Do THIS with CHEAP BUDGET Tech

Tech is expensive and really with the way the world is going all reorganize how we spend a little bit do we really want expensive but really really cool Tech of course do we need expensive pieces of tech no of course not not really sometimes the coolest way to use Tech doesn't just sit at the high end but instead it's all the cool things that we can accomplish with what we have or with a small budget so for this video I'm going to look back at all the tech that I use on a daily basis and see if there was a way to accomplish everything I wanted without spending how much I did just like how I've been foregoing haircuts was it all worth penny pinching like this let's find out let's split the video really into two parts trying to repurpose old Tech laying around the house and budget Tech that's actually pretty good that can do many of the jobs of more expensive products I have these Sonos speakers sprinkled all throughout the house honestly they're really nice you can use the two major smart home assistants on them they sound good and can be used together for multi-room in-sync music listening it's great for get-togethers when you want music to play through throughout the entire house but they can get pricey really quickly but do you know what else can do all of that without you having to put down a down payment just for music the smart home assistance you've got from your local Best Buy during Black Friday these are fantastic the Amazon Echoes and Google nests of the world are dirt cheap and can be used as voice assistance Bluetooth speakers used in Stereo and as whole home audio systems with NSYNC audio will they sound as good as a Sono system that's more expensive and has more of a focus on music no but as long as they don't sound like how 144p YouTube looks it'll be okay and your wallet will thank you for it before I really got into the Sonos ecosystem of products we had Google nests basically all throughout the house and while they didn't sound as good as the Sonos we have now they definitely served us well and I'd highly recommend it as a more budget-friendly alternative my computer starts to show its age where it always seems to be bogged down what do you do with it you might be thinking it's time to get rid of it and get a new one but besides being your best friend the last few years they actually have things inside that you could potentially Salvage and still use it's a good idea to look up your computer's model number and find out how to remove the hard drive or SSD once those are removed you can buy a hard drive or SSD enclosure to put them in now you have an external drive that you could use to store some files use as a game drive or for backing up your stuff or if you have a PC Tower you can just slap the hard drive right into it just don't forget to grab all your stuff off the hard drive and format the hard drive before you use it but why stop just there you can then do the most popular old computer tech tip there is if your old computer was just feeling slow and had a hard drive in it you can purchase an SSD and install in the system and this will honestly make it feel like a completely different machine ssds Beyond being faster also have lower latency resulting in a much snappier feeling machine when really it's just the same machine with the same processing power as before you just remove the main bottleneck but if your computer is slow even with an SSD you can still repurpose that computer you can run a Plex server to keep all your digital media in one place you can run freenas to turn the PC into a Nas for your own personal cloud storage or you can even use it to run Docker containers for things like home assistant or home bridge if you want more control over your smart home your old computer could serve a new purpose as a more specialized machine instead of being your main general computing device but if you still want to use your old computer for General tasks or Computing you can install Chrome OS Flex which actually installs a lightweight version of Chrome OS on your computer turning it into a chrome machine of course each of these come with our own issues though if your machine is too old though it might not be able to effectively run as a Plex server Nas or for Docker containers and Chrome OS Flex while it's based on Chromebook OS can only be used for really basic Computing like web browsing emails and other in-browser tasks aging PCS make great single purpose systems as long as you're willing to Tinker with it and put in some time and it's actually something that I do too this old laptop in front of me that I have right here is actually doing all the audio recording and lights in this YouTube video right now and this old all-in-one is slowly being repurposed as a Plex server using an old machine to test all this stuff could really let you know if you actually need a better device to do these tasks and I highly recommend trying it before you spend the funds on a new machine to be your Nas Plex server home lab media ingestation web surfing machine whatever just be worried of the size power draw heat and noise that the old machine might make because those things might not make it worth to try and repair percent now if you have an old smartphone camera or GoPro laying around you can make use of them and turn them into a webcam camo or Epoch cam by Elgato are great options to freely use your phone as a webcam but a word of caution their free tiers will put a watermark on your video if you have an iPhone from 2018 or later you can use Apple's continuity camera functionality to use your iPhone as a webcam if you're planning to use a camera all you need is this cheap little dongle and check if the maker of your camera has software that would allow you to use it as a webcam since I use newer Sony cameras they all support being used as a webcam right out of the box without any dongles just a USBC cable and installing the proper apps from Sony's website and I know Canon GoPro and Nikon have similar software that does the exact same thing for their cameras but if the manufacturer does not support it then I would suggest looking up if your camera has a clean HDMI output this