Worst tech products of 2018

While 2018 has seen some amazing new tech products, and groundbreaking technological innovations, it’s also had its share of weird, bad, and redundant tech products.

Some of them are so strange that nobody in their right mind would buy them; others offer solutions to issues that nobody considered issues in the first place. Some just plain don’t work as they’re supposed to.

Here’s our roundup of the 2018’s most woeful tech offerings. Consider buying them at your own peril.

Worst tech products of 2018

Travelmate

Is the worst part of a holiday the fact you have to carry your luggage with you? The creators of Travelmate, a robotic suitcase that can drive along beside you, think so.

Yet this means your suitcase, once a reliable receptacle of fabric or fibreglass, now falls victim to the problems all other tech has. It needs to be recharged frequently, it’s pretty heavy compared to an average suitcase, and it’s going to be an annoying trip hazard for anyone around you. Try explaining it to airport security too.

PlayStation Classic

We were so on board with the idea of the PlayStation Classic. It’s a mini-console in the spirit of the SNES Nintendo Classic Mini that lets you play some of the best games of the ancient console.

Alarm bells started ringing, however, when the line-up of games was announced. While there are some classics like Rayman and Final Fantasy VII, there are also many curious absences (particularly among games that are currently being remastered, such as Spyro). As a result people have been driven to hack the console to install more games — or just buy an old PlayStation console.

Window 10 update

The latest update to Windows 10 almost missed this list by not even being a released product, with the amount of times it was released and then pulled.

It was first released in October but had many problems, including deleting users’ files, and so was pulled until November. Then when fixes were issued, Microsoft found themselves playing a digital version of whack-a-mole with all the new issues and bugs that kept popping up. At this point, it’s nearly had as many patches and fixes as Fallout 76.

Healbe GoBe 2

The Healbe GoBe 2’s issues start with the title — is it “heal be go be”? What does that even mean?

Of all the products we reviewed in 2018, the Healbe GoBe 2 received our worst score. It’s a fitness wearable that claims to automatically measure the calories you consume. Yet not only is its underlying science incredibly dubious, and the actual measurements wildly inaccurate, it’s just awkward to wear and the battery life is surprisingly low for such a product. Maybe stick to your FitBit.

Fisher-Price Sproutling

Wearables don’t only come in adult varieties — the Fisher Price Sproutling is a baby monitor that you strap straight to your tot, like some kind of prisoner ankle monitor for infants.

It comes with an app that is buggy and crashes easily, sends notifications on the status of a child that are often inaccurate, and one review even suggested out it can give a child a rash. It also doesn’t fulfil some of the main functions of a baby monitor, like two-way audio communication. If you want to spy on your baby, it’d be easier just to make them a Facebook account.