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Masterbolt Travel Door Lock review

REVIEW – For near 30 years, I traveled the world for work. I’ve had cause to stay in some less desirable places, sometimes losing sleep worrying if someone might gain access to my lodging while I slept. On one occasion, one of my coworkers woke to find a hotel employee in his room in the middle of the night. I took to carrying a door wedge with me, but the Masterbolt Travel Door Lock is a far better option

What is it?

Masterbolt Travel Door Lock is a simple two-piece mechanism that when properly deployed, renders it extremely difficult to open a door from the outside, even when in possession of the keys.

Hardware Specs:

  • 7 x 3 x 1.1 inches
  • 4 ounces
  • Portable – Masterbolt is easily packable and comes with its own pouch to place in your suitcase or backpack to provide additional security when you travel
  • Installs in seconds – No tools required. Protects you from unwanted intruders
  • Travel security – Use at home, hotels, Airbnb, hostels, rentals, and anywhere you travel and need added security
  • Perfect for students – Use in your dorm, while travel, or for internship apartment stays during the summer
  • Protect tour children – Prevent toddlers and small children from leaving the house unsupervised

What’s in the Box?

  • Two-piece lock chained together
  • Storage pouch
  • Instruction sheet

Design and features:

The Masterbolt lock arrived in a simple white cardboard box. It’s refreshing to receive something that is not over packaged.

The design is elegant, simple and fiercely effective – two pieces, chained together is all that’s needed. After practicing a few times, it literally takes seconds to deploy and remove.

First, the long metal part’s tabs are placed into the strike plate on the door frame.

The door is closed and the latch bolt protrudes through the hole in the Masterbolt plate.

On the knob side of the plate, the sliding bolt on the red part is placed into the triangular hole in the metal plate. The edge of the red part rests against the door. That’s it – secure.

Once the Masterbolt is installed, the door is VERY securely locked, whether the door is locked using the knob or not. I tried, hard, to dislodge the Masterbolt. If the strike plate is properly anchored, only an extreme amount of force is going to breach that door.

Pulling on the doorknob in an attempt to open the door resulted in flexing and distortion of the entire door frame. The stronger the door and frame, the better the Masterbolt is going to work. I’m confident that nothing short of a sledgehammer, SWAT breaching tool, reciprocating saw, or vicious kick by a mule is going to get that door open.

What I like:

  • Small size
  • Simple, effective design
  • Easy to use
  • Inexpensive

What needs to be improved?

  • Nothing

Final thoughts

Masterbolt’s Travel door lock is one of those “I wish I had thought of that” products. It’s tough and, in my opinion, works better than described. I was genuinely shocked at the stability and security this lock provides. Gone are my days of frequent travel, but I’ll be using the Masterbolt Lock every time I will be sleeping in an unfamiliar location.

Price: $19.95
Where to buy: Amazon
Source: The sample for this review was provided by Masterbolt.

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Masterbolt Travel Door Lock review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on September 1, 2018 at 11:00 am.

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Potensic T25 Drone with 1080P HD Camera review

REVIEWS – Potensic’s new T25 drone has a lot of features, almost too many to grasp. Want to know more? Read on.

What is it?

The T25 is a small to mid-size drone with a full suite of capabilities including takeoff and landing assist, return to home, full 1080P recording and much more. Are you looking for your first drone or an upgrade from a low-cost mini-drone? Let’s take a look at the T25 and see if their feature set and performance are right for you.

Hardware specs

Drone GPS and specs
– Follow Me, GPS return home, GPS positioning and hold, Geo-Fencing, and Low Battery Return
Drone inflight features
– Headless mode, Auto Takeoff / Landing / Hover, 9-Axis gyroscope, Color-coded dual LED lights, 2.4G technology
– Range: Up to 300m (Image range up to 100-150m)
– Max Height: Up to 120m, Max Speed: Up to 25km/h
Camera
– HD Wifi Camera with 75º articulating 120º wide-angle lens
– Optional SD card (sold separately)
Battery
– 3.7v 1000mAh lithium ion
– Micro-USB port allows for charging in or outside drone
– LED lights for battery level indication
Controller
– Internal lithium polymer battery
– Micro-USB port for charging

What’s in the box?

