1mo ago

What are some portable devices that smart phones haven't replaced?

I've been very stressed lately and have been doing some window shopping to calm down. I'm interested in gadgets, but a lot of things can just be replaced with apps. I realize a phone won't replace very large appliances like refrigerators or washing machines so I'm trying to scope my question to portable devices. So what are some portable devices or gadgets that their specialization hasn't been replaced by smart phone apps? Extra points if they're super useful and reliable.

209 comments

Cameras. You can take pictures with your phone, but despite Apple's advertisements, a phone camera will never produce anywhere near the same quality a dedicated digital camera with interchangeable lenses. And neither are as good as film.
- They haven’t completely replaced them. But for 99% of people they’ve replaced them for 99% of their photography needs.
  
  Man, that 1% are buying a shitload of cameras.
- On a similar note, action cameras, which can be even more portable than a smartphone.
  
  Excellent point, especially as they're still quite common. GoPro, for instance.
- I would add that even though you can slap a filter on a pic you won't get the same quality of lighting as utilizing reflectors, diffusers, lamps, etc.
- And cameras will never replace a good painting!
  Jk, I still use my handheld camera, a shame it takes 30 seconds to boot it
  
  30 seconds
  Yowsa. That's an old camera!
  I have a point-and-shoot Canon from around the mid-2010s that's still perfectly functional. It starts faster than I can get to the phone app on my phone, and takes pictures faster. The video is worse.
  My Fuji T-10 takes a couple of seconds to start from cold, but less than a second if it's in stand-by.
  The only digital camera I ever owned that took double-digit seconds to start was my very first - I don't even recall the brand, but it was before smart phones and the resolution was pathetic, like 800x600 or something. And it was so. Slow. Starting, and snapping.

Flashlights. Again, in an emergency, you can use your phone. But it's not as good as a real flashlight, and I always carry and use a flashlight.
- Can confirm. In many situations, it is far more convenient to go get a flashlight worth $2 to $5 that can easily fit exactly where you need it to be rather than holding your main communication device in an awkward angle where it doesn't quite do the job and also a wrong move could destroy your $200 to $1k device.
  
  Spend $20-$30 and you can have a rock and roll light.
  This is my latest, of, uh, many lights. I'm a bit of an addict.
- Also somebody had a bright idea to disable the flashlight in Android after battery drops to low percentages. I was very angry one day, when I walked through forest, and I needed to do it in complete darkness.
  
  bright idea
  I see what you did there
- Already joined us?
  https://old.lemmy.world/c/flashlight
  
  Of course!
- Depends though, you need to buy a pretty good one. My phone has a better than average phone torch, CatB40. It's better than most cheap torches so you would need a decent torch to do better than the phone.

A Vibrator.
- Have I got an app for you!
  
  :-D ~~~~_{RrrrrRrrrrrRrrrr}~~RRRRRRRR
  
  Is that the same though? I don’t have the right parts to know, and the procedure to find out makes it easier to ask.
- Never had an older Nokia?

I can't vape weed with my phone yet.
- Not with that attitude
- Would you believe me if I said there is even a phone vape now?
  
  I would need to see it to believe it.

I'm posting these separately so people can argue about specific devices.
A calculator is still better than a phone in a lot of cases. I haven't yet met a financial advisor who uses their phone instead of a calculator. It's often the same issue as with keyboards: touch screens are simply vastly inferior to tactile keys. Few people are willing to carry keyboards around with them, but for those who use calculators a lot, for many it's worth having a portable, dedicated device.
- Yeah definitely, I use an HP-49 emulator on my phone for like whenever I want to do just some quick calculation or only have my phone, but I always have an actual HP-49 in my bag because just having real buttons is so much nicer even if everything else is the same
  
  RPN gang taking over
- I did machining inspection for a while and would be dealing constantly with hundreds of data points. Using the table functions on my TI-84 was a godsend. Everyone was writing answers down and transcribing when I joined.

Electric Toothbrush. Keeping up with Dental Hygiene is important too!
- Own one. Definitely recommend it and ribbon floss.
  
