Ask Lemmy

Same bestie. Steam Deck OLED is genuinely an awesome gadget. I don't really buy things much, especially not something so expensive and new, but the steam deck is just so worth it.

A Casio G-Shock! It’s the only watch I’ll ever need. My Apple Watch has been relegated to being used for workouts only! It’s so nice to not have to worry about smashing my watch against a surface bc clumsiness, not having to charge it bc solar & no notifications of any type!

https://www.casio.com/us/watches/gshock/product.GW-5000U-1/ 🖤🩶🖤🩶🖤

Those Ikea snap together decking tiles. We rent but have a tiny all-concrete backyard, and for like $250, we transformed it into a remarkably pleasant deck between those tiles for the ground and planters for the perimeter.

The Govee Dreamview TV lights and Philips Hue lights are also pretty high up there.

3D printer is now, but it took it several years of occasional use and occasional CAD upskilling before it got really useful.

Automatic cat feeder for dry food. It's so nice to reduce cat feeding to just the wet food, and it makes it way easier to put them on a diet.

Dyson handheld vacuum, but only because I got it refurbished and on sale for substantially less than half the original price.

Edit: oh and the biggest one by far is my Onewheel. I hate the company and will never buy anything from them again (will be making an open sourced VESC board or buying a Floatwheel instead), but I bought the board at the start of the pandemic to have something to do during lockdown and I now have ~7000km on it. It's way more fun and practical then I was expecting. Even compared to like an e-scooter, a Onewheel still give you both hands free and is small enough to fit on the bottom of the grocery cart, making it surprisingly more practical for hauling stuff.

You have made a solid impulse buy. I love my steam deck as does my wife. If you get a dock you can also use it as a regular laptop too.

7 watt blue laser I bought for shits and giggles. Didn't realize just how stupid powerful that is. Now I feel like I have a highly effective long range weapon in a country that bans almost all kinds of weapons. It won't blast through skin but I guarantee if someone points it at you and keeps it on you're going to run, and FAST.

If I ever get bothered by illegal drones, I can also use it to destroy the camera from far away. One fraction of a second and any optical sensor is 100% toast.

Honestly, steam deck lol

It's an odd form factor that people don't really have much experience with, hence they don't really know how useful it'll be to them. To be fair to myself, I had been holding back on purchasing one until maybe a year after the initial launch, so I think I would personally describe my experience as a leap of faith.

In any case, it turns out to be a great little thing. There's a lot of games in my backlog that don't feel "desktop-y," and therefore I've never played them, if that makes sense. But with a handheld form factor, now I have more motivation to go through those games. Emulation on the steam deck has also been great, for a similar reason. And sometimes I just want to be in bed than on my desktop. Or sometimes I'm just on the bus or waiting for something.

I think SteamOS also taught me how usable Linux was, and that's been pretty instrumental in getting me to minimize my Windows dependence

Bread maker. A guy I worked with said he loved his and I just bought one with no research. It's my favorite specialized appliance next to my popcorn machine.

You're in for a good time with that thing. Its also great if you want to do more with it as you feel comfortable doing.

As for my impulsive buy? Id say the same thing as yours, when the steam deck came out I immediately pre ordered it. I had been waiting for a good PC handheld experience for a very long time and Valve were the ones to show up unlike the very bad GPD Win I used a couple years prior.

The only thing I knew about it was that it was going to use linux so while I was waiting I started to learn about it and actually use it on my main PC over windows and I have never looked back since.

Espresso machine. I was spending 8 bucks a day on lattes, and now I make them myself and stopped going to the cafe every morning, saving time and money. I also think it's a fun morning ritual to grind the beans, measure everything, tamp, distribute, steam the milk, etc.

Btw I also impulsively bought a Steam Deck and use it way more than I thought, it's amazing and you'll love it!

My house lol.

TLDR: Unfortunate life event caused me to have to accelerate my house shopping by 2-3 years. Bought right before COVID hit and everything could not have turned out better (and I'd have been worse-off buying a house in 2022 than I was when I had to impulse buy on in 2019)