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Just like milk, the Pado PureWave Handheld Cordless Massager does a body good!!


NEWS – Whenever I get home after a hard day at work, a massage is always a part of my thoughts and wishes as I go through my unwinding process. For many years, I have been thinking about one of those beautiful soft leather massage chairs that can give me a whole body massage. However, when I think about it from a practical and logistical perspective, the really nice chairs can cost thousands of dollars, and unless I can find one that would fit perfectly into the décor at home, my wife would not be a willing party to my dream. In addition, while I have sat in this type of massage chair on many occasions, I realized that many times I need a massage at specific parts of my shoulder, back or neck, and quite frankly, the massage chair that cost thousands of dollars cannot always deliver a pinpoint massage, or a massage focused on a specific area of your body that does not I interact with the chair when you are seated.

Pado is a company that makes a cordless handheld massager called the PureWave. It is available in 3 models, and the most capable model is the PureWave CM7 that provides for a muscle, joint and facial massage utilizing dual motors and adjustable intensity. This capability promises to provide the versatility to achieve a more focused massage. You can read more about the PureWave Massager on the Pado website, and you can purchase one for $34.95 to $124.95 depending on the model that you choose.

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Just like milk, the Pado PureWave Handheld Cordless Massager does a body good!! originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on February 19, 2019 at 10:00 am.

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GameSir Marsback Mini Game Arcade review

REVIEW – If you want to relive all of your favorite childhood Game Boy, NES, PS, and other games on your phone, you have to use an emulator, but playing these games with onscreen controls is not fun (at least I don’t think so). The GameSir Marsback Mini Game Arcade is a fun way to turn your Android or iPhone into a tiny retro gaming console. Let’s check it out.

What is it?

The GameSir Marsback Mini Game Arcade is a Bluetooth joystick controller and holder for your smartphone that turns it into a mini arcade machine.

What’s in the box?

  • GameSir Marsback Mini Game Arcade
  • 2 AA batteries
  • Instructions

Design and features

The Marsback (where’d they get that name?) is a square plastic device with a joystick and 6 control buttons on top and a slot for your phone.

On the bottom are the power switch and battery compartment (2 AA’s are included with the unit).

The device isn’t very large at only 3.25 x 3 x 3.5 inches.

Behind the phone slot is a pull-out backrest if you want to use the phone in landscape orientation with the controller.

Here we see my Pixel 2 XL resting against the backrest on top of the device. This orientation works fine as long as you are going to play the games on a flat surface. I wouldn’t recommend it if you want to hold the Marsback controller in your hands to play games as there is nothing to secure the phone in place and it could easily fall off.

And here we see the same Pixel 2 XL with a Pitaka case inserted in the phone slot. I think this is the preferred way to play games using the Marsback. Yes, the screen is smaller, but you can hold the whole thing in your hands which makes it more portable.

The Happy Chick app



The Marsback controller does not come with any games, but the instructions that come with the controller instruct you to download the Happy Chick app by using the QR code in the instruction sheet. You can see some of the errors and warnings that my Pixel 2 XL showed when I installed the app. Although these errors make the app look pretty shady, I decided to take a leap and installed it anyway. So far my phone hasn’t exploded. I also have read that lots of people use this app so hopefully, that means it’s not evil.

The app is basically an interface that lets you download and play game ROMs on your device. You can search for your favorite retro titles and find them for a variety of devices like the Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Color, NES, and more.

If you’re thinking that downloading and playing copyrighted game ROMs (if you don’t own them) could be illegal, well yeah, you’d be right. Will you go to jail if you buy and use this device? Highly doubtful.

One of my all-time favorite retro games is Prince of Persia, so I downloaded it first. You can actually use the Happy Chick app all by itself to play games as it has onscreen controls, but when you pair the Marsback controller to your device it works perfectly with these old games.

By default, the games display in landscape orientation, but you can bring up the Happy Chick settings to switch orientations.

In portrait orientation, the layout is perfect for placing the phone in the Marsback phone slot to create a mini arcade machine.

The joystick and buttons are smaller than what you will find on a full-sized gaming controller, but they are responsive and fully functional. Holding a plastic box between your hands to play games can be a little awkward and not nearly as comfortable as using a regular controller. But the idea of the Marsback device is to be a cute nostalgic nod to the standalone arcade games from the ’80s and ’90s.

What I like

  • Cute!
  • Easy to use
  • Phone can be used in either orientation

What needs to be improved

  • Put the power button on top so you won’t forget to turn it off after a gaming session
  • Shady Happy Chick app

Final thoughts

I guarantee if you stick your phone in the phone slot of the Marsback mini arcade device and boot up Pacman, Centipede, Sonic the Hedgehog, Doom, or another iconic game from the past, that anyone who walks by is going to ask you about it and want to take a turn playing the game. The Marsback Mini Game Arcade isn’t the most fantastic gaming controller I’ve ever tested. But it is fun to use and at only $34, it won’t make your wallet cry but it will make you and your friends smile.

