S'Well Water Bottles

May 25, 2014 by Omar Shahine in newsletter, home

Credit goes to my sister for this find. What is it?

S'Well Water bottles are high quality stainless steel, vacuum sealed bottles. They are shaped like a normal bottle, and are totally spill proof. And they don't sweat at all when adding cold liquid or ice.

Why did you get it?

We try and avoid bottled water as much as possible and travel with and use re-usable bottles at home and work. I wanted a bottle that would keep cold drinks cold and hot drinks hot without a lot of added bulk or weight. I also wanted something that was not going to be complicated to clean or assemble with straws, attachments and whatnot.

How has it made your life better?

The S'Well bottle is really high quality. We have a few of the Matte series (Black and Pink) as well as the stainless naked one and then a "His" and "Hers" collection that stays by our bedside.

If you are looking for a nice gift or to get started I'd recommend The His & Hers Set.

The most striking things about these bottles, besides their good looks and functionality is that they keep my water cold or at room temp for hours. They don't sweat either. I have left ice cubes in a hot car for hours to find my ice cubes still in the bottle later in the day.

For me, this is the most unexpected benefit of a vacuum sealed bottle. On hot days or in a hot car I don't end up sucking down hot water.

Are you going to keep it?

This is a very high quality product (and quite expensive for a bottle) and we are really happy with them. When the kids are a bit older we plan to get the small 9oz bottles for them. Right now they are still using the Kleen Kanteen kid bottles.

I think these would make a great gift BTW. The Evernote Team happens to sell green logo version of these bottles. You can do the same though their custom order program.

Supermechanical Range Smart Thermometer

May 11, 2014 by Omar Shahine in newsletter

I've never used a cooking thermometer that I didn't think was junk. And I use them infrequently enough that when I do use one, I can never figure out how to work the thing (or more often it's out of batteries). The instant read thermometers are the best, but they don't work for all situations. Enter the Supermechanical Range Thermostat (a Kickstarter project I backed)

What is it?

The Range ($69.95 pre-order from Amazon) is a cooking / grilling thermometer that you use with an iOS app. It's super cool. You just plug into your iPhone or iPad, set the desired tempurature (they have presets) and you can watch the temp change over time on their handy graph.

They also have an alert system so that if you have two iOS device (iPad / iPhone) you can walk away from the oven or grill and get alerts on your phone.

Why did you get it?

Why not? I mean it's a freaking thermometer that has an app! This is the future after all! Honestly, it looked like a neat project and I felt like supporting them.

How has it made your life better?

Well I got rid of my horrible thermomoter and replaced with this. No manual, batteries to worry about or anything like that. My wife or I can just plug it in and launch the app and we're good to go.

Are you going to keep it?

Hell yes. Not sure what I will do if I switch over to using Android for a while (I switch phones every few months so I can live the experience completely).

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Google Chromecast

April 27, 2014 by Omar Shahine in newsletter

Sorry for the lack of posts the past few weeks. Will try and get back into the swing of things again as I have a pretty large backlog of posts. Amazon Fire TV is sure to be on many of your minds. However, this post is about a Google Chromecast.

What is it?

The Chromecast is different from most TV boxes. It's a small little HDMI dongle. You insert into your TV, you add power, and then you interact with certain apps on your phone or tablet and "cast" the show to your TV.

Think of this like an extension of your phone/tablet except you watch the TV on the TV. This is different than say Apple TV and AirPlay where the phone is literally transcoding / sending the entire TV stream to your TV (resulting in a drain on your phone's battery). In this case the Chromecast is receivling the video stream direct from the service (Netflix or HBO) and the phone/tablet is acting as a remote.

This is all possible by some incredible technology called DIscovery And Launch (DIAL).

Unfortunately for the Chromecast, the inventors of HDMI didn't think about powering a remote device like this (say like USB). So there is no affordance for the TV to provide power to the Chromecast. This requires that you plug in a Micro USB cable and provide power. For me, I actually can do this via my Samsung TV which has two USB ports, but they are only powered when the TV is on. So instead, I have my Amazon Fire TV powering my Chromecast (oh the irony) via the USB port that's always powered.

Why did you get it?

Really for a few reasons.