  Would love to have one, but my neurologist said even slight vibrations in my mouth can fuck with my epilepsy. That means a migraine because my medicine prevents seizures. Going to the dentist is an affair that wrecks me for the whole day.

Radiation detectors. Such as the Radiacode or the Open Gamma Detector.
Binoculars are quite portable, very useful, and phones don't do a good job at zooming in like that.
Smart watches integrate with phones but the phones by themselves are not so good at measuring the heart rate and other parameters directly.
Mini projectors. UV flashlights. Tools in general... There is so much actually. What type of gadgets are you looking for?
- https://www.wired.com/2012/05/softbank-unveils-worlds-first-phone-with-radiation-detection/
  Your other points are valid.
  
  Ooh, cool! 😁 That detector seems to be working only in "Geiger mode", which means that it can count the number of X-rays/Gamma particles but it does not estimate their energy. So, the dedicated devices are still better in that they allow you to identify the source of the radiation by measuring the counts and the energy distribution simultaneously.
  It probably would not be too difficult to build the open gamma detector into something like a pinephone. I don't think that has been done yet.
- Samsung S2x Ultra has 10x optical zoom. That's pretty much a <100€ binocular right there.
  
  My experience with phone zoom has been underwhelming so far, but I would like to check out the Samsung S2x's 10x zoom when I have the chance!
  Still, I really like using binoculars because they transport me next to what I am looking at and do so in very high definition. I do have >100€ binoculars though, colors look very nice through them. I think it will be difficult to replicate via a screen.
- Can phones "detect" really high radiation on the camera if it's high enough or is that film only?
  
  Cleverly, even low levels can be detected. I love how creative early smartphone developers could be.
  https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rdklein.radioactivity
  
  Yes. The camera pixels generate a current in response to light. You can add some filters to block certain wavelengths of light (like UV) from getting to the camera sensor, and tune the pixels so that they respond more to to specific colors. But X-rays and gamma rays can just pass through the filter. Often they will pass through sensor as well, but, in the cases that they do get absorbed by the sensor, they can also produce a current that to the camera's readout electronics looks like other light would.
  The gamma detectors I mentioned are very very sensitive. They respond to single X-ray/Gamma ray particles. These detectors can count how many individual particles collide with a small crystal cube every second. These crystals are special in that they produce a very tiny flash of light when an X-ray or gamma particle collides with them. As an added bonus, these sensors can directly measure the energy of the particles by measuring the strength of the flash, and from this information they can construct not only the total counts but also a spectrum. With this extreme sensitivity these detectors can measure small quantities of radiation that come from space, from rocks, and from other materials.
  I looked for a video of a phone going through an X-ray machine, and found these:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8iSoPhtY3s
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1YaroH6lHA
  The white specks that you can see near second 25 (first video) and second 34 (second video) could be a result of the X-rays. I am not sure, but it seems reasonable to me. On contrast, when I put my radiacode through the X-ray machine in the airport the radiacode reacts very strongly and becomes saturated.
  
  I believe they can.
- There were a couple projector phones. Samsung Galaxy Beam 1 & 2

Pocket knife. Although I wouldn't be surprised if there's a phone case out there with a box-knife-like insert for a razor blade.
...infact, brb.
- Please send pics of "Knife Phone".
  Edit:
  
  Well fuck me, turns out not only does it exist, but there are quite a few options!
  There's this dude, which tries to be an entire Swiss army knife. Buyers pretty consistently complain about the build quality though.
  
  This one has a sheath for a removable knife:
  
  And this one uses the mechanism I had envisioned when I was typing my original post, but uh... cuts a little differently than I had expected, and is ofc the clear winner:

Hi-fi audio recorders with builtin microphones. As a bass player, I deeply resent phone mics and speakers.
- Phones suck for anything audio related in general.
  
  They've been bad for calling people in my experience for years.
  
