What is a technology/gadget you refuse to use and why?

I agree with everything you've said, but you have to admit that wireless headphones are convenient if you're on the phone with someone and cooking dinner, or doing laundry, for example.

So much this

No smart speakers

It's a mic sitting there waiting for your commands and everything it does I can do myself easier

That's true, smart speakers and wireless gadget are the waste of the century, things factories can't even recicly and that fills the world of trash.

I have good wired headphones (10 years old) and good earbuds (5 years old) and use both. There's a place for each.

You mean, you don't want a 1984-esque always-on listening device in your home?

I love my Bose wireless headphones (quiet comfort 45). They sound really great, but I also paid $200 (on sale) for them and regret nothing.

The battery is user replaceable with some care.

I use wireless headphones just for watching TV, cable doesn't work well for this use case.

I can't stand the wireless earbuds that you charge in a case or whatever but you'll have to pry my Sony WI-C400 neckband headphones from my cold dead hands.

Yup. I begrudgingly began using wireless headphones beacuse I don't want to have to carry around an adapter to not use them once they killed 3.5mm on phones... Granted I really only use headphones while working out or mowing the lawn or something so it's whatever. Still hate having to worry about having charged headphones, turning on Bluetooth, figuring out if my headphones are off or ok because of the awkward button pushes to turn them off, on or get into connect mode. It's just overly complicated.

I have become so clumsy with the wires, it was less wasteful for me to buy wireless earbuds with wire only between them. The modern codecs are high quality and I only use them outside, so the nuance would be anyway lost.

Smart speakers I do not have. I feel weird talking to devices and I would have to do it in English because they support my native language poorly if at all. I'm not sure if they even are officially available here.

Everything unnecessarily connected to the Internet should have this on them, because they have very little security auditing and all support is dropped very early on the lifetime of the appliance. https://kissa.depili.fi/internet_asbestos_52x32_cmyk.pdf

I agree with all of that. Also, wireless headphones discharge when not in use, there's no way to turn them OFF, in standby they deplete the batteries in a few days. If not used very frequently, like every day, they are never ready to use, they must be charged. There's nothing like good wired headphones, in my case as I have an LG V20 which has a really good hi-fi dac that drives every wired headphones I plug in, going bluetooth is a huge downgrade in sound quality.

Wireless headphones. So now I’m supposed to recharge my headphones and get worse sound quality for it? In a few years they become e-waste, while good wired headphones can last decades. No thanks.

I tend to avoid any wireless peripherals, I still have a wired mouse because I don't need to think about charging my mouse and whether it's going to run out of charge.

For me it's anything I have to download an app to operate.

Except for public transport :-D

I've dabbled in the virtual assistants because I wanted to see what they can do. Siri (it's been years so I don't know if it improved), Alexa, Google, are all horse shit. Every time I try to use them it works like garbage. They either trigger incorrectly or try to implement something I don't want. The few times they do work correctly I don't trust them because of all the other garbage experiences so I have to double check what they did. That negates the entire point from a time and convenience standpoint.

I confess to having an iPhone and other apple products, but they will Always have that "finish setting up" message forever because I will NEVER turn Siri on. Ever.

I have never used Bixby, I've used the Google assistant a few times but other than that, no thanks

Patiently waiting on Asahi Linux to get more and more features done – the stuff they’ve achieved to reverse-engineer so far already is frankly incredible.

The hardware is quite nice, after all…

Same. Don't want to stuck in their ecosystem.

Wow I'm surprised you didn't get downvoted into oblivion. Personally I agree with you and I'm guessing most lemmy users are android users judging from this comment.

I'm forced to use an iphone and ipad for work and I fucking hate it. I honestly don't understand how people find it "more intuitive". So y'all hate the ability to go back or easily exit out of things?? And the inconsistency in swiping functions between models and versions is maddening!

Swipe from up on the iPad brings up menu A but on the iphone SE it brings up menu B but on the iphone ## it brings up menu fucking C.

Aaaahhhhh so frustrating!!

Note: I am also ND so... probably something to do with it.

And why?

