for what are called computers:
1 desktop - a 2021 box that I built (this replaced a 2013 box)
1 laptop, 1 phone (a pixel 7), 1 camera (Leica Q2) (well and a Praktica MTL5 made in East Germany)
And one kindle. And an iPad, for work testing.
I'm a web developer. I love technology. I think what you have should be as good as you can make it for yourself. But it has to feel and serve very human purposes to be worthwhile. I don't think many gadgets do that. Many devices, especially modern ones, take the liberty of interrupting you often. I do not wish to be interrupted.
It used to be that one could surf the Internet with a graphical user-interface using a 100 mhz cpu with 16 megabytes (not gigabytes) of memory.
That same machine would be fairly snappy for checking email, writing documents and programming. It would even run 3D games, and with an accelerator card at 24 mhz, it would run them fairly smoothly too.
For everyday use, I think the most retro I'm having some limited success using is not very retro, it's an imac running osx 10.6.8, a very capable machine, but still, no match for the bloat of modern websites. (HN excluded, that, and many of the articles it links too work well enouhg).
Part of tech's maturity is devices lasting longer: We replace them because they (almost) wear out, instead of getting outdated.
When I was 9 my family bought a fancy 27" tube TV. We had it for 15 years until it was replaced by a flat screen. When my dad got rid of the tube TV, he told me it was the longest a TV ever lasted him.
In general, I try to keep my phones and computers until they break. Then I buy the best I can afford. I don't replace things just because there is a newer model: I like using my things, not constantly re-setting them up. I also prefer spending my money on other things.
I managed to keep an android smartphone going for almost 10 years. At less than two years the Google Play Store would devour the entire battery in 9 hours, so I deleted it, and battery life rebounded to 5-6 days with normal use. Better than new.
Other android system apps began to unobservably consume obvious quantites of data with telemetry, so I installed netguard to identify them. Once those apps were identified I deleted everything I could without breaking the phone, and battery life rebounded to 4 days after six years of use.
The local police recently acquired a secondhand stingray and circle varying parts of the county with it cranked up to maximum acquisition and retention, for reasons perhaps related to unfamiliarity with the concepts of discretion and nuance and subtlety. Newer phones don't care, they switch to bands that old stingray has never heard of. My old phone couldn't, and calls simply wouldn't connect in or out when a certain Cessna was overhead (verified tens of times on ADSB). Clumsy dragnet surveillance on top of reduced service in legacy 4G bands broke my old phone. It outlived the world it depended on.
So I repaired a secondhand, rather less old, broken android phone, and now I'm trying out LineageOS. We'll see how far this one goes. It seems like a lot of effort and specialized knowledge to keep a smartphone usefully functioning longer than a goldfish. It's frustrating. I'm not downsizing, I'm avoiding the accumulation of things I have to figure out how to hack for maintenance instead of for fun.
An Amiga 3000 with the original 25 MHz m68030 / m68882 is barely functional, but I can ssh with it, I can load modern SSL sites, I can write, print, et cetera.
An Amiga with an accelerator and m68060 is comfortable, and it actually snappier than most modern Windows systems.
An Amiga with a PiStorm makes modern computers feel sluggish and drowsy. It's not easy to explain, but there's an immediate response to practically everything that's not from a floppy (although it's amazing how quickly things load) and isn't loading over the Internet (can't help the speed of light).
The more I play with these systems, the less I want to run a modern GUI OS. Give me the AmigaDOS GUI on a NetBSD machine, and I'll consider using a new machine.
No IoT, no automation stuff. I have a tv w/htpc but it has been unplugged for 6 years. I get all of my current events/media from RSS feeds or email (highly curated). During the day mobile notifications are silenced. I mostly pay in cash when I go out. Had a fitbit 5 years ago never connected to phone, got rid of it when it died.
I like the sound of the engine when I drive, otherwise FM radio. I avoid taking my phone when I go places unless I need GPS, but I often print directions if I'm traveling to semi familiar areas. I always keep a few maps in the glove box as well.
I was recently laid off and I'm bummed because it's going to be hard finding a new remote work job in tech that isn't soul sucking in regards to tech.
