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Berrolia No.2 Aluminum iPhone mount review

If James Bond was looking for an iPhone mount appropriate for his vintage Aston Martin, he’d probably pick the Berrolia No. 2 iPhone Mount. It’s classy. It’s beautifully constructed. Is it right for you? Let’s grab a martini (preferably shaken, not stirred) and check it out!

First Impressions

When I received the Berrolia No. 2 iPhone Mount for this evaluation, my first impression was… luxurious. Just look at it. Not only does it look premium, but it feels weighty and substantial in your hand. It even comes packed in a cool aluminum cylinder, with molded foam inserts for protection.   

Looks aside, construction and materials are top-notch. The frame is made from premium-grade aluminum, which looks to be powder coated with a slightly rubberized surface. The wood is mahogany, with the Berrolia logo laser etched into the back piece. Everything is precision cut and the assembly is rock solid, with no noticeable gaps or cheap bits to be found. Even the clips are heavy & solid, and look like they won’t bend or snap after repeated use. All the finishes are smooth and pleasant to the touch.

This is no bargain-basement car cradle, folks. It just oozes style and quality craftsmanship.

Mounting the Cradle

The Berrolia mounts to the air vent on your car, and it requires that your vent employs horizontal fins to clip onto. There’s another quality twist here: there’s a leather (possibly leatherette) mounting pad included in the package. You place the pad on the fin of your air vent, then slide the clip over the pad. Not only does this add extra grip, but it prevents scratching from the beefy metal clip. In my car, I found that the cradle stayed put once it was mounted, and was not prone to getting knocked off by an accidental bump. Nice.

Once you have the mount in place, you can install your lightning cable. I found this to be another nice aspect to the design. There’s a knob on the front of the unit that you unscrew to allow the cable to pass through. The cable is inserted perpendicular to the unit. You pull the cable through, twist it to a position parallel to the mount, and pull the cable back down to lock it in position. Screw the knob back in place, and the lightning cable isn’t going anywhere.

The whole operation took about a minute to complete, at which point I could add my phone.

Daily Use

There are tracks on either side of the mount specifically designed for the iPhone, so it slides smoothly in and out of the cradle and plugs right into the lighting plug. It’s a silky smooth, one-handed operation that requires no wiggling or adjustment to get the phone in and out of the cradle.

After dozens of car trips, I’ve found that the construction continues to deliver. There’s no looseness anywhere in the unit. The lighting cable mount hasn’t loosened up. The finishes continue to look good after regular abuse, with no abrasions or scratches developing in the surfaces. It’s rock solid.

As far as on-the-road use goes, it’s a great mount. It stays firmly planted where you set it, even with the occasional bump or nudge. It’s nice to have the phone in a position where it doesn’t distract you from driving, especially if you are using Google Maps to get from point A to B. And one handed operation is a great for safety, so you are not fumbling around for your phone while trying to focus on the road. I really like it.

Some Caveats

There are three important issues that you should aware of in the middle of all of this luxury precision goodness. First, the mount is designed precisely to fit your iPhone. You can’t use it with a cover or case. I don’t like my iPhone to go naked, so this required me to take off my case every time I got in the car. I get that this detracts from the whole look and slick performance, but it is kind of an annoyance (especially if you have a complicated cover). Berrolia does make the leather versions of the mount that we have reviewed here, and they appear to have some tolerance for accepting a thin case on your phone.

Second, the cable mount is precisely machined to fit the Apple lightning cable. Third party cables are not likely to work with this setup. I found this out the hard way, as my car has a MIDI port that requires a third party MIDI-to-lightning cable. It would not fit in the mount, so I needed to acquire a lightning-to-USB adaptor, then I could plug the Apple-supplied cable into that. Most newer cars have a USB port so this won’t be an issue, but it’s a bit of a bummer if you use third-party lightning cables.