The only thing I like about apple is their apple pen for making illustrations on procreate. For me, nothing is comparable.

Everything else is a nightmare though. Even if the apple pen is awesome, I just can't recommend anyone to buy such an expensive device considering you can't really repair it and cannot do anything apple doesn't want you to.

Same. I refused to connect it to the internet.

I still have an old dumb tv, but if this one breaks I'll have to try and find another one to hook my roku up to.

If you are willing to put in a fair amount of effort, you can have a smart home without accounts anywhere.

Most of the account based stuff is based upon open specs.

But you have to be somewhat technical and patient.

I unplugged my Alexa speaker last week because I needed the outlet for something else and haven't plugged it back in. Never use the thing. I have a Google home mini that I really only keep around because I enjoy being able to turn my window AC on by saying "reroute power to life support".

The health stuff is a bit overblown anyway. On a day to day level it's just junk data.

There's so much variation between both between people and also for one person just depending on how they feel that you can't tell what a particular number means.

There's some argument that heart rate is useful for high-end cardio, where you want to keep track of exactly which heart rate band you're in to be sure that you're at capacity but still clearing all the lactate from your system. However, given how much these numbers can vary if you haven't slept fully or you have a bit of a cold, or you overate, you're probably better off learning to pace yourself.

Ok but elite:dangerous on VR with a HOTAS is pretty cool. As is the sculpting software that's out there.

The health stuff on the Apple Watch is basically just for entertainment at this point. Which isn't to say it can't be useful, I definitely know people who have gotten more active because of the "gamification" of things like the activity rings.

If your watch reports say, a single atrial fibrillation event in any otherwise healthy individual, it doesn't do a whole lot for you. Even if you bring that information to your doctor, they can't be expected to do much with it. They could strap some additional monitors on you, but if it is a very rare event there isn't much chance of it recurring when they are actively looking at it. In some cases, the anxiety caused by worrying about it can actually cause more issues than just not knowing.

I actually like my watch a lot, but more for just a notification device/convenient payment interface rather than a health tracker.

Agreed on the watches. I had one smart watch (moto 360) and while cool was very gimmicky for actual functionality and I personally believe that was one of the best looking smart watches. Also the notification reason. My phone is on silent unless my spouse is out somewhere.

Damn, I need my smartwatch at work because the extra notification on my wrist helps me pay attention to my phone. But that is a symptom of me being in IT at a place that doesn't have support tickets 😕

When smart watches came about I thought it would be cool to be able to look at your watch when a notification comes in. Never ended up buying one and when I see how some people behave, I'm glad I never did. Some people will just glance mid conversation at their smart watch, which imo is just as bad as grabbing your phone mid conversation.

I'm happy with my cheap Casio. Looks heaps better too.

Totally agree with you. I’ve had a couple times where I’m tempted to get one but always talk myself out of it. I’m already addicted to my phone enough as it is. A smart watch would just totally mess me up.

Most smart watches go too far but I love my Garmin Instinct. It feels like a modern digital. Just enough cool tools and features but still black and white. With the o2 sensor on it lasts nearly two weeks, a month with it off, before it needs charging. I can track hikes and bikes. Gives me exact coordinates with a push of a button and no subscription or additional monthly fees to use it. If I could afford a mechanical watch for the price I paid for my Garmin ($130 used) maybe I'd own one.

As somebody with adhd those shit is helpful as fuck...

Smartphone rings

i Check it

After checkin (and not replying) i doomscroll...

Smartwatch gooes on

checkin the notification

decides that its (mostly) not important and keep Doing whatever i am doing right now

I sent my bother a text the other day. I got upset that he didn't immediately respond, because I knew he had a smart watch.

I realized that I was getting upset for a condition neither of us set. I eventually heard from him and his watch didn't really matter.

I also think the health monitoring is kinda creepy.

I needed to keep track of the time and I don't always have my phone on me so I got a mechanical watch instead. It's great! No having to charge it, no chance of it tracking me and I got a new hobby/interest out of it.

I love my smart watch for checking a notification that I can't pull my phone out to check as my hands are usually wet and gross from my profession so it only makes sense to me.

