What gadgets do you regret buying?

From spiralizers to VR headsets – our Saga poll uncovers the knick-knacks you wish you’d never splashed out on.

Spiralizer on the kitchen table . Zucchini spaghetti making

By Rachel Carlyle | Published - 2 Feb 2026

In my kitchen, there’s a cupboard whose only useful inhabitant is the stopcock. That aside, it’s an elephants’ graveyard of long-forgotten gadgets: a pasta maker (used three times), an ice-cream maker (used once), a VR headset (still in its box), plus a remote-control helicopter that traumatised the cat on its first and only outing.

I’m not alone in having what consumer experts call “buyer’s regret”: a Saga colleague uses his bread maker as a cookbook shelf, for example.

In our survey of 1,459 customers, 65% said they had experienced “gadget regret” – a third have felt it in the past year. Half said they’d brought it on themselves by buying the said item; 16% were given it as a gift.

The top regretted item was the spiralizer – remember those? They turn vegetables into spaghetti-like strands while also begging the question: why would anyone bother? Clearly, not many of you have: 62% of Saga customers regretted owning theirs.

Close behind, perhaps more surprisingly, was the digital picture frame, regretted by 52% of its owners. In third place was the pasta maker (45%), followed by the ice-cream maker (42%), VR headsets (35%), bread maker (31%), internet-connected exercise equipment (31%) and the robot vacuum (29%).

“We’ve all been there – the promise of a shiny new purchase, and you get home just to be disappointed when it doesn’t quite deliver,” says Lisa Barber, tech expert at consumer organisation Which?. But what makes one new gadget a waste of space and another indispensable (only 10% of Saga customers regretted buying an air fryer)?

An older woman sits on the sofa operating a black robot vacuum cleaner with a remote control — Getty

“While some products – robot vacuums, for example – are great in theory, they are not a magic bullet,” Barber explains. “So, anyone thinking they can ditch the non-robot model may feel a twinge of disappointment when they realise that robot vacs continue to struggle with corners in our tests.”

Many gadgets that we regret can also only do one thing. And did we really need that thing done anyway? Our respondents agreed. Common regret reasons were not using the device as much as expected (58%), realising it wasn’t needed (50%), it not working as expected (42%) and difficulty in setting it up/using it (27%).

Saga customers tend to be fairly cautious about new tech. Half (49%) are quite doubtful and take a lot to commit; 9% never buy any new gadgets; and 36% usually wait for people they know to buy it first. Only 6% are desperate to get their hands on the latest “must-have”.

I’m not alone with my cupboard of regrets: 46% keep unwanted gadgets – usually for years. Only 15% sell them, 14% throw them away and 19% pass them on after a year or two.

Consumer expert Dr Benedetta Crisafulli at Birkbeck Business School, University of London, explains: “We may experience regret today but this can turn over time into sadness about getting rid of the item, maybe even helplessness because you don’t know what to do with it. Perhaps as time passes, we feel we will be incurring another financial loss in giving it away for free, so the easiest shortcut is to simply leave it there.”

So, what will be the spiralizer of tomorrow? Barber believes it’s smart appliances: “I don’t understand why so many manufacturers are building smart capabilities into things like washing machines – I just can’t see why I’d want to control my machine from my phone.”

That’s one regretted purchase that won’t fit in my elephants’ graveyard cupboard.

(Hero image credit: Getty)

Written by: Rachel Carlyle

Over a career spanning 30 years and counting, Rachel Carlyle has written features on news, health, family, education - and everything in between - for national newspapers and magazines. She’s Saga Magazine’s contributing editor and has also ghostwritten two bestselling health and lifestyle books for Penguin.

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