Upgrading my computer's primary storage from a hard disk (HDD) to a solid state drive (SSD). Really young folks on here have no idea how amazing it was for computers to go from taking minutes to start up to taking seconds.
Buying my first cell phone, which was a Nokia smartphone, in 2003. Having email and useful applications in my pocket, including maps and web search.
GPS was life-changing. (Yes, I am that old.) It used to be necessary to find printed maps of wherever you were going, which wasn't always easy. Then you had to figure out a route. The hardest part was often the last bit of the trip, since you weren't likely to have a detailed map of your destination city. An if you got lost, figuring out where you were was sometimes quite difficult.
People tend to think of it as mostly affecting longer trips, but finding new addresses in a city was at least as much of an issue. When I lived in the bay area I had a Thomas guide that was 3/4" of an inch thick, just for finding my way around town.
A countertop water boiler, I have one of the Zojirushi 4 liter units. It turns out I drink 3/4 of a gallon of tea or so per day. So not having to boil a kettle for every round is oddly luxurious.
For me, it was a Quest 3. The first VR headset to cross my personal threshold. My main requirement was that when I wasn't playing actual VR games, the headset was worth using as a virtual computer monitor from the comfort of my recliner. While Quest 3 doesn't quite have enough pixels to truly display my 4k screen at a 1:1 ratio, it is close enough that with the perceived clarity boost from the micromovements of your head meaning the same set of pixels is never sampled twice in a row and the headset running at 120hz, my 60hz real life 4k screen looks exactly as clear in real life as on the headset.
I also have a supplemental completely fabricated virtual 4k 120hz screen in the headset that I use for any games that are easier to run and benefit more from framerate than perfect individual frame clarity. The screens are 20 feet away, but each take up 80 degrees of field of view, twice what is considered comfortable, but I have always preferred what I guess in that context can only be classified as "intimate?" distance from my screens. I only use one screen at a time, the other is stored just out of sight up above. I can still look at it comfortably, and there is a button to swap the monitor locations when I want to change which one is being primarily used.
I also have my real world surroundings in the headset. So the screens are just floating within reality. I can still engage with my family, and thanks to the clarity of the passthrough cameras, I can watch TV with them too. Clearly enough to read the closed captions. The TV screen is about 30-40 degrees of my field of view, and is thus only represented as about a 720p screen, but with that same "temporal antialiasing" the clarity is boosted up to about 1080p level.
So, with all that, I spend about 14 hours a day in my VR headset now. Wirelessly, with a magnetic battery swap every 2 hours. Sometimes standing up and playing real VR games, sometimes reclining in a super comfortable chair playing desktop games. With the bobovr system, or whichever option you prefer, the headset is comfortable to wear for an infinite amount of time. And when I visit my real computer monitor now, I just leave my sit/stand desk in stand mode and no longer have a computer chair.
It has basically replaced every other screen in my life, except my phone. Which is still a main sticking point of VR. They will concievably replace the phone too eventually, but there is alot of software and hardware infrastructure needed to get there. At least Quest 3 is finally a headset clear enough to use your phone without taking it off or peeking through gaps. But only just, a phone tends to take up about 20 degrees of your field of view when used comfortably, even holding it twice as close as that is only 720p(temporally upsampled to 1080p) so holding the phone closer is still only about half the resolution of your phone. Assuming you run your phone in 4k normally. It's probably fine for people without a gaming phone that likely already only run it at 1080p, then they might have text large enough to resolve at a comfortable distance in VR. But anyway. It's not too bad now, so hopefully next headset is enough to completely solve that too, while we wait for it to not even be necessary eventually.
I'm basically retired, built up a big enough money ball that my passive income from it slowly increases, so this is the rest of my life. Slowly getting better and better VR. And while it started at Oculus DK2 for me, all the headsets before Quest 3 were only fun toys that I played with alot. Steadily increasing in capability, but not crossing the threshold into permanent screen replacement. Quest 3 did it, it crossed over that line. While the size of screen I use to represent my 4k TV is only actually physically covered by about 1440p worth of pixels, the free temporal upsampling makes it as good as 4k(2160p).
Though it will take double the current resolution for people that want a 4k screen at 40 degrees of field of view, for now people that like that distance (most people) would have to make due with it looking 1080p. Which might be fine for most people, it is still the most widely used screen resolution.
