The old ways were much easier.

A good friend of mine, 84 years old, was hospitalized a couple of weeks ago during a heat spell (90s-100s degrees) and she lives in a mobile home. Drs suspected she got a heat stroke because of the hot weather and that she forgot to drink enough liquid.

She was released from the hospital and had to have someone drive her home. To avoid another heat stroke upon coming back to a super hot mobile home, I called her neighbor and ask that she came over (she had a key) to my friend's home to turn the AC on before my friend's arrival.

I could see the benefit of having the ability to turn on your AC or lights prior to coming home. In my friend's case, she was lucky she had a good neighbor that was available to help.

When my family leaves on vacations, I'd like to leave the lights and TV on so that the house looks occupied. Would be nice to be able to remotely control the lighting and the TV at random hours, and not at preset times that might look like they were turned on by a timer and not people.

Love the GPS on my phone. I don't pay for data so I'm not getting up to the minute traffic directions, but I've found it a very reliable way to navigate to places I'm unsure of. I do usually consult a map on line and sometimes use google's street view before I leave so that I have a good idea where I'm headed, but as a solo driver having my phone point out when a turn is coming up and when I've reached my destination is invaluable.

FreqFlyer, I think people are relying more on GPS verbally b/c they never learned how to read maps. Seriously. I've read about this problem on a backpacking forum.

When I've had to rely on private Uber or Lyft transit (can't remember which) I noticed that the drivers always had that annoying GPS verbal directional system on. I couldn't be comfortable driving with that disruption. I prefer classical music; it's more amenable to relaxation. Besides, I know how to read a map, and I've also found that the Uber and Lyft directions aren't the best; they don't know the logistics of time differences and heavier traffic during certain hours, or areas in which it's more likely that zoomers are showing off their hot rods or speeding.

Both of the trunkline highways in this area have vastly different driving patterns and characteristics, depending on the time of day. Some are perfect between the business traveling hours of early am to pm, but are clogged with tailgaters as standard office hours open and close.

(I'm also fortunate in that I'm so close to Canada that I can get a Canadian station, so I can listen to news in French, which compliments driving b/c I think better when I'm trying to understand a different language.)

graygrammie, gone are the days of plug and play TV's when you get a new TV set.

In fact, when I want to watch a TV show at 8:00pm, I need to start the TV at 7:58 pm so I don't miss the beginning because of all the hoops one must jump through to start the TV and to find the station.

I've been researching new tvs for a few weeks. Finally bit the bullet and ordered one today. Dh can't see our 20yo 32" and since watching tv is about all he does now, I figured making his last months as pleasant as possible was worth the investment (a year and half ago his life expectancy was a year and a half to two years).

Oh my goodness, there is no such thing as a simple "dumb" tv any more. All I need is for it to turn on and then go to football, golf, or news, whatever we say into the voice remote. (Ok, so I do like the voice remote technology.) But there is so much that this TV can do, and I didn't even pick out a fancy one. And I don't feel like learning it all, so I won't.

It will be my job to transfer the cable service from the old tv to the new one. Comcast assures me that all I need to do is follow the instructions in the article they linked to me. Yeah, I'll let you know how that turns out!

cwillie, I, too, don't understand why some would even want to control their appliances with the cellphone. Or lock/unlock the front door with a phone. Or turn on the lights inside the house using a phone, etc.

I have visions of 20 years from now, when the younger generation doesn't know how, when the cellphones go down for whatever reason, we will see people in front of their houses trying figure out how to unlock the front door, and inside trying to use the appliances or even turn on a light.

Sounds like an episode of the Twilight Zone.

Thx, techie. Once I move I am going to check them out. 😊

Most of the higher end Yamaha's in general have a good weighted action. I have the dgx670 model which is portable (sorta, for a piano) and less than $1000 before you start adding a few extras (like a stand). I love being able to record so I can listen critically to the playback and using headphones to play whenever I want without bothering others.

I just replaced my 20+ year old Kenmore dishwasher. It was awesome. The new one is fancier and, I notice, smaller in capacity though the outside dimensions are the same and, yes, more difficult to figure out. Same for my washer dryer set. The old one was top loading and had a much greater capacity and fewer options and I preferred it. I like appliances that have few, if any, extras but they are hard to find. My car has tons of options I shall never figure out but no steering wheel warmer. At 40 below a warmed steering wheel is important.

On the other hand, cell phones get fancier and fancier and I do appreciate some of the features and find that slowly I am using it more and more as a mini computer. I will can my landline when I move. I only get spam calls on it anyway. I love my small lightweight laptops, doing most of my banking online, being able to purchase the condo remotely, paperless billing and so on. So for me it is a mixed bag.

technie - you found an electronic piano that has the same touch as a high quality grand piano!!! Wow!!! Please tell me the make and model. Touch is so important. I haven't been successful in finding one I like.

lealonnie1, I agree with you about the newer cars. I have no reason to drive an extension of my family room, nor drive a phone booth. I just need something that gets me from point A to point B comfortably without any distractions.

