Normal Ears - custom 3d printed headphones

If there was one thing that Apple did (and they did many), it was create a vibrant market for headphones. Since the advent of the iPod, white headphones where every where. Prior to this, most people didn't care about headphones and most headphones were black and boring. Fast forward to this year, where headphones have become so iconic, and fashion oriented, that Apple purchased Beats Audio for over 3 billion.

But the problem with headphones, is that they are "one size fits all". We all know that for most products, this approach leads to some amount of discomfort. And specifically, I'm referring to "earbud style".

Earbud headphones are great because they are compact and you can easily take them anywhere. The challenge with earbud style headphones is that:

• They don't often "fit" very well, falling out of ears
• The "in ear" ones require fiddling around with different size ear tips and at least for me cause a lot of discomfort from the pressure in my ear.

These problems are hard to solve. Up till recently "custom" earmolds for earbud headphones (offered by Shure, Etymotyic and the like) require a visit to a hearing specialist where they take a mold of your ear and create a silicon tip. Usually for the cost of a few hundred dollars.

Well, there is a company trying to change that, and their headphones are called "Normals"

What is it?

Normal ears are created in New York City using 3D printers. The way it works is that you download an app do your iOS or Android phone and take some photos of your ears. Based on those photos, they create custom fitted earbuds and ship them to you in 24 hours. Pretty neat. You can read more at Venturebeat:

The company’s big innovation is its ability to create $200, 3D-printed earbuds that are molded for your ears. Normal’s iPhone app can capture the contours of your ears just by taking a few photos while you hold a quarter up to your ear (for a common reference size). Your unique headphone frame is then 3D printed (the company has 10 Stratasys Fortus printers at work in its retail space) and then assembled and tested by a crew of employees.

You also get to personalize your earbuds in a number of different colors. I personally like that experience of creating something unique for me.

Here is what customization looks like in the iOS app.

Here are a picture of my earbuds in the custom case they made for me:

I originally went with black everything and red plastic, but then decided the "red" was too orange for me, so they swapped it out for blue.

Normals are not cheap. at $199 you are making a pretty big investment in your ears. But given how much music I listen to on the go, commuting, and traveling, I felt that this was something I'd get a lot of value out of over time. A set of high quality headphones at the Apple Store is going to run you $79 - $500 and up, so this is a market segment where you can spend a little or a lot to listen to music.

Everything about creating them is fun. And their brand is very playful / whimsical.

Why did you get it?

I really like the idea of having earbuds with me at all times, but I can't tolerate the discomfort the silicon / foam inserts cause after a while of listening to music. The Normals are very comfortable as they don't go in to your ear canal, but they mainly sit over your ear canal supported by the custom 3d printed plastic. It's mainly friction that's holding them in place. They don't fall out, so they are well suited for running too.

How has it made your life better?

I think it's pretty remarkable that you can get custom items these days based on using an app on your phone and 3rd printing. I imagine that we'll see a lot more of this over time.

Normals have the added benefit that when I commute, I can still hear road noise and sounds around me (they are not sound isolating). They are similar to the earbuds that come with the iPhone/iPod by default, but don't fall out of your ear and sound much better.

Are you going to keep it?

Till something better comes a long. I've found them to be much more comfortable from regular earbuds (albeit not perfect). But there isn't really a product that offers this much customization delivered so quickly.

If you are interested, you can order your own Normals by heading over to http://nrml.com/ and downloading their app. In about 10 min you'll have taken the photos and customized your Normals.

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Kenu Airframe - Mounting your Phone in your Car

Let's face it. Our phones are way better technology than the junk in our cars. Either you have the latest, most state of the art navigation and music playing system in your car (in which case in 2 years you will laugh at it) or you don't and your phone is already better. Over the last few years I have realized that I'd much rather prefer to use my phone as a navigation tool (such as the Waze app) or a Music Player (to stream spotify or an audio book). When I do find the instance that I use my car navigation system, I am dismayed that I don't have dynamic routing, traffic reports, updated map data and so on.

If you car has bluetooth, then you are pretty much set. All you need is power (an article for a future post) and a mount for your phone. I have been doing some research on phone mounts for our cars, and one that I can take on trips where I am driving a rental car around and using my phone to find my way.

My research has ended with what I have found to be a fantastic solution to having visibly of my phone in a hands free configuration... so enter the Kenu Airframe.

What is it?

