Does it ever feel like the internet is just people complaining about things? Whether it’s complaints about the news, sports or the state of the world, the internet can seem extremely negative. Electronics Hub has tracked a lot of the online hate with a ‘Complaint Detector’ tool. The study used the tool to sort through nearly 350,000 tweets about technology. The results reveal how people around the world complained about different gadgets.
The methodology is interesting. The team created tables of different product categories using comprehensive lists of available models and then narrowed down search queries to match user behavior. To detect complaints, tweets were analyzed with ‘Complaint Detector,’ as we’ve mentioned, which is a tool trained by a neural network. After analyzing the results, products that weren’t tweeted about often were removed, and tweets about the same product but used different model names were combined as much as possible.
Electronics Hub tracked electronics across a wide range of categories, including cameras. If you’re curious about which device frustrated people the most in the US, it was the Philips Hue Bridge. It’s not just the Hue Bridge that has people upset. Smart home devices in general account for 40% of the top 20 most complained about tech products. In the UK, it was a different smart home device, the Nest thermostat, that annoyed people.
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| Credit: Electronics Hub. Click to enlarge. |
There’s no doubt that it’s frustrating when an electronic device fails to work the way we expect. Most of us have probably cursed our phones and computers, but what about your camera?
Taking the top two spots, and the ninth spot in the top 10, are GoPro action cameras, including the GoPro Hero8 Black, GoPro Hero9 Black, and the newer GoPro Hero10 Black. A somewhat surprising inclusion in the third position is the Ricoh GR III premium compact all-in-one camera. It seems that the camera has a cult following, although perhaps that’s also a tough audience to please. For interchangeable lens cameras, the Nikon Z7 II, Sony A6600, Sony A7R IV, Canon EOS 90D and Sony A7 IV cracked the top 10.
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| Credit: Electronics Hub. Click to enlarge. |
However, none of the ten cameras are complained about at anywhere near the same rate as every other tracked category, including smartphones, wearables, video game consoles, smart home devices, laptop brands and more. Electronics generally annoy people, which I suppose makes sense given how important they are to everyday life and how high most people’s standards are for products working perfectly. But cameras? They don’t seem to upset people as often.
If you’d like a breakdown of the data, head over to Electronics Hub. If you scroll down to the bottom of the in-depth article, you can also see additional ‘annoying’ products outside the top 10 for each category and search for specific products. If you’ve ever wanted to know if people get upset by your favorite camera, now’s your chance to find out.
