A self mowing lawnmower, it moved so randomly and was so specific for its operation parameters that I ended up just going back to manually mowing.
You need that RTK EPOS tech bruh
If your yard was just a perfectly level, medium sun, no rain, obstacle free, rectangle you wouldn’t have any problems.
I don’t know, we put in a lot of effort to make our living room clear for our robot vac. We lifted the sofa we got shelves with a space at the bottom but roomboi still just gets stuck on it’s own in the middle of a hardwood floor
The WD TV Media Player was pure garbage.
Also hated the Macbook Pro with the Butterfly Keyboard.
And probably a lot of smaller tech that I forgot about.
LG Optimus 2x, the first dual core smartphone.
What a piece of shit, never bought LG again. It kept randomly crashing and rebooting, along with a host of other problems.
Every piece of hardware I’ve used past 2010 or so seems to have just gotten worse and worse, I honestly think I’m cursed.
2013 (? can’t quite remember), Sager gaming laptop with sli gpu config, gpus drew too much power for the battery (I believe), leading to black screen and reboot. Company feigned ignorance, ran unrelated tests on RMA, Socially awkward at the time and was scared to ask for a refund. Convinced to this day it was a scam.
2015, desktop computer I built randomly powers off during usage, no errors, not the power supply, unsolved to this day.
2020-2022 5 cheap ebay thinkpads, all with one hardware problem or another. My beloved T60p was the last to go.
2022-present Framework laptop, ports suffer intermitent failure, webcam microphone stopped working. Replaced webcam/microphone, works for a day, breaks again. Unsolved.
2022-preset Steam deck, had to RMA 3 times for various hardware issues, works now, but the right trigger still rubs against something but I can live with it. Spilled coffee on the left trackpad so it’s sticky; that’s my fault though so I can’t blame it on the curse.
I had a laptop a while back with a fingerprint scanner that would work for one day, then stop working completely. I reinstalled the drivers, and it would work for a day and then stop again. I eventually gave up using the fingerprint scanner until I “upgraded” the laptop to Windows 11, and it worked again. No idea if it still works, since I rarely use that laptop now
You could either have the world’s worst luck, or you are genuinely cursed
Alternatively, you keep spilling coffee on your devices and going into a blind fit of cleaning rage that blocks out the memory of the original coffee spill
2015, desktop computer I built randomly powers off during usage, no errors, not the power supply, unsolved to this day.
Possible capacitor fault or a DOA chip – try checking the components with a cap checker and a multimeter
You have a technology curse. Time to start gardening.
I usually buy Asus for computers, and I go for a mid-range business model with dedicated graphics. They’re cheaper than the gaming counterparts, still have good specs, and they are much more reliable and easy to work on.
Had a secondhand Alienware, circa 2017, and that thing looked nice, but it was heavy, bulky, and you had to remove the back cover, drives, battery, WiFi antenna, and a bezel just to swap the CMOS battery. But that’s everything Dell IMHO.
Everything Dell is just garbage.
I remember subbing to r/dell and all you ever saw was people with problems with Dell/Alienware hardware.
Qi chargers. These mofos are so god damn slow.
It’s better to spend 2 sec plugging a charging cable than wait freaking hours for your phone to charge with Qi.
Rechargeable beard trimmer. They last six months , then the charge is less than 5 minutes.
Nintendo Wii: as a loyal Nintendo purchaser here from the Game & Watch, to the Super Nintendo, N64 and GameCube, but the Nintendo Wii never let me back up my purchased downloaded games in a way I could transfer to another Wii without online access. I get that that’s now standard but it was the first time I was burnt by it.
Worse than that. You bought software licenses specific to that Wii, not to an online account. If it died, you lost all your purchases.
Yes that’s right, and I realised I could no longer be a historic game hardware collector with that generation of consoles which killed my main hobby at the time. Years of Nintendo loyalty and, dare I say it, fandom, were betrayed and the Wii itself was just awful.
A smartphone
Good call, never come across one that isn’t a dreadful user experience and I’m confused as hell as to why they’ve become so popular.
Not sure if it is was the worst but I had a Ngage Q. You know the taco shaped gaming phone? Only that it was the less taco shaped version. And it was in 2009, several years after those things failed. It was a decent phone actually and it had tony hawk pro skater, very playable.
But yeah ugly as fuck and hard to hold as a phone plus lack of colours on the screen unless it was a game.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CueCat
These things were trash and the concept was even worse.