  My Ipod classic can run laps around my phone in terms of audio playback and its a recentish flagship.
- also, a good music player is nice! not having the hassle of using a phone while driving or doing literally anything else is nice for listening to music and the like.
  
  You underestimate my ability to find and download new music to my player. It's not that I can't, it's just that I forget to.

I was just thinking this morning that it's kinda odd that there's no cell phone that also doubles as a multi-meter for measuring electronic current. I guess it's because in theory you'd need to also carry around a set of probes with you?
- I think you are on to something, add a basic o-scope and it's pretty much magic.
  
  You invented the tricorder. Nice.
  
  We already have that, and a function generator.
  https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.sbaudio.oscope
  https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.keuwl.functiongenerator
- There is a really cheap one that uses the phone for the smarts so it can be good for cheap.

Handheld Radios, some are those "Walkie-Talkies" (I hate that term btw), others are VHF/UHF Ham Radios, or GMRS/FRS, MURS, or Meshtastic (I don't even know how those meshtastic things work). AFIAK, phones cannot fit those antennas in such a thin build, so they won't be replaced for a long time, possibly forever. I mean, there is no way to cram such antenna in there. There might be some phones that are also handheld radios, but those are probably so niche, that I've never heard of any such thing.
Very useful in like a natural disaster and the cell towers are down. (Or just something like war where the commucation infrastructure is just shut down by the destruction).
Idk about other countries, but in the USA, those walmart/target walkie talkies do not need any license, because they are just FRS radios that use FRS frequencies. AFIAK MURS and Meshtastic also is license free. Ham and GMRS will probably require licenses in many jurisdictions. Some GMRS and FRS frequencies overlap, but GMRS can (legally) use more power, and can swap antennas, which FRS radios cannot (not legally).
Baofeng radios are cheap and its only like $50 or so for a pack of two. They are supposed to be either Ham or GMRS versions, but apparantly I have those "Ham Radios" that can do both which is gonna make the FCC sad 👀
If you have a repeater in your area that your signal can reach, you can talk a long distance throughout your neighborhood.
Both Ham and GMRS require a license in the USA, but GMRS license does not require a test, which Ham license do. GMRS license is literally just a payment for a paper.
Even if you use a radio without a license, most of the time, nothing will happen. The FCC (at least, before 2025) wont care if you talk to your friends using radio without a license. And FCC rules don't apply during an emergency.
(I mostly learned these things via looking around the internet in the past few months because I was interested in the topic of "off grid" communications. I don't have any licenses yet 😅)
- CB radios are still widely used by truck drivers. Listening to the CB on long trips can sometimes be very entertaining.
- Even if you use a radio without a license, most of the time, nothing will happen. The FCC (at least, before 2025) wont care if you talk to your friends using radio without a license.
  Caveat to this: If you use these radios on amateur bands without licenses, you should expect legal problems. Operating them on FRS, MURS, GMRS, or PLMRS bands is far less likely to upset anyone.
  Non-hams might not be aware, but amateur radio requires you to identify yourself with your callsign at the beginning of every transmission, and every 10 minutes after that. Failure to do so is conspicuous. The other bands mentioned don't have (or don't enforce) this identification requirement, so you aren't immediately outing yourself with every transmission.
- This is funny, just yesterday I randomly found phones with built-in VHF/UHF radios on Aliexpress. To be fair, they look super clunky and are very expensive for off-brand Chinese phones ($800+), but they do exist. I wonder who buys them.
- I have never used the RFinder but the guy who developed it is local so I'm aware of it. https://rfinder.shop/product/rfinder-m6-dual-band-dmr-4g-lte/ it looks awesome but is more expensive than a really good HF base station so ymmv
- I remember seeing a product demo in Australia by Huawei about a mobile phone with an inbuilt 2way radio marketed for mines.
- I had a Nokia phone (6070?) that had some kind of walkie-talkie-like function, but I never figured out what it did.
  Edit: Apparently it's called Push-to-Talk, and it uses PTT service, whatever that is.