The Kenu Airframe [24.95 @ Amazon in Black and White] is a contraption that you attach to your heating/AC vent in your car. It attaches to the plastic fins, and stays secure. Then you attach your phone to it. It has the added benefit that when you have the AC on it cools your phone down, which on a hot day is necessary as the GPS can burn up the battery, heat the phone and prevent it from charging.

Why did you get it?

I wanted something that was easy to place my phone in for my commute every day, and have the ability to stream music or use Waze to find the best route home in traffic. I was particularly interested in something that did not attach to the dashbaord (possibly ruining the dashboard) or the front windshield (illegal in some states).

I also wanted something portable that I could take on a vacation or trip.

I ended up buying 3 of them. One for my car, Lora's car and for travel.

How has it made your life better?

It's really high quality, easy to install and remove, and won't damage the car. It allows me to keep my phone at a convenient arm's length and keep me focused on driving and not looking around for my phone.

Are you going to keep it?

Well, until something better comes along, or I get a phone that is too large for this guy. Kenu says it works for a phone up to 5 inches. That is going to seem small in a few months.

Doxie Flip

My guess is that many of you have a scanner, and probably can't figure out how to use it. My experience has always been that scanner software is nearly impossible to setup / configure / use and keep working. For the past many years I've had an expensive Fujitsu scanner for being nearly 100% paperless. This thing gobbles up mail, statement and papers and turns them into PDFs (I'll save this for another post). However, what about all those 4x6 photos you have? Receipts? Or really large items that can't be easily scanned? Enter Doxie. The scanner with nothing to install, no computer to plug it into, the scanner that's easy to use and cheap. There are multiple Doxie models:

• Doxie Flip - flatbed
• Doxie One - sheet fet, basic model
• Doxie Go - sheet fed, rechargeable battery, 2x the optical resolution, and built-in memory

This post is about the Flip

What is it?

The Doxie Flip [$149 via Amazon] is a tiny flatbed scanner that doesn't need a computer. It scans photos, receipts and large items (via a clever removable lid and software that stitches photos) and stores them on an SD card that you can later pop into your computer and download (like a camera). You can also, optionally, add an Ey-Fi card and just have the items wireless upload to your cloud of choice (or PC).

Why did you get it?

Every few months we get some analog photos that need scanning and recycling (we are all digital). And every few months our daughter brings home some largish piece of artwork or poster that won't fit in our scanner. So I use Doxie to get them into the PC and archived.

I pretty much just scan anything I might feel guilty about throwing away, and then I throw it away.

We also have a few hundred old photos that my parents gave me (smaller than 4x6) and so over the past year I have been scanning batches of these photos. You really need a flatbed scanner to do this as any scanner that feeds in photos will get scanned in with lines on it due to the glossy paper + dust creating bands / lines on the photos. Flatbed scanners can be a bit of a nightmare when tethered to a PC so this turns out to be a great way to get all those family memories scanned and archived.

So I did some research looking looking for something that was easy to use, didn't require a PC, and was portable (this thing runs off AA batteries).

How has it made your life better?

It's a lot easier to get stuff on the PC and share it. It makes getting those hundreds of analog memories we have easy to get on our PC and archived forever.

What I will do sometimes is plop down in front of the TV and scan a few dozen photos in batch, then import them to the PC and recycle the photos.

I just keep this little scanner in our kitchen and anyone can just grab it and scan a photo. My Eye-fi card delivers it to my PC where it's stored on a local RAID hard drive and then backed up by Crashplan to the cloud.

Are you going to keep it?

I've had this for a few months now and still use it every month. Very handy and simple. I highly recommend you get the Flip, or take a look at their other models.

Surface RT 6 months later

I'm on a cross country flight to Boston to meet with some Microsoft folks and I've only brought my Surface RT, a Kindle and my phone. It sure beats carrying a laptop with a brick and dealing with TSA security theater (can't wait to get TSA Pre which I should have this summer so I can keep my shoes on).

Which reminds me. I pretty much don't need a laptop any more. I have one, that I use once a week for a meeting where I have to present. I use my laptop because the conference rooms at Microsoft don't deal well with non VGA sources and I don't like carrying around a dongle to project. Wireless presentation can't happen soon enough.

Since getting the surface I've found I can more than get by both at work, on trips, vacations and around the house.

I've switched from the touch cover to the type cover. I loved the idea of the touch cover but I can type so dammed fast on the type cover I've just dealt with the extra thickness and lack of color.

I do have a desktop that I use at home and at work, and for a few desktop apps I just run them as RemoteApps on my Surface RT.

All in all it's been a great 6 months. The weight, keyboard and productivity capabilities make it more than adequate for a "take it everywhere and anywhere" kind of device.