Cars? Used, DIY repair for everything except tires, drive them 10-15 years until New England rust kills them.
Computers? Work buys new but I try to skip an upgrade cycle. (I'm on a 2019 MBPro; prior to that was a 2013.) For home, I bought the kids open-box low-end gaming PCs (~$650ea) but for myself am using a perfectly usable Haswell-era Dell I bought on Craigslist for $75 and upgraded with an SSD.
Phones? We buy 1-2 year old iPhones and run them usually through a second battery [DIY replaced]. (Kids and I are on the iPhone X (qty 2) and XS still.)
For me, it's partly about saving money and diverting that money towards retirement, but it's also a matter of "I don't need or want to go through the shopping and upgrade process every 18-24 months; I have better things to do."
I shop well/carefully but infrequently.
My iPhone is 4 years old, it's a 2nd gen SE. Still does what I need it to do. My laptop is a 2012 MacBook Pro. It still basically works but it's starting to have issues so I'll be replacing it this year.
I was late to the Apple Watch game, having just getting one a year ago. I don't see why I'll ever replace it until it simply fails mechanically.
I stopped using my iPad because I couldn't do everything I needed to do an an iPad so I still needed my MacBook. Given that I have an iPhone, it just hit a spot I don't need. It seems like the options are laptop, table, phone - pick two.
Is that downsizing? Not really. I just get the tools I need as I need them.
My biggest regret has been the Tesla Model 3. The touchscreen, in lieu of buttons was a step backward. Also, they recently did an update to auto steer that gives you demerits if you have two hands on the wheel but spend too much time looking at the touchscreen (which controls everything on the car and has poorly designed menus that are not easy to use when driving). Basically if it doesn't like how you are using it on a drive it deactivates the feature for the rest of the drive, then after 5 times of it doing that it disables the feature for a week. That is a step too far, especially since my biggest use case for using the autosteer is to be able to find things on the poorly designed touchscreen interface on the car.. That is before you get into the higher insurance cost and the quality that is not nearly as good as my older Volvo and Audii. From that standpoint the older cars are much better.
Most of the stuff out there simply isn't that interesting to me anymore, whether that be news articles at a prestigious tech publication or the latest device. Generative AI tools are cool but the constant "we're almost to AGI" hype has become tiresome and cultish. Even the new Apple headset just looks kind of lame. The coolest tech things I've seen in recent years are cyberdecks, which are almost always not using the latest and greatest technology.
Spouse has a Surface tablet that's only a couple years newer
Dedicated "desktop" computers for the kids (~$300 NUC-like) and another one for a media center/central home server
Spouse and I each have our own decent but not top of the line phones, and there's a phone for each kid as well (which, even more than the computers, we try to emphasize are for their use but not under their ownership, to minimize fights over what they can have on them)
So far I feel like it's been a good compromise between lavish spending on unnecessary things, investing in growth and development, and a few indulgences here and there or what's the point of working so hard?
I love the retro aesthetic. I use i3 for my window manager. I'm encouraging (and helping) my kids to learn Vim and Emacs, and hope to switch them over to Linux at some point because I feel at this point that it offers a genuinely better UX for most of the things we want to do, and the only reason to use Windows at all is for things that Just Don't Work on Linux (looking at you, Minecraft Bedrock!)
The whole thing started as a joke. I ported WozMon to it, so that when folks ask me what sort of phone I have, I can call it an "Apple clone". But, I can use it to answer calls, send and receive text messages, and do very basic cardinal direction and distance based GPS navigation.
Personally, I don't buy new devices every single year, but I'm not downsizing my phone or computer any time soon. I still keep my smartphone with me at all times, I'm not getting rid of my desktop, and I'm totally happy with how things are.
But when it comes to reducing my tech footprint, the only issue I found with going down this path were bank apps. It is basically a requirement to have either an iOS or Android modern device to do anything.
Laptops:
Lost interest because I find them too expensive or complicated. Either to get what i initially want, or for upgrades down the line. Obviously my opinion would change if I travelled extremely frequently, but for the last many years I've had 0 need for portability.