It's cheap. I mean $35 cheap. For this price I literally don't care if it sucks or not. I even got 20% off as Amazon Credit Card owners get 20% off electronics right now.
It enables some neat scenarios like casting HBO Go on my Bedroom TV which my Amazon Fire TV cannot do (and cannot do for 7-8 months) and my Roku cannot do because Comcast hates Roku for some reason and doesn't support HBO Go if you are using Comcast.
It's the future. I imagine a world where every TV and TV box supports DIAL and all capable apps can cast to them. It's already the case that YouTube and Netflix can "cast" to Amazon Fire TV, Roku, and in some cases even Xbox One.

How has it made your life better?

Right now for $35 I have an awesome Netflix and HBO solution in our bedroom without the hassle of dealing with another "ecosystem" of hardware and software. The only thing you need is an iPhone or Android device with apps like Netflix, Hulu and HBO and you can pretty much watch anything you want.

I expect over time many more apps and services will support DIAL and the devices/apps that enable support will provide really inexpensive ways to get this content on your TV.

Are you going to keep it?

Yes, until there is something better. I like the Amazon Fire TV, but it solves a different problem. Say my kids want to watch something, it's nice that I can drive the discovery / viewing of a show through a dedicated hardware solution / voice. However, Amazon has the same problem everyone else does which is Amazon does not have all the shows, the apps do, and when a company with an Ecosystem like Amazon provides hardware, you get funny things happening through competitors like Netflix, HBO, etc who have to decide how deep they want to integrate with the hardware.

Chromecast gets around this because you are always using the App/Service from the Vendor and the Chromecast device is just a dumb terminal that doesn't care about your service.

To put this another way, I did not have to sign into my Chomecast with a Google account.... and that's shocking.

Sony BCG-34HLD Battery Charger

March 30, 2014 by Omar Shahine in newsletter

When we had our first child, there was an explosion of devices that required AA and AAA batteries in our household. I decide to start looking into rechargeable batteries. Around that time, Jeff Atwood, published this post. It was then that I learned of the wonders of "pre-charged" AA and AAA batteries. I also ordered the referenced La Crosse charger, but to be honest, I was never satisfied with it. Very bulky and it has an annoying bug that if a battery is totally dead it won't charge. Since then I've been on the look for something more consumer friendly. And that I found.

Note: The secret to being successful at replacing standard AA and AAA batteries with rechargeable is to have a lot of them. I probably have about 36 AA batteries and the same AAA. I keep them charged and ready to use in our kitchen drawer. Everything in our home that takes batteries is using these things now. I have a few recommendations for batteries at the end.

What is it?

The Sony BCG34HRE4KN is a compact charger that will charge AA and AAA batteries. It's novel in that it will charge just 1 battery or 3 and not require that you charge in pairs.

Why did you get it?

There is this guy (NLee on Amazon) who reviews almost every battery and charger. His review for this charger "Perfect combination of Smart Charger and low-self-discharge cells" [5 stars].

That was enough for me to get this. I no longer use the La Crosse charger except to "test" or "refresh" batteries that seem to be challenged.

How has it made your life better?

Compact charger
Fold in plugs
Can charge 1, 2, 3 or 4 batteries at once in any combination of AA and AAA
Each cell is monitored individually
Pretty fast charger
Battery status per battery

Are you going to keep it?

Most definitely. I don't know why Amazon has marked this item as Discontinued. I can't seem to find what the replacement model is, but I'd suggest you get this before it's gone

If you are looking for some quality pre-charged batteries I'd recommend (also recommended by NLee)

Logitech Harmony Smart Control

March 22, 2014 by Omar Shahine in newsletter

note: I got some feedback from some folks who shall remain nameless, that the name of this newsletter is lame. Fair enough. For many years I've held on to a domain, omarknows.com, that I registered after coming back from a conference with some co-workers. They nicknamed me 'omarknows' because I had the answers to many of their gadget and technology questions. I had forgotten about this, but when I proposed this back to the nameless party who gave me feedback they thought it was much better than "Newsletter of Things". Therefore, I will have re-branded the newsletter.

I have owned many Harmony Remotes (now owned by Logitech) since they launched their original model in 2004. Back then the idea that you could program a remote with hard buttons was novel (vs a pure touchscreen remote). Today there are hundreds of options. A few days ago, on the recommendation of a co-worker, I replaced my rather expensive Harmony One with a low cost smartphone powered remote.