Also, they work great as fitness trackers these days too, if you're into that kind of thing otherwise a mechanical watch will work perfectly fine.

overpriced. limited utility. inferior to smartphones.

I'm lazy but opted for POE cameras in a system that I just hooked up because of this. It took a couple days of crawling around the attic and drilling holes in the wall, but now I don't have to worry about Amazon or Google selling/giving my personal camera feeds to whomever requests it/cuts them a check.

Yeah, I like having cameras but don't want that video being sent elsewhere. I ended up getting Tapo cams which are cheap cloud cameras but they also have RTSP streams and local username / password settings. That means I can send the footage to a locally hosted NVR and lock the cameras behind a parental option in my router that blocks all external in and out communication to them.

Same. Except I still occasionally use reddit, just not as much as I used to.

I only use FB messenger as it's big here for communication and FB to post photos of my kids for my family to see which has only been recently, since I had kids. Before that I didn't even touch FB.

Other than that, social media doesn't interest me at all.

They probably wanted to check if you have a social media account for whatever reason, and Facebook is by far the largest social media site.

They were definitely hoping to try and find you posting something illegal on Facebook. People do it all the time for some damn reason

It depends how you use car assistance devices. It you drink Musk's cooldaid about the autopilot it's bullshit. People who use these technologies to do something else/let them get distracted are idiots and tbh, should be punished severely.

But there is ample scientific data that e.g. radar based speed control/adaptive cruise control does reduce injury rates as it let people stay focused for longer as less concentration is used.

Basically you have a (individual )envelope of concentration/focus that you can stay reasonably focused. The time limit how long you can do so is influenced by ones general mental condition, experience, individual constitution on that day, driving circumstances, time, etc. On average it is around 2.5h.

With well designed assistance systems this period can be prolonged by up to 1h, 45min on average and cases where we have a bad day profit more. And as we are all idiots who think we can drive 4h/5h/6h/+X straight the time we are not concentrated enough is reduced significantly.

And of course there are pure security oriented systems that simply do things better than humans - automatic obstacle recognition and breaking systems are a good example. There is literally a kid not being injured or dead because my car has one (as it is the European law by now) - crossed a inner city street without looking, between two large vans parked on the side... No chance to see the kid. And even with 30km/h a full front collision can kill. The car was brought to a full stop before I even recognised what happend.

Source: one of my best friends is a researcher on that topic for a major university.

Only thing I left on in my newish car is the lane change/blind spot warning and the "you are about to ram someone" alarm. Can't remember the official names. They rarely actually help, but when they do, it can mean avoiding a collision.

Can you list some of the devices you do use? I’m getting into Home Automation and could use some recommendations.

Try not having a smartphone with you when you leave the house. Actually many starting returning back to basic phones just for calls and SMS.

If you're using Linux, there's a bunch of open-source code from Meta running on your PC. Same with some small parts of Windows. :)

Where do you find a non-smart TV these days? Seems like nobody makes them anymore

^ this

"Smart" anything is something of a misnomer as the "smarts" are on some "cloudy" server far away. One can only hope that without the "cloudy" connection the thing will continue to function on a "dumb" level.

"Smart" "phones" are even more of a misnomer since they're basically pocket computers that happen to have a phone in them. I'll use them because they can be useful if they do what you want, but I don't install any proprietary apps.

Preach it bb

I like bringing it with me when travelling, to watch movies on the plane. More portable than my laptop with a bigger screen than my phone.

i sometimes use one for certain tasks, where a big screen device is needed, but i don't want to haul around my big laptop.

They're useful if you have kids, otherwise I haven't found them really useful.

The only tablet I can recommend is any iPad with pen support. It has been a lifesaver in my uni life, by taking notes digitally I saved dozens of notebooks and otherwise wasted paper, plus the convenience of having my digital books that can be taken everywhere saved my back. I think that for a university student the base 128gb (or even a 64gb one) iPad and a knockoff apple pen for 20~30€ is a worthwhile investment.

I can see it a whole lot better in bed, or around the house. The phone is too small. I only use the phone outside of the house when I'm mobile, except for hotels, then I'll use the tablet.