Finally Berrolia only provides this particular style of mount in the black/walnut finish, specifically for the iPhone 6, 6s and 7. They do offer a range of leather covers in different colors and styles which also accommodate iPhone 5 models or the larger iPhone 6 Plus and iPhone 7 plus. You’Il want to check your iPhone model and car interior to find the right match for you. 

Conclusion and Pricing

There’s no doubt that the Berrolia No. 2 iPhone Mount is a classy upgrade from a cheap plastic car mount. Not only does it deliver on style, but it is impeccably constructed and sure to stand up to years of abuse. Retail price is placed at 79 Euros (about $85 USD) which seems in line with the quality of the unit. If you are OK with the caveats, I feel its a luxury upgrade that’s worth the price. Happy motoring!

Source: The sample for this review was provided by Berrolia. For more info visit their site.

 

Product Information

Price: €79 (~$84.50 US)
Manufacturer: Berrolia
Pros:
  • Luxury look and feel
  • High quality materials and construction
  • Easy to install
Cons:
  • Does not work with iPhone covers
  • Requires original Apple lightning cable
  • Sized specifically to the iPhone 6/6s/7, though leather options are available for other models

Filed in categories: Car Gear, iOS, Reviews

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Berrolia No.2 Aluminum iPhone mount review originally appeared on on March 31, 2017 at 10:00 am.

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These jeans have a pocket especially designed to hold your smartphone

It’s about time that we start seeing pants with a dedicated pocket for your smartphone. Japanese brand Muji is now offering a new line of 100% cotton denim slim jeans for men that have a pocket on the back right hip. The location of this 6th pocket helps prevent the wearer from inadvertently sitting on their smartphone which can be uncomfortable for the wearer AND the phone. The Muji jeans are available in three shades and several lengths. Surprisingly, the price per pair is actually affordable at $33.60. I wish they had them for women too. For more info head over to Muji.us.

Filed in categories: News

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These jeans have a pocket especially designed to hold your smartphone originally appeared on on March 31, 2017 at 9:00 am.

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ThruNite TH20 Headlamp review

Since I began participating in (and actually completing) GORUCK Challenges back in 2014, I’ve thought a lot more about headlamps than I ever thought I’d think about headlamps. I have one that I have worn for thirteen GORUCK events and for tasks around the house, and it has performed fairly well for me, but it’s starting to act wonky and I had been considering getting one that was a bit more heavy-duty, and that could take more abuse. Thus, it was serendipitous timing that Julie offered the ThruNite TH20 Headlamp for review. With its super-adjustable beam brightness and metal body, not to mention tough-looking styling, I thought it would be worth trying. Let’s check it out!  Gadget on!

Tech Specs

Per the ThruNight site:

  • Max output = 520 lumens (using 14500 battery)
  • Peak Beam Intensity =1120 cd
  • Beam Distance = 67 m (max)
  • LED type = CREE XP-L V6 LED with a lifespan of 20+ years of run time
  • Brightness Control Mode & Runtime (Tested by one Eneloop AA 2450mAh NIMH rechargeable battery) = Logarithmic scale brightness adjustment, which varies by battery type.  Below shown values are for AA battery:
    – Firefly (0.3 lumens, 14 days）
    – Infinity Low (1.6 lumens, 21 hours）
    – Infinity High (230 lumens, 95 minutes )
    – Turbo (250 lumens, 93 minutes)
  • Working voltage =0.9-4.2 Volts
  • Power = 1x AA battery or 1x Li-ion 14500 battery
  • Reflector = Orange peel finish
  • Weight = 96g or 3.3 oz (without battery)
  • Dimensions = 70 mm x 24.5mm
  • Waterproof rating = IPX-8 (2 meters for 30 minutes)
  • Impact Resistance = 1 meter
  • Material = Main body is aircraft grade aluminum body with premium type III hard anodized anti-abrasive finish
  • Accessories included = O-ring, spare rubber slot

Options

The ThruNite TH20 headlamp is available with the following options:

  • Cool White beam
  • Neutral White beam (reviewed here)

Packaging

The ThruNite TH20 headlamp’s packaging was a simple fold-over lid style box.  The box is small, roughly the size of its contents with little wasted material and is made from recyclable corrugated cardboard material, all of which I consider a plus.  However, it has no window or other transparent area from which to view the product inside, which I generally consider a minus.  The caveat to this is that a view-ability of the product inside is only really useful if a product is sold in a retail setting; products sold only and shipped directly to the buyer do not have as much a need for view-ability of the product.

