The Gearhead Guide

Author: gearheadguide1

  • Why 2025 Was the Year AI Got Good (And Boring)

    Why 2025 Was the Year AI Got Good (And Boring)

    I don’t know about you, but I am so tired of the “AI revolution.”

    Remember 2023 and 2024? You couldn’t read a single article, watch a single video, or even buy a smart toaster without being told how “Generative AI” was about to change all of human existence. Every startup was an “AI company,” and every “guru” on social media was five minutes away from achieving Artificial General Intelligence in their garage. It was a gold rush. It was a bubble. And it was, frankly, exhausting.

    Well, we’re at the end of 2025, and I’m happy to report that the bubble has burst. This was the “Great AI Hangover” year—the year we collectively woke up, looked at the mess, and finally started cleaning it up.

    And as a gear-head, a tech editor, and someone who actually likes making things, I can tell you this: it’s the best thing that could have happened. The hype is dead, and the utility is finally here.

    The “Do-Everything” Dream Is Dead

    The first casualty of 2025 was the “do-everything” model. The race to build the biggest, most god-like Large Language Model (LLM) hit a wall of reality. Sure, the new models are better, but they weren’t the leap to sentience everyone breathlessly predicted.

    Instead, the market finally figured out what some of us knew all along: a “jack of all trades” model is a master of none.

    The real revolution this year wasn’t in the cloud; it was in what the industry is calling “Vertical AI.” Instead of one giant AI trying to write a poem, diagnose cancer, and trade stocks, we now have specialized models. We have AI for healthcare that’s trained only on medical journals. We have AI for construction that only understands blueprints and material stress.

    This is the “boring” AI that’s actually changing things. It’s not a party trick; it’s a tool. It’s the difference between a flashy concept car and the high-torque wrench that lets you build a real one. The endless flood of “GPT-wrappers” (thin apps that were just a skin on an API) are gone, and in their place, we’re getting software that has AI baked in to do one specific job incredibly well.

    The Real Power Is in Your Hand

    The second, and for me, more exciting, shift is that AI is finally moving out of the data center and into our hardware. For years, “AI” meant typing into a box that was connected to a billion-dollar server farm on the other side of the country. It was slow, and it was a privacy nightmare.

    2025 was the year of on-device processing.

    We’ve been covering the hardware at Modded for a long time, and this is the payoff. Companies are finally in a silicon arms race over their NPUs (Neural Processing Units). When Apple announced its M5 chips earlier this year, they didn’t just talk about faster CPUs; they bragged about Neural Accelerators in the GPU and a faster Neural Engine.

    Why does that matter? Because it means the AI runs on your laptop or phone. It’s fast. It’s private (your data isn’t being sent to a server for “training”). And it’s personal. When your device learns your habits, it’s not to sell you ads; it’s to make the tool work better for you. This is the AI that gives you real-time photo editing without a “processing” spinner, or a smart assistant that actually knows your context without being a creep.

    This move to “Small Language Models” (SLMs) that can run locally is the single biggest leap toward making AI a practical part of our gear, not just a service we subscribe to.

    AI Finally Gets a Body

    The last piece of the puzzle is the one I care about most: the AI is no longer just a chatbot. It’s getting a physical body.

    We’re seeing it in the cars we’re testing. The ADAS (Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems) in 2025 and 2026 models are on another level. They’re not just “lane-keeping” anymore. They’re using these new, efficient AI models to process camera and lidar data in real-time, allowing them to understand complex, messy urban environments. It’s still not “self-driving,” thank God—I like to drive—but it’s a co-pilot that’s genuinely smart and not just a nervous backseat driver.

    We’re also seeing the rise of “AI Agents”—software with the power to do things. Not just suggest, but act. In the design world, engineers are telling an AI, “Run 1,000 stress tests” on a part, and the agent does it. In coding, agents are making their own code changes and submitting them for human review.

    This is the future I’m here for. The hype was all about AI replacing us. The reality is that AI is becoming a powerful, specialized, and physical tool that helps us do our jobs better.

    So yeah, 2025 was the “Trough of Disillusionment,” as the big analyst firms call it. The party’s over. But for those of us who actually build, drive, and use tech, the real work has just begun. And it’s going to be a hell of a lot more interesting than a chatbot.