  • (1) T25 Drone
  • (1) 1080P HD camera module
  • (1) Transmitter w/ mobile phone cradle
  • (1)  3.7V 1000mAH Battery
  • (1) User Manual & Quickstart Guides
  • (1) USB Battery Charger
  • (1) Screwdriver, (1) Wrench
  • (4) Propeller Protection Guards
  • Spare Parts
  • (2) Landing Leg pairs
  • (4) Propeller Blades (2 each rotational direction)
  • (2) Propeller gears, (2) Propeller caps, (4) Propeller screws

Here’s a better look at those parts removed from the packaging.

Design and features

Functionally, the design of the T25 is well done. The landing legs are replaceable as are the propellers and the propeller guards. The will hold most (if not all) smartphones and the app works well during use. From an aesthetic standpoint, there is little here that stands out as being unique to this drone so I would forgive almost anyone for mistaking it for a drone from the market leader. Maybe that’s the point, but in the end, while you are watching the drone as you fly, you quickly start to go heads down and watch your phone where the camera feeds a live view. As bland as the exterior may be, you’ll want to avoid putting stickers on or painting it as even adding the 4 propeller guards changes flight characteristics and a medium gust of wind definitely does. Let’s move on to set up and performance.

Setup

If you’ve had a drone before, none of the following is likely to surprise you. If not, let’s just say that setup isn’t hard, it’s just not fast nor straightforward if you’re expecting something similar to an RC car. The T25 is relatively assembled in the box, but as you saw in the photos above, there are so many additional small parts, both required and spares that it still feels like a kit instead of a finished product. That’s actually part of the charm in some respects.

If we boil it down, the setup process is as follows…

  1. Charge the batteries
  2. Install a microSD card (not included) into the camera
  3. Press the propeller guards into place
  4. Install batteries in the controller
  5. Install the phone cradle into the controller
  6. Download and launch the Potensic-G App

Here’s a shot of the propeller guard posts and the press-in receivers on the drone. It literally is a press-fit.

Right about here is where you think you’re ready to fly, and you kind of are. As a drone novice, I underestimated the amount of time the next steps would take including getting comfortable piloting the drone. While awaiting the review sample to arrive I did happen to notice that the battery provides about 8 minutes of flight time, so I ordered a spare battery from Amazon so that I’d have double the flight time between charging sessions. All that out of the way, here’s the next set of setup instructions. (Feel free to skip this if you’re familiar with drone calibrations)…

  1. Turn on the drone and set it down on a level surface, and all lights should be blinking red (This is an important step as the drone will use this as its perception of flat – You should also be in a wide open space, and the lights can be hard to see in strong sunlight)
  2. Turn on the controller (Here’s where it gets all secret game code-like)
    1. Press UP then DOWN on the left joystick
    2. Front lights will flash WHITE, rear BLUE
    3. On your phone hop into settings and connect to WiFi broadcast by the drone (Potensic-xxx) then jump back to the app
    4. Calibrate the gyro by pressing each joystick to the forward and outward corners (left @ 11, right @ 1) – lights should blink rapidly
    5. Calibrate the compass by pressing each joystick to the forward and inward corners (left @ 1, right @ 11) – lights should now add a red between the flashes (white/red in front, blue/red in rear)
    6. Pick up the drone and in one smooth motion turn your body in a circle keeping the drone level in front of you – rear lights should go solid blue
    7. Now tip the drone face down (propellers forward) and do the same thing keeping the drone in this position – front lights should go solid white
    8. The app should confirm calibration okay and you will set the drone back on the level surface where the lights will return to respective white/blue flashing while the drone is ‘Waiting for GPS signal’.  [NOTE: If you happen to be somewhere where you cannot get a GPS lock (large indoor area?), you can press and hold the right joystick for 2 seconds to disable GPS. Keep in mind that will also disable any of the features reliant on GPS like return home and follow me.]
    9. When the lights return to all solid you’re ready to fly and the app should say so.
    10. Last thing that was not mentioned anywhere that I could find is that in the app, you need to click on ‘CONTROLS’ to get to the flying screen.

Performance

There are a lot of controls on the controller (which makes sense), but it makes for a learning curve that’s as steep as your familiarity with this kind of setup. If you play any kind of modern gaming system you’ll already be more likely to jump in. Let’s take a look at all those controls quickly…

Above you see the trigger controls for [follow me], [camera/video] and on the left hand [angle up] and [angle down] adjustments

Here are the [return to home] , [power] and [takeoff/landing] buttons along with a whole lot of indicators above which help to communicate which settings the drone has active. These are lit well during use and hard to confuse.

