Home 2017 November

OROS Discovery jackets review

Like flipping a switch on a lamp, it’s turned from summer in the 90’s to what already feels like winter in the 30’s here in Southern Indiana. When the leaves start turning and the mornings get crisp, it’s time to grab a jacket. OROS apparel sent me some jackets and outerwear to check out that use the same technology that protects astronauts in space to keep you warm on earth without weighing you down. Let’s take a look.

What is it?

OROS jackets use a thin breathable insulating aerogel material called SolarCore which uses the same technology that NASA uses to keep astronauts warm and toasty in outer space.

OROS sent me two jackets and a pullover shirt let’s take a closer look at each one.

OROS Women’s Essential Quarter Zip

When OROS sent me the samples in September, it was still in the 80’s – 90’s here in Columbus, Indiana. It took a few weeks for the weather to cooperate enough so that I actually wanted to try on the gear for more than a few minutes at a time.

The lightest item that they sent me was the Women’s Essential Quarter Zip which is more like a shirt than a jacket and is perfect for 60-degree weather, drafty office buildings, or even on flights. That is is how I tested the Essential Quarter Zip a week ago. It was the only long-sleeved clothing that I took with me on a vacation to Sanibel Island Florida.

I always get a little chilled waiting at the airport gate and also on the plane, so this shirt was a perfect remedy for that. You can see that Jeanne is wearing a bulkier hoodie and I am wearing the Essential Quarter Zip which is much lighter but still kept me warm.

Just looking at the shirt, you wouldn’t notice that there’s anything special about it. It looks like an ordinary gray knit shirt. But it has a special layer of the SolarCore material between the front and the back panels of the shirt, and even around the neck. Note that the sleeves and side rib areas of the shirt do not have SolarCore.

The shirt feels heavenly to wear. The sleeves are silky smooth and feel like they are lined with microfleece inside even though they really aren’t.

The Essential is made of 88% polyester and 12% spandex. It only comes in the gray color that you see here in sizes XS to 2XL. Their sizing might run slightly large. I was sent a Medium and I think I would have been better served by a Small.

The shirt has a quarter zip nylon locking zipper at the neck and the collar has a flap that covers the top of the zipper to prevent it from rubbing your neck or chin if you like to wear it completely zipped up.

In the image above you can see the OROS logo on the left shoulder. There’s also a second logo on the back right hip.

Another feature of the Essential Quarter Zip is the thumb hole in each sleeve cuff that makes it easy to keep the sleeves from sliding up your arms if you put another layer over the Essential.

I wondered how the SolarCore material would stand up to being washed, so I ran the shirt through the washer and dryer. I’m happy to report that it came out looking and feeling no different than when I first unboxed it.

The OROS Essential Quarter Zip saved me when we came home from Florida and got off the plane in Indianapolis to 35 degrees and rain. I hadn’t been smart enough to bring a coat with me would have frozen if it hadn’t been for this shirt.

Price: $120.00

OROS Women’s Discovery Fleece

The next heaviest jacket that OROS sent me is their Discovery Fleece which is available sizes XS up to 2XL and in Charcoal, Green, and Reflecting Pond colors. No, I didn’t name that color which is blue 😉 I was sent the Charcoal version.

The Discovery Fleece is made of 100% polyester with a 100% nylon lining.

The jacket has a stand-up collar and a nylon zipper with a large easy to grab zipper pull.

There are two pockets on either hip that have small zipper pulls.

The image above shows one of my favorite features of this jacket. Can you guess what it is? It’s the longer waistband in the back. It really helps keep your lower back warmer.

Like the Essential Quarter Zip, the Discovery Fleece also has SolarCore on the front and back. The sleeves and side rib area of the jacket do not have SolarCore which keeps the jacket lightweight and comfortable.

I really like the OROS Discovery Fleece multi-season jacket. It has a nice understated look, is very comfortable, and will keep me warm in the spring and fall temps.

