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I bet you’ve bought a technology doodad hoping it would make your life better — but hated it.
Maybe it was a robot vacuum that always gets stuck in corners, a printer that never [expletive deleted] prints, or virtual reality goggles that your kid lost interest in after two weeks.
My colleague Chris Velazco has tried so many technology products in his years as a professional gadget nerd. Right now, he’s scoping out CES, a Las Vegas cavalcade of wacky and occasionally wonderful technology.
Chris told me what tech gear he’s loving (and not) right now. And he dished advice on how to tell if a gadget could make your life better or would probably wind up in a junk drawer.
Shira: A quick check of how tech-obsessed you are: How many devices in your home are connected to the internet?
Chris: Twenty-five, my WiFi router app says. That number is abnormally low, because I’m in Vegas and not on my couch. There are devices I can’t identify. What on Earth is “C02GP555Q05N”? I should look into that.
What are your rules for gadget buying to make sure we’re getting something that we won’t regret?
I’ll mention three.
Trust your gut. If you buy a gadget, set it up and don’t feel right away that it improves your life, you should probably return it.
Don’t rush your purchase. When something shiny and new comes out, it tends to be too flawed to buy right away. Also, nearly all electronics will go on sale. You can wait.
Be picky about reviewers. Start by asking yourself what you really want to know. Do you want comparisons between competing products? A sense of how a gadget might fit in your life?
Seek out trusted people. In addition to The Washington Post’s Help Desk (shameless plug!), I’ll call out David Cogen on YouTube for day-in-the-life reviews and Linus Tech Tips for the mix of technical rigor and lolz. Julian Chokkattu at Wired and Allison Johnson at the Verge are great and accessible and aren’t afraid to get nerdy when needed.
What’s your favorite current tech thing in your life?
I swear I’m not an Apple fanboy but the MacBook Pro with Apple’s self-designed computer chips is the best return on investment of anything I’ve purchased in years. I never worry that I’ll run out of battery.
[The latest models of MacBook Pro laptops have a starting price of $1,600 to $2,500. You can find older models for far less. Read more on savvy shopping for new or used computers.]
What’s a technology that doesn’t seem worthwhile to you?
I’m not into wireless charging. People are going to yell at me about this. I’d much rather plug a device into a charger and keep using it than stick it on a wireless charging pad where I can’t tap or type as it recharges.
What’s a technology that’s too complicated or frustrating even for you?
Beyond basic things like lights, I can’t get into smart-home stuff. I live in a rental and can’t tear out fixtures and rewire things. Even if I could, I worry I’d spend the next 20 years making everything smart.
But no way you’d install internet connected toilets that you talk to, right?
Those might be okay. What’s life without the occasional weird luxury?
Most of the products at CES are gimmicks or perennially the next hot thing that never gets hot. (See: home robots, face computers, driverless cars.) Why does this matter to normal humans?
There’s value in seeing what companies believe is the future and thinking about what we could gain or lose.
Take home robots. Companies like Samsung and LG are predicting that people will have AI robots in their homes within a couple of years. I doubt it.
But it’s a chance to ask questions: What do I want a home robot to do? How cheap would one have to be before I might splurge on one? Are these companies doing the right things at all?
From all the years you’ve been writing about technology, what’s something you predicted would be huge and amazing — and you were wrong?
A decade ago, when the first Oculus virtual reality headset and Samsung’s Gear VR were released, I thought many of us would be playing games and doing tasks in virtual reality. I was off-base about how popular it would be.
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