c/gadgets-that-annoy-you

TIL my $40 smart lightbulb stopped working because the company went under

Bought a set of WiFi bulbs off Amazon last spring, and six months later the app stopped connecting. Called support and got a recording saying the company shut down, so now I have three dumb bulbs that won't even turn on manually. Has anyone else had a gadget brick itself because the maker vanished?

My $200 espresso machine died because it needed a firmware update

Got up early last Saturday craving a decent coffee. Machine starts up fine, heats the water, then freezes with a QR code on the screen. Scan the code and it says 'critical update required, contact support.' Called them, waited 45 minutes, they said the motherboard bricked during an auto-update at 3am. No way to fix it without shipping the whole thing back. Ended up using my $15 french press from Target that literally can't break. Has anyone else had a "smart" kitchen gadget die from an update?

Vent: My smart thermostat lost Wi-Fi and cooked my apartment

Came home to 90 degree heat last Tuesday because my Ecobee dropped the network and just stopped running. Had to reset the whole thing manually. Anyone else have a 'smart' device fail because of something as dumb as a router reboot?

TIL my $60 smart plug draws more power in standby than my actual coffee maker does when brewing

Found it buried in the fine print of the manual after my electric bill jumped $12 last quarter, anyone else check the idle draw on these things?

My smart thermostat made my electric bill go up $40 last month before I figured out the problem

I got a smart thermostat as a gift for Christmas last year and finally installed it in January. I thought I was being smart setting it to lower the heat while I was at work and warm the house back up before I got home. After two months my electric bill jumped by like $40 each month compared to the same time last year. Turns out the learning feature was overriding my schedule because it kept detecting me walking past it to grab my coat and thought I was home. It was cranking the heat back up at 10am every day for no reason. I had to dig through three help forums to find a setting to turn off the motion learning. Has anyone else had their fancy thermostat outsmart itself and cost them money?

Smart kettle update bricked my morning coffee routine

So I'm standing in my kitchen at 6am last Wednesday, groggy and just wanting hot water for my pour over. I tap the app to start my smart kettle like I do every morning and nothing happens. The thing just sits there blinking a blue light. I try unplugging it, plugging it back in, force closing the app, even rebooting my phone. Turns out the company pushed a firmware update overnight that totally broke the wifi connection. I ended up boiling water in a saucepan on the stove like some kind of cave person. After that I factory reset the kettle and set up the wifi again, took 45 minutes total. What's the point of a smart gadget if an update can just kill it dead like that? Anyone else have a smart home device get ruined by a bad update?

Overheard a guy at the library say his new smart thermostat died because the cloud service shut down

It just made me wonder how long before all our basic home stuff becomes useless because some company decides to pull the plug on an app or server, has anyone else had a gadget just stop working like that?

It took me 6 months to realize my smart thermostat was making my heating bill worse

I got one of those Nest knockoffs last winter and kept wondering why my gas bill jumped $80 a month. Turns out the 'learning' feature was turning on the heat whenever I walked past a room, even if I was just grabbing a coat. My neighbor told me last week to check the schedule and I found it had set 12 different temperature changes a day. Has anyone else had a smart home gadget do the exact opposite of what you wanted?

Finally caved and got a dumb coffee maker after my smart one kept crashing at 6am

I was all in on the wifi enabled brewer until it froze mid-cycle three mornings in a row. Picked up a simple $30 Mr. Coffee from Target and honestly I don't miss the app at all. Has anyone else just gone back to basics on kitchen gadgets?

Warning: that cheap smart thermostat I bought is wrecking my electric bill

I grabbed one of those $25 smart thermostats off Amazon last month, the kind that learns your schedule and adjusts itself. Figured it would pay for itself in savings, you know? Well after three weeks I noticed my AC was running way more than before, even when nobody was home. Turns out the 'learning' feature was super buggy and kept resetting to 68 degrees every afternoon, no matter what I programmed. I called my HVAC guy and he told me those cheap units often have bad sensors or firmware that just fights your settings. So now I'm stuck with a higher electric bill and I get to replace the thermostat with a proper one this weekend. Has anyone else had a cheap smart thermostat actually cost them more money in the long run?

Rant: My neighbor's "smart" sprinkler system keeps flooding my yard

I was out doing a landscaping job last Tuesday, and the guy's $400 Orbit B-hyve smart sprinkler decided to run for 3 hours straight in the rain because it "lost connection" to the weather app. I swear, these things are worse than just setting a timer on a dumb hose bib. Has anyone else dealt with a smart sprinkler that just does whatever it wants?

Smart light switch needed a firmware update before it would turn on

Appreciation post: My 'smart' kettle takes 5 minutes to connect to WiFi every morning

Bought this fancy WiFi kettle from Amazon last month for $80. Thought it'd be great to boil water from my bed. Now I stand there for 5 minutes waiting for it to connect while I could've just used a normal kettle and had tea ready. Anyone else dealing with gadgets that take longer to set up than to actually use?