Vibrator
- We had Dildroid like 16 minutes after the initial Android release.... 😂🤷
  
  And yet I own more vibrators than I do smartphones
- Nokia 3310 would disagree,
- It is a 'gadget'

Another light-emitting device: laser pointer. I don't know of a phone that comes with an LED laser; it's probably only a matter of time, but even then it'll probably be - like a lot of other things - a handy-to-have-in-an-emergency app, but not a practical substitute for a real laser.
- AGM Glory G1S
  
  Thermal camera?? Yeah, Ok, you may have something there.
- What's an LED laser?
  
  A laser where the light is generated by an LED, as opposed to the more historical synthetic ruby or (argon or other) gas laser.
  Original lasers were a tube with a fully reflective mirror on one end and a partially reflective mirror on the other. Some single-wavelength light emitter was inside - synthetic ruby, or a (noble? Not sure if they were always noble gases) gas. Electricity excited the light emitter, and it'd bounce around and back and forth between the mirrors, one of which was set up to allow light of only one polarity to pass. Then there'd usually be a focusing lens to account for spread you couldn't completely control with the mirrors, and that's how you'd get Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.
  We still do this for big lasers, but for small applications LEDs can be used to generate the coherent light, and you still need a lens because the LED is still basically just a kind of LED flashlight; the lens focuses it into a beam.

In these responses I tend to omit obvious items that have no digital component unless there's an app that can function as the non-digital item. So, no knives or multi-tools.
Along with the mirror, tape measures fall into this category. I've tried several digital length-measuring apps, but none provide and accuracy that I'd rely on. I do, however, own a laser measure about the size of a Bic lighter that is extremely accurate; it's digital, portable, and accurate, so I think it counts.
Even that laser measure isn't good enough to replace a real, physical measure for detail work, but apps can replace neither except in an emergency, and even then are useless except for coarse-grained measurements.
- how bout car keys
  
  Excellent one! I have a car I used to be able to unlock with an app on my phone; I almost never used it because it was worse that having the key in my pocket.
  Great one!

Shank
- The galaxy notes solved that... when thay were around.

Paper and pencil: an analog data storage medium immune to power outages, data costs, EMPs, and remote surveillance.
- bro, they can litterally listen to your pencil strokes through the walls man.
  
  Most people don't need to worry about the NSA listening to them write down stuff.

While it's not an electronic device, my wife says makeup mirrors. Yes, you can reverse the camera and use your phone as a mirror, but she says it's not as good as a real mirror.
- Phone cameras are kind of useless for makeup. It's just good for checking if your hair and lipstick are in place, also if you have food on your chin.

A pocket notebook and a ballpoint pen, for quick note taking. Edit: add to that a pocket watercolor set and a brush, for quick sketching
A pocket book, for on the go reading
My (mechanical) wrist watch
I don't care if the smartphone can be used to take notes, to read and has an extra precise clock. I much prefer my analog tools. They don't require upgrade, they don't need recharging, no one will ever try to stole them (my watch is not fancy at all, it's just mechanical ;) and, well, I prefer using those.
- I'd argue phones are actually better pocket books. Assuming looking at a screen does not bother you:
  it's much more compact, can be held in one hand and you can carry multiple 800 page books. I've never actually seen a pocket book that can fit in a pocket.
  you can adjust font, text size and brightness (some font choices in printed books are just terrible)
  does not need an external light source
  you can quickly look up words and take notes without needing external items
  Requiring a battery is a downside but most reading apps consume very little power compared to other apps.
  