Edit for plugs for anyone that wants to do this too:
Outside of the Quest 3 itself, I use the third party comfort and runtime mod "M3 pro" from BoBoVR(dumb name, quality company), and Virtual Desktop software to stream my computer screen and create the better supplemental virtual screen out of thin air. I also use Virtual desktop to play my PCVR games when not just running something natively on the headset. Having a good network setup is pretty important too, especially in my case where the aforementioned recliner is on a different floor of my house than my computer. I have a background in networking, so in my case I'm able to setup my router in such a way that I can comfortably stream VR while we have 50 other devices on the router. But for most people, either a second dedicated router or specific VR streamer is going to be a better route. My router was 600 dollars, these bespoke units can be as little as 100 dollars and give you almost the same experience. Plus they are pre-configured specifically for VR streaming. Otherwise there can be alot of configuration changes needed.
I apologize for my verbosity, I hate to leave any details out, even though someone could just ask if I forgot to cover something. I am, unsurprisingly, Autistic. Communicating clearly is a common problem for us. Never know what knowledge I have that isn't common and needs to be conveyed. And I don't change mental gears well, so I like to get everything out once, if possible, to reduce the likelihood of having to get back into this mental space again later.
Wireless ear buds.
I was pretty adamant that I was absolutely never going to get any, preferring wired and really looking for a phone that still had the jack. Then when new phone time came, I ended up having to choose between a micro sd card slot and the headphone jack. I tried for a bit with a USB-C to headphone adapter but ended up seeing some ear buds on sale and giving them a shot.
They last way longer than I expected, and the carrying case as the charger means I hardly need to worry about keeping another device charged. The freedom of not having the cord is really nice, especially when going for a bike ride or jog. I upgraded to a pair with a little over-the-ear hook and use them probably 10hrs a day every day they are great
Constant Glucose Monitors compared to the archaic finger stick monitors was like getting a blow job after spending a lifetime hacking it with sandpaper.
Lighting system as a wake up tool.
Have now been using a light or lighting system as a morning wake up for over 15 years. It’s life changing.
Lights start off dim and red/orange, and brighten very slowly to warm white. Works every time.
I wake up without the jolt of an alarm at home.
In fact - automated lighting in general - just so good.
A good docking station plus KVM for a good work & home setup since the pandemic hit.
I can dock my work laptop when I work from home and have my two screens, ergonomic keyboard, mouse, webcam etc all attached in one go, then a single button on my desk to toggle to my gaming desktop and start playing without having to disconnect anything, reducing wear and tear on the connectors.
iPhone 1.0. I was notoriously good at getting lost cause I'm not great with directions. A couple days after I got it, I was going somewhere in a city that isn't my own. I stepped off the train and pulled up the map app, looked at a couple of street signs, and said, "I'm going that way."
I thought to myself, this changes everything. Younger people who never had to rely on paper maps will never understand how profound that moment was.
Google Home did when it first came out. Unfortunately, the quality has been consistently tanking since inception
Besides upgrading to an SSD like another person said, I guess an electronic pressure cooker was a pretty sweet upgrade. It's incredibly multi purpose, cuts cooking time dramatically, allows me to walk away and forget about cooking with no consequence, and often only requires cleaning a single pot for an entire meal.
Like ya know those old TV ads for kitchen gadgets that try desperately to convince you it'll change your life, but you never actually use them? An electronic pressure cooker is one the few cooking gadgets that actually lives up to the hype.
induction cooktop? I'd say dishwasher but that's probably more plumbing and pumps than "technology".
With all the other gadgets, I'm not so sure. I've had computers, laptops, phones for ages. Of course my first everything back in the 90s or 00s was a big thing. But since then it's just the newest generation, a bit faster and with more extras, but noting substancially different.
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.
64gb of ram. 32 cores.
if you keep many chonky applications open it's lovely.
A small vacuum and mop Roomba clone. Having two dogs leaving fur everywhere made vacuuming every day a necessary chore but now I only need to empty out their base every day and they take care of keeping the floors clean. I don't have them connected to my Wi-Fi though so hopefully that helps mitigate any hacking attempts.
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.
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.
Going from Sega Megadrive to PlayStation back in the nineties. True 3d graphics on a home console blew my little teenage mind. Lara Croft. Wipeout. Metal Gear Solid! Good times.
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.
Agree with:
Dishwasher (really just toss dishes in as you use them, close and run at night, put 'em away in morning, it's magic. I didn't have one till I was almost 50)
Electric bike (I hate biking but this is like a dream of a bike)
Roomba (wood floors no grit)
And the mesh wifi system that lets me easily see and address the rare hiccups it has.
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. 👍🏾
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.
I bought a 2080ti for $1200 right before covid and everyone gave me shit about how I was wasting my money because the 3000 series had a lower MSRP which then ballooned to $2000+.
So while everyone else was struggling to get a graphics card due to supply chain issues and prohibitive costs, I was gaming in 4k resolution throughout the pandemic. To say that this was clutch during a time I couldn’t really do much outside of the house with other people would be a massive understatement.
