The Stupidest Technologies for Your Home

Everyone receives housewarming or wedding gifts that they pretend to adore—alphabet ice cube trays, temperature-controlled faucet lights, or motorized paper-towel dispensers—but secretly hate. These are certainly interesting gifts, but they're not very useful. Sure, it's the thought that counts, but eventually you start wondering why your friends and family have such poor taste and what, if anything, you can do about it.

Before your closet starts to pile up with droves of unwanted gifts, start dropping some subtle hints to clue them in about the gifts you don't want (maybe start by mentioning your distaste for things motorized or retractable). But if that doesn't work, then show them this list of the stupidest technologies for your home, including a motorized spray bottle, a hanging alarm clock, and a retractable ceiling fan, and maybe they'll finally start to catch on.

Here are some of the products featured in today's slideshow:

FakeTV Burglar Determent Device
Typically homeowners will take the standard courses of action to deter burglars: an attack dog, video surveillance, or an alarm system. But the makers of the FakeTV ($39.99) believe that all you need is a device that tricks burglars into believing that someone is home. The FakeTV is a box consisting of an opalescent diffuser lens and a super-bright multicolor LED lamp to create the illusion that someone is watching television. The makers claim that the device produces a light output of a typical 27-inch LCD HDTV and has many TV-like effects, such as scene changes, fades, swells, on-screen motion, and color changes. Just plug it into the wall using the included adapter, and the FakeTV will automatically turn on each evening at dusk to simulate a TV-watching experience. Guess now that the cat's out of the bag, burglars will know that the light coming from your bedroom window is most likely faked. Oops.

Hanging Alarm Clock
For decades designers have come up with : vibrations, wind chimes, mood lighting, and "explosive" sounds. But the Hanging Alarm Clock ($39) certainly takes the cake as one of the most ridiculous alarm clocks ever. The clock is designed to be suspended from the ceiling above your bed. When the alarm goes off (to the tune of the Close Encounters of the Third Kind theme song, no less), you have to reach up to hit the snooze button, and the clock will retract upwards. The idea is that you'll have to keep reaching up to turn off the alarm clock until you're out of bed.

Now check out the rest of slideshow, including Cepia's 48-Ounce Motorized Sprayer, iChime's Digital Doorchime, The Air Shadow, the Nite Coaster, Di Vapor's The Cosmo TV Bathtub, the Automatic Hot Dog Grill Roller, the Good Nite Lite, and Daewoo's Video Wall-Folding Screen (DID-FS).

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