  I'd argue phones are actually better pocket books.
  It's obviously a matter of personal preferences, which is absolutely fine.
  As far as I'm concerned, I prefer print for these reasons, and for context I have been reading ebooks since I have owned a Palm Pilot PDA in the early 00s, so not reading them is a decision and a choice, it is not an allergy to them or to the tech:
  Print fully respect my privacy.
  There is no tracking and no spying on my reading habits. That's also why I read print newspapers and magazines as much as I can.
  No remote deleting of ebooks after purchase.
  Like Amazon and Microsoft already did. They refunded customers but that's not how private property is supposed to work: I pay for a good, I own it its previous owner taht sold it to me can't decide to enter my home to take it back, even if they were to leave some cash on the table.
  No remote editing possible.
  No matter if one book or one word in it suddenly becomes unpopular or offensive to anyone.
  No notifications, social media, games, email, whatever, to distract me.
  Does not need external light either.
  Try to beat day light and at night, or when the sun plays hide 'n seek, well, I have access to this revolutionary piece of high-tech called 'lamps' that are lying around absolutely everywhere in our home and, as far as I can tell, are also everywhere I may find myself wanting to read a book.
  Does not need batteries, and no recharging.
  The same with my watch, btw: no battery, just a spring I rewind every morning after I shower and when I put it to my wrist. It has been working wonder for years and its manufacturer has yet to send my a message telling my watch is tool old and I need to purchase a new model to get updates... because there are none ;)
  Does not need app and system updates.
  Does not need Internet.
  Unlike a smartphone, a book itself does not need to be replaced every few years by a new one (aka creating always more e-waste). Talking about phones, here, not e-readers that may last many, many years.
  BTW, I seldom need to quickly look up a word either. When I don't know a word and if I can't figure out its meaning by using the context it is used in, aka surrounding sentences, I write it down in my pocket notebook (which also requires no battery, no upgrade, doesn't track me either, etc.) and look it back at home in one of my... paper dictionaries (which don't push ads into my face, don't track me, and so on)
  you can adjust font, text size and brightness (some font choices in printed books are just terrible)
  This is the one advantage I find to ebooks in general (the reader is in charge of the display... depending the app used) but getting that freedom you also instantly lose access to the excellent page layout many publishers work hard on. Sure there are a few dickheads in the field but a majority are not at least those whose catalog I enjoy reading.
  And, most ebook page layout is, well, what word did you use? Terrible? You would be right.
  I’ve never actually seen a pocket book that can fit in a pocket.
  There are (I would say I can fit most poetry books and many plays in my jeans back pocket but I don't really), the idea is that those small books are easy to carry and are cheap (at least back in then they were supposed to be). It also depends a lot what one reads.
  Edit:
  it’s much more compact, can be held in one hand and you can carry multiple 800 page books.
  I don't need to carry that. On my desk I have dozens of books and references volumes opened at once (that would be expensive to do the same with multiple phones, right? ;) but I only carry with me a single pocket book so I can read on the go. I do not need my entire library, not even a couple 800, or even 1600 pages books ;)
  Edit: if you're willing to read more of my reasoning to stop using ebooks (I should say ebooks sold by Gafam, as I will still by self-published ebooks when there are DRM-free and there is no print available) and refocus my reading on print instead, I've published a couple blog post. Link in my profile.

Honestly most of the non digital functions of a phone are still inferior to it's dedicated counterparts, but I would argue that a phone is good enough for 99% of people.
So get a pocket multitool thingy, I always carry one in my bag and it has helped me quite a few time in my life.
- Which multi tool? I carry a Benchmade bugout knockoff and a genuine Leatherman skeletool, ifixit Minnow screwdriver set and a generic basic screwdriver with small/large Philips and flathead in my work bag. Oh and a small adjustable wrench.. Covers 95% of my work.
  
  Yeah, the issue with multi tools is the same issue with phones; They’re mediocre at a lot of different things. A dedicated multi-bit screwdriver will almost always be better than a multitool. A solid pair of pliers will almost always be better than a multitool. Et cetera, et cetera…
  But in a pinch, a multitool is better than nothing. And a multitool is a hell of a lot easier to carry as a “just in case” thing than an entire toolbox of individual tools. As a freelancer I habitually keep a lot of tools in my trunk, but I don’t want to walk all the way out to my car just to tighten one screw. So I also keep a multitool around as a “good enough” solution.
  
  Jeez, nice!
  I have this thing from victorinox:

I'll answer my own question, "Fans". You can absolutely buy a small fan or even one you can wear, but a smart phone can't blow air to cool a person down.
- I stand corrected.
  
