TikTok Shop, the e-commerce branch of the social giant, is a strange place. The digital marketplace sells just about everything. Outfits for cats, AI pillows and dodgy supplements just scratch the surface.
But it’s the tech section that particularly caught my interest. Drones, tablets, smartwatches, and just about every gadget is on sale here, often at a fraction of the price it should be.
When searching through the shop, there are distractions galore. The first stop in our shopping trip is a smartwatch nestled in between a portable glass backpack for your cat and something called “love pills’’.
I paid just £10 for this smartwatch. While that is suspiciously cheap, budget smartwatches have come a long way, with some well-known brands selling solid devices for £30 - £40. This optimism was quickly squashed by the message taped onto the watch stating “pls make a full charging before use the smartwatch”.
Despite the price, I was pleasantly surprised. The watch worked and was quick and responsive, even tracking my steps fairly accurately. Sure, it would turn off unexpectedly and had a strange tendency to blare music out at random, but that’s just part of its charming character.
While it is clearly a complete knock-off of an Apple Watch, right down to the software, all of the apps seem to be self-made alternatives. For £10, it’s kind of brilliant. But, compared to absolutely any other smartwatch you can buy, it’s a mess of broken apps, suspicious software and cheap parts.
Next in my basket is a pair of Bluetooth earbuds. Between shipping and the cost of the headphones themselves, I paid just £4.79. And yet, they’re great. Sure, the quality could be better and they lack any fancy features like noise cancellation, but they cost less than a fiver!
They have a charging case covered in fancy neon lights, a good battery life and even a set of microphones for phone calls that I was told sound “not completely terrible”. By no means the best headphones I’ve tested but for that price, colour me impressed.
The good news continues with a gaming controller for smartphones. It was cheap, well-built and worked with my phone. I clicked it in, downloaded a very suspicious-looking app and mapped the buttons for a variety of games. Other than possessing the worst instruction manual I have seen in my life, I’ve got no complaints on this one.
So far, the tech wasn’t as bad I was expecting, but things took a turn. A drawing tablet I bought kept things simple, offering just a screen, pen and a restart button. It can’t be criticised for its ability for less than £5, it offers up a fun drawing pad experience. However, it can be critiqued for how flimsy it is, breaking inside a bag of bubble wrap just a few days in.
A pair of smart glasses broke even sooner. The idea is that they can play music via Bluetooth and the use of buttons on the frame. This did work very briefly before I heard a crackle sound and they never worked again.
Typically, projectors will set you back at least £200-£400. I found a projector for just £15. To my surprise, it did work. It turns on, and can even project a display, which is a good sign when using a projector. It was bright, and had a variety of inputs like HDMI and USB.
So the £15 projector is secretly amazing? Not quite. In seconds it sounds like a rocket ready to blast off. It commits to its rocket impression by getting extremely warm. I was too worried to leave it on as the sound and heat combination grew with intensity.
After battling the fire-risk projector, I decided to spend even less money. So, what would a £7 robot vacuum be like? I didn’t actually expect this to show up. It is 15 times cheaper than the most affordable robot vacuum anywhere else, but to my surprise, it arrived.
The size of the palm of my hand, made of fragile plastic and just one very big ‘start’ button to use it, my hopes were low… but not low enough. I almost felt bad for the inanimate object as it crawled at a turtle pace around my house, picking up absolutely no dirt, focusing on head-butting every wall instead.
Next up, a £20 drone. Like the vacuum, I didn’t actually expect the drone to turn up. Despite this. It had no reviews, was way too cheap and was advertised with an image that makes the worst AI art look real.
Despite all of this, a few days after ordering I was flying a drone around my living room. The kit came with a large remote and a palm-sized drone. It even had a built-in camera (albeit not a very good one) and app to keep your saved photos.
Booting up the drone, it instantly crashed into the wall in front of it. But that’s okay, I’m learning here. The second time, it launches head-first into my blinds before I even touched the controller. After an array of crashes, a broken propeller repair and a knocked-over plant, it’s safe to say the drone isn’t exactly the easiest to fly.
Most of these products felt unsurprisingly cheap and fragile, and if they did work (that was a big if), the performance was pretty poor. There were a few standouts like the headphones or gaming controller, but even those were just passable.
But can it be critiqued when it’s so cheap? Absolutely. Whether it’s drones, robot vacuums, or smartwatches, well-known brands are venturing into the world of affordability. For new tech on a budget, TikTok Shop is probably not the best place to look, what a surprise!
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