When it comes to actually flying the drone, Potensic has done a few things that aid a new pilot significantly. The first is a one button take off which literally works as advertised. Press that button and the propellers whirr to life lifting the drone to about 5 feet off the ground at which point it just unnaturally maintains its position. Auto land is another that just takes a huge headache away by just landing for you.

A unique feature is “headless” mode which basically translates to the controls never switching orientation. This means that forward is always forward based on the starting position of your controller and left is always left of that forward motion. This is super useful if you’re thinking grid style, but if you turn around because you flew the drone behind you, you’ll need to mentally remap the controls to have the drone do what you want it to do.

Follow me is a feature that got me really excited and in my first attempts also concerned me the most. I don’t trust the GPS on my phone to be accurate to within 10 feet. When experimenting, the drone does what it’s supposed to do and if you back up, it advances. The problem is that with some GPS drift, sometimes it would get a little closer than I expected which resulted in me stepping back and it continuing to advance. Comical right? Also scary.

So as a new pilot, the reality is that it learning to fly is a bit stressful and just when you think you’ve got it, something changes and your gut reaction ends up causing a problem. It’s also a bit frustrating to see all these beautiful drone-shot videos on youtube and other media outlets, only to realize that it’s not quite that easy to get that beautiful shot without a lot of practice. So here are a couple of reference comments for you to consider.

I only had one real ‘crash’. It was before I discovered headless mode and I ended up sending the drone into the side of our car. The propeller guards did what they were supposed to do and kept both the car and the drone uninjured, but one propeller guard snapped. It would be nice to have some spares in the box as it seems like these are more likely to be needed than spare landing gear, but then again who’s really to say.

The on-board video camera is why I think drones intrigue most of us, and the T25 boasts 1080P. Note that both the below videos are posted here at 720. On a recent family vacation, we were filming a sequel to an ongoing saga of movies with our kids as action heroes. There was a scene with my older kids running towards the beach and it seemed like the perfect opportunity for a drone shot. In the video below you’ll see that while it worked, I didn’t account for the amount of wind and controlling the drone was quite difficult. I will say that it was impressive to see the T25 tilted at almost a 25º angle and just holding its position which was right at the beginning of this video.

Here’s another video of one of the earlier flights just getting the hang of the controls and even just comfort level of having it head back towards me. The camera does a pretty good job, but it can be a bit jumpy and the clarity isn’t quite as good as I was hoping.

A couple of things to note about the way the camera works. You see exactly what you’re shooting on your controller display (iPhone in my case). Any photos or videos are recorded directly to your phone as well as an SD card if you have it installed. Videos record in .avi format on the SD card while .mov on the iPhone. That’s helpful as macs don’t read .avi natively so you’ll need to grab VLC or some other player/editor. I did not see resolution differences between the SD card recordings or the iPhone recordings.

When initially setting the drone up and looking over all the parts I took off the legs and inadvertently pushed one of the release buttons too far where it pushed inside the drone and the spring was rattling around. In retrospect, this is why their wrench has a small extended section with physical stops. Regardless, it resulted in taking the drone apart to rescue the button and I got to look at some of the inner workings. You can see in the second shot where the button arm is keeping it trapped against the assembly post. Overall an easy fix, albeit with a lot of screws.

What I like

  • Small and compact without being diminutive
  • Learning aids are great for new pilots
  • Spare parts included for some key items

What needs to be improved

  • Battery life/flying time – and/or – 2nd battery in the box would help
  • Propeller guards are more fragile than they should be
  • Add a learning mode where certain features can only be unlocked if you’ve passed ‘flight school’ levels
  • Battery swap requires redoing all the calibration steps

Final thoughts

I’ve flown a couple of drones before, but it was quick flights with the drone’s owner right there. When it’s your own and you’re doing all the setup, the “am I doing this right?” weighs on you quite a bit and I can only imagine that ratcheting up a lot if you’ve dropped your own dollars to purchase it. The more time you can spend flying, the more efficient you’ll be and the better results you’ll get out of video and photos. The main complaint from any user will be flight time. I’d recommend a minimum of one extra battery and likely two as if you’re headed out to fly, you’ll want a good 30 minutes and 3 won’t quite get you there. Also once the controller battery is depleted you’re done as it takes an hour to charge even if you brought a power bank. Overall the T25 is a good value, not too light, not too heavy and sits in a pretty good spot as far as not being too expensive while having an impressive feature set.

