Ask HN: How do you search for products / apps given a list of requirements?

88 points

4 years ago

Very often (for example right now) I get the impression that at least for some products market evolves backwards. Or maybe it's just flooded with crap making it just close to impossible to find the "tip of the pyramid" (nicely demonstrated by Adam in his rant on search engines [1]).

Right now I'm searching for a Music/MP3 player device that comes with a list of attributes that I'd take for granted. Apart from modern technology like Bluetooth - most of them existed 20 years ago!

But looking the length alone of the list of features I don't want to pass on fill my mind with hopelessness nowadays:

[ ] lightweight / has a clip

[ ] plays from filesystem

[ ] supports resume from last played for large files (must have for audiobooks)

[ ] support for at least OGG and FLAC next to MP3

[ ] auto-connects to BT headset

[ ] equalizer or at least bass/treble control

[ ] playback modes (continue alphabetically, shuffle, etc.) (no - not obvi

[ ] auto-off after N minutes

[ ] display easy to read in sunlight (why not e-paper?)

[ ] support for firmware updates (I don't dare to ask for open source..)

[ ] nice: audio jack for analog headsets

[ ] nice: support for multiple (2) bluetooth headsets

I know today it's profitable to throw cheap crap on the market - most people will just buy and forget. But what's with those who'd like to spent quite some money for a quality product? Do they have a chance to search nowadays?

How do you do it? Just with standard search engines and endurance? Reddit? Special keywords? Are there reliable platforms for product recommendations? Build your own ([2])?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31476069

[2] https://www.instructables.com/ESP32-Audio-Player/

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