Postmortal_Pop comments on aaa

[–] Postmortal_Pop@lemmy.world 1 point 10 months ago (2 children)

It did! Turns out on dissection that they used a braided steel cable to reinforce the cord. Had endless laughs about how over engineered that one was.

So that is the big shortfall to a lot of these toys, it's basically a planned obsolescence. That said, we've found through research that regular usage and charging practices as well as proper storage can lead to 5-8 year battery reliability. Unlike phones, all of these toys are simple circuits and reliably gentle on batteries.

On top of that, if you're a diy fan you could easily repair then yourself. After disassembly you can reseal the silicone with more body safe silicone that can be purchased in most adult stores in person or online listed under "clone-a-willy" or some variation of. This can also be used to specially modify toys or create them from scratch.

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[+] helen2345@lemmy.ml [S] 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

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[–] Postmortal_Pop@lemmy.world 1 point 10 months ago (1 child)

Don't run it to death, don't charge it while fully charged, avoid charging while you use it, store in places with regulated temperatures.

All the usual for Lithium ion batteries

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[+] helen2345@lemmy.ml [S] 2 points 10 months ago (1 child)

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[–] Postmortal_Pop@lemmy.world 1 point 10 months ago

So for starters, the chance of getting a used toy is basically nil unless you're specifically looking to buy that. It's literally more economical to throw them away.

As for the discount, that's what I like to call a black Friday deal. $30 today, $30 reduced from $120 tomorrow. They never sold it at that tag, they just say so because it makes people feel like they got a good price.

As for the price, you gotta remember the construction of these things. Two motors, 20cm of wire, and a Chinese bluetooth module, they cost maybe $1 to manufacture and wholesale prices are like $3 each for a lot of 500. Selling it at $30 is going to make bank and people will pay.

The price of toys has been pretty constant over the decades. I'm more of an engineer than an economist, but if I were to speculate I'd say they probably operated on a much tighter margin back in the day and that set the idealized price. Now that production is streamlined and online shopping means you don't have to run a physical store, the margin is huge but the ideal price hasn't changed because customers expect a dirt cheap product will be garbage.