Price: $189.99
Where to buy: Amazon
Source: The sample of this product was provided by Potensic.

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Potensic T25 Drone with 1080P HD Camera review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on September 1, 2018 at 9:00 am.

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SpotCam video AI service review

REVIEW – SpotCam, purveyors of Wi-Fi video camera solutions for indoors, outdoors, and doorbell applications is an industry leader for innovative design,  free 24-hour cloud video recording, and connectivity with IFTTT and Conrad Connect. The cloud platform now features optional SpotCam video AI services that actively detect specified events and provide instant notification of the occurrence on your mobile or email. Read on to see what I think!

What is it?

The SpotCam video AI service has six different subscription-based components that can be added to a user’s account in order to increase the automated surveillance capabilities of the camera.  The plans reviewed in this post include Missing Object Detection, Virtual Fence, Human Detection, and Vehicle Detection. There are also Pet Detection and Fall Detection components available that are not reviewed. All of these solutions are cloud-based. No change to the installed hardware is required to enable these features.

Design and features

Each of the video AI components is configured independently. The Video AI system is configured on the web by clicking on the green gear icon below the subscribed SpotCam preview image on the My SpotCam tab of the My Account menu.

The web browser must support javascript, but since all configuration is on a static image, flash is not required (as it is in order to view movies).

If configuring this using the mobile app, click the gear icon on the subscribed SpotCam preview image and scroll to the bottom of the screen.

Once you click the Video AI item the following menu appears

Each type of detection includes an AI parameter menu. The AI parameters include setting if the camera is mounted inside or outside, indicating if the camera is mounted horizontally, vertically, or slanted, and, in some cases, setting the minimum and maximum object size that can be interpreted.

When the Video AI registers a detection it lists it in the events tab and it places a marker on the timeline of the subscribed camera.

The image below is the “Human Detection” of me taking a picture of the camera for this post.

On the web, the AI markers sit above the audio and motion event markers on the video timeline.

The review is based on a SpotCam that I have mounted outside in my front yard. The camera is mounted upside-down below the front soffit of my roof and faces almost exactly due west. For several days of the review, the family was on vacation so the cars in the driveway didn’t move at all.

In addition to making a notification in the timeline of the subscribed camera video record, the Video AI can be configured to send an email with a link to an image that corresponds to the detected event. A green box indicates the area that triggered the event in the image.  You can see a green box surrounding me walking towards my car.

The image is unfortunately only a link to an image on a google server and not an attachment. The image expires as soon as the subscribed network video recording period expires.

The latency for the emails varied considerably. For example, The Human detection emails I received on one day (my son was having friends over so there was above average traffic) were received within minutes or hours later. Also, for what it is worth, I do not believe there is a way to Americanize the date format.

received at 9:13 AM (10 hours ago), “Human Detected” at "09:05:26 AM, 25/08/2018 ”.
received at 9:27 AM (10 hours ago), “Human Detected” at "09:07:08 AM, 25/08/2018 ”.
received at 9:31 AM (10 hours ago), “Human Detected” at "08:13:26 AM, 25/08/2018 ”.
received at 9:32 AM (10 hours ago), “Human Detected” at "09:14:17 AM, 25/08/2018 ”.
received at 10:18 AM (9 hours ago), "Human Detected” at "10:16:44 AM, 25/08/2018 ”.
received at 10:42 AM (9 hours ago), “Human Detected” at "10:03:56 AM, 25/08/2018 ”.
received at 11:02 AM (8 hours ago), “Human Detected” at "10:22:54 AM, 25/08/2018 ”.
received at 11:35 AM (8 hours ago), “Human Detected” at "11:32:10 AM, 25/08/2018 ”.
received at 12:40 PM (7 hours ago), “Human Detected” at "12:39:48 PM, 25/08/2018 ”.
received at 12:42 PM (7 hours ago), “Human Detected” at "12:32:03 PM, 25/08/2018 ”.
received at 12:47 PM (7 hours ago), “Human Detected” at "12:38:05 PM, 25/08/2018 ”.
received at 1:00 PM (6 hours ago), “Human Detected” at "12:59:39 PM, 25/08/2018 ”.
received at 2:36 PM (5 hours ago), “Human Detected” at "01:17:02 PM, 25/08/2018 ”.
received at 2:46 PM (5 hours ago), "Human Detected” at "09:59:18 AM, 25/08/2018 ”.
received at 3:32 PM (4 hours ago), "Human Detected” at "02:10:06 PM, 25/08/2018 ”.
received at 4:07 PM (3 hours ago), “Human Detected” at "08:59:03 AM, 25/08/2018 ”.
received at 4:07 PM (3 hours ago), “Human Detected” at "09:00:52 AM, 25/08/2018 ”.
received at 6:06 PM (1 hour ago), “Human Detected” at "08:37:51 AM, 25/08/2018 ”.
received at 6:37 PM (1 hour ago), “Human Detected” at "09:09:47 AM, 25/08/2018 ”.