Price: $34.00
Where to buy: Vinpok
Source: The sample for this review was provided by GameSir.

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GameSir Marsback Mini Game Arcade review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on February 19, 2019 at 9:00 am.

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The Wacom Cintiq 16 drawing tablet removes a few pro features and cuts the price by more than half

NEWS – As a professional art director, I depend on Wacom graphics tablets for much of my photoshop work, whether it’s retouching or photo manipulation. It’s not natural doing computer art with a mouse or trackpad. Through the years Wacom has upgraded their line of Intuos and Cintique tablets for the Pro market—at pro prices. As lower-priced competition has challenged their market dominance, Wacom has responded with a 16 in. Cintiq tablet at less than half the price of their 16 in. Pro model. The Cintiq line of tablets come with a built-in monitor so you can draw right on the screen without having to look at your computer screen.

The Waco Cintiq 16 may lack some of the features pros demand, but that doesn’t mean it’s lacking in what most users want. The Cintiq 16 is perfect for a novice illustrator or photo editor. It has an astounding 8,192 levels of pen pressure so it recognizes the slightest pen strokes. It also recognizes pen tilt letting you vary the thickness of a pen stroke just by tilting your hand, much like a real pen or pencil. In fact, the Cintiq 16 comes with the same pen as the pro model—the Pro Pen 2. This pen never needs charging because it uses EMR (Electro Magnetic Resonance) technology drawing power from the Cintiq itself—in other words, no batteries. It’s one of the best tablet pens, period.

The Cintiq’s 15.6 in. 1920 x 1080 HD display has an anti-glare film that eliminates reflections and offers a slight resistance to the pen—much like real paper. There are two foldable legs that set the tablet at a comfortable angle. An optional Wacom stand allows even more flexible and ergonomic tablet positions. The Cintiq 16 is compatible with a full range of accessory pens in the Wacom range. One notable accessory is an optional ExpressKey remote with 17 customizable buttons and a touch ring.

The Wacom Cintiq 16 graphics tablet sells for $649.95 and is available now from Amazon. 

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The Wacom Cintiq 16 drawing tablet removes a few pro features and cuts the price by more than half originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on February 19, 2019 at 8:00 am.

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Airthings Wave Plus indoor air quality monitor with radon detection review

REVIEW – I’m sure that you keep your house clean by sweeping the floors, dusting the furniture, and picking up clutter. But did you know that there could be serious threats to your health silently lurking in the air you breath while you’re relaxing in what you think is a safe environment? I’m talking about dangerous Radon gas, and TVOCs (total volatile organic compounds). The Airthings Wave Plus detector will let you know if there is an issue in your home so that you can keep you and your family protected. Let’s take a look.

What is it?

Airthings Wave Plus is a battery-powered sensor that detects Radon, CO2, TVOCs, humidity, temperature, and air pressure. Radon gas is the leading cause of lung cancer in non-smokers, so it’s very important to know if there are high levels of this invisible, odorless gas in your home. TVOCs are emitted gases from things like paint, cooking, cosmetics, and more. TVOCs can cause headaches, eye, and throat irritations, to serious respiratory and even liver problems. High CO2 levels can also cause headaches, brain fog, drowsiness, and more.

What’s in the box?

  • Airthings Wave Plus smart indoor air quality monitor with radon detection
  • 2 AA batteries
  • Mounting screw
  • Info sheet

Design and features

I reviewed the Airthings Wave last year and the newer Wave Plus looks very similar to that device, like a traditional smoke detector.

The bottom of the unit has a magnetic lid that has a hole in the center so you can mount it to a wall or ceiling using the screw that is included in the package.

Removing the lid will give you access to the battery compartments. The Airthings Wave Plus is powered by 2 AA batteries which are included with the unit and should last for up to 16 months before they need to be replaced.

As mentioned, you can mount the Airthings on a wall or ceiling, or you can set it on a shelf. The advantage of putting in on a shelf is that you can walk by it and just wave your hand over the unit to see a visual indication of the air quality status.

There’s a built-in LED on top that will glow green if all the levels are safe, yellow when there is a problem, and red when you should run screaming from your house. Just kidding, but not really. If you see red, the sensor is telling you that the levels for Radon or TVOCs are not safe. But how do you get more details? You can use the Airthings mobile app or web client.

Airthings mobile app




The app’s data syncs automatically when your mobile device is within range as it uses Bluetooth to communicate with the monitor. The app’s dashboard shows the current levels for radon, TVOCs, CO2, Humidity, Temperature, and Pressure. If you want more info on each reading, you can scroll for a 48 hr, week, month and yearly graph.