My 26 year old Jeep has no GPS, but I can easily read a map. My sig-other had set up his smartphone for GPS but he found I am able to give him easier to follow directions by using landmarks. I use to joke that if our GPS is missing, that means I have been kidnapped.

One of our two 1996 Jeeps looks like it drove through a briar path, so no worry abut door dings, and it has a large rust spot on the front of the roof.... hey, easy to locate in a parking lot.

It truly puzzles me that so many people who are adamantly anti big government are so cavalier about allowing private corporations to track their every thought and move for the sake of at most a few minutes of convenience. Yes, you can make all these "smart" appliances and phones more secure but we all know most don't know how or bother to try to find out. Several years ago our electricity provider had a big promotion offering reduced rates for smart thermostats - despite it being clearly part of the plan apparently people were still blindsided when the utility changed their thermostat settings during peak demand.

It isn't we who have to catch up. It's the machines that need to do better. And I think they are - it's amazing how far Siri and Google and Alexa have come in terms of vocabulary, grammar and idiom, the rate of progress is so quick that it's really noticeable. I almost miss the heated arguments we used to have about who exactly we were calling on my drive back to town.

I predict that before long you will be able to say "put my black jeans on a cold wash" and your washing machine will reply "tissue detected. Do you want me to pause the program?"

I like some tech, but a lot of it is a trial. I think I still own a very old microwave that just has a dial for the timer. My mother and MIL used it easily – put the dish in, turn the dial, press start! I may need it myself eventually. My farm car beeps at me if I don’t put my seat belt on, on our own farm tracks. Grrr! Apparently the top of the range models allow you to turn off the beeps – I doubt if the CEO appreciates them.

My worst thing is the mobile phone. On the farm in a deep valley, we had no mobile reception at all, so I missed 20 years - all the time when everyone else was learning. My hi-tech DH keeps giving me new phones (I’ve now had 4) because I might get on better with them, so I start all over again. I just hate them! We now can’t get a landline, so I’m stuffed! Just don’t ‘message’ me!

GA, I must confess I love my refrigerators with water filters and dispensers. I have two fridges: one for the kitchen with internal ice maker and water dispenser and one for the adjacent laundry room that has the water and ice through the door. The water and ice through the door is wonderful when I have 6+ little kids here (and sometimes 8+ adults too). My grandma kept a jar of water in the fridge but with the arthritis in my hands now I appreciate being able to get a cold glass of water without needing to lift an entire half gallon.

My oven has lots of options I do not use, as does the microwave. Maybe its because when I learned to cook bake and broil were the only options, those are the ones I use today. I use the self clean about once a year because I've learned to use baking sheets and aluminum foil to avoid most spills.

I also love all the options on my washer, although I generally use the one that I programmed in my selections for water temperatures and an extra rinse.

BUT, I am a techie so maybe my love of technology drives my love of SOME modern appliance features. Afterall I'm still the one the younger generations ask how to do stuff with their computers and phones and game systems. I even have an electronic piano that has the same touch as a high quality grand piano... and two old fashioned pianos and an even older pump organ. I don't play the pump organ very well but it was being "thrown out" (so I got it for free), has a beautiful cabinet, was a good fix-it-up project, and reminds me a lot of my great-aunt who played one. I'm probably going to donate it to a local museum in the near future because its for sure no one else wants it!

My house is split personality - 100+ year old furniture sitting beside bookcases of books and the latest TV and game systems guarded by a techie security system. The very old and the newest.

Sonetime newer is not new enough. I drive a 2017 Honda CRV. My mother's recently changed facilities was not built then ,but shortly after. My GPS cannot find it. Fortunately I have enough mind to retain the trip with all its turns on roundabouts. As this is a larger but most pleasant place I then have to remember which turns down hallways to choose. I consider it an effort with mental challenges. This may sound lame but I think I have finally got it down. I often miss the olden days! Especially the visiting donut truck back in the 1960's in CA where one could climb in the truck and chose from trays of freshly baked donuts.

GA, living in the desert means we use a LOT of ice. I could not keep up with our consumption without an ice maker. Believe me, I tried.

I use a Berkey water purification system but, my fridge has a filter for the water and ice, which is great because we don't have very tasty water and you taste the ice. The water isn't cold, except the first tiny bit, that's what the ice maker is for. :-)

Oh my, I would love an actual pickle jar to make pickles. You had some awesome treasures from your parents.

I keep ice trays and use them when I get lots of lemons, I juice them, freeze them and then I can pull out a fresh squeeze of lemon or easily make lemonade. They are also the perfect size for freezing eggs. They were hard to find when I purchased them years ago.

I've never understood the "need" or benefit of a frig with pipes connected to water sources, and the means to get cold water directly from a "faucet" in the exterior of the frig. A friend had one, and she just got water from the frig instead of the faucet. Is refrigerator water better than faucet water? If there's an issue with the later, a filter can always be added.

I just put a pitcher of water in the frig to keep it cold.

But a faucet refrigerator requires connections, extra pipes, and what does it really provide?