Missing Object

The Missing Object component is designed to determine if objects within a specified region of the image change over time. Only one region can be configured for a missing object detection and the region must be a simple quadrilateral. (Actually, the program will allow drawing a “bowtie” shape but I did not test how this performs.) For this review, I selected the region of the driveway to test if the camera can correctly determine that the cars have moved. During the five vacation days, I received nine notifications that the cars have moved, all (thankfully) false positives. Most of the detections were based on the changing reflection of the sky on the chrome and windshield of the cars, or sunlight variations on the yard. One of the notifications, at 3 AM, was because a moth flew in front of the camera. Unfortunately, when I finally did move one of the cars at 8:14 am, no missing object event was triggered. The image below illustrates that the Video AI thought that the top of a tree and the bumper of the car had gone missing.

Virtual Fence

The virtual fence allows the user to draw a line separating two areas on the image and designate the AI to monitor and detect any objects that cross the line.  Only one fence can be created for the virtual fence detection. The AI can determine in which direction the travel across the virtual fence occurs; therefore, the virtual fence can provide notification of traffic in the forward, reverse, or both directions across the fence. When I enabled the virtual fence, I received 143 notifications within 9 days. Many of the notifications were for trees or bugs at night. Like the human detection example above, some detections came in very quickly while others took hours to appear in my email.






The system did correctly determine I was cutting the lawn and walking up the driveway late at night. The virtual fence does not have a parameter to limit the size of the detected image, so there doesn’t seem to be a way to lower the number of false-positives.

Human Detection

The purpose of the human detection component, as described by SpotCam, is to identify only those motion activities that are based on the presence of human beings. The AI parameter of this component includes a relative size selection for both height and width. It should be possible to detect people near or far in a scene based on their size and the perspective of the camera but I didn’t test this out. The Video AI did a good job of identifying people in the scenes; only one scene identified a tree as a person. As discussed before, the latency on receiving notifications varied considerably. The Human Detection component doesn’t have a mask to exclude detection within certain areas; if it did then some of the detections that occur high in the trees could be avoided.




Vehicle Detection

The purpose of the Vehicle Detection component, as described by SpotCam, is to notify the user when a vehicle is detected in the video image.  The AI parameter of this component includes a relative size selection for both height and width. It’s unclear if this parameter can be used to detect near and far vehicles based on perspective, or the relative size of the vehicle (say a Smart car versus a garbage truck.)  The Video AI did a good job of identifying vehicles in the scenes; only one scene identified a tree as a vehicle. As discussed before, the latency on receiving notifications varied considerably. Like the Human Detection component, the Vehicle detection doesn’t have a mask which will exclude detection from certain areas; if it did then some of the detections that occur high in the trees could be avoided. SpotCam warns that the accuracy of this detection might be affected by the headlights of the vehicle during night-time. To ensure proper identification the camera should be placed to avoid being aimed at headlights to improve the accuracy in the night. I did see one capture of path light illumination that was mistakenly interpreted as headlights.



What I like

  • Good highlighting of a video stream
  • green boxes identify the image that triggers AI

What needs to be improved

  • Images are links, not attachments.
  • would be beneficial to “train” the system to recognize “missing objects”
  • not more than one “missing object” area per camera
  • should have video masking on multiple Video AI components.
  • virtual fence size would help eliminate false-positives
  • the latency of email alerts is inconsistent

Final thoughts

The SpotCam Video AI service is groundbreaking in its scope but still has a few bugs to figure out. The number of false-positives is too large to reliably use as an email alert system. I can see that this product may become more robust as computing power, programming, and usage increases.

Price: $3.95/mo, $39/year for “missing object”; $9.95/mo, $99/year for “fall detection”; $5.95/mo, $59/year for other plans
Where to buy: SpotCam
Source: The sample for this review was provided by SpotCam.

