CHOICE has a long history of helping consumers avoid wasting money. Whether it's through our reviews that help shoppers find the best appliances or our Shonky awards that warn consumers about problematic products and services, we help Australians make better choices every day.
Our advocacy work also helps strengthen regulations and makes markets better for everyone.
But despite our decades of work, our many hours of lab testing and our tireless campaigning, there are still products appearing online and in stores every day that make us scratch our heads and ask: "How on earth did that get made?".
Here are five gadgets and gizmos that we recommend you think twice about buying.
1. Poorly made and dangerous products from Temu
Category: Cheap and potentially deadly
Over recent years we've seen some improvements in the safety of products containing coin or button batteries sold in Australia. In June 2022, after years of campaigning by CHOICE and other organisations, mandatory standards were introduced to help prevent children from easily accessing and ingesting these batteries.
Sadly, these laws came too late for the three Australian children killed by button batteries and the many others who sustained life-altering injuries. And unfortunately, despite the regulations, problematic products are still being sold to unsuspecting consumers.
Each year the ACCC issues recalls for hundreds of items that fail to comply. One place where these items are worryingly easy to find is mega online retailer, Temu.
Our children's product safety expert assessed 15 randomly selected products and found that all 15 failed at least one requirement under the Australian button battery regulations
In October 2024, a CHOICE investigation found worrying rates of failure in products purchased from online retailer, Temu. Our children's product safety expert assessed 15 randomly selected products and found that all 15 of them failed at least one requirement under the Australian button battery regulations.
While all of the offending products have since been removed from the site, it's concerning that Temu, unlike retailers such as Amazon, eBay and catch.com.au, has not signed the ACCC's Voluntary Product Safety Pledge.
Temu has not indicated that they intend to sign the pledge, so for now we'll be steering clear of anything they sell that might contain a poorly secured button battery.
When Dyson launched this product they had to clarify it wasn't an April Fool's joke.
2. Air purifying headphones
Category: Multitasking, but doing it poorly
Readers of a certain age might recall a kitchen gadget from the 1970s called the Veg-O-Matic. It was sold on TV with exaggerated enthusiasm by a spruiker using the catchphrase, "it slices, it dices!", a line that was satirised in popular culture many times in the following decades.
Not only was the marketing memorable, the product was notorious for its lack of reliability, with many users complaining that it quickly became too blunt to use for either slicing or dicing. Like a lot of gizmos that promise to do a lot, it wasn't particularly good at anything.
Case in point, Dyson's air-purifying headphones. Not only is the air-purifying mechanism so noisy that you can hear the fans even with the noise-cancelling feature turned on, but they're also heavier than most over-ear headphones. And at nearly $1000, they're seriously expensive.
The fact that when Dyson launched this product they had to clarify it wasn't an April Fool's joke says a great deal about the headphones' ill-conceived start.
The Minecraft 'fridge' is probably best avoided if you want to actually cool anything
3. Novelty appliances
Category: Fans will buy anything
Brand loyalists can be passionate people and there's nothing wrong with that. If you love your local footy team, a movie franchise or a particular video game, there's probably a good chance that you've been gifted or even bought for yourself a themed item in the past.
A Tigers beanie or a Marvel mug might be pretty low-risk, but some of the video game-themed appliances we've seen are definite duds.
Case in point is the Xbox Series X Replica Mini Fridge, which was a deserving winner of a Shonky Award in 2023. This "fridge" – it's actually a thermoelectric cooler – has several problems, but the most concerning is that it fails to make things cold, despite using as much power as a full-sized fridge.
It fails to make things cold despite using as much power as a full-sized fridge
It isn't only Xbox fans who get to be disappointed by this sort of product. The maker of the Xbox fridge, Ukonic, also does Minecraft fridges, a Spiderman fridge and a Hello Kitty fridge. Why disappoint only one tribe of fans when there are so many more out there?
Ukonic has also since added a toaster to their range of Xbox-themed appliances. While we haven't tested this product in our labs, we'd suggest approaching a purchase with caution. Priced at around $80, it certainly isn't the most expensive toaster on the market, but it isn't cheap either. Perhaps instead you could check out one of the cheaper recommended toasters in our tests and spend the money you save on a poster or another video game.
4. All the smart things
Category: So smart, it's dumb
Across the decades we've seen innovation spark the wholesale embrace of a particular technology, sometimes in a very ill-advised manner.
When X-rays were first discovered, a device that could be used to evaluate the fit of your footwear found its way into shoe stores, leading to unnecessary radiation exposure for unwary customers. Less frightening was the advent of nylon. Sure, it was great for stockings, and nylon shirts might have been fast to dry but boy, did they make us sweat.
Sometimes manufacturers are so keen to jump on the new tech bandwagon that they don't stop to ask if they really should. Such is the case with the widespread adoption of "smart" technology in an ever-increasing range of devices and appliances.
Sometimes manufacturers are so keen to jump on the new tech bandwagon that they don't stop to ask if they really should
While there are certainly some smart products out there that can be of real benefit, others are questionable. Do you really need a smart kettle that lets you boil water from an app? A voice-controlled air fryer? Probably not. What about a smart toothbrush that will monitor your brushing technique and advise improvements? No thanks.
But perhaps the most ridiculous "smart" appliance we've seen is a smart scent dispenser. I'm not a big fan of adding fragrances to my home anyway, but even if I were, I struggle to think why I would need to operate such a device via an app.
The grounding socks we tested were so poorly made the connection pin tore loose after just two uses.
5. Grounding socks and other 'wellness' products
Category: Dubious science
As many of us embrace healthier lifestyles, adjust our diets, exercise regimes and other aspects of our daily routines, more and more products appear on the market with purported wellness benefits.
Unfortunately, not all of them do much of anything at all, unless lightening your wallet is one of your weight-loss goals.
Case in point, the Grounding Well socks. These socks claim to give their wearers the benefits of grounding – more easily achieved by going outside to touch some grass – without needing to make an actual trip to your backyard or the local park.
The health claims they make, such as faster healing, pain alleviation and anti-ageing effects, are dubious, to put it mildly. But even more annoyingly, they are just poorly made. When we gave them a try, the connection pin tore loose after just two uses.
But grounding technology doesn't stop at socks. You can also purchase grounding bed sheets to help you replace your old electrons with fresh ones while you sleep, and grounding shoes to wear, presumably while you walk around outside, on the grass maybe, that surface that would "ground" you for free.
We also wonder what would happen if you wore your grounding shoes over your grounding socks. Would it double the effect or would they cancel each other out? I guess we'll never know because we certainly won't be handing over our hard-earned dollars to find out.
We're on your side
For more than 60 years, we've been making a difference for Australian consumers. In that time, we've never taken ads or sponsorship.
Instead we're funded by members who value expert reviews and independent product testing.
With no self-interest behind our advice, you don't just buy smarter, you get the answers that you need.
You know without hesitation what's safe for you and your family.
And you'll never be alone when something goes wrong or a business treats you unfairly.
Learn more about CHOICE membership today
Stock images: Getty, unless otherwise stated.