Tablets:
Never felt the need for one after i got a decent phone
Phone:
Never felt the need to upgrade since I bought a phone that did everything I want and fast enough. Xiaomi 9, extremely happy with it
Desktop PC:
My preference. Good thermals, easy individual part upgrades. Can get great deals either new or second hand. Computing power has been strong enough for a while now that I happily run a few generations behind without feeling the need to upgrade.
My phone is nearly 7 years old (iPhone8).
A Raspberry Pi3 has replaced my home server.
Honestly, part of my motivation has been power consumption. Running a fat multi-core PC with heaps of memory and a beefy GPU pulls a lot of watts, and ... I don't need it. The very few times I could use the extra grunt, I can also really just wait an extra minute or two ...
When I bought a Raspberry Pi 5 recently (to run as a always-on local web-server) it did cross my mind that it was probably plenty powerful enough for 95% of what I do.
I’ll stick with my 64 core threadripper for now though :D
Phone: just gone from iPhone 12 to 15 Pro. Not noticed much difference, will stick for a while I reckon.
TV: recently did my once every ten years upgrade to a Sony A95, which was a mind blowing improvement.
iPad: mostly been buying reconditioned models, as they’re all plenty powerful enough.
So other than the iPads, not really downsizing yet, but it feels like most average tech is actually super powerful these days, so I can see myself doing more in the future.
Then you realize how filthy the software stack is... and not for the good reasons.
Then I found: the thing is my solution to my Smartphone addiction. It has music, podcasts, a phone, I can fine tune notifications so I only get interrupted when I wish and I can have all my cards on it, just like the iPhone. But: no social media. No quick browsing. No reading. So now, I spend a lot of time just with the watch, especially when we go out.
The other one is headphone sockets in devices. I want wired headsets, not dongles and missing DACs.
Non smart TVs and Displays. No, I do not want internet connectivity built into a display.
Now that the M chips have virtualization and the laptops actually have ports Ill probably upgrade at some point, but I actually dont need to. One of my laptops could break completely and I would just migrate to the working one.
I keep my phones until I drop them or until they get too slow. I use samsung phones as I dont like the usability of apple phones (no T9 dialing) or the way icloud, photo storage, etc work. How do you get pictures off your phone into folders? It is annoying that the iphone cant mount as a drive.
I have a dell t3500 desktop (2012?). I have maxed out the ram, upgraded the cpu, and have large SSD drives. It is fast enough for what I do on windows which is just running blue iris these days.
I have plastic casio gshock watch with atomic time updates and solar. I think it is 10-12 years old.
I drive a 13 year old truck and my wife an 8 year old minivan. I do want an electric car but hate all the computerization of the dash. A friend imported an electric car from china and the controls are basically like a golf cart.
another friend converts classic cars into electric cars and I might be willing to convert an old truck to electric.
I definitely dont downsize, but I only upgrade when a usability issue makes me upgrade.
I ran Ubuntu for a while, but 23.10 broke LUKS and graphics support on my Nvidia GPU was limited.
I’ve just bought a 2.5 MacBook Pro 16” refurbished, and my iPhone is 3 years old and counting with no plans to upgrade.
I think getting as long as we can out of our devices is crucial, but the big wheel keeps on turning with technologies like Windows 11 and even Chrome.
It’s an honourable endeavour but certainly disincentivised by big tech.
I went the other way. I get gaming desktops - they have all the power I need for working in this industry, and they are expandable and re-configurable as times change so I can just update parts instead of needing a whole new system when needs change. No "whole device" upgrades are needed.
Clearly, this doesn't work for travelling for work, but if my job needs me to have a more mobile solution, they they need to provide it.
But I am tending to use less and less stuff on my devices. I largely use my computer to watch things, scan things to clean out my office of old documents, writing, chat, etc. Most of my time is spent in a web browser consuming stuff because I don't have the energy to do things like chores or program or other things that take mental energy that I might want to do. I'm even moving away using computers for notes or scheduling, and putting more effort into doing all that by hand on paper. It's nice to slow down and put more creativity into that instead of always staring at a screen for pretty much everything I do all the time. Helps me think better, think about the big picture more. And it's fun too.