Same with ice cubes; my sister's freezer had an automatic ice maker which continued to pour out cubes even though they weren't used - how many ice cubes does one person need?

Interesting event: when I hired a Veteran owned business to help clean out Mom's shed then dismantle it, we found a lot of things that the younger folks didn't recognize: an ice cube tray was one, a special container for making pickles was another.

I can't imagine anyone who lived through the Great Depression, WWII, and who grew much of their own food not knowing what a pickle barrel is, but the youngsters who didn't were completely unfamiliar with the cube tray and pickle barrel.

The mangle in their basement was also something that was unrecognizable by younger folks. I discovered a toboggan too,

I often wonder if in 20 - 30 +/- years from now people will wonder what cell phones were.

Speed Queen is the best washer to get. No electronics, purely mechanical, and they don't break down. It's what they use in laundromats. LG and Samsung are supposedly electronic nightmares that break down constantly.

I had to laugh at the fears of causing an appliance to blow up. My mother refused to use a microwave because she was sure it'd "crash," as she put it. Forget computers -- there was no way she'd have gone there.

We just bought a house and will be redoing the kitchen from the studs up. I've been poking around looking at appliances since this is the first time I get to have what I want. I couldn't believe some of the refrigerators these days; four or five different doors or drawers just to access the inside, more in the body of the unit, and some will make "craft ice," -- those giant ice balls for cocktails. Oh, please. 🙄

I eyeball-measured every one of the refrigerators based on whether it looks like I can get a turkey in it at Thanksgiving. The rest is gravy.

We’ve been in our new house for 7 years now. Almost all of the appliances have had to be replaced.

I replaced the washer with a knobs and agitator model. I LOVE it. No more moldy front loader seal. I can stop it and add the one thing I forgot, and even put the top up, for extra long soaking. Aaaaahhhh!

In the old days when you bought top of the line products you could count on them for decades, now everything is made to be disposable. I keep having my 35 year old washing machine fixed, I don't need to schedule when to wash my clothes on my phone, especially when I have to add extra water so the clothes are covered.

Fawnby, in the old days you didn't need a support group in your pocket, people actually communicated and helped one another, neighbors were friends and offered support to one another. People weren't kept alive decades after their expiration date.

I think there could be a better balance with quality, user friendly products and integrated technology.

I don't think anyone here is advocating a return to 1950, but sometimes added beneficial features seem to have very little real life benefits.

With the old ways, when we were caregivers, we didn’t have a support group in our pocket. With the old ways, we took grandpa to the hospital and there was no rehab, so he lay in a bed there until he died. With the old ways, we couldn’t stay in touch with our LO’s medical team online or look up his medical records online. With the old ways - get the picture? Stop clinging to outdated thoughts and learn to use the devices that are here to help us.

Notgood, the 'blowing something up' comment reminds me of my mom. Haha
Always afraid of messing her computer up

I don't understand why you'd even want to control your appliances with your phone, but then I don't have mine glued to my side all the time. (I don't get that either).

We just bought a new house this year and replaced all the old appliances. My daughter was here last weekend and she noticed that I wasn't using some feature on my stove. (I truly didn't even know this feature was there!) and she was kind of teasing me about not being in the 21st century and I said "Well, I just made you BREAKFAST and it's fine, so what's the problem?" We just laughed about it, but going from my older appliances to 7 new ones--all "smart appliances" that I can evidently control from my phone...it's been a little daunting.

My fave are the stackable w/d system that look like a spaceship. I've the thing that John Glen orbited the earth in back in the early 60's, and my w/d look MUCH more substantial!!

Am I the only one who is afraid to push all of those extra buttons and toggles on their gadgets and appliances? I have this vision of pressing a button and **poof** the gadget explodes, a la Mission Impossible (the TV series... you know, "this message will self destruct in 30 seconds...).

I'm sure my appliances could do wondrous things if only I were brave enough to try all those settings- or bright enough to comprehend the owner's manual.

I agree 100%! Take my car, for instance. I still drive my 2002 Nissan Pathfinder which has no gadgets in it, and no electronics either. My DH drives a 2017 Nissan Rogue with an electronic panel that is always having an issue! Just the GPS, for instance, needs to be reprogrammed when we go to a new state, and then he can't remember how to program BACK to Denver when we get home. It's not shown in the Owner's Manual so he has to call Nissan, and that's just one small example of the confusion surrounding newer gadgetry that's out these days. I hate it! I'm sticking with my old car with no new gadgets on it until it dies of old age, LOL!

Same thing with washing machines and microwaves. I had to buy my 3rd microwave and chose one with the least amount of bells & whistles on it. When my washer goes, I'll do the same. I had good luck with my Sears heavy duty model that has the same simple cycles as yours does!

Touch pad screens are difficult for anyone with vision difficulties, I had to figure out a way to mark my mom's microwave with puffy fabric paint 20 years ago.
And sis was telling me her MIL's TV was screwed up again, I've never understood why those systems need multiple remotes and why those remotes have to have dozens of buttons that are (almost) never needed.