In addition to the corrugated cardboard box, which provides an outer layer of bump protection, inside the box, the TH20 headlamp is nestled snugly into a thick piece of foam for additional protection during the shipping and handling process.

Contents

The contents of the ThruNite TH20 Headlamp are shown above, and listed below:

  • TH20 Headlamp
  • Instruction manual
  • Spare O-rings (2x)
  • Spare rubber mounting bracket

Features, Functions, and Performance

Right out of the box, my initial impression of the TH20 headlamp was that this thing feels solid.  Very solid.  With the main body being made from aircraft grade with a premium type III hard anodized anti-abrasive finish, it feels very heavy-duty and tough.  The adjustable elastic head strap appeared to be fairly standard, but well-built.  However, I found the rubber mounting bracket to be a bit curious.  I had expected it to be more like a hard plastic, but it is a very soft material.  More on this later.  Curiously, the TH20 arrived with the main body rotated such that the lens was pointed in a downward directly, and I had to rotate the body upward to be able to actually use the lens (as seen below).

After rotating the main body upward, the lens was visible and ready to be used, as seen above.  The ThruNite logo and TH20 model number are printed on top of the body in white, which gives a good contrast against the matte black body.

In addition to the main body, TH20’s battery cap is made from aluminum as well.  The aluminum components aid in heat dissipation, which could potentially be an issue when using the brightest modes for a long period of time, and in particular when using a Li-ion 14500 battery.  It has an O-ring seal that prevents moisture ingress, which contributes to its impressive IPX8 moisture resistance rating, which basically means that the TH20 can be submerged to a depth of 1 meter (though ThruNite claims it to be 2 meters, and it may well withstand this).  Note also that a battery is not included with the TH20, you must provide your own.  Although the TH20 can use either a single, standard AA battery or a more high-performance Li-ion 14500 battery, I only evaluated it with an AA battery because I had one on hand.  Li-ion 14500 batteries can be somewhat expensive and unless I was planning to do some back country camping or other extended duration activity, I would most typically use an AA battery with the TH20.

The switch end of the body as well as the battery cap are aluminum also, and both have a diamond-knurl pattern machined into them to provide a better grip when rotating the body or removing the cap, which is excellent if your hands happen to be wet.  In fact, the knurling made it very easy to unscrew the cap and change the battery.  The single switch controls all of the modes of the TH20 (more on this below). The switch is a “clicky” and it has a rubber cap which contributes to the device’s IPX8 moisture resistance.  Additionally, the switch is easy to use, even when wearing gloves.

The lens itself is surrounded by a thick, raised bezel that provides added protection to the lens and reflector.  Also, you can see that the reflector has an orange-peel finish which helps provide a more smooth, uniform beam of light than one with a smooth reflector finish.

The head strap is a 1-inch wide strip of elastic material that is looped through the rubber holding bracket.  Having a segment of the strap against your head provides a bit of cushion and comfort in this spot, which will typically be against the wearer’s forehead (see images below).

The head strap is adjustable and I found that it held tight once adjusted, so I didn’t need to worry about it loosening accidentally while I was using it.

The version of the TH20 reviewed here had an LED that produces a Neutral White light beam, meaning that it has a bit more of a yellow tint compared with the Cool White light version, which has a bit more of a blue tint.  I prefer the Neutral White LED light because I think it appears more like natural light, but this is of course just my own personal preference.  One big downside of the TH20 to me is the lack of a red light mode.  I find a red light mode to be useful in overnight GORUCK Challenge events for preserving night vision and keeping a lower profile and also when reading books in bed, in order to keep from waking up my wife.

