Whats the most useless piece of technolagy that you ever bought?

dubgurl

The camcorders with the tiny cassette tapes, should have got the DVD type camcorder. Now the camcorder is broken and have no way to recover the cassette tapes, as they never thought of manufacturing a device to read the tapes!

Dubwat

My mother got a new car one year so I bought her a puncture repair kit as an Xmas present. It was one of those kits where you'd plug it into the cigarette lighter and it would pump enough gunk into the tyre to get you home. The male part of my brain was super impressed with it.

Little did I realise that if my mother did get a puncture, I would be the 'tool' she'd phone to fix it

Wibbs

Dubwat wrote: »

My mother got a new car one year so I bought her a puncture repair kit as an Xmas present. It was one of those kits where you'd plug it into the cigarette lighter and it would pump enough gunk into the tyre to get you home. The male part of my brain was super impressed with it.

Yeah that reminds me I got a similar mini air compressor to pump up the car tyres. The early days of buying "cheap" shíte in Lidl. And shíte it most certainly was. Plug it into the ciggie lighter and off it would put put and fart and an hour later would have transferred a couple of hundred atoms oxygen and nitrogen. I'd have been better off blowing into the tyre myself.

sunnysoutheast

I had a graphic equaliser in my stack of hi-fi separates.

Also had a force feedback joystick to play MS flight simulator on a 14" monitor. Played it twice, maybe.

Edward Hopper

dubgurl wrote: »

The camcorders with the tiny cassette tapes, should have got the DVD type camcorder. Now the camcorder is broken and have no way to recover the cassette tapes, as they never thought of manufacturing a device to read the tapes!

Plenty of places will transfer them for you, not that cheap to do, but I got some copied last year. Google mini dv to dvd or whatever tape you have and it should throw up some places.

bodhrandude

StillThinking wrote: »

After months of fighting with windows 10 and cortana and start bar not working and having to google a million and one fixes I finally had enough and wiped my laptop. I'm not that tech savy but done a bit of research and downloaded zorin for my laptop, best thing I ever done.

As for useless tech I would say my spiralizer was the worse, only really works with courgettes and I don't like them, after it sitting in the cupboard for a month after its one and only use I chucked it in the bin

What in the name of god is a 'Spiralizer'?

Dyr

sunnysoutheast wrote: »

I had a graphic equaliser in my stack of hi-fi separates.

Also had a force feedback joystick to play MS flight simulator on a 14" monitor. Played it twice, maybe.

Is it a sidewinder force feedback? Do you still have it?

People will pay good money for them still, they were discontinued about 15 years ago but they're one of the most highly regarded joysticks in the simming community.

Ally Dick

Tefal Actifry chip maker. Made nice chips. After a few weeks, there was a smell of burning and the thing never worked again. Same happened my father in law's one

colm_mcm

Philips Streamium. Overpriced device that grabs your music from your PC and plays it through your audio system via WiFi. bought it in 2006. basically way ahead of its time but a pain in the arse to use and got consigned to the random stuff press soon after.

sonofenoch

A weather station....could read the difference in temperature inside and out, amazing

tomwaterford

sonofenoch wrote: »

A weather station....could read the difference in temperature inside and out, amazing

I've that in the dash of my car :cool:


Fcuk knows why

GAAman

dubgurl wrote: »

The camcorders with the tiny cassette tapes, should have got the DVD type camcorder. Now the camcorder is broken and have no way to recover the cassette tapes, as they never thought of manufacturing a device to read the tapes!

There's an adaptor you can get it's basically a full sized cassette with a compartment in the centre, the mini one pops into it and you can pop it into the VCR then

sunnysoutheast

Bambi wrote: »

Is it a sidewinder force feedback? Do you still have it?

People will pay good money for them still, they were discontinued about 15 years ago but they're one of the most highly regarded joysticks in the simming community.

It was the official Microsoft one. Anyway sold on EBay about 10 years ago in a big clear out.

gandalf

Joined the MD revolution as well and then used it a couple of times and left it. As everyone said MP3 players came out soon afterwards and I got an Arcos model that made it obsolete.

Got a Sony Ericsson Xperia Play with the idea I could play a few games on it and never used it for that purpose. As a phone it sucked with a really ****e battery life. It was the worse phone I have ever had.

Cee-Jay-Cee

dubgurl wrote: »

The camcorders with the tiny cassette tapes, should have got the DVD type camcorder. Now the camcorder is broken and have no way to recover the cassette tapes, as they never thought of manufacturing a device to read the tapes!

Emmm of course they did. It was a full VHS size tape with a little pop up flap that the small tape slipped into.

