I'm beginning to think, that I'm the only person on Earth that has quite a lot of SE-like questions about consumer electronics. About all the devices and device's hardware that are:

  • not a computer (would fit for SuperUser?),
  • not a smartphone, tablet or other form (would fit for AskDifferent or Android Enthusiasts?),
  • not a real piece of electronics (would fit for Electrical Engineering?).

I want to ask about GPS localizers, media players, batteries etc. etc. Where should I do this?

I've seen this question, this and this -- non of the answer says, where to ask such question. I've read both SuperUser and electronics.stackexchange.com FAQ and both says that a question asked in an incorrect place, if it covers: "electronic devices, media players, cell phones or smart phones, except insofar as they interface with your computer". Pity, that also both of these sites doesn't explain, where such questions should be asked.

I've seen "Is there a Stack Exchange for Consumer Electronics questions?" meta question, which answers refers to consumer electronics and gagets Area51 proposals. Both are now dead (closed).

What is wrong with consumer electronics? It is really hard for me to believe that I'm the only person, that wants to discuss this matters. Or that people like me are to few to support a regular SE-based Q&A site about consumer electronics. Or that there are more people, that want to talk about Apple or Android devices than all the range of consumer electronics devices, that does not fit to any above.

What am I missing?

  • 6
    They are unreliable and made of low-quality? Oh... maybe I should have read more than just the title! ;) – Andrew Barber Oct 18 '13 at 9:04
  • 1
    There is no guarantee that a questions--even one that is good on it's own merits--will find a home on Stack Exchange. – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten Oct 18 '13 at 14:58

There was a site like this, Electronic Gadgets that failed. I wasn't an SE user back then, but from what I heard the main problem was that there are so many different electronic devices, and to answer a question you actually need to own and use the specific device that a question is about.

This is explained in the blog post about the closing of the site:

Before we pulled the trigger, we thought about why the gadgets site wasn’t working nearly as well as its 23 siblings. Looking at the questions on the site, it’s clear that there are too many kinds of gadgets, and our audience is too small to be able to answer detailed questions about all of them.

Think of it this way. There are probably tens of thousands of different kinds of cell phones, but only about 50 people who answer questions on the Gadgets site. What are the chances that one of those 50 actually knows how to automatically record voice calls on the Nokia Series 40? What are the chances that one of the 50 even has a Nokia Series 40?

A site needs to have a wide enough swath of active experts to cover the entire domain it purports to cover. Stack Overflow itself has a huge domain, but a huge number of highly active experts, so questions get pounced on, no matter how esoteric. Many of the smaller Stack Exchanges only have a few experts but the domain is narrow enough that they can really answer just about anything. But having a wide domain and a shallow pool of experts results in not enough peanut butter on the sandwich. That’s what we think happened to Gadgets, and thats why we think that narrower sites like Apple and Android are likely to do better, even if it means that we don’t have a place to discuss garage door openers.

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  • You say that in order to answer you had to own the device. I beilive the site was intentionally compromised by malintended owners. I had a quesion about mp3 player that would play not only from the battary but connected to the mains. My quesion was deleted with resolution "answer is too easy to google" despite I asked if after years of googling and visiting all shops in our 450k city. All mp3 players on the market that I seen stop playing when attached to charger/adapter. Detached, they lost their playback position and started from the first track. Why do you need a gadget to answer this Q? – Little Alien Dec 16 '16 at 21:01

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