Have they improved substantially since they first came out? A friend gave me one before they were being marketed (she had a connection with the company). It was cute/funny but did a lousy job. I had it at work where we occasionally ran it for shits&giggles. A few months later they began marketing them. Mine got put on a shelf somewhere and eventually went in the dumpster.
Yes. IMO. We had one a few years back that was barely adequate. Our newer one (probably a year or two old currently) works very well. It wasn’t cheap.
Looking through old paperwork here, the Roomba I had was 2001 vintage!
Time flies at our age.
We’re already 20% through the 21st Century.
The best part for me, the perpetual scatterbrain, is that it won’t lock the doors unless you have the key on you. It’s impossible for me to lock myself out of the car.
I loved my Instant Pot so much I bought two.
Heh, that’s how I am with my sous vide. I bought my first one as part of the initial kickstarter, then bought a second when it was on sale. My first one is still going strong.
Wireless keyboard/mouse. My roommate bought a brand new iMac circa 2004 and it came with this fancy wireless Bluetooth keyboard and mouse set. I thought it was the most pointless thing I’d ever seen. What am I going to do, use the computer from the next room?!
Fast forward about 10 years, and I’m that guy walking around the office with my own wireless keyboard and mouse to use on different computers (I have to use multiple different computers during the course of my normal days in the office). The reasons for this are, first of all, the government keyboards and mice that are plugged in to all of the computers are absolute shit, many of them are used by dozens of people every day and are never cleaned, and I hate the flat “chiclet” keys on those things.
Bonus: before the pandemic, everyone would see me walk around with my own keyboard under my arm and look at me like I was nuts. Not so crazy now, am I?
You can sous vide with an Instant Pot now. At least with the model I have. I need the vacuum bagger first before I try some marinated steaks…
Vacuum units can be gotten cheaply if you watch Woot or Meh. In fact, I bought four of them the last time Woot had reconditioned ones dirt cheap, because the price was less than what the roll of bag material costs. I gave away the units, just kept the rolls of bag material.
Once you have one you find other uses. I reseal cereal bags, bags of rice, etc.
I’ll check that out. I was looking initially at Monoprice.
It seems to me that using two instant pots might lead to time travel.
He’s more like 275. But yeah, waste material.
For me, it’s the power locks and the cruise control. Many years ago, I believed those things were unnecessary bells and whistles; now I won’t own a car that doesn’t have them.
I’m on the fence with backup cameras. My current car doesn’t have one, but last summer I spent a week driving my daughter’s new car. It’s a nice feature, but it doesn’t replace using your neck and looking all around you. I didn’t miss it when I resumed driving my own car.
I finally got an Apple watch after having resisted it for a really long time. I bought one as a music player since my iPod Nano gave up the ghost. I thought it would be good to let it to do exercise tracking I’ve been using Fitbit for.
The touch UI is definitely an acquired taste. Hard to read if you’re farsighted, hard to tap if you’re farsighted with big fingers.
What I like is that I don’t need to haul out my phone and interrupt what I’m doing just to see if an incoming text needs a quick response. Also nice that I can check the temperature and weather before I get out of bed in the morning.
Car stuff mostly. I recently bought a new (used) car with heated seats and my goodness I will never scoff at those again. It also has some kind of preheater so the climate control works way faster than I’m used to and it’s set for a specific temperature so I don’t have to faff about with too hot/too cold nonsense. It’s very nice. This is my second car with remote locks and nope, never going back on that one. I’ve also capitulated on power windows because with dogs you gotta put the windows up and down constantly and having the child locks so they can’t accidentally strangle themselves while you’re on the freeway doing 80 is very nice.
The car also has an aftermarket Bluetooth equipped stereo–I was used to having a USB drive plugged into the deck with many GB of music on it and that was nice but I have a 128GB card in my phone and having it talk to the BT is much nicer because the drives used to get messed up due to heat and cold but the phone isn’t subject to that. I can add music to the phone more easily as well, and the calling and being able to hear when a text comes in is very nice. I don’t use my phone as a phone all that much but having the option to take a call while driving is very nice. It’s also made it near impossible for me to forget my phone and THAT is very good.
I still refuse to have those “smart home” gadgets because I don’t like it that they listen all the time even when you think they’re turned off. Those things give me the creeps.
sunglasses car CD player XM sat radio
As someone who pulls trailers a lot (see username), I’m enthusiastic about backup cameras. It makes hitching a trailer a simple process, rather than in iterative backup->get out->check alignment->repeat loop. My new truck has one and I forgot to mention it earlier. I’ll never buy another new car without one (I don’t think I can, as they’re required equipment now, aren’t they?).
I think backup cameras have been required for a couple of years. (Now I’d like to see dashcams, or at least just the wiring for them, to be standard as well.)
One son has a job driving new Cadillacs to add mileage to them. Don’t ask me why. They give him a new car every week and he has to return it by Friday with at least a specified number of miles on it, usually 3000. Over is fine and he can even use it for his business.
Anyhoo, the new Cadillacs have thermal night vision. The central LED screen shows the view ahead in typical night vision green and every warm moving object lights up and has a flashing box around it. If you get too close to the object the brakes come on. Awesome.
After losing my key FOB and then finding it again AFTER paying nearly $500 for a new one, I bought a Tile key locator.
I freaking love it. It works both ways: If you can’t find your keys, just get on the phone app and push the button and the key tile starts beeping. And if you can find your keys but can’t find your phone, just push the button on your key device and your phone starts going off.
Also, if I go with in a certain distance of my keys, the app on my phone will let me know I forgot my keys at such n such location.
I also have a tile in my wallet, so if I lose my wallet, I’ll be able to find it again.