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SpotCam video AI service review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on August 31, 2018 at 11:00 am.

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Conbrov 1080P USB charger hidden camera review

REVIEW – I’ve taken a liking to home security since some vehicles near my home were burglarized. I have several security cameras, but, since they look like cameras, if someone was to enter my home, they would like to be the first thing to be destroyed, taken, you get the idea.  I’ve toyed with the idea of having something more discrete and volunteered to have a look at Conbrov’s WiFi 1080P USB charger camera.

What is it?

Conbrov’s WiFi 1080P USB charger camera is a plug-in security camera. It looks like an oversized USB charger and equipped with a working 1 Amp USB port, an internal backup battery, and night vision.

Hardware Specs:

  • 1080P resolution, 160° viewing angle, 15fps
  • Internal 500mA battery1 Amp USB port
  • Selectable night vision modes
  • WiFi
  • Maximum SD card capacity of 64GB
  • JustMyCam app

What’s in the Box?

  • Camera
  • Instruction manual
  • Wall plug adapter
  • Conbrov VIP card
  • Amazon “warning” card (covert cameras with audio are illegal to sell on Amazon in the U.S.A)
  • Unicef $1 donation card for submitting a review

Design and Features:

First, let’s address the elephant in the room. I am not a pervert, deviant, voyeur or creep. I have no intention of using this camera for unscrupulous, immoral or illegal purposes. My sole intention is to use this camera to supplement my home security system in a common area of my home. It will never be placed in a location that would compromise the privacy or modesty of anyone living in or visiting my home.

The camera arrived in a strong, largely black box about 3-1/2 X 3-1/2 X 5 inches. The camera is protected by a cardboard “nest” and wrapped in a plastic bag. The camera itself measures 3-1/4 X 2 X 1-1/4 inches. The construction is largely plastic, with sliding doors to access the controls.

Controls are basic, on/off, SD card slot, reset, microphone on/off, and motion detect mode. There are two LEDs with status indicators, but they can’t be turned off. They are under the doors so they are not obvious, but some of the lighting from the LEDs illuminates the inside of the camera and is visible through the cooling vents.

According to the instructions:

I grabbed a 64 GB SD card to format as FAT32 only… Hmmm, really? Windows limits FAT32 to a maximum of 32 GB. There are third-party apps that can format FAT32 drives larger than 32 GB, but the manual specifically states to use Windows only to format the card. So….

I grabbed a 32 GB SD, format it as FAT32, and started through the installation process. I loaded the JustMyCam app on my phone, connected to my network and connected to the camera, all relatively painless.

The app is intuitive and connects to the camera quickly. It allows viewing a live video feed or access to the library of 10-minute videos that the camera records in a loop after the SD card has been filled.  There is even an internal 500mAbattery to keep it running if unplugged or the power goes out. Everything works as described.

Setup functions allow mirroring and flipping of the image, creation of a passcode to safeguard recorded videos, alarm scheduling for mothing detection and recording, SD card management, image management, and network setting.

Image quality is sharp, but with a distorted “fish-eye lens” appearance. More significantly, the image cannot be changed from portrait to landscape. Switching to “full screen” squishes the portrait image into a landscape format, making the image barely usable.

Night vision capabilities are quite good with plenty of illumination for the majority of rooms.

A portrait image just isn’t practical for home security, where a wider field of view is a necessity.  Because of this, I won’t be using this camera as I originally intended as a backup for my Canary camera system. Instead, I’ll probably use it in my garage to make sure I’ve closed the door.

What I like

  • Small size
  • Good image quality
  • SD storage

What needs to be improved?

  • Needs landscape image capability
  • Internal battery

Final thoughts:

Conbrov’s WiFi 1080P USB charger camera is a convenient way to add video to your home.  The app is basic but has plenty of useful functionality. Unfortunately, the inability of the camera to produce a landscape picture is a killer if your goal is to use it as a home security enhancement.

Price: $60.95
Where to buy: Amazon (30%off code： 30OFFNT20 expires 9/29/18)
Source: The sample for this review was provided by Conbrov.

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Conbrov 1080P USB charger hidden camera review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on August 31, 2018 at 9:00 am.

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BURST Sonic Toothbrush review

REVIEW – When one thinks of a gadget, a toothbrush doesn’t immediately come to mind. But in this day of smart this and smart that, it seems everything is becoming “gadgetized.” And toothbrushes are no different. Give a toothy grin to the new BURST Sonic Toothbrush.