EDIT: I flag every post about gadgets I see here on HN, my contribution to a better society
The simple fact for me is that all of these types of devices are thoroughly comoditised now, and almost perfected, so even old tech runs well, for my needs at least. I don't experience any issues not being "up to date" and it feels satisfying to not have blown thousands trying to keep up.
For fun, I've got Termux on my Motorola G Power 2021, my first Smartphone/magic glass slab. In that folder, I've got SimH compiled, and a Vax 11/780 that I emulate, running OpenVMS 7.3. Telnetting into it from my laptop is a fun exercise in retrocomputing.
As far as going retro goes, I've got a friend I help restore old electronics. I've learned to hate Silver Mica capacitors. I'm starting to not jump when smoke or sparks come out of them. The odd thing is that on old (1940s-50s) technology, smoke coming out isn't necessarily a death sentence... stuff still works after that. We recently got a 1947 TV set going. We've done all sorts of things including radios, ham gear, and Cesium Beam atomic clocks.
I've you've got questions about old electronics, I can probably get you an answer.
My living room TV is a 10 years old dumb device, attached to a Pi running Kodi.
My office TV is an old TV from the 70ies (also attached to Pi, connected via an HDMI->Antenna converter) which I bought on eBay for 15 EUR in 2007.
I buy only refurbished smartphones, because I cannot find a modern device which comfortably fits into my pocket during cycling.
Most of my other devices (keyboard, mouse, speakers, headphones, scanner, ...) I bought as a teenager in the mid-2000s. I only replace them when broken, which so far only happened to my old printer in 2014.
Our vacuum cleaner is also 15 years old.
We have slowly and unconsciously removed most electrical devices from our kitchen, with the exception of an early 2000s dishwasher, an electric kettle, a 1998 stove, a mixer from 2008, an IKEA fridge, and an old radio from the 70ies.
A few years ago, we needed a clothes dryer. After doing research for some days, we bought... a used Miele Novotronic from the 90ies in mint condition for 60 EUR from an old lady. (The build quality is ridiculous, I suspect this thing will outlive us).
Our family bikes are all pre-1985 (easier to repair than modern ones).
We are in our mid-/early 30ies with one child. We never consciously decided to downgrade our devices or "go retro". Typically, a modern device would break down, and we would replace it with its earlier version which was still located somewhere in our or our parent's basement or some closet. More often than not, we would not replace it because we didn't need it anymore (best example: coffee machines, a french press is completely sufficient and more convenient for us). There is also an aesthetic aspect. I simply find most modern devices incredibly ugly.
Also, maybe it's because I am getting old, but whenever I see a modern laptop / household appliance / car / etc., all my bullshit detectors go full blast (I also cannot stand devices telling me how to live my life, and for me this starts with a dishwasher that beeps when finished).
For my laptop I have an M1 pro macbook. It was a huge upgrade over the previous intel mac, but I don't feel the need to upgrade to the M2 or M3 machines, the M1 still feels really fast to me.
Partly because I prefer the smaller screen but also because its still very fast and reliable. I had previous had a Gen 1 iPhone SE which I only gave up on due to accidental damage.
I don't normally wear a watch, but when I do I have a LED watch from the 1970's from Texas Instruments. Its a real battery hog but still fun.
https://digitalcollections.smu.edu/digital/collection/tir/id...
My Roku TV has wifi disabled and I rely on an older Apple TV for subscriptions (Netflix, PBS, Disney+). The main use-case for AppleTV though is the Infuse Pro app which I use to manage and play my media collection (backup of DVDs etc) from my NAS.
I've been wanting to abandon my smart phone entirely for a while now. I started using jmp.chat so I could use SMS and phone calling from any machine that supports XMPP. That has been quite nice; I hope to integrate it more into my life to replace my smart phone.
I buy whatever works, and I run it until the wheels fall off.
My car is old and ugly, but it's absurdly practical, reliable and cheap to run. I don't use it much, and a new car would drive the dollar:pleasure ratio way down. It's not like my laptop that I use literally every day.
My laptop gets a lot more use. I use it until it's unbearable then get a new one. Macs last me forever, and I enjoy them day to day, so I get the latest Mac whenever mine becomes unsuitable. So far it's every 7-10 years.
