With the advancement of technology, some utterly bizarre products have hit the shelves over the past couple of decades. From an Android-powered oven and selfie toaster to Amazon Dash and the KFConsole. Some of these products were strange, some didn’t make sense, some were awful, and others made you go “Huh?” Here are 16 products we found strange … Do you remember any?
1 Selfie Toaster
Get your face on some bread
The Selfie Toaster does precisely what the name implies. Created by Burnt, you could send in a picture and receive a toaster and template so every slice of bread would have the person’s face seared onto it. It’s as ridiculous as it sounds, but unfortunately, the owner announced on the website that they are no longer in the selfie toast-burning business.
2 Neptune Pine
Strap this gargantuan watch to your wrist
Is it a phone? No! Is it a watch? No! It’s a Neptune Pine! This thing makes all other smartwatches – even the larger wearables – look miniscule. The huge 320 x 240 2.4-inch touchscreen will feel like you’re roleplaying as a Vault dweller with a Pip-Boy from Fallout. It’s essentially a small phone strapped to your wrist, which is a neat idea to try and combine both form factors … but its execution fell short.
3 Solowheel
You thought hoverboards were bad?
Who needs two wheels when you can have one? That’s the Solowheel, a powered unicycle-type vehicle that gets you from A to B with minimal fuss unless attempting to remain stationary. Reviews praised the ride quality and impressive range, but it’s such a bizarre device. The onboard gyroscope helps you stay upright, though you must learn how the thing works before attempting to show off downtown.
4 ARING Pro
Dumb product meets dumb marketing
With the influx of technology start-ups, we’re almost inundated with products that wouldn’t work in the real world. The ARING Pro is one such product. This wearable ring was on Indiegogo but only managed to secure 3% of its goal. The idea was to connect the ring to your smartphone and issue voice commands. Yeah, it would never work but the marketing video was just as strange.
5 Quad SLI
Who needed this?
Graphics cards have come a long way. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 is the most powerful GPU available right now and it’s a monster, capable of handling some games at an 8K resolution. Back in the day, GPUs weren’t as powerful as such, AMD and Nvidia allowed for more than one GPU to be connected using a bridge. It was expensive and drew impressive amounts of power, but only managed a medium boost to in-game performance.
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6 Puls Smartwatch
I got a feeling … this sucked
Want to type up replies to all your friends using a full-size QWERTY keyboard on a tiny watch screen? No, you don’t, but music artist Will.i.am believed the world did. He was helping shape the Puls smartwatch and it was terrible. The product had some strange features too, including the ability to read your mood through voice. Various technology outlets got their hands on early samples and the previews were anything but favorable. No wonder it never came to be.
7 Any ultra-mobile PC
A super-compact Windows system
The ultra-mobile personal computer (UMPC) was a unique computing device with a stylus or touchscreen and could come with a keyboard. Before tablets were made cool by Apple, this was as good as it got with Windows-powered portable computing outside of a laptop. It wasn’t quite a phone, but it was much smaller than a notebook. They weren’t great nor missed when tablets took over, but the Sony Vaio UX was cool. Looking back, Valve’s Steam Deck is vastly superior to the UMPCs of old.
8 Acer Predator 21 X
An incredible gaming laptop for $9,000
Acer’s Predator 21 X was ridiculous. It was heavy, bulky, expensive, and amazing. In 2017, it was powerful enough to take on many gaming desktop rigs with an Intel Core i7 overclocked to 4.1 GHz, two SLI-linked Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 GPUs, and 64 GB of DDR4 RAM. The 21-inch screen was huge! Five fans are required to keep the gaming laptop from melting and five storage drives can be installed for maximum capacity. You won’t play the Acer PRedator 21 X on your lap, nor would you take it on a business trip.
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9 Amazon Dash
Because using your phone was difficult
Amazon Dash was such a strange product with the sole purpose of making it convenient for you to order other products. These included pet food, toilet rolls, printer paper, and other easily replenishable and consumable goods. The issue with these small buttons is that they only ordered a specific product from one brand and it would be at the set prices. It also made you incredibly lazy … and eventually replaced by the Amazon smartphone app (and Alexa).
10 KFConsole
Gravy on tap
KFC cooked up a fuss with its video game console announcement. Originally deciphered as some form of corporate humor, KFC eventually detailed a partnership with Cooler Master in 2020. The console is designed to resemble a KFC Bargain Bucket with a heated chamber to keep food warm using generated heat. If it is released, the console is said to be powered by Intel NUC and Nvidia graphics from Asus.
11 RED Hydrogen One
If Nintendo turned the 3DS into a phone
RED’s first smartphone, the Hydrogen One wasn’t good. Most of the hardware was brilliant. It had a decent processor, more than enough RAM, an exceptionally good camera setup, and the device attempted to do something different. What made it flop was the price tag, somewhat blurry and inconsistent 3D screen, and lack of any content to utilize the tech. It was generally an underwhelming experience and was a shock given this was RED, the esteemed camera brand, but there we have it.
12 YotaPhone
More screens than you’ll know what to do with
Yet another phone is on our list because of the two different displays in question. Before foldable became cool again (for the wrong reasons, in my humble opinion), the YotaPhone had a primary OLED panel for the phone and a secondary full-size e-ink display. This created a unique smartphone that became an Amazon Kindle book reader. It’s a neat concept and one that breathed some fresh air into the stale smartphone market, though the third generation was originally limited to China.
13 Razer’s Project Christine
A concept PC even a child could maintain
Source: Razer
Project Christine was a concept desktop PC from Razer that rocked a unique modular design for cable-less customization. Think of it as giant Lego pieces in place of PC components. Instead of messing around with cables and sensitive hardware, parts of Project Christine could be removed or installed with a few steps. An LED touchscreen would have been used for controls, Quad-SLI capable, and active liquid cooling within the self-contained modules. It’s a shame it never saw the light of day.
14 Dacor’s Android-powered oven
I have no idea
The Dacor DYRP36D was a range with a gas cooktop and electric oven. This sounds fairly standard until you get to the section between the two parts. Here is where you’ll find the 7-inch Android tablet, which controls everything. We’ve had appliances such as washing machines with NFC support for a mobile app, but it’s a different ball game to power an entire range with an Android tablet. Dacor released a few more ovens with Android tablets after this beast.
15 Furbs
These things are terrifying
I never saw the appeal of the creepy cute Furby robots. If you’ve never searched through some of the horror stories shared by owners of one of these devilish things, it’s a wild ride. One Reddit user turned on a 20-year-old Furby and the results speak for themselves. Yeah, I’m good.