Ask Lemmy

The Dirtywave M8 handheld music tracker. It’s a studio in your pocket. It looks like a goth Game Boy, using only 8 keys to create entire songs. It has multiple synth engines, a sampler, built in limiter, compressor, and effects, an amazing sequencer, and it just sounds awesome. It can be an audio interface, it can control other hardware synths, and you can use it anywhere.

Once you learn the basic controls and navigation, the user interface is easy and consistent. I suck at making music, but I can do it so fast on the M8 because it’s always with me and I can grab random chunks of downtime to work on songs instead of wasting time doomscrolling on Lemmy.

….wait

Soundpeats Wireless Airbuds. They are just really good wireless headphones for the price point. Pre tariffs I got them for like $40. I like that I don't have to stress about losing them.

My Hansker Performance mouse. No wrist pain anymore and I can switch it between desktop and my laptop using the switch on the bottom

A robot vacuum still brings me joy every day

And my shockz bone conducting headset is great

And replacing windows with cachyos

my desktop pc built last year on am4 platform and ddr4 RAM, even though it's old since ddr5 had already been out for a year at that point for the gpu, I bought the amd 6800xt , and that had been out for 4 years already

It was great that I didn't feel ripped off, and it doesn't feel outdated yet.

Works great, and does everything I need it to do. Can play all the games I want to play.

Steam Deck, hands down. It rules being able to play PC games in bed with my partner by my side.

Noise cancelling headphones are incredible, using them in a noisy airport eliminated 80% of the discomfort of travelling

My Fairphone 5, because it has allowed me to break free from Google and other big tech companies by letting me install whatever I want on it.

And my good old Thinkpad.

Steam Deck OLED has been pretty great. Also the HTC Vive VR headset, back in 2016.

Not a purchase, but Home Assistant is easily the most enjoyable gadget and piece of tech I've had in years. It's ridiculously flexible and can do just about anything you can imagine.

I've been able to automate dumb devices (like an old top-of-the-line receiver) and give them smart features rather than spending thousands to replace them. Occupancy detection saves energy by changing thermostat settings when people aren't home, and lights come on when we're 60' from the front door after a walk. Multiple leak detectors and a temperature sensor in the fridge let us know when something's wrong before damage occurs. We get notifications when the dryer and washer cycles are complete allowing us to complete the laundry in one day instead of two.

The system is configured to change change interior light brightness and hue based on time of day so at 7PM we have bright room lighting and at 2AM it's very dim. We get immediate notifications of package deliveries with the integrated Frigate NVR and a $15 camera. Firewall settings are dynamically changed so devices that require Internet access only have it when they are actually in use. Integrations exist for VLC, Spotify, Jellyfin, Paperless, Apple, TVs, alarm systems, solar power systems, routers, automobiles, and hundreds of other brands and devices.

Yes, much of the same can be done with connected appliances, lights, and other smart devices using separate apps and control interfaces for everything, but what's different about Home Assistant is it's all integrated and all control and storage can be local. We have no cloud or corporate services involved for any of this. Google, Apple, Amazon and Samsung can't one day decide to pull the plug on things we've already paid for.

The big problem with Home Assistant is there are so many uses you can easily end up spending way too much time tinkering and never get anything else done.

My old casio watch works after a decade of use.

My old kindle just got a new battery but its over 14+ years old.

And my CPAP is probably the thing that does the most work for me.

Framework laptop - they took the best parts of the MacBook, made it repairable and fully support Linux. Priced fairly, with the option to separately purchase RAM and SSD. And they've even provided free replacement parts years after the warranty expired!

I got a hacked SNES mini on eBay that was fully loaded with every ROM from Atari to the 32 bit systems.

My 2012 MacBook Pro is still going strong, still my primary home computer, still does everything I need. Maxed out the memory and upgraded to a SSD hard drive years ago and it runs great.

Portable battery powered bidet.

AMD stock apparently 😂😂

For me the best tech purchases aren't really the ones that bring me joy. They're the ones that become invisible because they take away points of friction.

So I would say my Brother printer is one. It's been incredibly reliable for more than a decade now.