is a setting in your camera that allows an HDMI cable to be plugged into your camera and spit out an image to your computer that doesn't have all the different UI elements like what you see on your camera's display Elgato has a great list of cameras that are supported but instead of buying their expensive cam link dongles to use your camera this cheap dongle will do just fine also your phone or camera will be draining battery the entire time and will most likely need to be charged during use or else they can die while you're trying to explain to your boss why you need a raise to solve situations like this that's something dedicated webcams don't have to deal with since they're powered by your computer's USB port during the global situation happening in 2011 a lot of people started working from home or doing online school but now people have been making their way back to work at their place of employment or going back to school rather than handling all of these things from home that means there's a ton of chairs desks and monitors sitting around that are no longer being used and if you are in that situation you can repurpose your monitor into a nice budget TV grab your favorite Streaming Stick whether that be a Chromecast with Google TV a Roku fire stick or an Apple TV and plug it into the HDMI port of your Monitor and then if the monitor has speakers audio will play through the monitor or else you can plug in speakers into the monitor's audio jack if it has one or you can use your smart home speakers we talked about earlier or any Bluetooth speaker to connect to these streaming sticks for better audio only downside though is that unlike TVs the amount of inputs you can have is limited by your monitor's ports and most monitor speakers sound way worse than most TV speakers despite those already being bad but if you want to hear more about this topic I actually have a video I made a few years ago about the zigzag same topic if you bought some smart home Tech you've probably seen how messy it gets and how they're not integrating very well across your smart home maybe you have a device that only works but a different device that only works with Google and a different device that only works with apple home it's a huge pain and you might think you have to buy new devices so that it all works with all your other smart home stuff but instead you can run home assistant or home Bridge these are third-party smart home platforms that have Integrations for a bunch of different smart home devices so that you can consolidate of your Smart Home Tech under a single roof freeing you from the shackles of having to use multiple smart home ecosystems or buying new smart home devices for your smart home that works with everything it does require a little bit of tinkering and a little bit of techy know-how but it's not something that a quick YouTube tutorial can't help you get up and running in a few hours I highly recommend checking that out first and seeing if you can breathe new life into your smart home stuff before buying replacement if you're someone who records any kind of audio whether that be for music YouTube streaming podcasts whatever you know the importance of getting good audio it can make or break someone's enjoyment of your content and when your audio it can be really enticing to just go out and just buy a new mic to attempt to solve your problem without making sure the space you plan to record in is actually good for recording you should try making the space around where you record better first before you try to buy a new microphone what do most people do though they buy those phone panels which are a pain in the setup and take down or they go the budget route and use egg cartons but have you seen the price of eggs lately not in this economy you could even go high-end and purchase acoustic panels or DIY your own but if you're not comfortable with either or don't have a budget to purchase expensive panels you can do what I ended up doing decorating the room that's half a joke but there's a lot of Truth to that as well you can improve the audio you get from your mic by decorating the room you're in I know I know that sounds kind of weird but audio does better in spaces that don't reflect audio back at them which if you look at an empty room it's full of empty blank reflective walls that will bounce sound back at you causing Echo so instead you can add a large rug over hardwood floors or tile add curtains to your windows and fill out your space especially the corners and walls not only does this cut down on Echo but it also makes your space look better if you do it right and if that's still not enough you can use old clothes towels blankets stuffed animals and pillows around the space that you're recording to cut down on even more Echo that's actually what I'm doing right now I have this giant blanket up but I could really use a little something in the corner over here as well so far we've talked about tinkering the tech that we already have to make it better but now let's talk about some low end Tech some low end new tech that you can purchase that you can extract good value out of let's start with smart watches there's a lot of reasons people buy smart watches but the main ones are to keep track of their health and fitness phone notifications being able to pick up the phone from your watch if needed and respond to messages if those are the only things you use your smart watch for you can save a decent amount of money buying a lower end model instead of a higher end one apple sells three different Apple watch models the Apple watch SE the Apple Watch series 8 and the Apple watch Ultra each one has their own feature sets but if you narrow it down and focus on the sheer Necessities the features that most people use the SC has all of them it even has the same processor as the Apple watch Ultra which costs three times more than the SE so you can expect that the SC model to get updates and perform similarly to the ultra just missing some of the extra features and durability the same can be said about Samsung's Galaxy watch 5 lineup or Google's pixel and Fitbit lineup so if you're actively looking for a smart watch this is a very