My rollercoaster life as an Early Adopter

I have always been fascinated with new things, often being the first in my circle of friends to go ahead and plop down good money for the latest innovation in town. Of course, this is usually a recipe for disaster.

Like the other day, my ₹2000 ($30) Mi fitness band’s Android app announced that I could now see the caller ID on the band. I was thrilled no end, and clicked ‘update’ casually. The shiny new reincarnation of the app appeared, and quixotically informed me that it couldn’t connect to my band. Seems the band was connected to some other phone. It went on to politely mention I could fix things by unpairing the band from the other phone.

There was just one problem. My band wasn’t paired to any other phone.

I spent the next hour frantically browsing through Mi Band online forums. Others seemed to have the same issue. Some seemed to have solved it but sadly their solutions didn’t work for me. One of the members consoled me by saying I could always send it back to the dealer as it was within the warranty period. But that meant living without a fitness band for a while, and the nerd in me strongly objected.

I was on my own unless you count the nerd as a second person. On second thoughts, why not? So I decided to let the nerd have a go. He quietly analysed the issue, and came up with an idea. The app believes I’m paired with another phone so why not humour it by doing exactly that.

Worth a shot. I tried connecting the band to my iPhone. The thing connected at the first try. Really! I went on into the iPhone app’s setting and unpaired it. I then tried once more to connect it to my Android phone. No success. In desperation, I tried again and again, until I began to nod off. Suddenly I jerked awake as I felt my wrist buzzing. After nearly three hours, the thing had finally paired.

My fitness history was completely wiped out. But the blinking caller ID was working. The nerd who is a lefty, and I who am a righty, do a high five, for a perfect clap demo (maybe I should've recorded it for Nicole Kidman). After which, the nerd disappeared and I staggered over to my bed and collapsed, too tired to savour my triumph.

You would think such experiences would cure me of early adopteritis. But it seems to have the opposite effect. All those misfiring innovations do by misfiring, is create a situation where I go from hero to zero. If I’m lucky, I go back to hero, which makes me appreciate the distance from zero even better, and bond with the innovation. Does that make sense? Probably not. Never mind. Once an early adopter, always an early adopter!

Like that Android band itself was a gamble. It’s the Mi Band 2, from the Chinese upstart Xiaomi. I was thrilled at the idea of getting a fitness band that was sleek looking, sort of waterproof, and came with a dial, pulse detector and a battery that lasts a month. All for this for just $30 so I jumped at it. So far, so good, but it could have easily gone the other way.

This leads me to think that most early adopters live and die by the motto, ‘The valiant never die but once.’

Take my car. I recently upgraded it as the latest model came with the new AMT technology. In India, nearly all cars have stick shifts or manual transmission. Automatic transmissions are a lot more expensive as the entire manual transmission system has to be replaced with the expensive automatic one. It’s also less fuel efficient and that's a big no-no for an ordinary Indian.

The AMT is a totally different creature. It uses the existing manual transmission box and clutch, and just automates the gear changing process. So it’s a lot less expensive than the automatic transmission. It’s also more fuel efficient as it changes gears to conserve fuel, and that’s something guaranteed to get the attention of most Indians.

As usual, I jumped in with my eyes shut. It was only when I took the test drive that I discovered the negative side of AMTs.

What do you expect from your car when you floor the pedal? An instant surge of power, and quick acceleration, right? Well, not if it’s an AMT. The moment you floor the pedal, it goes into a sort of ‘Let me think it over’ mode. It cuts off the gas while it figures out what gear to switch to or whatever. It’s like camera lag, happening with the gas pedal.

Now this can be scary on India’s roads which are mostly two way. That means driving into oncoming traffic who may often be executing the same overtaking manoeuvre, making the whole adventure a bit suicidal. To survive, you need to complete overtaking real quick, which the AMT won’t.

But that nerdy early adopter is a tough breed who doesn’t give up so easily. He figured out the car has a manual mode. With some judicious planning, it was still possible to execute a swift overtake. So he convinced me to buy the car though I’m still not sure how he did that. It was probably the sports and manual modes that helped him con me that this was the real thing.

It’s two months now, and I’m still figuring out that manual mode. I’m just managing to stop myself from cursing every time the car lags when I expect it to accelerate. One thing is clear. My days as the fastest car in town are gone forever. “Speeding is dangerous,” mutters the early adopter. I give him a dirty look. But maybe he has a point.