I suspect that being in an ad-free bubble helps a lot with my consumption habits. Environmental and financial guilt are other strong demotivators. The other is not wanting do deal with more needy gadgets.
Who would actually even believe that in the first place? Maybe it's an American thing, but with our French spending power, I know of absolutely no one in my family or friend group who has a set schedule for upgrading their devices. It's either "use until it breaks, then replace" or "use until I absolutely need a replacement because it's too slow", the latter of which usually being after 3 years or so.
As for downsizing, once again everyone I know isn't really "downsizing", but buying refurbished devices a few generations old, as the price for brand new devices, even refurbished ones, has gotten pretty crazy.
Imagine being able to close your laptop, get in the car and not have to think for one second about whether or not you brought the appropriate accessories for productivity. This is about where I am at now. The big, multi-monitor battle stations are a prison.
The technology should serve the human. Not the other way around. Constructing a small datacenter in your own home is probably a good example of the later case.
I feel like there should be more support for getting use out of your "old" devices. Thinking about the amount of waste is unsettling.
I made a little web scraper to find iOS games that worked on my device though, feel free to use it and/or modify the code to find apps you want: https://github.com/cjstewart88/vintage
I’m a League of Legends player and the makers of that game, Riot, are adding a very controversial kernel-level anti-cheat system. Even though it is being portrayed as a victory over cheaters, the system is very aggressive and greedily collects information compared to other anti-cheat systems. Owed by a Chinese company to boot.
The experience has me going through and re-thinking whether the privacy risk is worth the convenience, for not just games but all kinds of applications and services. The result has been deleting a lot of stuff.
I feel increasingly like just refusing to buy or use certain software is the only way to protect yourself
For watch I always just use a $20 timex digital watch. Always works. Battery lasts forever.
I have a 2019 MacBook Pro with 32GB ram and dont see any need to upgrade it.
I am fairly old school unix command line and VIM user. I use VIM plugins in IDEs.
But I took an approach with my kid's smartphone that might interest you.
Bought her one of those e-ink hisense phones. Getting apps only through fdroid and apk-mirror is annoying, but bit seems to struck a balance between keeping her connected with friends and family, while not addicted to YouTube/tiktok/e.t.c - she doesn't even argue to have these installed, because of the black-white display with 4fps refresh rate.
We have other entertainment (has a switch, can borrow my deck, we have google-tv connected to projector screen) but this seems to be helping.
iPhone's apps are designed for addiction. the OS does things I don't want. My dumb brick has youtube music & a touchscreen when I need it
I think it's essential to do this kind of stuff, so you won't get dumbed down by "you don't need it" narrative one day, finding yourself helpless and dependent on "experts".
The CPU in the weird cellular base station product I'm reverse engineering is significantly more powerful than my desktop PC, but c'est la vie...
As for my phone: I use an iPhone. At the end of the day it's a system I don't have to care and feed. It just works and does what I want it to and I don't need anything else.
I don't really use my phone much, and go out of my way not to install apps. Though that means I get into some sticky situations, it also means that when I need a new device, I can typically buy last year's flagship at half price. My current phone (2021) is more than enough to meet my needs. Frankly, my phone before that (2016) also was, but sadly none of the corner "fix your battery!" shops wanted to open up an HTC phone.
My laptop is a ThinkPad T460p (2016 model, acquired 2019), which replaced a ThinkPad T500 (2009 model, acquired 2012) when said ThinkPad struggled with rendering 1080p video, which replaced an HP nx6325 (2006 model, acquired 2006) when said HP proved itself unable to do video calls at more than a few frames per second.
I wouldn't call these things "retro" by any means - those honors go to some other systems in my life. I have a 100-milliwatt FM transmitter, some radios, and Kodi Media Center, in place of a Sonos system. Ditto the Casio calculator watch, instead of a smartwatch - the calculator and other functions actually do get used multiple times per week.
Work requires an android security patch level less than 6 months old, so I decided the new Pixel 8 pro would give me at least 7 years before I have to replace it. I use it on Wifi only, and my life is improved by not always being connected to work. It takes nice pictures but so far I am wasting all that power. I need it to last 7 years.
