That moment when technology just... works! (1 Viewer)

[Jason Charlton]

In a world where things so often seem to go wrong, be annoying, or otherwise make your daily existence more challenging than it has a right to be, there are those not-so-common moments when the stars align, the sun comes out, the seas part and the damn thing just... works!

I thought it might be nice to start a thread where we can share and read of successes and good experiences with new "stuff". Those times when your fears and doubts were replaced with exuberance and satisfaction.

I'll go first - just this past week I replaced my old and tired Onkyo 604 receiver with a new Denon 910. I had been an Onkyo user my entire HT life and always heard that Denon's were a bigger challenge to set up and/or their manuals and onscreen menus were troublesome to read/navigate/understand.

Long story short - installing the Denon and setting up was as easy and foolproof as this stuff can possibly get. The onscreen setup menus take you through step by step. There was no confusion, no back and forth, it just worked - first time.

Even connecting to my home Wifi was a breeze since I have an iPad and the first option for setting up the Denon was "Do you have an iOS device that uses Wifi from which the Denon can hijack all the settings?" (I'm paraphrasing, of course).

It was a welcome breath of fresh air.

I have a new Harmony Elite coming in the mail in the next couple of days. I'm hopeful that my experience with that will be as pleasant as this one was.

 

[atfree]

Mine would be installing Powerline Adapters for my internet late last year. I'd read a lot about these and we had some trouble with getting consistent wifi to a 2nd floor corner bedroom as well as some instability streaming on our main TV. So, I bought a pair of TP Link powerline adapters on sale at Amazon (paid $50 for the pair).

They arrived, I plugged the first one in and connected it to my router via Cat5, hit the "sync" button, and waited for the solid lights showing a connection. Then, took the 2nd one to the corner bedroom upstairs, plugged it into the wall and connected the computer there via Cat5, hit the "sync" button and Voila!, I had a steady 45 meg connection. This is my son's room and he plays online games on his desktop and was constantly complaining about drop-outs and lag on the wifi. Now, no complaints.

It worked so well, and so easily, when I found a pair of Linksys adapters on Ebay for $25, I couldn't resist. I bought them, hooked up the main TV, Blu-ray player (used for streaming Netflix and Amazon Video), and Directv box to it (using a ethernet switch), hit the sync button and Voila again, solid connection at 45 meg. I had already researched that mixing and matching brands didn't impact performance.

I'd read a lot of good things about these but also that you could have problems with outlets being on different circuits, etc, so I was a little wary. But it was so easy and pain-free, I was amazed. Combined, it probably took 15 min to get 4 Powerline Adapters up and running.

 

[DaveF]

Technology is stuff that doesn't work. Everything else is furniture.

That's the dream, for everything to just blend in with the couches and coffee tables