  • The War on Ownership: Why 2025 is the Year We Finally Started Fixing Our Own Stuff

    The War on Ownership: Why 2025 is the Year We Finally Started Fixing Our Own Stuff

    I’ve been ranting about “Right to Repair” for years. It’s felt, for the most part, like shouting into the void. For the last decade, we’ve been sold a raw deal: products that are glued shut, locked by software, and designed to be thrown away the second a single component fails. It’s a culture of digital landfills, and it’s the exact opposite of what we stand for at Modded. We’re about modifying, tinkering, and owning the gear we buy.

    If you can’t fix it, you don’t own it. Period.

    For a long time, the situation looked bleak. But as we’re closing out 2025, I’ve got to admit, I’m feeling something I haven’t felt in a while: optimism. The tide is finally turning. This was the year the “Right to Repair” movement stopped being a niche complaint and started becoming the law of the land.

    The Legislative Hammer Finally Dropped

    The real shift wasn’t a change of heart from corporations; it was a legislative hammer. After years of groundwork, the state-level laws passed in places like New York, California, and Minnesota are finally showing their teeth. These laws, which seemed like minor procedural wins at the time, are now forcing manufacturers to do the one thing they’ve spent billions to avoid: make parts, manuals, and diagnostic tools available to everyone, not just their “authorized” (and wildly expensive) repair networks.

    We’re seeing the domino effect right now. By early 2025, it became clear that it was simply too expensive and complicated for companies to have different policies for different states. California’s rules, being the most comprehensive, are effectively becoming the national standard.

    And it’s not just phones and laptops. This year, the movement has momentum in every sector, from medical devices to motor vehicles.

    The Two Big Villains Get Their Comeuppance

    Let’s talk about the two biggest offenders, because their reactions tell the whole story.

    First, Apple. For years, their “Self Service Repair” program was, in my opinion, a joke. It felt like malicious compliance—sure, you could rent a 79-pound toolkit to change a battery, but the process was so complex and the parts-pairing was so restrictive that it was designed to make you give up and just go to the Genius Bar. But now, thanks to these new laws, they’re being forced to simplify the process and—crucially—stop using software locks to brick devices that use third-party or salvaged components. They’re still not happy about it, but they’re complying.

    Then, there’s John Deere. This, for me, was always the most outrageous case. Farmers—the original modders and mechanics—were being software-locked out of fixing their own tractors. A farmer would have to wait days and pay a technician hundreds just to authorize a new part. It was absurd. The lawsuits and federal pressure that came to a head this year have been a massive win. Deere has been forced to make its diagnostic software and parts available, breaking the monopoly its dealer network has held for years.

    Why This Is About More Than Just Saving Money

    This is the part that really matters to me. Yes, it’s great that you’ll be able to get your phone screen replaced for a reasonable price. But this is a much bigger cultural win.

    1. It’s the Real Sustainability: For all the corporate talk about “green” initiatives, the most sustainable thing you can do is not buy a new product. The “reduce, reuse, repair” mantra always had “repair” in it, but companies conveniently forgot that part. Keeping a perfectly good laptop out of a landfill just because its battery is shot is the environmental victory.

    2. It’s a Vote for Ownership: We’ve been pushed toward a future where we don’t own anything—we just license our music, subscribe to our car’s heated seats, and rent our software. “Right to Repair” is a massive pushback against that. It re-establishes the simple, powerful idea that when you buy a piece of gear, it’s yours. You can open it, you can tinker with it, and you can see how it works.

    3. It’s Bringing Back the “Modded” Culture: Companies like Framework have been proving this model can work for years. They built an entire business on high-performance laptops that are designed to be upgraded and repaired. You don’t buy a new one; you just buy a new mainboard or a new port. That’s the future.

    The fight isn’t over. Companies will still try to make things difficult. They’ll argue it’s for “security” or “safety.” But the momentum has shifted. For the first time in a long time, the future of gear feels like it’s back in the hands of the people who actually use it. And that’s a future I’m excited to be a part of.

  • The 2025 Vibe Shift: Why This Wasn’t the EV Year We Expected (And Why It’s Even Better)

    The 2025 Vibe Shift: Why This Wasn’t the EV Year We Expected (And Why It’s Even Better)

    As we’re closing out 2025, I’ve been looking back at the car market, and I’ve got to say, this year did not play out how the “gurus” predicted. If you’d asked me in 2023, I would have told you 2025 was going to be the year of total, all-out EV domination.