  I had a very compact fan that plugged right into the lightning port on iPhones. I got a new phone and it stopped working, unfortunately

Laptops! I have a gaming desktop computer and also a gaming laptop that I use if I'm going to be somewhere other than my house for more than a day. Mobile games pail in comparison to what can be played on a decent gaming laptop. I wouldn't even think about trying to run even a rudimentary 3D game on my 3~ish year old smartphone which has 3-5 seconds of input lag for everything LMAO

Pagers for Hospitals.
- To be clear: Hospitals use pagers because they use a longer (and much lower bandwidth) wavelength, which is affected less by things like thick fire-resistant walls. Hospitals are built like bunkers so that things like fires don’t require the entire building to be evacuated. Pagers can still reliably get signal even in the basement of a hospital, when behind multiple fire-resistant walls and solid concrete floors. Texting has effectively replaced pagers for 99% of the population. But hospitals still use them because reliability is prioritized in the medical world; No hospital wants to lose a patient because a doctor was in the basement and didn’t get a text.
  
  There was a good episode of Planet Money which went into this. I addition to what you said, when doctors would get texts, they were more likely to dismiss the message and not respond immediately which was more dangerous.
  
  Also they don't mess with radiology and it lets doctors have a way of being contacted that doesn't give patients their number.

Wilderness beacon. Rarely any signal out there. Yes you can an arm and a leg for special service though
- I know some phones are starting to work with satellite comms, ~~so these may be replaced by cell phones in the near future~~ heh, maybe not. See the comment below. At least currently, I have several friends who still have wilderness beacons.
  
  They'll never replace PLB/EPIRBs unless they bake in 406Mhz and 121.5Mhz communication. Satellite devices aren't reliable enough for SAR. I'd even argue that they won't replace Satellite Communicators - battery life isn't good enough and the connection stability isn't good enough

Knife/multitool. There is a plethora of options. I enjoy the classic swiss army knife. Scissors, pincet, knife, saw, bottle opener, pliers... You can get it all in one small package.
Headphones/earphones can't be an app.
Cup/bottle/thermos/liquid container. Drink more water, enjoy hot coffee.
A skill. Spend time getting good at some random non virtual things, penspinning, coin tricks, cardistry, calligraphy...

Almost any gadget to some degree.
Mobile phone has a lot of features for sure, you can have anything from cameras to navigation, flashlight, MP3 player etc but none of those features can really match to a purpose built device.
Mobile phones get especially crippled when you're days out without a chance to charge.
- Mobile phones get especially crippled when you’re days out without a chance to charge.
  For some reason, US options for large-battery smartphones are limited, but there are a number of manufacturers in China that make very-large-battery smartphones. These are sometimes described as "ruggedized" and also have a large, durable case. There's a class of "ruggedized" laptops, like the Toughbook, that fill a similar role for laptops (though those are pretty pricey).
  https://www.amazon.com/DOOGEE-MAX-Smartphone-22000mAh-Unlocked/dp/B0BRQ3KKQK
  https://chinagadgetsreviews.com/oukitel-wp100-titan-rugged-smartphone-with-built-in-projector.html
  These have batteries maybe four or more times the capacity of a typical smartphone.
  It's also possible to carry a USB powerstation. That's a little obnoxious for day-to-day carry, but if you're going to be away from electricity for days on end, you're probably going to be carrying some kind of gear anyway, and there aren't any limits on how much capacity you haul that way.
  
  Sidenote: Last time I tried a Doogee phone there was a Spyware baked into the rom... I can't trust them now.

Professional work tools come to mind. Laser measures, camera gear, flashlights, 3D scanners, calculators, synthesisers, etc. Sure, there are apps that offer the same functions, but they usually lack the precision and reliability expected from professional tools. There are also some great gaming devices (such as the Analogue Pocket) that probably offer a better experience over gaming on a smartphone.