good category to be a bit stingy with your money on but of course if you have a specific use case that requires you have some of the different features the higher end models have then go for it but for most people the low end one is definitely good enough the main reason people use tablets is for streaming video playing games checking emails and doing some very basic Computing tasks and there are a ton of people that use that tablet as their primary Computing device and I'd fall into that camp too if I didn't edit videos and if that's the case really honestly for something you use a lot budget tablets don't make much sense they come with trade-offs many people would not be willing to live with like not so great screens slow uis bad speakers or operating systems that shows you ads unless you pay extra to get rid of them but in terms of budget tablets the Amazon Fire 10 really can't be beat it's a smooth experience for streaming and simple games but if you want to do anything beyond that the weak processor limits your gaming capabilities productivity and fire OS is nowhere near as robust as Android or iPad OS and the app ecosystem on fire OS is not as robust either The Sweet Spot in terms of value would have to be that rough 300 to 400 USD price bracket you can find good tablets on sale frequently around this price range like the iPad 9th or 10th Generation and Samsung Galaxy S6 Lite which are all competent tablets that give you a lot more flexibility in what you can do like tablet gaming drawing with pencil support taking notes and using your tablet for document and general web browsing another thing to think about is that iPads have pretty good resale values on the base model making it a compelling option if you just planned to use it for a few years and then sell it that does imply that you eventually plan to sell it to recoup your cost not that you'll use it to dust if you watched a lot of setup videos on YouTube you've probably seen a lot of standing desks and they're pretty cool you can adjust the height at will and switch between sitting and standing regardless of height and I am victim to this trend as well in my own desktop videos I have them pretty much everywhere I absolutely love them sanding desks are just so practical but if you try configuring one with the exact specs you want from the common retailers you'll realize that it can get really pricey really fast but it doesn't have to be that way take for example autonomous standing desks they have some nice options and sizes but they get expensive if you want a larger desk or non-laminate desk surface instead of buying a complete standing desk that ships to you in multiple packages anyway you could opt for this Vivo standing desk or they're standing desk frames without a top I've put together a ton of different sit stand desks and the Vivo consistently does well and is very budget friendly if you don't like their desktop options you can actually buy the standing desk legs alone and then purchase a desk surface from Ikea or you can finish your own wooden countertop from Lowe's or Home Depot and then drill your perfect sanding desk surface onto those standing desk legs it just requires that you be a bit handy with the drill and know a little bit of math to measure the dimensions of the desk surface so that you know how to slap on these legs if you go this round you could save some serious money and get a better and thicker desk surface too I've done this with basically every standing desk I've ever put together because I'm a sucker for that butcher block wooden desk surface look it just looks so good so I've talked about a bunch of things I've done so far and some of these can save you significant money but there's always a catch with this and it's the fact that while these tips do work some of them aren't easy to get up and running for non-tech Savvy people some require a bit of your own time in money and some solutions don't provide the level of refinement and ease of use as you'd expect from a product that was actually designed for these use cases in mind so what I'm trying to say is while these do work you have to think to yourself is the cost difference pitfalls and the time commitment worth it over spending a little more and getting something that works as intended right out of the box with no tinkering like if you're using your camera or phone as a webcam you might still want to use those items when you're not on video calls and it's a pain to constantly set up and take down maybe ripping out a hard drive from your old computer isn't worth it for tiny storage increases that require an enclosure and just ends up cluttering your house maybe your old PC is just in a bulky form factor in emits too much heat and noise when on to me my time is limited and I don't have enough free time to make everything a project so I have to be very particular about what I'm willing to take on and some of these are out of the question for me and I'd rather just save some time even at the cost of some money but everyone's appetite for a project is different and you might feel completely differently from me either way what I learned from this video is that just because you could repurpose old Tech doesn't necessarily mean that you should repurpose little Tech at the end of the day and I hate saying this it all depends on you and your own appetite anyway what do you personally think did you find any of these budget Tech tips helpful do you have any of your own that you'd like to share I'd be curious to read about it where do you draw the line between worth pursuing versus worth purchasing let me know in the comment section below if you enjoyed this video give it a thumbs up and well don't forget to subscribe I'll see you all next time bye

Channel: Jimmy Tries World

Views: 13,629

Keywords: Budget tech, budget tech tips, budget tech ideas, cheap tech, cheap tech tips, small budget tech, small budget tech ideas, budget ideas, save money on tech, cheap tech ideas, budget speakers, budget webcam, budget pc, budget mac, budget standing desk, budget mic, budget ipad, budget smart watch, budget smart home

Id: LG5MvS-IlIk

Length: 15min 48sec (948 seconds)

Published: Sun May 14 2023