Fun fact. The guy that made this was the “forensic expert” that claimed he could detect bamboo fibers in ballots in Georgia and Arizona. The GOP tried to put him in charge of their investigation.
If you count cars: A Skoda Octavia PHEV.
I love Skoda. I love the Octavia. It was my fourth Octavia and I already ordered two more for my staff. PHEV would have been ideal for our use case.
Well,things didn’t go as planned.
The whole car was bugged with software and hardware problems from day one - controll units randomly crapping out, when my dealer wanted to replace them he often had to get 5 units because four would be DOA and the one that worked kicked the bucket before I left his premises. Highlights:
- A steering wheel coming loose (only slightly,but still)
- The main display that shows your speed,etc. randomly shutting down. (Especially nice as I live close to Switzerland with their exorbitant speeding tickets)
- Randomly playing a screeching sound at full volume (especially nice at 3am or when on a highway)
- Randomly shutting of AC, some motor controls , etc.
It took 12 months for VW to take that steaming pile back, and only we sued them (Shortly before the hearing).
Second place goes to LG which sold me a OLED TV for 2k that randomly showed faulty pixel lines exactly 3 years and 3 days after I bought it (so it’s out of the extended warranty programs as well). And when asked for a quote for the repair they had the audacity to ask for almost the new price for the TV back then, aka 150% of the current market value - without even looking at it first. Good way to make sure that I never buy LG anymore.
VW really dropped the ball on software, no wonder they’re buying now into other car manufacturers like Rivian, in hopes to use someone else’s more developed software.
Yeah. Both hardware and software, sadly. Their QA is going down the drain.
Happy Hyundai customer now.
Is there actually any car manufacturer that has decent hardware and software? I have never driven a really “modern” car but from all that I’ve seen so far the interfaces are typically horrible to interact with and laggy to the point where I prefer my car as dumb as possible
Really can’t complain about Hyundai/Kia and Volvo (Android) so far.
Nintendo virtual boy.
Really? Despite how much of a flop it was, if I owned one I feel like I’d find it fun?
Though now that I think about it…did it even have many games?
It wasn’t really fun, and I could never see properly in it.
Hmm, good point. I have an astigmatism and slightly different vision in both eyes so now I’m questioning if it would even work for me.
Yeah I have the world’s smallest astigmatism in my left eye and even that was annoying for me as a kid using it.
I was fun for a moment and then the headaches and nausea would kick in. And yeah, very few games. At the time it was pretty innovative as Nintendo always is. Still a terrible experience however.
My current Amazfit smartwatch. The only good thing about it is the long battery life.
It’s a piece of crap otherwise. Requires the data harvesting app to always be running in the background or it loses connection to my phone. It’s slow, has ugly watch faces and the custom ones are awkward to install. I can’t get it to work with Gadgetbridge. The always on display is so dim that it’s useless. Pinging my phone doesn’t work.
I don’t know why I let the Internet convince me that spending £120 on this thing was a good idea. I’m going Casio or something next time around.
Google Home. Bought them for $40 CAD and back then they were great. Responsive, did quick google searches, played my music all over the house.
Over the years they’ve lost functionality. Mine no longer accurately respond to voice queries and no longer complete google searches. I can still play music on them manually from my phone but when I ask it something, it responds back in French or does something completely different than what I had originally asked.
Worst part is that I ask it something, it does something different, and then when I say “hey Google stop” it just keeps going and going. Have to manually pull the plug for it to stop.
I have the ring doorbell and a home blob which I only use to play the doorbell tune in the house. It is 50/50 luck if the tune plays when someone presses the doorbell button.
Used to love it, had too many weird promptless experiences, unplugged it and now it’s gathering dust on a shelf.
Though it was nice to say “Hey google, tell me today’s news” and get a few different news updates while making coffee.
Edit: Out of sheer curiosity, have you tried factory resetting it?
I’ve factory reset every Google home of mine multiple times over the years. Never had any effect.
Košs KPH30i headphones. Those fuckers are an actual health hazard. They will make your ears suffer for the crime of putting them on.
Really sad cause Porta Pros are incredible. And I usually see people suggest getting the KPH30i instead. Don’t do that.
Anything KOSS or PYLE is straight dog shit. Been that way for at least 25 years. I bought many of their products as a broke teenager.
