‘What are some life-changing inventions that never caught on?’ – 22 incredible innovations we are tragically missing out on

When you’re using some incredible technological marvel like your smartphone, do you ever wonder what would have happened if the world had taken a different turn and it hadn’t become ubiquitous?

Probably not, as you’re too busy doomscrolling TikTok, but there are plenty of amazing innovations out there that we’re missing out on because, for some reason, they didn’t quite make it.

They’ve been chatting about this on the AskReddit page after theman998 posed this question:

What are some life-changing inventions that never caught on?

Lots of folk had thoughts on the wonders that are sadly lacking, like these…

1.

‘Sinclair C5. A battery powered vehicle designed in the 1980’s which didn’t travel very far or fast ~20km per hour for about 45 mins. It was a commercial failure but was ahead of its time.’
–Similar_Barber8675

2.

‘By the end of the 19th century, New York, Paris, and London had entire underground pipe networks. Mail flew between buildings in seconds. Some even planned to create a pneumatic subway! But trucks and the telephone appeared, and the idea of ​​”shooting capsules” became too expensive to maintain.’
–No_Berry_19

3.

‘Virtual reality. Gaming or the metaverse. Maybe we are just too early. I know so many people who bought VR gaming hardware and set up that 12×12 foot space in their house free of obstacles to use it – and less than a year later never touched it again. They say there just aren’t enough games.’
–Kentbrockman2

4.

‘Pancake batter in a whipped cream can. I forget the brand name.’
–Imaginary_Audience_5

5.

‘Mini Disc’s. It had so much potential to keep physical copies of music and could have gone further with UMD and even 4k Video.’
–BeebleBoxn

6.

‘Life Vac. It is a pressure vacuum that sucks the material out of a choking victim’s throat. I’ve seen it literally save lives. It should be standard in every nursing home, memory care, elementary school and restaurant. It’s insane to me that it’s not.’
–dragonfeet1

7.

‘Using the metric system in the US. Unit math would be so much easier for so many things. But nope, we have miles, yards, feet and inches. Pounds and gallons. I remember when there was a huge push in the 70’s for us to switch, but that effort failed.’
–Tcloud

8.

‘In the early 2000’s there were glasses that could adjust their focus to where you were looking. No more xFocals or progressive lenses. Look anywhere and your glasses adjusted so you could see. The company goes and the patents were bought up, never to be seen again.’
–andy_nony_mouse

9.

‘Sunrise simulators or just smart bulbs that have this function. It’s an absolute game changer for quality of life and I’m the only person I know who uses one.’
–RustyImpactWrench

10.

‘The aeolipile was a sort of steam engine invented in the first century AD that nobody ever realised could lead to so much more. It was essentially a basin filled with water, attached to a rotating sphere by pipes, with two angled pipes leading off the sphere. When heated, steam would shoot out of the pipes causing the device to spin. Had anyone realised the potential, we could have had the industrial revolution centuries ago.’
–Korporal_kagger

11.

‘Hydrogen engines, but with the current state of things I think we will see it sooner, starting with Japan because they’ve invested the most into it (no oil reserves) then China, since they invest into green energy a lot plus Japan and every country wants invest outside of the US’s reach.’
–ashtefer1

12.

‘Lyme disease vaccine. Currently, no vaccine for Lyme disease is available in the U.S. Previously, a vaccine was available, but it was discontinued in 2002, according to the CDC.’
–huscarlaxe