Price: $150.00

OROS Women’s Discovery Jacket

The Discovery Jacket is the heaviest jacket of the trio. It is designed to be versatile and to withstand various cold, wind, rain weather conditions. The jacket is available in black, green (what you see here), and gray. It’s made of 90% polyester/10% spandex and has a 100% nylon lining.

The exterior of the jacket has a water repellant coating and there’s a hood to keep your non-water repellant coated head dry. Note that the hood is not removable and does not have drawstrings.

The jacket has a tall collar that’s lined in a silky short pile “fur”.

The sleeves have an extended knit cuff that keeps the wind from blowing up your arms. This jacket also has a longer hem at the bottom like the Discovery Fleece jacket.

OROS put an inspirational quote inside the lining of the jacket that says:

Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go.

Although I didn’t show an image, this same quote is printed inside the Discovery Fleece jacket too.

In addition to the zippered pocket at each hip, there’s a zippered chest pocket inside the jacket that is large enough to hold a phone, sunglasses, wallet, etc.

The OROS Discovery Jacket not only looks nice, but it’s comfortable to wear, moves well, and really keeps you warm with the SolarCore thermal material.

Price: $215.00

Final thoughts

I’d never heard of the OROS brand before being offered the chance to review the Essential Quarter Zip pullover, Discovery Fleece, and Discovery Jackets. Now I can say that they are quality made outerwear that will make you look and feel good while wearing them.

I’ll update this review in a month or two after we’ve had temps in the 20’s and lower.

Source: The samples for this review was provided by OROS. Please visit their site for more info.

 

Product Information

Price: See above
Manufacturer: OROS
Pros:
  • Very comfortable
  • SolarCore insulating material does a good job of holding in heat while remaining thin
Cons:
  • Essential Quarter Zip is expensive

Filed in categories: Reviews

Tagged: ,

OROS Discovery jackets review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on November 3, 2017 at 12:00 pm.

Note: If you are subscribed to this feed through FeedBurner, please switch to our native feed URL http://the-gadgeteer.com/feed/ in order to ensure continuous delivery.

Twinkle, twinkle, little skirt – you’ll look heavenly at holiday parties wearing this!

If you need a festive outfit for upcoming holiday parties, look no further than the Twinkling Stars Skirt at ThinkGeek.  With the lights turned off, you’ll have a skirt with a chiffon top layer printed with star charts.  There’s also a white gauze layer for floatiness, and a white liner for opacity.  The chiffon layer has snaps that allow you to attach three 15-ft strings of EL LED lights (with more than 250 bulbs total) that are powered by 3AA batteries (not included); the power pack fits inside the skirt’s waistband.  The lights are not as heavy as Christmas tree light strands, but they are sturdy enough to withstand being sat upon.  The lights can be turned off, on steady, or twinkle;  a set of batteries should power the skirt for three continuous days.  The skirt is made of 100% polyester fabrics, and it can be machine washed and line dried after the electronics have been removed.  The Twinkling Stars Skirt is available in a wide range of sizes for $59.99 from ThinkGeek.

Filed in categories: News

Tagged:

Twinkle, twinkle, little skirt – you’ll look heavenly at holiday parties wearing this! originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on November 3, 2017 at 11:00 am.

Note: If you are subscribed to this feed through FeedBurner, please switch to our native feed URL http://the-gadgeteer.com/feed/ in order to ensure continuous delivery.

Chamberlain MyQ Wi-Fi hub and Home Bridge Review

If your home is anything like mine, we don’t use our front door much. More times than not, we come and go through the garage door, even when not using a vehicle. Inevitably, the door gets left open, creating an ideal habitat for many friendly (and not so friendly) woodland creatures. This doesn’t happen much since installing the Chamberlin MyQ Wi-Fi Hub and Home Bridge. 

I’ve owned and happily used Chamberlain’s MyQ Wi-Fi Hub happily for several years. Without a doubt, it’s one of my most frequently used home automation gadgets.  It’s allowed me to open, close and check the status of my garage door anywhere I have an internet connection, even half a planet away. I’ve used it to allow access to pet-sitters, repair people, meter readers, and open the door more than once when the battery in my vehicle opener was depleted.  I’ve found it absolutely indispensable, particularly when I accept a ride in someone else’s car.