    Instead, what we got was something far more interesting: the “Great Reality Check.”

    This was the year the EV hype-train met the hard realities of charging infrastructure, buyer budgets, and basic practicality. And honestly? It has made the entire automotive landscape better and more diverse. Here at Modded, we’re all about the future of mobility, but we’re also realists who like to get our hands dirty. This year, the industry finally caught up to that mindset.

    The Hybrid Strikes Back

    First, let’s talk about the hybrid. For a while, they were treated as a “compromise” technology, a stop-gap that enthusiasts and tech-heads were supposed to look down on.

    Well, 2025 was the year the hybrid struck back, and it was led by, of all things, the 2025 Toyota Camry.

    I know, I know—a Camry. But hear me out. Toyota made the bold move to make it a hybrid-only lineup. While other brands were sinking billions into EV platforms that still cost too much, Toyota doubled down on a proven, efficient, and—most importantly—affordable system. The payoff? A car that gets over 50 MPG, looks sharp, and costs what a normal family can actually afford. This wasn’t a retreat from an electric future; it was a brilliant strategic move that met the market where it actually is, not where Silicon Valley wishes it was. It’s the sustainable choice for the millions of people who don’t have a Level 2 charger in their garage.

    The “Soul” Injection

    But 2025 wasn’t just about practicality. It was also the year EVs finally found their soul. For me, the car that proved this wasn’t some six-figure luxury barge; it was the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N.

    I’ve driven a lot of EVs that are fast in a straight line. They’re impressive, but they’re sterile. They feel like appliances. The Ioniq 5 N is the absolute opposite. It’s the first EV I’ve driven that feels wonderfully unhinged. With 641 horsepower (with boost), simulated gear shifts (the “N e-shift“) that kick you in the back, and a sound profile that’s part-WRC car, part-TIE Fighter, it’s a performance car first and an EV second. Hyundai’s engineers clearly asked, “How can we make this fun?” They nailed it. It’s a $66,000 hatchback that can embarrass supercars while putting the biggest, dumbest grin on your face. This is the car that proves the enthusiast’s future is secure.

    The Electric Muscle Car Finally Arrives

    And look, I have to talk about the big one: the Dodge Charger Daytona EV. This was the car I was most skeptical about. A muscle car isn’t just about 0-60 times; it’s about noise, vibration, and attitude. How could an EV possibly replicate that?

    Well, I’ve seen them on the road, and I’ve heard them. That “Fratzonic Chambered Exhaust” is no joke—it’s loud, it’s weird, and it absolutely works. It gives the car a presence that other EVs lack. With the 670-horsepower Scat Pack model hitting 60 mph in 3.3 seconds and that wild “R-Wing” on the front for downforce, Dodge didn’t just build an electric Charger. They built a new kind of muscle car. It’s the most “Modded” EV on the planet, hands down. It respects the past but isn’t afraid to use technology to be absurdly, unapologetically aggressive.

    The Revolution We Were Actually Waiting For

    But as much as I love the unhinged Ioniq 5 N and the revolutionary Charger, they aren’t the most important car of 2025.

    That title, in my book, goes to the Chevy Equinox EV, and it’s for one simple reason: it finally delivered on the original promise of the EV transition—affordability for the masses. We’ve been covering this for years, and the biggest barrier to EV adoption has always, always been price. The Equinox EV, finally shipping in volume, starts at a $33,600 MSRP and delivers an EPA-estimated 319 miles of range.

    This is the game-changer. This is the car that lets a normal family make the switch without destroying their budget.

    It also dovetails with the real tech win of 2025: the standardization of the NACS (Tesla) charging port. With almost every manufacturer adopting the plug for 2025 or 2026 models, the “range anxiety” problem is finally being solved from the infrastructure side. For us in the outdoor and gear space, this is massive. It means one plug, one network, and the freedom to actually go places.

    So yeah, 2025 stands out. It was the “Year of the Realist.” We got practical hybrids, EVs with genuine soul, and, finally, an affordable option for everyone. The future isn’t one-size-fits-all; it’s fragmented, diverse, and a hell of a lot more exciting.

    See you on the road.