The roads are definitely safer. For the rest of the world.

My early adopter enthusiasm also affects the people around me. Negatively. There’s the touchscreen laptop I got for my kid a couple of years ago, when the first ones were just coming out. The idea of a touchscreen windows laptop for my touchscreen generation kid was hard to resist. A couple of months later, I snapped the lid shut, like I would with a normal laptop. Big mistake. The touchscreen cracked and was no longer touchy. I had to fork out nearly 30% of the cost of the laptop to get it replaced.

Win some, lose some. This was lose some.

However, the wins when they come, are sweet. My first one especially. It was back in my university days when my bicycle was my preferred mode of travel for obvious reasons. Indian roads are notoriously potholed, and bicycles have to be tough to survive them.

But I had spotted an internal gear system (Shimano) that helped the bike go faster. Unlike a regular geared bike, it was compact, hidden and inexpensive. I hadn’t seen anyone else using it but that didn’t stop me. So I got myself the sportiest looking bike with a racing handlebar, another first in my hometown. The dealer delivered the bike with the gear system fitted. In no time, I was dashing madly over the potholed roads of India, the unofficial King of the Road.

Six months later, the bicycle broke! The iron frame literally fell apart, which I have never seen happen to a bike. Indian bicycle makers design bikes for the slow speeds that Indian roads permit. They are just not meant to be ridden at the speeds I was doing.

Naturally, I got some pushback from the manufacturer. They refused to replace the frame as they insisted it was my fault. I went atomic on them, and sent them a dramatic photo of my broken bike, along with the sale receipt showing the bike was just six months old. The manufacturer backed off, probably because it was a good story, which may have been picked up by even the newspapers. They replaced the broken frame with a new one, which the dealer refitted to make my bike as good as new. I rode that bike hard for few more years till I was done with university. It survived. This means the new frame was either reinforced, or the old one was a lemon.

Like I said, victory was sweet.

From push bikes, I leapt into electric bikes which surfaced some years later in India. The technology was new, and sort of experimental. Basically, a full charge (six hours) gets you a measly 40–50km, which means a serious case of ‘range anxiety.’ India is a oil importer so the government promotes electric bikes by subsidising them. Besides you don’t need to register it, or have a driving licence to ride it. The only rider is the government has severely limited the speed limits, and the best I can get is around 30km/hr.

Batteries are also expensive at ₹11000 ($165) and need to be replaced every year, or 18 months with low usage. The bikes are not as complicated as petrol bikes as they just have an electric motor and very few other moving parts. But this makes them feel flimsy unlike the heavier regular bikes. All put together, these bikes have almost no resale value and come with a big ‘Don’t Buy’ recommendation from experts.

Naturally, I jumped on the electric vehicle bandwagon. After four years, I’m still not sure if this was a good move or not, though I would add it’s viable only for those who make a lot of short runs.

My latest adventure is going to be solar. India has serious shortage of electricity and depends a lot on hydroelectric power. So when rains get delayed in summer, power cuts are often imposed on us. Surprisingly, alternative sources of energy like wind and solar are just not taking off. But most homes have battery packs called UPS (uninterrupted power supply).

Last week, my UPS died and I started looking around for a replacement. It costs around ₹16000. That’s when a friend informed me that around half the cost of the solar power home system is the battery. The system costs around ₹40000 per house, and lasts for 15–20 years. The negatives with solar are there are no big brands as of now, and it can’t take equipment that needs huge power surges like water pumps and ACs. But I felt it was worth experimenting as we can expect huge power cuts in the coming years with the climate change causing shortfalls in rainfall that powers our grids.

The major expense for solar after you buy it, is the battery replacement cost at ₹16000 every 5–6 years. If current electricity expenses are ₹500/month, then expense on electricity for five years is ₹30000. So we are still ahead by ₹14000 (or more if electricity bill is higher).

Thing is we are anyway spending ₹16000 on the UPS battery every 5–6 years. In short, since I already have this battery replacement expense for my UPS, it reduces the running cost of solar to a nominal amount for me. Moreover, since I am due to replace my UPS, the cost of installing a solar system is also halved for me. All in all, it looks like the time has come for me to finally jump into solar.

As I clamber aboard the rollercoaster, I see the nerd has a huge grin on his silly face. I wonder if this will be another one on the ‘lose some’ side.

The funny thing is I hate roller coasters so what am I doing… hang on!