The first part of my system was the chamberlain Smart Garage Hub with MyQ Smart Phone Control. For about two years, it has flawlessly controlled my Genie door opener. It beeps and flashes a warning when about to close and the integrated area light stays on for a short time after the door opens or closes.

The device was easy to set up. After creating an account, I found my Wi-Fi signal in the garage was sufficient so I placed in near the opener, mostly to centrally locate the light. Also included are the power supply and a wireless, battery-powered position sensor that attached with sticky tape and rides on the door to tell the base unit if the door is closed open. Before you ask, no, it’s not intelligent enough to know the exact position of the door so you can leave the door open a little for your cat to get in but does provide information that the door is open, closed, or in motion.

The app walks through the setup process which connects to the device using Wi-Fi, adds the security credentials of my home network, and finally programs the MyQ to use the correct frequency to control my existing garage door opener. It’s compatible with many different opener manufacturers, but you should definitely check compatibility before you buy. Chamberlain also makes garage door openers with MyQ built in, so the Wi-Fi Hub isn’t needed.

The app sends push notifications letting me know when the door operates. Initially, I thought this might be annoying, but it’s added a large degree of comfort knowing when a family member arrives or leaves home. The app also has an Apple Watch component allowing door operation and status checking without needing to dig the phone out of my pocket, which, at least in my state is illegal when driving.

Initially, the app had the functionality to open or close the door on a schedule. I found this feature particularly useful for ensuring my door was closed daily at bedtime, particularly because my daughters were notorious for leaving it open, resulting in a family of chipmunks living in comfort and the subsequent purchase of a Have-A-Heart animal trap to evict the little boogers. Unfortunately, Chamberlain stopped this capability (although the app still has the scheduling portion intact a year later) due to a communications issue with the door position sensor when the battery was low.

Adding the Home Bridge was as simple as a procedure as adding the Smart Garage Hub – connect to Wi-Fi and add to the app, but there is another step added to push a button on the Garage Hub to get the components to play nicely together. Another few pokes of the screen added the capabilities to Apple’s Home Kit. This means I can ask Siri to open or close my garage door or check status – Very nice! Now I can close the garage door without even having to pick up my phone. However, I was disappointed that the scheduling features require Apple TV which I don’t have at the time of this writing, but I might request from Santa this Christmas.  As an alternative, for $1 a month or $10 a year, Chamberlain’s app will integrate with IFTTT, adding countless home automation possibilities. Since I really wanted the timer functions to protect my tools and to prevent our local skunk from calling my garage home, I opted to take the yearly subscription and successfully got the timer working. I’ve since added another IFTTT applet to turn on my hallway WEMO light when the door opens meaning no more walking into a dark house. My wife is going to love this!

In the two years, I’ve used the MyQ Hub and the week with the Home Bridge, I’ve found the Siri integration fun and useful. I would love to see integration with Alexa and a fix to the app’s timer scheduling functions (alleviating the need for IFTTT or the purchase another piece of hardware). Chamberlain’s MyQ hub and Home Bridge are some of my favorite and most frequently used devices. I look forward to product improvements and many more years of use.  When my venerable Genie screw-drive garage door opener inevitably is put out to pasture, I will likely be looking at a Chamberlain with MyQ to fill the gap.

Source: The sample for this review was provided by Chamberlain. Please visit their site for more info and you can order from Amazon.

 

Product Information

Price: MyQ Wi-Fi Hub $99.99, Home Bridge, $49.99
Manufacturer: Chamberlain
Retailer: Amazon
Pros:
  • Reliable and Convenient
  • Lots of integration options
Cons:
  • None

Filed in categories: Reviews

Tagged: , ,

Chamberlain MyQ Wi-Fi hub and Home Bridge Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on November 3, 2017 at 10:00 am.

Note: If you are subscribed to this feed through FeedBurner, please switch to our native feed URL http://the-gadgeteer.com/feed/ in order to ensure continuous delivery.