I have an Android tablet for movies on travel (Galaxy Active Tab Pro). But mostly - I prefer a machine I have close to full control over. I am a Windows guy, so I have a a 2014 era HP x360 for super light "throw it in bag and forget it" and a cheap Dell Latitude refurb which came with a GPU (200 bucks shipped), 32gb RAM and a 2018 era i7. It runs older games admirably. When I had my work stuff on my s10e, I would bring the x360 on vacay instead of my work laptop and just use Dex if something blew up which needed my attention. (Mostly not needed, but I lole to be ready).
I have a NAS device running Windows Server 2022 which does backup / JellyFin / misc duties. It is an old i7 from 2015 with 32gb DDR3. Runs like a champ.
I am looking at some point to clean up my Google account by pulling everything down and burning it to MDISC.
I have a fairly modern gaming PC I built, but mostly don't use it. The Dell laptop is my daily driver personal machine and I love it. Possibly the best 200 bucks I have spent in my computing life.
Currently, our family leverages the Apple Ecosystem to get things done. We maintain backups of most options so we can walk out of the ecosystem when needed. We will lose the seamlessness, but things should still work.
We run most other services geared towards the more open Linux Ecosystem while leaving the content part easily accessible across environments.
For instance, I like the form factor of the iPhone 13 Mini and hanging on to it. But when I need it replaced, I will move on. I use a Laptop on travels but love the big screen and power of a Desktop at home. I have been using an iMac since the Pandemic started. People bring Laptops to meetings; I don’t do that anymore - pen and paperwork for almost everything, and I can give undivided focus to the other person. Of course, the Smartphone can come in as a backup if needed - schedule a calendar event, email the notes you just took, etc.
I also began using a film camera and really love traveling with it. I’m taking much better pictures with constraints!
Next, I purchased a turntable and a bunch of my favorite albums for it. It’s really fun holding a huge album cover in your hands and deliberately flipping records. I love those little type of repetitive activities. It’s oddly comforting for me when I perform.
My other favorite device is a Kobo eReader that I read a lot of books on. I have been reading quite a bit more now that I have a distraction free device.
Finally, I eschewed streaming services and built my own home media server on Jellyfin with content that I have purchased.
There’s something about analog and/or dedicated devices that gels really well with me. They help reduce decision paralysis, and I feel like I’m able to appreciate each activity more. I haven’t tried to be intentional with any of these switches. They just felt like the right thing to do at the time as new tech has lost my interest with changes that I view as hostile.
The value I derive from using something increases over time as it ages. This works better with some things than others. For example, a house or older audio equipment which doesn't tend to degrade quickly over time.
As a result, I find myself spending more time enjoying those things which age better over time than new technology which does not.
I have an older desktop and laptop (10-15 years old), but it seems those will need to be upgraded in about 18 months due to TPM module requirements and Win11.
- used a 2012 Mac Mini for nearly 11 years, now upgraded (same product line) - philosophy has always been migrating operating systems is a massive pain (for anyone who uses package management or occasionally has to compile things, anyway). Was annoyed to lose the infra-red receiver as well as having to use an external SDXC reader. Also Apple don't seem to deliver quite as much power to the USB ports anymore?
- still have an iPod Touch I use occasionally (so light - 88g or 3.1oz - and so comfortable to hold)
- refuse to buy AirPods etc (costly, wasteful, extra complexity, latency...)
- refuse to buy a Smart Speaker because really, whatever is the point? I can listen to radio streams on my computer with PyRadio, I can type the address of the Met Office website and if I want an alarm I can use my phone or my watch. (sidenote: have had Siri turned off for years)
- keen on quality, single purpose items - e.g. torch, head torch, FM radio, desk lamp, GPS unit, USB microphone.
- watches: a Timex with a button you press to light up the face, a solar Casio G-shock and a solar Citizen eco-Drive for "smarter" occasions)
- trying to do things in Vim (nvim)
- first proper mechanical keyboard being delivered today - very excited!
- signed up to HN a few days ago for first time
Thing I really wish we could have had in the UK when I was young: probably Minitel. Also feel a bit nostalgic for the Amstrad PCW I owned (although daisywheel printer was far too loud).
I do have a desktop PC with a 2-core Intel CPU and a Radeon of some kind that's liquid cooled in a bland black PC case. Just enough to run StarCraft 2 well.