What is it?

Logitech Harmony Smart Control [$109.99 via Amazon] is a very simple, light and low power remote that talks to a "base station" that you locate next to your electronics. You program everything via an iPhone or Android app. Gone are the days where you need to download a bunch of software on your PC or Mac (mostly horrible) and spend time going back and forth from you PC to the media room testing to see if things work.

Once you have gone through the well designed setup process you simply enter the model number of your devices and test things out. I had no trouble getting it all working. One benefit is that the device has no IR on the remote at all. All the IR blasting is done via the small base station and small IR emitters that you can place far away from the device if you have to locate the base station in a closet for example. The "brains" for this whole system are in that base station.This is what allows for an iPhone app to control the whole system.

It was easy enough that without any explanation my 7 year old and my wife were able to use the remote and turn on our TV + Xbox without any problems. Success!

The build quality of the remote is fantastic. It's light, feels good and operates off a watch battery. No charging required and no battery draining LCD screen.

Why did you get it?

The main reason was to simplify the remote control situation and remove the need to have a remote that is charged often, as well as remove any need for "line of sight" IR as that can result in some aspects of the system not powering on causing confusion and frustration.

Also, removing the need to have the Logitech software running on my PC + the additional iPhone + Android app was a plus.

How has it made your life better?

See above. I assumed it would be better, sight unseen (and based on a positive recommendation).

Are you going to keep it?

Yes, for sure. This is my 6th? Harmony Remote. I basically replace one every 3 years as tech improves (I actually have 2, one for each TV).

The price is very attractive if you are someone who has 2-4 remotes today and you are looking to simplify without having to use any complex software or programming. If you can use an iPhone app you can set this thing up and simplify your life.

Limefuel USB Charger

March 19, 2014 by Omar Shahine in newsletter

Welcome to the first post of my Newsletter! I thought I'd start off by something that is probably relevant and useful for each of you. I'd bet that you have a number of devices in your home that charge via USB. I'd also bet that if you have children, you've been on vacations where you don't have enough of these things. And if you think buying them from Apple is a good idea, well it's not. Apple likes to charge a lot of money for things like this.

What is it?

The Limefuel USB charger [$16.99 via Amazon] is a Dual Port 4.8A/24W High Output charger. You may not know this but USB chargers come in many versions.

The kind that comes with your iPhone is a 5W charger at 5V is pumping out 1 amp. The kind that comes with the iPad pumps out 2.1A. The Kindle Fire 1.8A. The USB port on your PC is going to do .5A which probably explains why it takes so "long" to charge your phone from your laptop. Some devices are very finiky about this and won't charge at all unless you use the 2.0A charger that it came with (looking at you Dell).

Another way to say it is this:

Likewise, amperage is just as important. Amps are the current that's supplied to your device. Think of it like a river, and the amperage is how fast that river is. Amps are usually listed on your power supply as something like, 2.7A or 1A. This regulates how much power flows through from the power supply to your device. The amperage listed on your power supply needs to match or exceed the amperage required by your device.

[lifehacker]

The Limefuel charger is essentially going to charge the most power hungry devices you own at full speed, and do that for 2 devices. It also is smart enough to step down to meet the needs of any other device you have. And it does 2.4A of juice on each port for a total of 4.8A.

Why did you get it?

On our last vacation I realized that we didn't have enough of these chargers and we didn't have enough of the high amperage ones. Not to mention we each have 1-2 devices in this family that require USB power.

I did a lot of research on Amazon and my goal was to find a charger that did not make you make silly decisions like "plug the Apple device into port 1" and "plug the Android phone into port 2". You'd be surprised at how many devices have nonsense like this.

I also wanted a charger that was not ugly, was not huge, and was compact for travel. The charger comes in white and black. Don't be fooled by the white in the picture (which looks Ivory). The device is in fact white.

The limefuel fit the bill and has great amazon reviews.

How has it made your life better?

I got 4 of these. One per person in the family, and now each person has 2 USB ports to charge phones, iPods, Kindles, Tablets and so on. This way our devices stay charged and we can also perform quick "re-charges" during the day.

Right now we also have one in our kitchen so that we can keep 2 devices charged during the day or night.

Are you going to keep it?

This one is a keeper. I see no reason to give this a short half life in our household.I may get these as stocking stuffers for everyone next year.

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