I recently had need to buy a thermal camera. I wanted to buy a good quality one that would last a long time without spending £1000’s on some overkill industrial device. I looked for online stores that aren’t amazon, but I couldn’t really find any named stores/brands that I’d heard of selling decent ones. So I tried to search for reviews, but literally every review either had affiliate links trying to get me to buy the expensive ones on amazon, or was a literal ad on youtube disguised as an indie review with sub-10k views from some nobody channel. So I reluctantly looked on Amazon, and as usual a load of the reviews there are ai-generated and I have no real idea which products are actually good, and there are a thousand knock-off cheapo products from alphabet-soup companies with names like AXLGOFN, which I’m not remotely interested in.
I eventually managed to find and buy a decent camera, and it was the same price on amazon versus some other site I hadn’t previously heard of, so I bought it on the other random electronics site.
But, my question is more broad: how do you navigate the online hellscape? Do you have a philosohpy or strategy about how to navigate a market you know nothing about and pay a sensible price for a good product without getting scammed? This experience just seems to be normal now, and it’s exhausting. I’m sick of ai-generated reviews, I’m sick of “paid reviews” and youtube videos of “this company sent me this product for free with these 12 talking points which I will now read to you”, and I’m sick of companies called AXLGOFN trying to sell me cheap tat that will last 14 minutes.
When possible, go to the manufacturers site. In this case, someone like Flir.
Flir is absolute dogshit overpriced Chinese junk. Don’t get me started on how bad the industrial software is.
Regardless, go to the manufacturer site, whoever you pick.
Like the manufacturer of the parts in China? Or like the place it was assembled?
Whoever is making the camera.
My guy you think every part of the camera is made in the same factory? Lol the lense is coming from the same place as the chips and the housing body?
The question is coming from someone wanting to buy a thermal camera, not PARTS for a thermal camera.
If you want to be sure you aren’t getting scammed, go to the manufacturer website.
Same for me looking at a new tablet, I don’t need to research the individual screens that go into a tablet, I get all the information I need from whoever makes the tablet, Lenovo, Samsung, whoever.
If you’re looking at a retailer and are thinking “this doesn’t look right”, you go to the manufacturer.
Today I learned.