The TH20 has several modes of operation that are all controlled by the single “clicky” style button on the right end of the main body. Initially, when the headlamp is off, a quick press turns it on.  A long press on the switch activates Firefly Mode. Once in Firefly mode, long-pressing and holding the switch gradually ramps between Infinity High and Infinity Low modes and back down to Infinity High again—just release the switch at your desired brightness. A double click press on the switch from any mode activates Turbo mode, and another double click press activates a mode where the TH20 automatically blinks the Morse Code for “SOS.”  A quick press in any mode turns the TH20 off.  In addition, the TH20 will “remember” the last Infinity setting it was in and will return to that setting when turned on.  I found these modes a bit tricky to learn at first, but once I did, they became second nature.  Having the ability to ramp gradually between Infinity High and Infinity Low modes was very useful to allow me to adapt my light level for various conditions.

Because of the way the TH20’s main body is held in its rubber bracket, it is very easy to rotate it up or down to virtually any position you may need it to be in, rather than just a handful of discreet positions as with other headlamps I have used.  Also, the rubber bracket holds the main body tightly and does not allow it to wander out of position.  The downside of the rubber bracket is that it can be a bit difficult to rotate the body within it and I sometimes needed to use two hands to do so.

So in practical terms, just how bright is it?  Using the AA battery and in full Turbo mode, I was able to illuminate my back yard and a good portion of my neighbor’s yard, out to a distance of probably 30 yards.  The beam might have gone farther had my neighbor’s house not been in the way.  In addition, I took it out for an after-dark ruck training session and it worked great—it was handy to be able to slightly adjust the beam for various lighting conditions.  I would probably characterize this headlamp’s  operation as more of a “flooder” (wider, shallower illumination) than a “thrower” (farther, narrower illumination).  However, for most things that I used or would use the TH20 for, that functionality is perfect.

Conclusion

The ThruNight TH20 Headlamp is very durable and functional.  Its aluminum body, O-ring battery cap seal and rubberized switch contribute to its impressive IPX8 moisture resistance, and its knurled ends help with gripping the device to adjust its position when wet.  Its rubber bracket holds the main body very securely in position, but it can sometimes be difficult to adjust the position one-handed.  The reviewed version here gave pleasant Neutral White beam and while it is probably more of a “flooder” than a “thrower,” this functional worked fine for me, but I’m sure would have been even brighter had I used a Li-ion 14500 battery rather than a standard AA battery.  It has several modes of operation, with its gradual “Infinity” settings being very useful for dialing in a specific brightness depending on your changing needs. The only mode it is missing is a red beam mode.  If you are looking for a durable headlamp with high moisture resistance and unique brightness level adjustment ability, have a look at the very affordable ThruNite TH20, which retails for $29.99.

Source: The sample for this review was provided by ThruNite. Please visit their site for more info or to order. Use the coupon code: THRUNITE to save 5% on orders through the ThruNite store. You can also check Amazon.

 

Product Information

Price: $29.99
Manufacturer: ThruNite
Retailer: Amazon
Requirements:
  • 1x AA or 1x Li-ion 14500 battery
Pros:
  • Very durable construction
  • Impressive moisture resistance
  • Multiple modes of operation, with "Infinity" setting being very useful
Cons:
  • No red light mode
  • Sometimes difficult to rotate body position one-handed

Filed in categories: Outdoor Gear, Reviews

Tagged:

ThruNite TH20 Headlamp review originally appeared on on March 31, 2017 at 7:46 am.