The provides easy to interpret data for current sensor levels, but to get more info, you can use the Airthings web client.

I do want to mention that I’ve had issues with the app losing data when adding a 2nd device and once when I hadn’t synced in over a week due to being away on vacation. Since the unit uses Bluetooth instead of WiFi to sync, this could be an ongoing problem, but I’ve not taken another extended vacation yet to find out.

Airthings web client

The web client provides a better interface for viewing the graphs for each sensor’s data. Like the mobile app, the web client has a dashboard view, but clicking on one of the sensors takes you into graph page that makes it easy to spot trends.

You can see graphs for the past 12 hours, 48 hours, week, month, and even the past year.

I’m still trying to figure out what is triggering the high TVOC readings that you can see in the graph.

Changing to an expanded view helps provide more details and hovering over any part of the graph will show the date, time and level for each sensor.

You have the data, now what?

I became a fan of Airthings when the original unit that I reviewed last spring started reporting high radon readings this past fall. Everytime I’d walk by the unit and wave my hand over it, it would show red so I kept an eye on the readings and they were high. I’m talking through the roof high readings of 11 pCi/L. I read the following info on Airthings site:

It is important to do a long-term measure in places where you normally spend a lot of hours like bedrooms or your office. Overall, if concentrations are:
0 – 49 Bq/m3  (0 – 1.3 pCi/L):  No action necessary.
49 – 99 Bq/m3 (1.4 – 2.6 pCi/L): Experiment with ventilation and sealing cracks to reduce levels.
100 Bq/m3 – 299 Bq/m3 (2.7 – 8 pCi/L): Keep measuring. If levels are maintained for more than 3 months, contact a professional radon mitigator.
300 Bq/m3 (8.1 pCi/L) and up: Keep measuring. If levels are maintained for more than 1 month, contact a professional radon mitigator.

After a month my radon levels were still too high, so I ended up having a mitigation system installed and within 6hrs the levels were down to 0.5 pCi/L and have remained that low. Whew! Crisis averted!

The high powered fan on the outside of my house isn’t the most attractive thing in the world but it sure helps relieve the anxiety of worrying that I (or Jeanne) might develop lung cancer from the radon gas. I’ve already had cancer once, and don’t want it again thank you very much. FYI, the smoke in the image above isn’t from the radon fan unit, it’s from the dryer vent and the fact that it was only 30 degrees outside when I took the pic.

What I like

  • Easy to use
  • Helps detect dangerous radon levels quickly
  • Battery powered

What needs to be improved

  • The app is buggy especially when used multiple Airthings devices
  • Needs a carbon monoxide sensor too

Final thoughts

Airthings sensors are just as important to me and my home as our smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors, and security system. I will admit that I mainly pay attention to the radon levels and haven’t really cared that much about the TVOC levels unless they remain in the yellow or red (haven’t seen red yet) level for any length of time. So far the TVOC levels have only spiked a couple times into the yellow levels, so I’m not too concerned (yet).

The Airthings Wave Plus indoor air quality monitor with radon detection is pricy at $269 and I do wish it included a carbon monoxide sensor, but when you consider that this monitor can help protect your health, it’s priceless. If there are known issues with radon gas in your area you should consider a sensor like the Wave Plus or the lower priced Wave.

Price: $269.00
Where to buy: Amazon
Source: The sample for this review was provided by Airthings.

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Airthings Wave Plus indoor air quality monitor with radon detection review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on February 18, 2019 at 11:05 am.

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Boo! Augmented reality comes to LEGO

NEWS – LEGO is entering the world of augmented reality with their new Hidden Side play theme.  Aimed at builders age seven and older, the set allows for a traditional LEGO block building experience.  It then adds augmented reality (AR) to that experience, where the builder can turn a haunted world back to normal, one ghost at a time.

LEGO will release eight “haunted” building sets.  The sets offer builders the traditional fun of LEGO building and role playing.  Once the sets are completed, that’s when the new fun begins.  Using the new AR app, builders will discover a hidden world with challenges and mysteries to solve. This adds an entirely new experience to LEGO building fun. The builder will join Jack and Parker, the apps lead characters, on an adventure in each of the eight sets in the town of Newbury.  By using their phone camera to view their built creations, the app will show the builders otherwise unseen characters and events, providing an immersive and interactive experience. The app also is a short digital game that can be played independently from the AR experience.

LEGO is also planning to release continual updates to the app, so builders can continue having new experiences within the Newbury world.

Global release is expected in August 2019.  Sets will be priced from $19.99 to $129.99. The Hidden Side app will be available from Google Play and Apple App Store.  For more information, visit LEGO’s Hidden Side website.

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Boo! Augmented reality comes to LEGO originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on February 18, 2019 at 10:00 am.

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