A steam deck (OLED if you have the extra money). Best purchase I've made in freaking ages. It's the most used device I have in my house. Worth every single penny.
- My poor steam deck has been following me everywhere I go since release. Still holding strong that guy.

Stun guns
- Actual guns

Best way to calm down would be to look into minimalism.

If you're looking for an outlet, why not project shop with the aim of making something?
This gives you the opportunity geek out on the gadgets you'll need to pull off whatever you want to make. More importantly, the journey will continue post purchase as chase the thing you want to make.
You can make both digital and physical stuff. With things like CAD, Arduino/Raspberry PI, and IoT you can also blend the two pretty easily.
A very low key example might be a small garden. I've put a bit of time/effort into my seed stating setup, including designing and printing parts for my lighting rig. It seems like the setup iterates a bit every year. In addition, every year I spend a decent amount of time thinking about what I want to grow this year and then diving seed catalogues to find some new-to-me verity of something I've grown before.
You can also design from-scratch speakers and go as far down that rabbit hole as you want to - buy vs build (kit) vs design the amplifier, ditto for the actual speaker, etc.
/a person who likes making things
- I would like to subscribe to your newsletter
  
  Haha, the one where I make a bunch of things and fail numerous times along the way or the one where I keep a running list of "this would be a neat thing to try at some point in the future"?
- Good suggestion! Unfortunately I have a Mountain of Shame of unbuilt and unpainted Warhammer models. I need to process those first before picking up another hobby I'll neglect.

I carry a spare usb stick and some low-capacity microsd cards, because sometimes its just easier to hand someone a file the old fashioned way.
Sometimes I do play games on my phone, but whenever possible I use a usb or bluetooth gamepad, because touchscreens aren't supplanting buttons any time soon.
And of course the Steam Deck is my favorite gizmo, not just because it can run every PC and emulator game, but also because it doesn't have any bullshit preventing me from installing mods. If phone modding was easy and accessible i'd be willing to spend more on a phone.

Books.
The kindle app might be convenient but it's shit compared to an actual book.
- Lord of the Rings
  Just bought the hard cover copy a couple of days ago
  Yeah physical kicks ass
  
  I inherited my mum’s first edition copies. She worked in publishing and had some great stories. She met Tolkien and Ian Fleming through her job.
  So, no, kindle, you cannot compete with that.
- Books are my fondest indulgence as I age. I'm an absolute Aztec history dork and a screen doesn't do any Mesoamerican codex justice.
  I buy more odd art books than I should.
  
  Do you have any recommendations ?

Vicegrips. Wirestrippers. A light screwdriver with common bits carried on its handle like a Sidewinder. Rake lockpick. SDR. Elevator key. Punch. File. Multimeter. Multitool with good pliers. Crank radio. Survival guide. Poncho. Silver exposure blanket. Fire starters. Multihammer thing. MREs. Good flashlight. Beater laptop like an old x200. Serial console adapter. Flares. Camping stove. Throw it all in a bugout bag after you learn how to use them.

Not electronic, but definitely a (set of) gadgets: a compact set of tools. Specifically, I carry a Wera Tool Check, but most any multi-tool with bits and adapters will do, e.g. the old Gerber Diesel with the bit set and carrier.
Regarding useful and reliable, it's Wera, so high quality, and I've saved so much bacon (including my own) with this kit.

My hands.

smartwatch
e-reader
But from your description maybe you need a gadget related hobby. How about home automation? It’s not just multiple gadgets but having fun with what they can do together. You can do anything from dip your toes in to going all out

I’ve been very stressed lately and have been doing some window shopping to calm down
Not to minimize your distress but surely there are less wasteful ways of letting off steam than buying a gadget that you didn't know you needed.
- Window shopping means I'm not buying anything.
  
  Yes I know but it seems odd to ask the question if you don't in fact want anything.
- Life is short and it's also a balance. It's ok to buy yourself something fun from time to time. :) The key to anything is moderation.

Oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and spectrometers.

Scissors

Security cameras. Smart sensors. Basically anything you can make based on a $2 ESP32.

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