The Best In Tech This Summer
Wire Free Brushing
Unclutter your sink with the M0de Electric Toothbrush which magnetically snaps to its wireless charging base plugged into the wall. Sure, you’re screwed if you don’t have any ports handy, but for the rest of us it’s the sleekest solution out. Even if you didn’t use the charging base, the brush has 30 days of use stored in a single charge.
Always looking for a way to be helpful, the IPX4 splash proof dock dock also doubles as a nightlight. The handle is built of strong aluminum and has a rubber upper. You will be stuck on a subscription plan when you get this thing though. Every 3 months, $10 gets you three more refill brushes, so your brush never has time to completely give up the ghost before you replace it with a nice clean set.
M0de.com RRP $150
Just Coasting
The days of cold tea and coffee are over. Long live the eternal warmth via the ikago Heat Coaster Pro. This little heating pad comes with a digital display, which frankly could be a bit smaller. It can tell you the current temperature as well as get your coffee piping at 80 degrees
It has infrared detection and auto-shutdown so no fiddling, just place your cup and live your life. You can also preset temperatures if you like your beverages at variable temperatures.
It weighs 260g and has a footprint of 169mm by 110mm, just the right size for whatever weirdo mug you put on it.
kickstarter.com/profile/ikagoheatcoasterpro/created RRP $100
Preparing for the cloud
Mainstream dedicated cloud gaming devices are just about here. Logitech has officially announced the Logitech G CLOUD Gaming Handheld. It’s an Android-based device that gives you a luxuriously large 1920 x 1080 FHD LCD 7” screen, edging out the Switch slightly in both screen size and weight. At 463 grams, it’s significantly lighter than the Steamdeck, as it leaves all the heavy lifting to the cloud. That means it’ll run things like Steamlink from your PC, Xbox’s cloud service, or Nvidea Geforce now, unlocking massive libraries for you to chew through while catching some rays on your deck.
While we haven’t had a chance to handle it yet, we can advise you on the brave new world we’re entering for cloud gaming. To get your house ready for a device like this we recommend you have a decent WiFi router or a mesh in place. If you’re running a 2.4ghz jobbie from your ISP, chances are you’re going to get a suboptimal experience trying to stream something other than Steamlink. So try and get a 5ghz connection. If you aren’t interested in completely uprooting your current rats nest, you can always just add in something like a Ubiquiti UniFi U6-Lite Dual-Band AX1500 to give you the grunt to send all those packets, and boost coverage around the house.
Brio 500
You don’t have a webcam yet? What year do you think this is? 2019? If you’re hunting for a professional solution, then the Brio 500 is the Full HD webcam with HDR for you. As far webcams go, this is a decently large one, but it makes up for it with the amount of flexibility options it has on its magnetic base to get set up in almost any position.
Spec-wise, it’s got a 4 megapixel camera with 90 degree field of view and it delivers 1080p at 30fps and 720p at 60 fps.
If you’re using Zoom, be sure to jump into video settings and enable HD, you’ll see an immediate jump in quality and a major improvement to the field of view. Tones on streaming are a little cooler than usual, but the image crispness is fantastic. Outside of Zoom calls, I’d also recommend this to particularly animated Vtubers who are looking for a webcam that can capture a wider field of movement for mocap and rigging.
For the more paranoid among us, it also comes with a physical shutter so the FBI can’t find out how haggard you look all day working from home. IT teams will find this camera dream with access to the optional Logitech Sync integration they can push firmware updates and troubleshoot remotely.
Otherwise if you’re a tech Neanderthal, just plugging it into your PC via a USB-C slot is all you need to get up and running quickly.
Living on the Edge
My screen using habits are a bizarro mishmash of formats, but I’m sure I could always use another one. The Edge 2.5D wirelessHD touchscreen portable monitor might just be the monitor that offers all the flexibility you could ever want. As it says in the name, it’s a 4k touchscreen which can act as a secondary monitor to any of your devices. It can take both wired and wireless connections the mmWave WirelessHD protocol for lag-free transmission up to 25 metres. It’s everything you want in a tablet without actually being one.
It isn’t a standalone device; you’ll want to mirror to it from something else, be it an actual tablet, your phone, PC or laptop. It has a built in 10200mAh battery that can deliver four hours of wireless usage. It also has its own docking and stereo speakers. It has 4 USB-C ports, an HDMI and 3.5mm aux. Pricing is based on the transmitter you want packed in with it. US$399 for the tablet and the 17 foot transmitter and US$459 for the 25 metre transmitter package.
kickstarter.com/profile/innlead/
Shrimp Sized Keyboard
Nordic Game Supply has released a 25-key layout keyboard for gamers… on the go I guess? Dubbed “The Shrimp”, it’s essentially the business end of the keyboard for FPS gamers who want the luxury of mechanical clickity clacks while not being saddled with an entire keyboards worth of keys. It comes with a wrist rest that can magnetically snap to the main board. It has RGB illumination and a cherry profile keycaps with Gateron G Pro switches. Finally, it has what NGS calls “cool gadgety knobs” for dialing through multimedia, etc. It uses USB-C and is compatible with everything you expect to be able to handle a keyboard including the PS4/PS5.
Finding Harmony
Casio continue to bring out beautiful digital pianos. Their latest offering boasts what they call a modern 360 degree design, meaning it’s a stunning piece of design no matter what angle you see it from.
