A temperature controlled pod for my bed. I used to sleep so hot all night long, constantly moving to find the cool part of the bed.
Now I keep it like as cold as can be all night, and my sleep has improved 10x. Plus my partner likes it warm so her side is nice and cozy. Both of us are happier for it.
Semi professional wifi(networking) at home (TP link omada or ubiquiti) and just buying excessive amounts of access points in my home.
Fuck you, low wifi signal. Fuck you, crashed router.
Internal SSD with the operating system on it. No other upgrade I’ve made to my PC has ever been so substantial.
I have my OS on an NVMe drive and it’s one of the best decisions I made when building.
But the jump from SATA SSD to nvme is much less noticeable than the one from HDD to SATA SSD
When I got my first HD tv. I had previously been playing oblivion on Xbox 360 on an crt tv and when I setup the HD I was absolutely blown away by the clarity. I remember my stupid fucking ex-wife trying to tell me there was no difference between the two.
Many have had big impacts. Piano, phone, computer.
Affordable solar panels and batteries. With this we were able to life off-grid surrounded by nature.
Beetlecrab Audio Tempera is the most inspiring electronic musical instrument I own. I got it in April, and I’m still finding new ways to use it. It does so much.
Oxi One really is the hardware sequencer to rule them all. Though I’m sure you could get by with a Hapax or Deluge if you don’t mind spending twice as much.
Not a purchase, but Csound has always been an invaluable companion to my music making process. It’s also entirely free and open-source.
Setting up my own NAS and offside backup.
Big project for sure, but being in control of my vital backups was important for me. Additionally the up front costs is lower than the subscriptions I would have needed.
Off-site *
offside
Bone apple tea!
Google Home did when it first came out. Unfortunately, the quality has been consistently tanking since inception
I dont get why google home is getting worse. I would have expected it to get better end better
The problem with a product from any large corporation is you want it to get better, but they want it to generate more money.
It’s not an enshittification process where it’s becoming more expensive or features are going behind a subscription. It just understands less and less and can do fewer things apparently. Plus it’s quite inconsistent.
A while ago Amazon introduced plans for an AI powered Alexa.
Sure enough, the original one has got worse since. I can now ask the one upstairs to turn off the office light and be told there are no devices with that name. Yet if I go to the kitchen to ask the same thing, I’ll be told there are multiple devices with that name, and it doesn’t know which one.
So now I use a switch.
64gb of ram. 32 cores.
if you keep many chonky applications open it’s lovely.
Haven’t seen this in this thread yet, but I’m going to say an improved sound system. For me, it was just a soundbar and rear speakers. I live in a tiny apartment so couldn’t fit a full sound system with front speakers, but just that was a huge improvement over just the TV speakers before.
Higher quality electric coffee grinders. I have been using pretty nice hand grinders for years ($100 to $200 range) and while they were good, the consistency and general quality of life improvement gotten from these nicer electric grinders has made a significant improvement in both the coffee quality and my time/life quality related to making coffee daily.
Oh man, I hear you. Actually I’m a slob, I don’t just have a grinder, it’s one of those all-in-one filter coffee machines. Every morning at 6.30 there’s that grinding noise and a few mins later the smell drifts in. I don’t wanna get up but dang it you’ve made it worth my while, coffee machine, I ain’t mad.
a 3d printer, I’ve picked up my now favourite hobby when I got it: gun smithing
It’s too bad the pay is kind of shit. I looked into when I was younger and noped right out.
Though if you’re actually making guns/parts for sale instead of repairs it might be better.
yeah, that’s a problem, I really wish I could live from a gun repair business, but it’ll probably stay a hobby
My Thinkpad T440p, its a reliable laptop that works amazingly. It may not be the most powerful but the keyboard is amazing and the build quality is better then any modern laptop.
Also a happy T440p owner. Nice laptop and the keyboard is great.
This. Don’t buy consumer laptops. You can get secondhand business laptops that are just as cheap and more durable. You won’t get one with a touchscreen but that’s about it for the downsides.
You won’t get one with a touchscreen
Your physiotherapist will thank you, and so will your neck, shoulders, and elbows.
Lenovo has decent clearance prices around Memorial day for their last gen ThinkPads. Otherwise they’re definitely not worth over 1k new like they pretend.
The problem is that the current generation is literally worthless in between their defective CPUs and pushing the new Windows spyware so I’m not sure the same statement will be true next year.
It’s been several years since I ran Windows on any of my laptops. And haven’t run into any CPU issues yet. In my experience if stay away from the slim models and go for the more high-end ones you’re good.
Cries in European. Any decent Thinkpad is 2.5k+ and rarely are any discounts. They just don’t care about private consumers over here. Either university students or big companies can get reasonable prices.
Automatic litter box! They’re so pricey, I always wasn’t in a place to do it, but I finally bit the bullet. I don’t think I can go back. It’s so easy, and my cat wasn’t scared at all. I also feel better knowing she always has clean litter. When she comes to bed I can just run the box from my app.
Bonus: it rotates sideways so my cat can keep her head. 👍🏾
I love mine but the cats often like jumping out so litter gets kicked out occasionally. Other than that, and that it stops working during power outages, it’s great. Changing a bag is so much easier to deal with than scooping litter.
I started panicking, but from your last sentence it sounds like you’ve heard some of them might be dangerous and you have one that isn’t.