You can buy them on eBay.

https://www.ebay.ie/ulk/itm/281907699305

12Phase

Ally Dick wrote: »

Tefal Actifry chip maker. Made nice chips. After a few weeks, there was a smell of burning and the thing never worked again. Same happened my father in law's one

Refund!

bodhrandude

My sister got one of these Medion Wifi Extenders from Lidl, it turned out to be a piece of rubbish with gobbledeegook instructions where English definitely wasn't the first language.

The One Doctor

Track IR (head tracking thing for PC games)... what a useless piece of overpriced shite.

GPS tracker.

Not much else, don't buy much tech really.

timthumbni

Boom_Bap wrote: »

I had a mini disc player and it was great. It ended up being used on a tour around Ireland and a mini tour of the US including SXSW as a backup device.

The most useless thing I bout was the Bazooka/Scope thing for the SNES.

How dare you slag anything to do with the snes. You are obviously a sega fanboy ya loser. The mega drive was like the ford escort to the snes' Aston Martin sports car.

Boom_Bap

timthumbni wrote: »

How dare you slag anything to do with the snes. You are obviously a sega fanboy ya loser. The mega drive was like the ford escort to the snes' Aston Martin sports car.

eh, no. I had a snes to go with the scope. it's just the scope that sucked.
I still have my N64

dodderangler

Psp. Broke after 2 days. Useless bastàrd contraption

Francie Barrett

One of the first Sony digital cameras, the storage medium was a floppy disk.

maryishere

bodhrandude wrote: »

My sister got one of these Medion Wifi Extenders from Lidl, it turned out to be a piece of rubbish with gobbledeegook instructions where English definitely wasn't the first language.

Who has not got one of those ************** from the centre aisle at Lidl, that turned out to be a piece of rubbish? Cheap for a reason.

timthumbni

Boom_Bap wrote: »

eh, no. I had a snes to go with the scope. it's just the scope that sucked.
I still have my N64

So do I. And my snes, GameCube, and in fact the snes is working as good as the day it was bought. Unlike my much younger 360 that got the Microsoft 3 red lights AIDS and died after 4 or 5 years.

byte

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

Emmm of course they did. It was a full VHS size tape with a little pop up flap that the small tape slipped into.

You can buy them on eBay.

https://www.ebay.ie/ulk/itm/281907699305

Grand if the camcorder was a VHS-C type, as there were also ones that used 8mm or moreso Mini-DV in later years.

I think most of the mini-DV camcorders also had a USB port for transferring to PC though.

Most useless tech I bought that I can think of atm, was a relatively cheap (at the time anyway) Bluetooth earpiece thing from Argos. It didn't fit in my ear right, was annoying. Never really used it at all in the end.

Most expensive useless tech that was pretty useless in the long term, was a Sega Saturn. Was very hard to get games for the bloody thing, and many looked pretty crap. Ended up just buying a PlayStation some months later.

MetzgerMeister

I got a Sony MiniDisc player for Christmas in 2000. I loved it. I got about 6 years of almost-constant use out of it until something to do with the latch on the battery door failed and it won't stay closed now.

The worst thing I've ever bought would have to be a set of wireless Sony headphones. Used them for a bit until the sound fvcked up in them. Have to press and move the volume scroll until sound appears on both sides. Very irritating.

line console zero

A flight stick and throttle. Used for 2 evenings until I reverted to the Xbox controller as it was much better. Sold a few weeks later at a 30% loss.

As for minidisk's I loved my md player, excellent sound quality, no skipping and very versatile. A shame they lost out to the bulky cd walkmans that skipped when walking and the iPods which were riddled with tech problems and forced you to use iTunes.

esforum

bodhrandude wrote: »

My sister got one of these Medion Wifi Extenders from Lidl, it turned out to be a piece of rubbish with gobbledeegook instructions where English definitely wasn't the first language.

they are pretty good once you get them working though.

fuzzydunlop85

AMKC wrote: »

I will start for me it was a Sony minidisk player. This is going ay back to the early 00s. I new a lad who had got one and he said it was great seemed to be easy to use and looked good too. I decided to buy one for myself. Do you think I could get the fecking thing to work no not a hope. As it turns out they were not around very long anyway before being replaced by other technology.

So what useless piece of technology have you bought?

I will second this. Forked out a load of money for one as a naive teenager and think I managed to make one bastardin disc.

irish son

Penis enlarger

eeguy

irish son wrote: »

Penis enlarger

Didn't need it huh?

mansize

I believed in minidisc - my friend was going to buy an iPod I convinced her mini disc was the way to go...

I even had a hifi with a mini disc player!!!

goz83

Olishi4 wrote: »

Probably one of those digital photo frames. I hardly ever turn it on.

I bought one of thise about 10 years ago. Its on almost every day. Great buy.

The not so great buy was a juicer that cost me the guts of a grand and was used twice for some nasty carrot juice.....left idle for a year.....sold on ebay.