I ironically am kind of the opposite and I see efficiency gains/etc as being very attractive over time for machines I am going to use a lot. Going 9900K in a tower to 5700G in a Mini-Box M300 was revolutionary and a 7800X3D or 8800X3D will blow the doors off that too.
But I am not buying a bunch of shitty throwaway raspberry pis etc anymore either. I build good systems that have good cost-value (even if they're older/used/surplus) but target just a higher set of capabilities. Less stuff running is less clutter, less noise, lower power. I would prefer not to step down but stuff that can provide a desktop-experience (meaning 8C+ etc) in a SFF factor is also attractive, as is powerful expansion like TB3/USB4 or Oculink or MCIO.
I totally do love retro stuff etc, I am on a minidisc kick right now. And to some extent the ready availability of storage/containers/etc helps that!
went from a smartphone to a lightphone 2. the smartphone is now always at home, and works like a phone + answer machine. i never take it with me, but daily when getting home i check messages, voicemail and answer/call people with it.
the lightphone i carry with me is only for family use. so no one, except a member of my family, has the number. so i can keep an eye on parents, siblings and stay informed at all times of anything that could happen.
i still have a tv but barely use it. and if it dies or stops working, i already know i will not replace it with another one. and most of the time, i plug that tv to a small laptop, and using youtube i watch videos and that's it.
but i have reduced all the hardware to only one piece of each. i no longer have 5 or 6 laptops at home. just one, and previous ones got sold on ebay.
Anyone have a non invasive replacement for at home streaming to dumb speakers?
For instance, I still run a Thinkpad X250 from ~2015 due to the replaceable battery and ability to swap batteries without shutdown. Yes, the CPU feels a bit slow after all the mitigations, but it's ok, I can compile remotely if need be.
For phone on the other hand, I decided to buy a back then new Pixel 6 due to the promised 5 years of security updates and good chances that I will be able to continue with it using LineageOS or so.
TV is ~6 years old by now, panel is still great, so I will switch it to a chromecast once the AndroidOS eventually breaks down inevitably.
But tbh, I don't think I've even been different, I always hated the trend to seem fashionable with MacBooks and completely ignore issues like waste or maintainability (even of simple things like battery).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_(companion)
https://palm.com/cdn/shop/products/Palm_inHand_1024x1024_2x_...
Despite its marketing, I do not use it as a companion phone, it is my sole mobile device.
It's an Android phone with a 3.3" 720p screen. It's very light (2.2 oz. / 62.5g) and fits in my pocket easily. I can also effortlessly swipe-type on the bottom of my screen and swipe-gesture from the top of my screen with just one hand.
It doesn't have that irritating yellow/green light that tells me when I've missed notifications, although I have most notifications disabled, including voicemails. To my delight, even that presidential alert test did not seem to reach my phone. I also have a great excuse for not installing corporate software on my phone (literally unsupported in many cases).
But it is a device from 2018 and sadly they do not seem to be interested in making a new one. I don't need it to do anything it didn't do when I first got it, but sadly, software companies specialize in making consumer UIs slower and updates in general are no longer an optional thing, so they have no incentive to improve. Even loading my texts, answering my phone, and checking my email is becoming noticeably slower (and it is not an old battery issue as I have replaced a broken Palm phone within the last 12 months).
I'm not sure what I'll replace it with when it becomes impossible to use. The Unihertz form factors are strictly worse, smaller screens with bigger phones. Hoping someone comes up with something similar within a few years.
Every time I go somewhere, something breaks. Not the machine, but some element of VPN, satcom, everything (i.e. no network, and definitely no internet), latency is insane, bandwidth is trash, whatever. I responded to Fukushima and my Cr-48 (the original chromebook for beta testers) became bookend despite having wifi and built-in 3G.
I know my life is better with the machines and the networks. I mean, I have tested and lived that too many times. But there's definitely some (a lot of) love-hate in the relationship.
I lease an iPhone, which means I get to replace it every year. I upgrade my Apple Watch every two years.
My personal laptop is currently an M1 MacBook Air. I’ll probably try to run it into the ground, but my upgrade cycle will be determined by when it no longer allows me to work effectively.
