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.
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.