What is it?

The BURST is a sonic toothbrush with a built-in rechargeable battery (USB charger included). It vibrates at 33,000 sonic vibrations per minute. It has three timed teeth brushing settings. 

What’s in the box 

  • BURST sonic toothbrush
  • USB charger stand
  • Toothbrush head
  • Charger plug

Design and features

Technically, the BURST toothbrush is not a “smart” brush. It doesn’t talk to your phone or keep a brushing history or send your brushing habits to your dentist. What the BURST sonic toothbrush does is brush your teeth in a pleasant and—dare I say—fun way.

The BURST toothbrush is nicely designed and easy to hold in your hand. It’s also designed to stand upright on its wider, flat base. There’s a modern, diamond-shaped pattern embossed into the non-slip plastic handle for easy gripping. An on/off button controls three different brushing selections: Whiten, Sensitive and Massage. The Whiten setting vibrates at 33,000 sonic vibrations per minute. The Sensitive setting at 31,000 sonic vibrations per minute is a less intense version of Whiten. The Massage setting vibrates in a fast, repeating on/off pattern. After trying out the three settings, I decided to choose Whiten and leave it there.

Soft bristles are attached to a replaceable head that easily snaps on and off. The bristles are dark gray and coated in charcoal imported from Japan called Binchotan. BURST claims that the charcoal coating absorbs impurities. Okay, charcoal is used to filter impurities from water, so I’ll have to take their word for it. And no, you can’t taste the charcoal. Hiding among the bristles in the center of the brush head is a flexible “x” shaped tip that BURST claims is a tooth polisher. I have no idea how effective it is, but I can’t feel it when brushing. The back of the brush head has an embedded tongue scraper. 

The brushing head is small which allows brushing in those hard to reach places. I still have my wisdom teeth and my hygienist admits that it’s almost impossible to effectively brush them because I have a small mouth. The BURST toothbrush does reach back there and I figure all those vibrations have to be better than what I was doing. I want to be using the BURST for a 6-month period to see if my hygienist notices any improvement.

Using the BURST toothbrush is quite easy. Dentists recommend brushing for a full two minutes, so the BURST toothbrush has a built-in Quadpacer timer to help you follow this rule. The timer is automatically set for two minutes—broken into four 30-sec. intervals. When you’re done, the toothbrush automatically shuts off. The goal is to spend 30 sec on each quadrant of your mouth. For instance—upper right, lower left, etc.

There’s a minor problem I have with this approach. While brushing my teeth, sometimes I need to spit before I’m done. So I turn off the toothbrush after a timed section. Then I just turn it back on to resume—having to remember where I left off. Unfortunately, the timer settings are not adjustable.

A word of warning: Do not pull the toothbrush out of your mouth while it is still on. Those 33,000 per minute vibrations will spread 33,000 (I’m making this number up) tiny drops of toothpaste and saliva all over the bathroom. You’ve been warned.

As I said, I leave the setting on Whiten. I was unsure of how this setting would work because I have sensitive teeth. However, I have had no discomfort or bleeding with the BURST. That’s even after concentrating the toothbrush on those hard-to-reach wisdom teeth. 

One humorous obstacle I had to overcome was that the vibrations of BURST toothbrush would tickle my mouth to the point I could hardly stand it. The solution was to just keep at it and although it still tickles, I can now put up with it.

When a brush becomes worn (usually every 3 months), replacing them can be done in two ways. BURST offers a subscription service that will automatically send a new brush head every 3 months for $6. That seems reasonable. When you purchase the BURST toothbrush, you’re signed up for the subscription—but you can cancel anytime. If you do cancel, you can still buy brush heads on the BURST site.

What I like

The BURST toothbrush will actually get me to brush better and longer. Only a dental appointment will confirm how effective it’s been. Also, $70 is not an unreasonable amount to pay for a toothbrush that does what the BURST does.

What needs to be improved

It would be nice to be able to customize the timer settings. The charging base comes apart too easily.

Final Thoughts

I would bet that most people don’t brush anywhere close to two minutes. I didn’t. The BURST Sonic Toothbrush has already changed those bad dental habits. It has to be better than what I was doing—and that’s a really good thing.

Price: $69.99 US
Where to buy: Burstoralcare.com
Source: The review sample was provided by Burst. Visit burstoralcare.com for more information.

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BURST Sonic Toothbrush review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on August 30, 2018 at 11:00 am.

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