I usually would not have spent that much on a card, but I won a hackathon cash prize right before so had some money burning a hole in my pocket. The card is still going strong and is still my daily driver, so I can’t say it’s been a bad purchase at all.
noise canceling bluetooth headphones (Sony XM3s, in my case). They are always near me. Thousands of hours and I haven't even changed the earpads yet. I don't know how I lived without them.
An immersion blender, it was $30 but it made my soups seem gourmet and let me recycle my gallons of lard into the best soap I have ever used.
Aside from that, I replaced two of my mismatched odd shaped PC monitors with 27" 4k monitors and the difference is amazing. The monitors were so cheap too only $110 each. Together with my super fancy main screens it really cleaned up the desktop.
Motion sensor and smart light switch. There are two rooms in my house with multiple entryways and awful light switch options, so without these I’d just stumble in the dark.
We also have it for our carport and it’s so pleasant for the light to automagically happen and then go off without needing to remember to change anything.
(And all of this done through local mesh and Apple HomeKit. We do not use proprietary services that can be shut down on us.)
Does corrective eye surgery count? Because it fundamentally changed my daily quality of life
Not very high tech, but I love it: a projector clock (an alarm clock that can project the time on a ceiling or wall).
Not having to turn over to see the time is extremely nice when I’m cozy in bed. I didn’t even ask for it - it was given to me as a gift. If you get one, be sure that the angle and orientation are highly adjustable.
Going full homelab with a rack, battery backups, and 2.5gb backhaul on my home network. Absolutely game changing from an appliance management standpoint where any one node can go down for any reason and there’s a backup and replacement on hand in minutes with built in redundancy. Not to mention the learning and experience opportunities when setting up hardware and software services. Sure is sweet to have data redundancy and protections!
I got a microwave with an inverter magnetron.
When you set your microwave to, let's say, 20% power, a typical microwave will cycle the magnetron, so that it runs at 100% power for 20% of the cooking time and is off in between. With an inverter, the actual power output of the magnetron can vary, so it's actual 20% power for the whole time. It does an excellent job of gently reheating things like sandwiches and cooked rice without drying them out or scorching. Also, if something has instructions written for a lower wattage microwave, I can just turn the power down until it's close to that wattage instead of doing calculations to modify the time.
My e-book reader (Tolino).
As I got older and had problems with my eyes, this was a game changer. I had basically stopped reading books and now I do it daily. I can choose the font and letter size, background color, and backlighting based on what works best for my eyes that day and the light where I am.
Being able to hold a very light device with a big screen when I would have to balance a heavy weight as a paper book is also great, and I take the reader with me everywhere, whereas a big book would stay at home most of the time.
The reader has a bigger screen than my phone and the battery lasts longer.
The reader works flawlessly with my library, so I don't have to buy books, which keeps costs down, and I don't have to leave the house to get a new book.
Calibre helps us share books in our family, which is one reason we've stayed away from Amazon's Kindle, so we've all gone to ".epub".
The best recent one was a Faraday bag for my phone.
I use it as a step counter but didn't want to be checking it often nor tracked all the time, and the faraday bag blocks signals from the outside and minimizes my phone as a nuisance AND helps curb the urge to check it all the time while still counting my steps.
Overall, though, I'd say a USB powerbank. I've had it for three years and only used it a handful of times, but when I'm in an airport or road tripping, it's nice to have an easy way to recharge my devices.
My first very small mp3 player, something from sony. It was amazing.
My first digital camera, just being able to see your picture after shooting them. being able to delete photos was revolutionary.
My first wifi access point, having Internet at home without cable.
My first phone that could load msn messager. Also pretty cool.
Noise cancelling headphones. I wish I could wear them 24/7.
The original GameBoy in like 1992, I was 6 and it was everything. Then Pokemon came out and hell yeah
Steam owen. Haven't reheated my food un the microwave ever since.
Going to get roasted for this, but Alexa devices. The video versions play Netflix, YouTube, Hulu etc and have much better sound than the standard little speaker orb version. They all sync together so you can stream music in each room that has one like having a whole house stereo system.
Being able to verbally add something to the grocery list at any time is a game changer. People aren't taking advantage of that feature as much as they should IMO.
Not sure if that counts as technology, but simple LED lights over my kitchen counter (mounted under the upper cabinets) were a pretty inexpensive purchase that made my life significantly better. I don't understand now how I was ever able to cook with just the ceiling lights on, it's absolutely terrible.
My Ampler E-Bike I bought 2 years ago. More than 5000 km later I still love it to bits.