My wife got me one years ago, and I'm using it as a dedicated YouTube player when I'm doing something around the house

I think they would be far more useful if all of them had pens.

Walking about in public "OK GOOGLE, ORDER A JUG OF LUBE ON AMAZON"

Sometimes I’m taking a shower in the morning before work, and I want to enjoy it but I know I can also lose track of time. So I just yell, ‘hey Siri, what time?’. Also when cooking, hands dirty, ‘hey Siri, thirteen minutes’ and she sets the timer

Most smart watches go too far but I love my Garmin Instinct. It feels like a modern digital. Just enough cool tools and features but still black and white. With the o2 sensor on it lasts nearly two weeks, a month with it off, before it needs charging. I can track hikes and bikes. Gives me exact coordinates with a push of a button and no subscription or additional monthly fees to use it. If I could afford a mechanical watch for the price I paid for my Garmin ($130 used) maybe I'd own one.

Before you can disconnect you need to see this ad...

Look for devices that support Zigbee or Z-wave, as they're guaranteed to be local-only and not depend on any cloud service. Pair them with Home Assistant and you'll have a smart home that doesn't require anything in "the cloud".

To be fair, I've written plenty of useful code as a hobbyist with the help of Chat GPT. Not good for writing anything factual or creative, but it's a decent assistant at my level.

IMO the use case for ChatGPT is stuff that's not important but still tedious to write. For example, I'm applying for engineering work and my resumé "looks" like shit, so I'm going to need to write a shitload of cover letters. I don't want to write them, like literally at all. It's boring and stupid. But ChatGPT will happily write them. Sure there might be factual errors, but I'll read the output and correct errors by hand. I still save time not having to write boilerplate or structure sentences.

Also, ChatGPT can work with programming languages. For example, I had ChatGPT write me a matrix algebra class in C++ just for fun. The first iteration didn't compile, but it had the jist of how to represent a matrix and matrix multiplication. The second iteration compiled and worked on what I tried it on. Would I use it in production? Probably not while Boost exists. However, I probably could have used it to start writing a matrix algebra library if I really wanted to.

The fact that people are asking it questions and believing it is just so plain stupid.

The fact of the matter is that people are more gullible than they think. People have been encouraged to blindly trust authority figures since the dawn of civilization. We are simply reaping the consequences of our continued complacency.

It's not unreasonable to ask ChatGPT (or anyone/thing) else questions. The issue is when they are treated as all-seeing oracles. ChatGPT in particular makes for a poor search engine because it is particularly likely to output convincing-sounding lies, because it is designed to optimize the convincing-sounding-ness of outputted text.

And if i need to do research to be able if it just talks bullshit again - why bother asking it in the first place?

Well, it can point you in a direction to begin your own research. However, the main use case is really when you don't want to do the work and you don't care about the quality of the work. I don't think people fully realize that workers generally don't want to do their work (would you do your job for free?), because that would contradict the assumption that work under capitalism is natural, voluntary, and not imposed upon the world.

Honestly, this was one of the few kitchen gadgets that seemingly lived up to hype for me. We use ours all the time, even though our oven has convection mode which is essentially the same. The oven takes so long to warm up.. where as the "air fryer" is up to temp super quickly. For a small family, the air fryer is used way more. In general I am opposed to kitchen gadgets that are supposedly saving you time or effort versus the "old" way of doing things.

Sounds like janky electrical mixed with a junky air fryer. I love ours as it heats up quick and cooks almost right away. If you think that's bad, imagine how much more juice your full-sized oven pulls.

All they are is a small countertop convection oven. They use less power to cook than a full size oven, you just don't notice it because those are on their own higher powered circuit.

It pulls less than your typical under counter oven (or an electric kettle). I think you need to check your circuits.

That issue sounds to be with under gauge electrical wiring. We run an air fryer frequently in my home with no issue. It does pull a bit of electricity in the short time we use it, but it’s much better than using an electric oven to cook 20 chicken nuggies.

Cheap air fryers suck but a good quality one is super versatile. Fries up chicken well and you can make so much other stuff. Just avoid the really cheap brands