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This catheter-guided single chip may someday provide 3-D imaging from within your heart and blood vessels

Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technolgy, Atlanta, Georgia and Electronics Engineering Department, Isik University, Istanbul, Turkey, developed this tiny chip (approximately 1.5 mm) on a flexible catheter (about 430 microns) that will allow heart surgeons to view a complete real-time 3-D image of heart and blood vessel blockages and allow the surgeons to attend to them as necessary. This chip provides better imaging than current technology because it is capable of using higher frequencies to produce the images.  

According to the Georgia Tech News Center website,

The device integrates ultrasound transducers [capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT) arrays] with processing electronics [front-end CMOS electronics technology] on a single 1.4 millimeter silicon chip. On-chip processing of signals allows data from more than a hundred elements on the device to be transmitted using just 13 tiny cables, permitting it to easily travel through circuitous blood vessels. The forward-looking images produced by the device would provide significantly more information than existing cross-sectional ultrasound.

Researchers have developed and tested a prototype able to provide image data at 60 frames per second, and plan next to conduct animal studies that could lead to commercialization of the device.

It was February 2014 when this information was first released and I was unable to find any updates about the researchers’ endeavors. Hopefully, they have made great progress and are well on their way toward making this available in the near future.

If you are more technically inclined and would like to read about the details of this chip, the researchers originally published their information in the journal IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control: Gokce Gurun, et al., “Single-Chip CMUT-on-CMOS Front-end System for Real-Time Volumetric IVUS and ICE Imaging,” (IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control, 2014). (http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TUFFC.2014.6722610).

You can also read about the details for free from the National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, PubMed Central website: Coskun Tekes (corresponding author), Jaime Zahorian, Toby Xu, Muhammad W. Rashid, Sarp Satir, Gokce Gurun, Mustafa Karaman, Jennifer Hasler, and F. Levent Degertekin., “CMUT-based Volumetric Ultrasonic Imaging Array Design for Forward Looking ICE and IVUS Applications,” PubMed Central, 2014. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4123197/).

Filed in categories: Health, Fitness, Sports, News

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This catheter-guided single chip may someday provide 3-D imaging from within your heart and blood vessels originally appeared on on March 31, 2017 at 6:46 am.

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Notion home awareness sensor kit review

Home automation, security, and remote monitoring are all hot topics right now. The ability to know that everything at your property is fine when we’re not physically there is a priceless gift for chronic worriers and people who like to feel in control. There are many systems on the market that will let you install cloud-enabled smoke alarms, window and door alarms, temperature alarms, leak detectors and more. But I’m going to tell you about a system where one sensor can do all of those things. Let’s take a look at the Notion home awareness sensor kit.

What is it?

The Notion home awareness sensor kit is a home monitoring system that uses a bridge and wireless sensors that will tell you if a door has been opened or closed, a window has been opened or closed, if there’s a leak, if the temperature is higher or lower than a set temp, and if there’s a smoke alarm. But instead of picking and choosing different sensors to monitor different things, each Notion sensors can do everything.

What’s in the box?

You can buy Notion systems with 3 or 5 sensors. I received the 3 sensor package which includes:

1 Notion bridge
3 Notion sensors
Quick start guide

Design and features



The Notion system consists of a bridge and a set of sensors. The bridge shown above looks like an AC adapter. It’s made of white plastic and has an LED on the top edge that blinks green to indicate that it’s communicating with the sensors.

The sensors are also made of white plastic with an LED at the 9 o’clock position.

The sensors are 2-inches across and have adhesive on the bottom that can be used to stick the sensor to a door, window, ceiling, etc.

You’ll also notice the QR code on the bottom, that’s used during the setup phase to identify each sensor that you want to install.

The sensors run on a CR2477N coin cell lithium battery. According to their online FAQ, that battery should power the sensor for about a year.

Installation



Setting up the Notion system is extremely easy. The first step is to install the Notion app on your iOS or Android device. You’ll then create an account and follow the step-by-step instructions to add the sensors to the bridge.

I installed one sensor on my basement door by peeling and sticking the adhesive.

