte_nadia
a bluetooth padlock, 35 euros. opened it with my phone, then opened it with a replay of the unlock packet. it went in the bin, not in a writeup, because the company does not exist anymore ahah
Trey Robinson@techwithtrey
Nadia this is why I'm never reviewing smart locks. Not without you in the room.
Rohit Verma@rohit_codes
bhai mera regret: "gaming" phone with RGB light on the back. ₹32,000. light used to blink on every notification, in a client meeting. whole team saw. sold it on OLX for 14k
Graham Whitfield@greybeard_graham
In 2003 I paid a great deal of money for a PDA with a stylus and a docking cradle. I used it as a calculator for two years. The cradle outlived the PDA, the laptop it plugged into, and very nearly my first marriage. The lesson, which I have relearned roughly every five years since, is that a gadget you have to remember to charge is a gadget you will stop using.
Cheers, G.
Lena Hoffmann@arch_btw_lena
laptop with a fingerprint reader that has no Linux driver. 1400 euro. the reader is now a very precise sticker
Ayesha Siddiqui@laravel_ayesha
Standing desk, PKR 95,000. It is now a sitting desk that can stand. It has stood twice.
Sofía Ramírez@sofi_dev_mx
unos audífonos con "cancelación de ruido" de 1,200 pesos que cancelaban... nada jaja. el ruido del vecino seguía ahí y la batería duraba como 2 horas 😅
Caio Nascimento@caio_backend
smartwatch chinês de R$ 180 que contava passo quando eu escovava os dentes kkkkkkk. 14 mil passos num dia que eu nem saí de casa
Jo Brennan@jo_ships
a $340 'ergonomic' chair. kept it past the return window out of pure stubbornness. my back has opinions about that decision 📉
Trey Robinson@techwithtrey
Jo the return window is the real product. Never let it expire. That's the whole channel in one sentence.
Gwen Albright@gwenprints
Sorry for the necro, I only just joined and this thread is a delight. Mine: a cordless drill with a battery pack shaped so that no third party pack fits (and the official one costs more than the drill did). I ended up designing and printing an adapter (PETG, 0.2 mm layers, it has survived two summers in the shed). Which brings me to my point, Trey: half your list is regret BECAUSE you can't fix any of it. Glued battery in the gimbal? I'd bet money.