As a technology person, I always have gadgets lying around. I’m very attracted to them, but I lose interest in many very quickly which should make me think harder the next time I’m going to buy some technology product.
If we exclude the gadgets I’ve needed for projects (like a PSP, Palm devices, etc.), there are only a handful of devices that I still use.
- TiVo We’ve had our TiVo 3.5 years and it is probably the single piece of technology that if it broke, my wife would tell me to immediately replace.
- SqueezeBox When I installed our home stereo system a few years ago, I knew that I had to have a way to play music other than just the radio through it. I bought the SqueezeBox and it has been invaluable. When I found out that we could stream XM Radio through it, I had to buy a second one. Two may seem like overkill, but one lets me listen to my music and the other is usually tuned to XM Kids.
- Garmin Forerunner 305 While I don’t plan on running another marathon any time soon (my brother-in-law suggested we both run one in less than 2 months…he’s crazy!), I like being able to track my short runs as well as our walks. I may get the Forerunner 405 as I still love running.
- Chargepod It wasn’t cheap and looks kind of funny, but having one charger on my desk that my wife and I can both use to charge our phones and iPods is extremely handy.
- Apple TV Not for the real purpose of the Apple TV, but to run our music server. We just don’t have the energy to watch long movies and buying TV shows on the Apple TV doesn’t interest me.
- iPod Nano I still using my iPod when I run or workout; these days I mainly listen to podcasts, but it still gets used frequently.
I could start listing the devices that I have on the shelf, but that would start to get depressing to know how much stuff I didn’t really need to buy.