Dubbed the Casio Privia PX-S7000, it comes in three colourways (iconic black or white and “Harmonious Mustard”). It stands out from the competition with its complete package of built-in pedals and stand which was designed under the idea of “Style, Reimagined”. This means Casio set out to deliver a keyboard that looks good in any situation, and in fact cries out for it. No longer will the keyboard be relegated to being hard up against a wall. It’s a piano stripped to its essential form with huge amounts of care spent on what remains.
What I find fascinating about it is how they designed the soundboard. Each element of the sound has been individually tweaked to output for each of its four speakers. Combined together in your room, this creates a natural sound spread.
But where the rubber meets the road, or the finger meets the ivories, is on the keys. It doesn’t matter how good a keyboard looks if the touch of playing it feels inauthentic. The white keys are made of both spruce (used in grand pianos) combined with resin. The black keys also imitate the feel of a grand piano with an ivory-and-ebony style surface-finish.
It comes with all the tones you’d expect with everything from acoustic and electric pianos, organs, and synthesizers. But they went above and beyond with specific piano and electric piano sounds used in the hits over the years, making it even easier to recreate the greats.
Questionable tech: The Mutalk
Look, I don’t care what you do with your weekends. I’m not here to kink shame, but I shouldn’t have to be saying this sort of thing about Bluetooth microphones. Shiftall, who works under Panasonic, have come up with a piece of tech fit for a dystopian cyberpunk future where we wear way too many gadgets that look like family friendly kink gear.
Introducing the Mutalk, which can completely isolate your voice from ambient sound, mostly because it’s a giant cavity that straps to your face hole. Pair it to anything that takes Bluetooth, and if you want to look less like a psycho and more like a kid talking into a tin can, you can take the straps off and only press it to your face when you have something to say. Battery life lasts up to 10 hours, so just long enough to get through the worst Zoom call of your life.
Apple Watch Ultra
In its dearth of new offerings, Apple has released the new flagship Apple Watch Ultra. This one is aimed at the rugged rough and tumble crowd who want all the functionality and none of the fragility. The Ultra comes in a 49mm titanium case with flat sapphire crystal covering the screen. It comes with a whopping 36 hours of a battery life with normal usage, or 60 on low power settings. It releases alongside three new bands, Trail Loop, Alpine Loop, and Ocean Band.
RRP US$799
JBL Tour PRO 2
I wasn’t sure how much more you could really do to a pair of earbuds to make them stand out from the pack. Fortunately, somebody in the depths of the JBL design department did, and slapped a 1.45″ inch LED touchscreen onto the charging case. Why pull out your phone or caress your earbud haphazardly trying to remember how to take a call, when you can do it straight from the case itself?
It can manage your music, customise your earbuds, receive calls, messages and social media notifications in real time. It seems to be vying for the same position as a smartwatch without you having to sacrifice your wrist’s freedom. It has True Adaptive ANC, as well as voice recognition if you’d rather control things that way. It packs a 6 mic design for capturing crystal clear audio when you’re talking and can keep up with you for 50 hours of playtime. Cut that down to 30 if you’re cranking ANC the entire time. Fast charging gets you around 5 hours of sound after 10 minutes of charging.
Available January 2023 on JBL.com RRP $410
Watch This
Have you been vainly searching for a timepiece which has none of the convenience of being a watch? Well, you’re in luck because the Mecascape is one step closer to being a reality. All they need is your money. Made by Code41 Watches, the Mecascape is a card-style timepiece featuring an impressive layout of cogs, faces and hands protected by a Scratch-resistant sapphire window. Minutes, hours and seconds, as well as GMT, all have their own face. The 8 day power reserve even has its own indicator while the date sits behind the minutes face. It comes with an Italian Leather slip case with microfiber lining and enough room for your credit card, etc. It makes much more sense as a desktop piece though, and Code41 has anticipated this with its own specially designed stand.
Code41watches.com Preorders open 2nd of November.
Meta Quest Pro Is Here
After months of speculation, Meta has finally announced the Meta Quest Pro, and boy, is it a beast. Aimed squarely at business and only the most dedicated consumers, the Quest wasn’t messing around when it put “Pro” in the title.
It has added gaps around the edges making it easier to peek out at the real world, and has vastly improved colour passthrough, meaning you can look through your headset into the real world, making it a true contender for augmented reality applications. The controllers have had a major upgrade with self tracking, but you can still use your old Quest 2 controllers if you so desire. Internal face tracking means your avatar’s eye and facial movements matches your own, which doesn’t sound much at first, but greatly closes the gap of having real interactions with people in the VR space.
Microsoft Teams is bringing its weight to the game in the form of Microsoft 365, a Microsoft Teams/Workrooms integration, Meta Avatars in Microsoft Teams, and Microsoft Intune and Azure Active Directory support for Quest.
Shipping started at the end of October and it’s retailing here in NZ for $2,699.99.
Mega Drive Mini 2
Continuing the nostalgia cash grab, Sega is releasing a Mega Drive 55% smaller than the original. It comes packed with 60 Mega Drive and Mega CD games. The original did incredibly well, and along with the other mini consoles like the playstation and NES, it’s no longer available. These things tend to do short runs so if you want one, you better pick one up. Things have also been exacerbated by semiconductor shortages. Games include Phantasy Star II, Super Street FIghter II, Sonic CD, Night Trap, Earthworm Jim 2 and OutRun. In the collection are also 7 unreleased Mega Drive titles, including Fantasy Zone, Space Harrier II, and VS Puyo Puyo Sun.