Never lose your nice pen again, thanks to Cross and TrackR

I love beautiful writing implements, and I’ve collected a few over the years.  I’ve sadly lost a couple over the years, too.  There are a variety of Bluetooth trackers on the market these days to help you keep up with your valuables, but you can’t exactly hang a fob on your ballpoint pen.  But now, thanks to Cross and TrackR, you’ll be able to find that pen that was left behind or “borrowed” without the use of dangling security fobs.  

The Peerless TrackR ballpoint pen pairs with the TrackR app on your smartphone via Bluetooth (connectivity up to 100ft).  Whenever you walk away from your pen, the pen will notify your app of its last location.  If the pen is disconnected from your mobile device, then TrackR’s Crowd Locate community will automatically start searching for the pen and send you a report of where the pen was when one of the TrackR community passes by it.  And like other TrackR devices, your pen can even help you locate your phone when it’s misplaced, even when your phone is set to silent mode, with a simple press of a button on the pen.

The Peerless TrackR measures 5.76″ long with a 0.52″ diameter; it weighs 1.5 ounces.  The Bluetooth TrackR is powered by two replaceable CR1220 batteries.  The pen is available in Carbon Black or Quartz Blue; both pens are accented in shiny chrome.  The Peerless TrackR Ballpoint Pen is $250, from Cross and $149.99 from Amazon.

Filed in categories: News

Tagged:

Never lose your nice pen again, thanks to Cross and TrackR originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on November 3, 2017 at 9:00 am.

Note: If you are subscribed to this feed through FeedBurner, please switch to our native feed URL http://the-gadgeteer.com/feed/ in order to ensure continuous delivery.

Julie’s gadget diary – It’s iPhone X day and I’m not feeling left out (really, I mean it)

Today’s the day Apple fan boys and fan girls have been waiting for. It’s the day ordinary people can get their hands on the iPhone X. And when I say “ordinary”, I really mean you because I didn’t order one like I had originally planned after watching the Apple iPhone X unveiling event back in September.

But let me back up… This past summer I had a 3-month phonemance with an iPhone 7 Plus. Like most flings, the chemistry between us was good for awhile, but soon the initial attraction wore off and I found myself daydreaming about that cute little green Android. I ultimately had to sit down with the iPhone 7 Plus and have a talk that went something like this.

Me: “iPhone, you look really nice tonight, is that a new wallpaper?”
iPhone:
Me: “Look, I think you’ve been feeling this for awhile too… things just aren’t working out between us anymore.”
iPhone:
Me: “No, no, it’s me, not you. You’ve been great.”
iPhone:
Me: “You have a lot going for you, a great display, great apps, and great accessories. I’m just not feeling the spark between us anymore and I think it’s time to move on.”
iPhone:
Me: “iPhone, you’ll always have a place in my heart, but right now this isn’t our time.”

Whew, that was brutal. A few days later I traded the iPhone 7 Plus for an original Pixel XL and I haven’t looked back. Ok, maybe I did feel a few pangs of regret with the lead up to the iPhone X pre-order day, and the constant chatter about the iPhone X from fellow Gadgeteer writer Dave Rees. But none of the talk and online glam made me want to order one. I ordered the Pixel 2 XL instead and have been happily using it for the past 2 weeks.

Does that mean that I don’t want to get my hands on an iPhone X if only for a few fleeting moments of consensual fondling? No way. I’m The Gadgeteer after all and with that title comes a very high level of gadget curiosity. I will check one out. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon.

Those of you who are getting the iPhone X today, congrats! I hope you have a long and healthy phonemance. Let us know your first impressions in the comments below.

BTW, who else out there can’t seem to call the new iPhone the iPhone 10 instead of the iPhone “ex” all the time?

Filed in categories: Articles

Tagged: ,

Julie’s gadget diary – It’s iPhone X day and I’m not feeling left out (really, I mean it) originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on November 3, 2017 at 7:55 am.

Note: If you are subscribed to this feed through FeedBurner, please switch to our native feed URL http://the-gadgeteer.com/feed/ in order to ensure continuous delivery.