Switching over to Ubiquiti Unifi access points for wifi has been worth it too. It's a pain to run wires for them, but having a solid signal everywhere in the house in all kinds of weather is just amazing. They've been running for a decade too, though I did just replace one so I can have a 6GHz connection in one room. Not really sure that particular upgrade was actually worth it, but the system as a whole has been so nice. There's just never anything to fix about the wifi anymore. (Well, okay, occasionally there's something to fix with the Internet, but it's usually just "Comcast is down," and we have to wait until they fix it, and sometimes also reboot the modem. The wifi itself is pretty bulletproof.)

So yeah. Tech that works reliably and invisibly for years on end is what I find really valuable. Gadgets can certainly be fun, but great tech is just there in the background making things easier.

As an avid Clone Hero player (Guitar Hero but for PC, essentially) this was such a huge upgrade to me from the Wii guitars I had been using for years.

About a decade ago I bought my first mechanical keyboard -- tenkeyless with cherry mx red switches. The keys still feel like a dream to this day. I like 'em much better than rubber dome switches.

My Nintendo 3DS. I don't use it often or regularly but when I do I'm glad I have it.

Not a purchase per-se, but Linux - investing time in learning it has paid for itself hundreds of times over. A MacBook Air with apple silicon - it hurts to use anything else. ESP8266s / ESP32s with ESPHome - being able to craft real world solutions with very limited electronics skills is amazing.

My over the ear earbuds, probably. I use them daily, they're good for normal music or videos and they dampen sound and don't fall off so I can drum with them in. It's been a lot of fun just jamming to tunes.

an ereader (a decent, 3rd party software compatible one, not amazons ewaste)

• Steam Deck (I spend 90% of my time gaming on my couch than at my desk)
• Minidisc Players (There was some MD hate in the other thread but community-made software has come a long way)
• Kobo (Freeing myself from Amazon's DRM)
• DAS (Creating my own media collection on Jellyfin)

steamdeck and the skin and cover I bought. ironically the official dock is one of the worst.

Dreamcast and CRT PC monitor 🥲

Either my Kobo or my 55" LG OLED.

I've owned a bunch of TVs over the years, starting with a 12" Panasonic "portable" CRT that just about fit on a shelf in my bedroom. But none of them can hold a candle in just how impressive they look to that LG. Even my first LCD, a 32" Sony (which I still have) impressed me to begin with, but ultimately it just became a TV to look at. But I've had this LG for a year and it still blows me away when I watch something that's letterboxed and the black bars are so black that you can't tell where they end and the (extremely thin) bezel begins. And it only cost me £800.

The software updates piss me off though, so I've revoked its internet privileges.

But I don't think a bit of tech has brought me quite as much joy as my Kobo Clara HD still does, some six years after I bought it.

A had a Kindle for a year before, and while it was fine, it annoyed me how much I felt I owed to Amazon with it. Loading books from not-Amazon was a pain in the arse. Calibre could do it, but only certain formats were allowed to have cover art. Then it went tits up, so I replaced it with my Kobo and it was like breathing clean air for the first time in my life.

The Kobo couldn't give a shit where the books came from, it treats them all equally. The battery still lasts for weeks, even after six years, and just a couple of weeks ago I worked out how to sync it with Grimmory, running on my home server, so I don't even need to plug it in to copy books to it anymore. Just upload them to Grimmory, which automatically puts them onto the Kobo shelf, so when it syncs overnight it downloads them. And it has Instapaper built in now, so I can save articles to read on that nice, clear screen.

And all in something that cost me about £90.

Yeah, if you enjoy reading and are on the fence about an e-reader, get a Kobo. The old Clara HD is perfectly good, and probably quite cheap now.

I love my modular synthesizer, although the cost of it is not good value for money so probably can't count as my best tech purchase.

My sim racing rig has the same issue, it's bought me thousands of hours of joy but is prohibitively expensive.

My ergodox mechanical keyboard is a solid contender. The original model, Hand built, cherry MX clears. It's lasted easily 10 years and I hate typing on anything else.

But I think it's probably my headphones. Beyerdynamics DT770 pro's. They sound great, they're super comfy, and not terribly expensive. I've had them for probably 10 years and I see no reason I won't have them till the day I die