Lots of people have said the same thing about bread machines.
I got a hand-cranked cheese grater, and it actually takes longer, and of course takes longer to clean up, than a regular cheese grater. I only use it when the regular cheese grater’s use would also shred my knuckles.
Sadly, my Fitbit Flex. I really liked it for a few weeks, but it just didn’t track enough information, wasn’t particularly comfortable, and ultimately didn’t do the “trick” motivating me. I wouldn’t exactly regret it, but they are awfully overpriced (even buying it substantially discounted).
Good to know. I’ve been eyeing the Fitbits and wondering if it would be enough motivation.
Realistically, probably not. :o
I thought that the 3DS was a little disappointing when I got it. Now, it seems to be a very good handheld.
Mileage varies. A friend who bought one the same time I did uses his religiously and it has improved his workout habits.
I think the newer generation devices that include heartrate sensors are more promising. Even devices like the new fitbits with a clock face are more promising, because they actually DO something. The Flex is basically a blinking Livestrong band that you have to charge weekly.
I intend to buy a Microsoft Band at some point this year, as the smartwatch / health tracker hybrid idea is a lot more compelling.
That is what I use mine for mostly and it works most excellently for that purpose. It cooks them from both sides evenly and without any fuss. They come out nice and juicy in just 6 or 7 minutes. It is a great product if you use it for what it is good for. It also does very well with pork chops, lamb and even salmon fillets (be careful of sticking for the last one).
I had one of those! I got to play with it once…I thought it was awesome. Mom and Dad were less than impressed with the paint it slung all over the place.
I was super excited about my first smart phone…unfortunately, Windows Mobile (and, to some extent, the hardware) left me so frustrated that I almost switched back to a flip phone.
Oh, I’ve got a hundred of them…but speaking of digital cameras…
My first, that I got back in 2003 or so, was an Olympus something-or-other. Could hold maybe 250 Mb with the largest card, and did about 2 megapixels.
Honest-to-god, I have NEVER taken better pictures than I did with that camera, and I’ve bought 4-5 since (not to mention smartphones with supposedly better capability).
I don’t know if I just learned how to use that one properly, and have been too lazy to do the same with “better” cameras, my standards and patience has changed, or if it and I just had chemistry, but I can hardly take a good picture in daylight these days. I could do just about ANYTHING with that Olympus, though.
I think I gave it to one of the kids years ago, it’s long gone. Sigh…
(As an aside, right before that–maybe 2001–I had spent $$$ for a “latest-thing” film camera with a new type of drop in film canister. Anybody remember those? Wish I remembered what they were called. I think I still have a couple kicking around that I never developed. 
They did take some awesome pictures for clumsy me.)
Kodak Advantix? I still have one undeveloped cartridge too…I think there are still a few labs that process it.
That’s it! Thanks! I didn’t know anybody still developed those, esp. since I forgot the name. Now to dig up those cartridges.
I watched a TV show last night where the host was evaluating a number of fitness-oriented wearable tech. He wore 5 or 6 at the same time and said that all reported different numbers at the day’s end. I guess if you only wear one and it’s not that accurate, you really wouldn’t know.
My MIL apparently was a sucker for kitchen gadgets she’d see on TV - to give as gifts… to me. One year she gave me a salad shooter - definitely took longer to assemble and clean than just chopping veggies the old way. Then there was the hand-held blender thingie. It would probably do a good job at mixing chocolate syrup in milk, but beyond that, worthless.
BUT she done good with the set-it-and-forget-it rotisserie. For the first few years I had it, I never took it out of the box - it was big and I had little storage space in the kitchen. After we moved, I was ready to send it to goodwill, but my husband asked me to give it a try. It is now one of my favorites! Granted, it’s a pain in the patoot to clean, but it’ll cook up amazing chicken, turkey, and roasts! And I now have a bigger kitchen, so it lives in its own little corner. I would truly miss it if it died.
And I really like my George Foreman - I use it for burgers, bratwurst, tuna steak, grilled cheese, chicken strips, pork chops. It wouldn’t be practical if I was cooking for more than 2 of us, but I am very happy with it.
One of my sisters had a red LED watch back then. Came in very handy as a random number generator for playing games in the car when dice would normally be used.
Press the button and add the seconds together! If a zero or anything above 6 came up, keep pressing until a valid result is obtained.
Advantix was the Kodak brand name and probably the most common. It was generically called APS and quite a few companies made compatible cameras and film.
Semi-interesting note: even though APS essentially fizzled out, the name lives on in digital photography. Most digital SLR cameras except the highest-end ones use APS-sized sensors and are commonly referred to that way.
Ah, so many. I seem to be a magnet for duff electronics and appliances.
An off-brand Foreman Grill-like device that my mother gave me as a holiday present. First time I tried to use it, it spit boiling hamburger fat for a foot in every direction. Not to mention the tedium of cleaning the damn thing.
A PDA (remember those?) I spent several hours transferring all my contacts into it, used it happily for a few weeks, then discovered that if you happened to ever let the battery discharge, it wiped everything.
A transmitter that promised to make my good set of headphones wireless. Didn’t work. At all.
Most recently, a Roku Stick. Seemed to have mostly favorable reviews on Amazon when I first went shopping, so went ahead and got one. When it arrived, went through the set up routine OK, but it froze up at every attempt to actually use it, even when within a couple feet of my wireless router. Went back to check Amazon’s site, and now it seemed like half the reviews were complaining about the same thing.
ETA: just checked Amazon again and now it seems to be back to mostly favorable reviews. Did I just get a duff one, or is there some shillin’ going on? Who knows?
When I was a kid I ordered some crap from a comic book ad. One was a pair of wireless communicators. They were wireless all right- they used string, being a variation of the tin can telephone. Also got the thing you put in your mouth that would enable you to carry a big box on your back, and make it seem as though there was someone in there calling for release. It was a tiny metal cylinder that just whistled when blown through. How that would make one a ventriloquist wasn’t explained. I promptly swallowed the damn thing.
They are also good for grilled cheese. My daughter used hers all through college and loved it.
Mine submission is the recording pen. This is a pen that writes on special paper while recording what you are taking notes on. The idea is that when you want to review your notes you can put the pen on a line and it will play what it recorded while you were writing that line. It also had a USB port so you could download the voice file.
I thought I could use it in meetings, but the meetings I attend now are conference calls and it doesn’t work. You also need to get everyone’s permission to record, and fine the time and the inclination to listen to it again. So a big disappointment. Since I don’t see them advertised, probably for everyone.
Cool!
Compaq iPaq? I loved mine; I still have it even though I haven’t touched it in years, and I have yet to find a better handwriting recognition system on a modern device. I don’t remember ever draining the battery completely, but I did have to open it up a few times for repairs…part of this involved flipping the battery disconnect switch, which had the side effect of wiping the system.
Sounds like a Livescribe pen. Cool idea, but I think part of why they never caught on (aside from the hassle of needing special paper) was because they had some software issues. IIRC, they removed / changed a bunch of features in their software at some point and alienated a big chunk of their user base.
When I was a kid I saw, in the shop, a watch with a radio in it.
With a radio in it! I had to buy it, and after a few days of walking around with my arm held above my head I decided it wasn’t the best of purchases. It didn’t pick up shit.
Then I saw, in another shop, a watch with a calculator in it.
With a calculator in it! I must have used that calculator once, and that was just to key in 8008135. What a letdown.