Ask HN: What tech purchase did you regret even though reviews were great?

Hacker News Discussion ↗

Smartwatches & Wearables

  • Apple Watch is a top regret: batteries often don’t last a full active day or long walks/runs, leading to people simply stopping use.
  • Some report unreliable heart-rate monitoring (way off during workouts).
  • Others are very positive: Apple Watch (especially Ultra) is described as life-changing for fitness and health tracking, with 2–3 day battery and good sensors.
  • Overall takeaway: highly polarizing “hit or miss” product; great for data/fitness nerds, often abandoned by casual users. Garmin is praised for week-long battery and “good enough” smart features.
  • Oura ring sometimes preferred for passive tracking without smartwatch fuss.

Consoles, VR & Gaming Gear

  • Digital-only/diskless consoles: regrets about limited storage, higher game prices, and no resale/trade/loan, despite initial convenience.
  • Quest 2 and VR headsets: some like them but regret timing (price hikes/drops) or can’t use them due to motion sickness.
  • Steam Deck: admired as hardware and for Linux gaming, but some units failed (black screen) or just went unused given lifestyle/time.
  • High-end gaming headsets (e.g., SteelSeries): criticized for mediocre mic quality, battery hassles, and comfort; several moved to separate DAC + good headphones + mic and wouldn’t go back.

Chairs & Ergonomic Gear

  • Aeron chair splits opinion: some see it as wildly overrated vs much cheaper chairs; others describe decades-long durability and back-pain relief, especially when bought used.
  • General view: value depends heavily on body type, back issues, and how long you sit.
  • Ergonomic keyboards (Kinesis, Matias): complaints about build issues, weird failures, and particularly bad support or documentation; a few counterexamples report long-lived units.

Smart Home, Thermostats & Home Gadgets

  • Big cluster of regret: robot vacuums, smart lights, smart thermostats (Nest, Ecobee, Mysa), smart speakers (Alexa/Google Home), and “smart” appliances.
  • Common problems:
    • Devices need constant babysitting (robot vacs stuck, remapping, hair jams).
    • Apps are slow, confusing, ad-filled, or demand accounts and logins.
    • Cloud dependence, firmware changes, and API shutdowns (e.g., Ecobee) make products worse over time.
    • Family members can’t easily do basic tasks like changing temperature.
  • Some positive exceptions:
    • Higher-end Roborock robots praised as reliable and self-maintaining.
    • Hue/Zigbee smart lights and in-wall actuators seen as solid when kept local and brand-name.
    • Home Assistant: powerful for complex multi-vendor automation, but seen by some as overcomplicated “hobby infrastructure” if you just want simple control.

Tablets, TVs, Phones & PCs

  • Amazon Fire tablets: often returned or abandoned due to extreme slowness and unpleasant OS.
  • Samsung phones and tablets: good hardware but bloaty, duplicated apps; Samsung TVs and Sony smart TVs are criticized for lag, tiny storage, and even network bugs.
  • iPad Pro: some regret replacing a Surface because iPadOS feels like “a big phone” unless used as remote desktop.
  • MacBook Pro mini‑LED: complaints about visible vignette/brightness uniformity not reflected in reviews.

Storage, Networking & Misc Tech

  • Synology NAS: sometimes overkill when only one person uses it; could have used simple external drives, though others note it can run Docker and many useful services.
  • Small form-factor PCs (e.g., certain NUCs): look powerful on paper but throttle hard and become loud under load.
  • Various audio and input devices (soundbars, bone-conduction headphones, DAPs, Loupedeck, certain keyboards) often fail to live up to glowing reviews, especially on reliability, latency, or software quality.

Meta-Themes: Why “Great Reviews” Still Lead to Regret

  • Many regrets stem from:
    • Overestimating how much a device will change habits (robot vacs, 3D printers, fitness gadgets, kitchen tech).
    • Long-term annoyances (batteries, noise, lag, bad apps, cloud lock-in) that short reviews don’t capture.
    • Products degrading over time via firmware, ecosystem changes, or e-waste-level lifespans.
  • A recurring strategy that does work: buy durable, repairable gear used or discounted, and keep it simple and local whenever possible.