← All collections
Technology Ahead of Its Time
Famous failures bought, unboxed and actually used — and in most cases the technology worked fine. What killed them was price, application, or a world that had no use for them yet. Mostly collector hunting rather than shopping.
- SPOT Watch
SPOT Watch
“This is an Apple Watch. The first generation came out in 2015 and it's been a huge success. And this is a Microsoft SPOT Watch. It debuted 11 years earlier and was a huge failure.”
Glass Explorer Edition
“The quality of the screen is really good. It is high resolution. It feels like a 1985 idea of future technology.”
Ray-Ban Meta Glasses
“I hate these. There's no reason for these to exist and all they're doing is just recording everybody. These only exist to be like a sneaky little camera.”
ViaVoice
“I think this is really good. I think it might have just been ahead of its time. I just don't think there's enough people in the world who need to do this.”
Picturephone (Mod II)
“It wasn't necessarily the technology, it was just the cost and the fact that society didn't really feel like they had a need for it.”
Newton MessagePad
“Dude, if you paid $6,000 for this, you'd be pissed. Where's the games, dude?”
- Pilot
Pilot
“One of the reasons it failed was its size. The Palm Pilot was a little bit smaller, and so you could actually put it in your pocket.”
EV1
“I love this. This is peak tech to me — you don't got to go through a bunch of screens. If this was operational, would you drive it around? 100%. I'd put it on BBS RSs.”