J Mysterio

major bill wrote: »

Spent big money on an Apple Watch, dont think it's quite useless but as costs go it is definate something I bought that I simply cannot justify

when asked ''what does it do'' I can't give an answer

lol, it really is a piece of ****.

kjl

I bought a flesh light, used it about twice and never used it again, do you recon I could sell it on adverts?

kjl

J Mysterio wrote: »

lol, it really is a piece of ****.

I have a huawei watch and not one day has passed since I bought it that I haven't used it.

Esel

MetzgerMeister wrote: »

I got a Sony MiniDisc player for Christmas in 2000. I loved it. I got about 6 years of almost-constant use out of it until something to do with the latch on the battery door failed and it won't stay closed now..

Duct tape. Analog fix!

A car I bought about 10 years ago had a MD player stereo. Even though I was a MD user, I didn't want it, so negotiated €150 off the price to let the seller keep it.

KingBrian2

Ipod.

JupiterKid

CD Walkman - big, bulky and always skipped when you walked with it.

I also had a minidisc player - but alas it was stolen.

Ursus Horribilis

A Raspberry Pi. I'm not saying it's a useless piece of technology but I'm not quite sure why I bought one. Luckily I sold it on eBay and didn't lose too much money on it.

A remote control helicopter. The little chopper is nice and it does fly. Sort of.

Adyx

Bambi wrote: »

Is it a sidewinder force feedback? Do you still have it?

People will pay good money for them still, they were discontinued about 15 years ago but they're one of the most highly regarded joysticks in the simming community.

They don't work with modern OS though do they? I have a Sidewinder and it hasn't worked since I had Vista I think. Pity as even without a rudder control and a hat it was great.

Odus fell down wrote: »

A Raspberry Pi. I'm not saying it's a useless piece of technology but I'm not quite sure why I bought one. Luckily I sold it on eBay and didn't lose too much money on it.

A remote control helicopter. The little chopper is nice and it does fly. Sort of.

I just bought my third Pi. :P I am actually using them however.

Most useless thing I bought was the HD-DVD add on for the Xbox 360. I barely used the Xbox and the HD-DVD was never used. Luckily I got dirt cheap on eBay.

Wanderer78

Rarely buy stuff

MetzgerMeister

mansize wrote: »

I even had a hifi with a mini disc player!!!

I had a Mazda RX8 that had a MiniDisc player built into the head unit underneath the CD player! 6 CD changer + MiniDisc

Esel wrote: »

Duct tape. Analog fix!

I tried duct tape and insulation tape but the force needed to keep the damn door closed was more than what any tape could offer and it kept popping open.

HensVassal

poa wrote: »

I downloaded Skype. Then went out and bought a headset with mic.
One day I forgot to plug in one of the mini jack plugs, and wondered how the caller could still hear me speaking.
That's right, my laptop has a built in mic. I didn't need a headset to make Skype calls at all.
I think I used it for a day before realising.

Well the headset is handy if you don't want people hearing the full conversation.

HensVassal

bodhrandude wrote: »

What in the name of god is a 'Spiralizer'?

It's a fancy shredder......basically turns courgettes into noodles.

HensVassal

Odus fell down wrote: »

A Raspberry Pi. I'm not saying it's a useless piece of technology but I'm not quite sure why I bought one. Luckily I sold it on eBay and didn't lose too much money on it.

A remote control helicopter. The little chopper is nice and it does fly. Sort of.

Are we the same person?
I bought a pi just because I wanted one. Got it working Linux on the TV then, just put it in my circuitry shoebox where it's gathering dust.

Had a remote controlled helicopter and it too is gathering dust.

wally79

HensVassal wrote: »

Are we the same person?
I bought a pi just because I wanted one. Got it working Linux on the TV then, just put it in my circuitry shoebox where it's gathering dust.

Had a remote controlled helicopter and it too is gathering dust.

They make a great media centre

Mines running kodi now

pickarooney

on_my_oe wrote: »

Acre Iconia tablet - €490 sodding euro. Two months after purchase the next version of android got released, but Acer decided not to roll it out to European consumers - only people in the US, Asia, Australia etc could update. So then the apps wouldn't work any longer with the old version of android. I even got as far as a complaint to Consumer Protection, but they only got back to me 11mths later, by which time I'd brought an iPad. I only brought the android device not wanting to be an Apple fanboy.

I'll never buy an Android device again in my life.

Which model? I bought an Iconia tablet about three years ago and it's hands down the piece of tech I've got the most value for money out of.

mansize

external dvdr - I bought it, and used it once, forgot it

Bought another - used it once... yeah I don't need to buy these anymore...

FanadMan

Graham wrote: »

It would be a close tie between a Psion MC400 and an Apple Newton

Try a Psion Organiser II Gigantic brick shaped waste of money.