I got a Microsoft Surface earlier this year. I have had phones and tablets with pens before but none were very satisfying to use and I have had laptops for decades at this point. This is the thinnest and lightest laptop as well as the best tablet I have ever used.
I no longer carry a paper notebook with me because I always have my surface. I have needed One Note for a very long time but didn't realize it. having access to all of my notes and being able to carry all of them without having to find the right notebook as been huge.
A kitchen sink. Did an impromptu kitchen reno due to a gas leak and being without one is such a huge downgrade in quality of life. I was washing dishes in the bathtub nightly and it was absolutely miserable. I don't think I've ever been more appreciative of the technology of modern plumbing than the day I was able to rerun lines to the sink area and get it all going.
My NAS, having access to all my files anywhere at any time is great
A controller frame for my phone. I'm now carrying around a DS, N64, PS1, SNES, and GBA with me everywhere I go. I'm looking forward to adding Gamecube and PS2 and 3 to the list in the future. I can also play PC games in my bed, but can't quite take that around with me because it's streaming from my PC.
A robot vacuum with a mop and self emptying/mop washing base (I live with two dogs in the PNW where mud is constant for 6 months of the year).
Electric whisks. I'm never stirring a drink with a spoon in my life.
Going from a Candybar phone to an iPhone.
Dehumidifier - 5 years and counting drying laundry indoors overnight with no risk of rain or wind!
I got a Garmin fitness tracker. I really wanted a smart watch, but don't want to have to charge it all the time.
I got the Instinct, and ended up turning the notifications off right away - i just wanted to see the stats on my sleep and step count. It also encouraged me to start running and exercising more.
Many have had big impacts. Piano, phone, computer.
A Fujitsu Lifebook U9310x convertible laptop.
It's my main computing device, which doubles as a tablet.
It's light enough to take anywhere, has over 12h of battery on Linux, and holds up better mechanically than my Thinkpad.Last January I got a new laptop that blows my desktop out of the water in terms of specs. I was dumb and decided to get a budget desktop because of all the USB ports and the disk drive it has. It was something like $300-400USD. My current laptop was roughly $1000USD before tax.
Had to remove the complete spyware win11, but otherwise it's been a great laptop (minus the few times I've either somehow broken MXLinux or broke KDE Plasma). Totally better than my old laptop as well considering I don't need to constantly charge my new one to keep the battery from dying and it doesn't have a lot of damage.
Using perplexity.ai. Feels like having a digital assistant that researchs the web, brings the information back, summarizes what it found, and presents it to me in a digestible form. It's changed the way I use search. Feels like next level search.
My current gaming computer. Besides a faulty wi-fi adapter that leaves online gaming a lot to be desired and failing HDD's because of old age, I haven't touched a physical console besides the Nintendo Switch in years. When you have a powerful computer you can emulate pretty much anything which I feel is an upgrade in comparison to a console which can only play games that are specifically made for that console.
If you thought many PS3 and PS2 games looked beautiful before, my gosh...they look even more beautiful in 4K!! Bonus if they're able to go up to 60 FPS when they natively ran at 30 due to console limitations. Raytracing + HDR mods are always yummy too!
Back in the day, a smartphone was a major upgrade. They continue to improve which is just amazing. I came from an age of wall phones and dial-up internet.
Mac book Pro, I got the M3. Massive improvement from all the previous laptops I've had. Don't have to put up with Microsoft bs, don't have to tinker with it as I would with a Linux OS. Hardware is great, build quality is great. Can do everything I need for university on it, can play all the games I want to on it.
Personally I'm well past the mega corporations own the world and know everything about me doomer stage of my life and am okay with selling my soul to apple for a good laptop.
How do you define "technology". Because if it means "any human invention" then I have to give it to my squatty-potty. I have Crohn's Disease and "quality of pooping life" is a very important factor. And it's just a lot comfier when your legs aren't falling asleep due to an unnatural position.
If it has to be something from "the tech industry", then my very first smartphone, circa 2012. After decades of oldschool cell phones, it was a real game-changer. Doubly so because I'm in Brazil, where texting was never really a thing, so for the first time I had access to the likes of WhatsApp and could be in touch with my mates, whereas previously the cell was really just for calls, which is to say, emergencies.
Smart oven + meal plan: My spouse bought me one for my birthday (a Tovala) and I have to admit I was skeptical at first but hot diggity damn does it make fresh cooked meals easy. We very rarely order out now and the meals are usually very good (stay away from the burgers though, their bread usually sucks).
VR, it was janky and barely worked, I still can't wait for the future of AR.
Electric Peper grinder, now I don't have to feel like I'm working out to get that nice peppery taste.