I placed another Notion sensor on the front door. If you notice the oblong sensor above the Notion in the image above, that’s a sensor from the SimpliSafe security system that I reviewed almost 8 years ago.

I put the third sensor in the bedroom.

Note that each Notion bridge can handle up to 15 sensors on its network.

Each sensor can have a maximum of 3 tasks that can be chosen from the list above. When you add one task, it affects the rest of the tasks that you can add to that one sensor. For example, if you choose Door as one of the tasks, you’ll not be able to also add the window task to the same sensor.


Some of the tasks can be customized to alert based on a certain condition like the temperature going above or below a specified temp.



Once you’ve setup the tasks for each sensor, you can view their status through the app’s sensor screen. Clicking on each task will show you more details about that task including a log of alarms and the ability to customize how you would like to be alerted when an event is detected.

You can add multiple people to your Notion account who will be notified when an alarm is detected and you can also set a quiet time when you will not be notified of an alert or you can set the system to only notify you when you’re away from home.

The screenshot above might lead you to believe that the Notion system will alert fire or police if an alarm is detected. It won’t. The app just detects the emergency numbers based on your location and puts them on a screen for your reference. Of course, you really just need to call 911.

Using the system


After the Notion bridge and sensors are installed and configured through the app. You can just sit back and wait to be notified about alarms. The notifications show up on your mobile device like you see above.

Sounds fantastic right? Yeah, that’s what I thought. But unfortunately, it has not been all rainbows and unicorns…

Problems from the start

Things worked pretty well for the first day when I was mainly testing the door opening and closing tasks. But the next day, the basement sensor started reporting that it had gone offline.


It spontaneously came back online only to disconnect again the next day. Before you ask if the bridge was not close enough to the sensor, it was in the same room with an unobstructed line of sight to the sensor about 20 feet away.

I left the sensor in that state for a couple of days just to see if it would come back online on its own. It didn’t. I then removed the sensor’s cover and that must have done something (what, I don’t know) to fix it because it’s been online ever since.

That said, another sensor has gone offline and would not reconnect until I removed the cover and jiggled the battery.


The next problem happened today when the front door sensor reported that it had detected a leak when there was absolutely no water, steam, condensation or anything remotely damp near it. The weird thing is that when I went into the sensor log page, it didn’t show that it had detected a leak. An hour later a sensor that was sitting on the desk next to me also notified me of a non-existent leak and this time it did show up in the log but again, there was no reason for it to detect water.

Testing sensor tasks

I tested the leak detection feature and found that it doesn’t take much water for it to send an alert. But I don’t know why it sometimes detects a leak when there isn’t one to detect.

I also tested the door opening and closing tasks which was more reliable than the other tasks.

The temperature task also works well.

The most disappointing task is the smoke alarm task because the sensor does not really detect smoke at all. It actually listens for an existing smoke alarm and alerts off of the sound which I think is a lame way to do it because the sensor depends on a working smoke detector to work.

Final thoughts

I like the idea of the Notion home awareness sensor kit and had high expectations for it. But it didn’t take long to discover that this system has some technical problems:

The sensors randomly disconnect.
The sensors detect leaks when there aren’t any.
The smoke alarm task doesn’t really detect smoke.
No notification when sensor batteries are low.

Add in that the system won’t work without power and an internet connection and it just has too many issues for me to be able to recommend it.

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

 

Product Information

Price: $219 (3 sensors and 1 bridge), $299 (5 sensors and 1 bridge)
Manufacturer: Notion
Pros:
  • Easy to set up
  • Each sensor can do multiple things
  • No monthly fees
Cons:
  • Smoke alarm doesn't detect smoke
  • Leak detection task is not reliable
  • Sensors randomly disconnect
  • Won't work without power or an internet connection

Filed in categories: Home and Kitchen, Reviews

Tagged:

Notion home awareness sensor kit review originally appeared on on March 30, 2017 at 11:14 am.

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