lighters. fire on demand! for all of preindustrial human history these things would be worth more than gold
A full working computer, more powerful than what we used to go to the moon, and using less power than a light bulb.
It can take many forms, like smartphones, SBCs or older PCs/laptops.
I think the deauther watch is pretty cool if we’re thinking cyberpunk-esque
Raspberry Pis and other microcomputers can be had for pretty cheap, and they can be put to a surprising variety of tasks. You need to be a bit of a jack of all trades to fully embrace that DIY element, but I’d bet that showing off a project that you mostly built yourself would be seen as futuristic by most people.
The RPI400 is basically a full solution. You just need a display and a mouse, and you have a fully functional desktop computer. Not very powerful, but good enough for basic tasks like writing documents or browsing the web, coding etc.
Still this thing, 20 years on:
A smartphone
Anything with GPS capability
If you shop around you can find a Brother (B&W) laser printer for about $100.
Imagine this weird future: Printers that always just work no matter what type of computer you have or how long they’ve sat since you last used them. And the “ink” cartridges last forever. And you can buy 3rd party refills or even refill them yourself. Plus it’s completely reliant on microplastics to do its job, what’s more futuristic than that?
Even better, if you scour your local thrift stores you can occasionally find them for as little as $10 and all they typically need is a cleanup and a new toner cartridge.
I bought mine for $7 4 years ago and it’s still working on the toner cartridge that was in the printer when I bought it.
Admittedly, I only print about 40 or 50 pages a year but that’s a hell of a deal.
so wish I had bought my brother laser earlier.
I feel like that really depends on how you view futuristic.
I think things with colored e-ink displays, USB C chargeable AA batteries, handheld emulators, 2230 NVMe drives, and USB C power portable displays are really cool but I feel like their availability these days has made them lose a bit of their futuristic luster. They would have blown my mind when I was a kid.
More niche products like Meshtastic and ESP32 Marauder devices are things I view as futuristic (and can be found for under $100).
The thing about meshtastic is the walking distance range and limitation to text messages.
Though I don’t know if it is possible to integrate a LoRAWAN concentrator with a nice collinear J-pole antenna to mount on the top of your house to move to a double digit range where it could be useful as a neighborhood mesh with multiple channels. (With the added benefit of using lorawan devices like pet trackers and things).
Still Lora smart (but local) home agriculture, water collection, etc… Is a really cool technology for large properties.
Probably a cheap 3D printer
I’m actually blown away by how good of a 3D Printer you can get for ~$200 now. Huge improvement from just a few years ago.
I got an ender 3 pro for about $100 a couple years ago
I started off on an Ender 3 V2 a few years back. The AnkerMake M5C and Bambu A1 Mini are both down to $199 and can’t believe how much faster / more reliable they are for the price.
A bow drill fire starter.
…I suppose it depends on what you assume the future will be like…
Barring that, you can get some small vials of tritium gas for under that price.
£76.77
The pound isn’t the future since Brexit.
You can buy a cheap smartwatch that will monitor your pulse, give you a pulse oximeter reading, handle text messages and phone calls, take photos, and also within a reasonable margin of error check your blood sugar for about $35 on AliExpress.
And if you read the manual of even the latest fancy pancy samsung or apple ones, you’ll find that it’s health monitor is nothing more than a gimmick
A Voxellab Aquilla FDM printer. They’re regularly on sale for about $70. Maybe cheaper these days since they’re kind old now.
An R36s is like 40 bucks, and can emulate a LOT of old game consoles. I think that’s pretty neat
That’s a good example! I have a RG35XX, and definitely fun to see how far gaming tech has come.
