Consumers spend thousands on gadgets

Consumers spend thousands on gadgets


But many can’t use them, according to Logitech

Consumers spend thousands of pounds on the latest gadgets but never learn how to master them, according to Logitech.

In a recent survey the peripheral manufacturer found European households have accumulated about £285bn (€362bn). This wealth of gadgets includes TVs, hi-fis, DVD players, digital recorders and satellite boxes, but in a quarter of homes, only one person knew how to operate them.

To help combat the confusion one in four respondents said they had written instructions for their family explaining how to control each system and showed them how to work a DVD player or record a TV show.

However it looks as though our obsession with gadgets does more than cause confusion. Last year personal finance website Fool found that Britons were sitting on £23bn-worth of unwanted electrical items. It said this worked out at about £375-worth of unwanted but usable gadgets per household.

The survey of 2,000 people found that one in five were upgrading items within two years and nearly half said they owned a video or DVD player they no longer used.

Environmental charity Waste Watch said people throwing away their old gadgets leads to about a million tonnes of electronics being put into landfills each year.

The charity advised people to go for quality rather than quantity and buy things that are easy to use and will last.