Meanwhile, the newest dedicated camera I use is a digital mirrorless Fuji that I bought in 2016. I also regularly use a 35mm SLR, medium format SLR, 4x5, and 8x10 that range in age from 20 years old to 70 years old.
Pick technology that allows you to work effectively. If you can do that on some six year old tablet, then Godspeed. I can’t imagine working on a slow computer, but I also don’t understand the point of buying the latest and greatest Sony full frame mirrorless camera.
I buy what I need to run and operate my life and business.
But only that.
I try to avoid buying extra things because I want to treat myself or because I mistakenly believe it might make me happy for more than a moment!
Curiously I get the same feelings from investing and making trades that I do from purchasing items!
So when I think I might buy something, I just invest that money instead! Even small amounts of money!
But no, not downsizing or going retro anything. Instead of denying myself things or time with my iPhone, I do other things instead.
It’s not about what I do, it’s about what I’m not doing!
And if I’m not doing enough of the positive things that are good for my mental health, then there is a problem.
Denying myself my iPhone doesn’t fix my underlying problem. Problems are fixed by positive actions.
YMMV :-)
The first goal was reducing power consumption - cheaper than buying more inverters and batteries during constant and extensive power cuts here in South Africa. The M1 at the time was still IME the only game in town in terms of workhorse machine that could last 4-6 hours on battery while doing work.
The second goal was to have a hard separator for work & play.
I wrote a piece about all of this last year: https://nikspyratos.bearblog.dev/hardware-essentialism-my-we...
Do I need an old Mac mini just to sync music to it? Yes. Is it worth it? Also yes.
There is something lost in ultra-reliable modern tech. Computers that would boot with a random driver suddenly failing or package missing would be annoying in the moment, but also a rewarding opportunity to fix.
These quirks gave old tech an organic flair, like an old Italian car. Like, let's see if this thing will start today.
It tells the time and tells me time elapsed, the light isn't obnoxiously bright at night, I'm not fiddling with the interface, I'm not getting pinged, my data isn't being collected, I'm not afraid of breaking it or soaking it, I'm not charging it.
It just works.
Admittedly, some websites are simply too slow but I don't often visit those, and it's probably one of the reasons I prefer sites like HN.
Though, I can't honestly claim to be (intentionally) downsizing or "going retro". Maybe I've just become something retro. ;-)
I've gotten lots of my experience not on the job, but just playing around with technology in my free time.
No IoT, no modern car, no gadgets, minimum to none proprietary software, wood heating, no TV...
It took a full Saturday to download all the Android updates and for T-Mobile to recognize my old SIM card in there to let me make calls.
I'm old enough don't have the time nor patience to deal with slow hardware and will just upgrade if I need to (old stuff gets sold/donated, I don't keep it around).
It will upset some family members and their precious blue txt bubbles but I don’t care.
My phone is about 6 years old now so I might get a new one towards the end of the year depending on how it performs.
i had a mac mini and an ipad pro that i used to remote into it and do work from. i ended up combining the two by getting a macbook air m2. amazing device.
As for Phone I use grapheneOS, and upgrade once it drops out of support cycle (previously 4a 5G, now 7a).
I have a Steam Deck and that's all my smart devices.
But at my company Rootly we let employees upgrade laptops at will as needed, no questions asked!
Both have replaced batteries, the x201 got a battery replacement sometime in 2017 and the P20 lite had its battery replaced and ports cleaned a couple months ago.
Both still work great I don't want to upgrade.
Also, I’d never get a smartwatch. Casio is way cooler.
Do you do most of your work "in the cloud"? If so, did you really downsize, or did you just outsource to someone else's modern computer?
Do I need an old Mac mini just to sync music to it? Yes. Is it worth it? Also yes.
Being aware of all the privacy issues in big tech, I just couldn't bring myself to carrying a smartphone on me at all times. As smartphones became the norm, I was considered crazy for not having one. Now all these years later I am proud of never caving in to the temptation or pressure of those around me.
I love new tech, but I am disgusted by 3rd party software and how intrusive it is
No more monitors or microphones or lights or stands. It is so freeing.
