Home 2018

Clipping your pet’s nails can be a peaceful experience with the Zen Clipper

Clipping my dog Teddy’s nails is such an ordeal that we usually just take him to the vet’s office when he needs a trim.  It’s expensive, but we need less styptic powder for Teddy and fewer bandages and antibiotic creams for us by letting someone else do it.  We’ve tried a couple of styles of clippers at home, but they always seem to crush the nails and leave rough edges, especially because of the fight to keep him from jerking his paw away from us after that first nail is clipped.  And we seem to always cut at least one nail too short, resulting in pain for Teddy and blood smeared everywhere.  The Safety Pet Nail Clipper from Zen Clipper promises to make trimming your pet’s nails easier and free of injury to the quick (the living tissue in the nail).

The cone shape of the Safety clippers is designed to prevent the nail from being inserted too far into the clipper, so you’re sure to only clip nail.  The stainless steel blade sheers the nail without crushing it.  The cutter is available in seven sizes, designed to clip the nails of everything from birds, kittens, and small reptiles, up to dogs greater than 50 pounds.  There’s even a nail-sizing guide you can print out with instructions to guide you in choosing the correct clipper for your pet.  They are guaranteed for a lifetime of easy nail clippings.  All seven sizes of the Safety Pet Nail Clipper is available for $19.95 each from The Grommet.

The MEATER wireless meat thermometer review

The Gadgeteer Kid & I are true carnivores without a doubt. We love all kinds of cooked meat from steaks to fish and everything in-between. IMHO, grilling is a science and an art form with cooking everyone’s meal to perfection a stressful experience more often than not. Managing all the variables and people’s preferences is challenging, add a little alcohol and the odds of missing the mark goes up exponentially. Well, the engineers who developed the MEATER (the G.K. and I still chuckle @the name), the first truly wireless meat thermometer, aim to help you “achieve perfect and consistent results every time.”

Design and features

I have used several “wireless” thermometer probes for measuring the core temperature of what you’re trying to cook. They all had a metal braided cable stretching from the basestation to the sensor inserted into the meat that is sitting inside your barbecue or oven. Then the basestation transmitted the temperature data to your smartphone or other device meant to let you know the status of your food.

The MEATER is a truly wireless, dual sensor probe created with the sole job of helping you cook your food to perfection with the unwritten goal of boosting your grilling street-cred to Master BBQ’er.

Technical specifications

  • Stainless steel construction
  • Water resistant design, dustproof, and easy to clean
  • Wireless up to 33 feet (10 meters): Bluetooth LE connection to your smart device
  • MEATER Sense™: 2 temperature sensors in 1 probe
  • Internal temperature sensor range: 212°F (100°C)
  • Ambient temperature sensor range: 527°F (275°C)
  • Rechargeable Battery: Lasts 24 hours of continuous cooking between charges
  • Dimensions 130mm x 7mm (6mm diameter)

The MEATER comes with a bamboo holder that securely keeps and recharges the wireless (easily misplaced) probe. There is a battery power level LED & button located on the front of the wooden holder.

There are two embedded magnets on either side of the back that enable you to place the wooden charger on most metal surfaces (aka the side of a refrigerator, stove, BBQ, etc).

The MEATER is powered by a single AAA battery and can charge your MEATER probe up to 100 times before needing to be replaced. The back cover is also held in place by two small embedded magnets.

The MEATER probe has to be inserted into the meat beyond the line machined into the metal casing to protect the main sensor from damage due to high temperatures.

The ambient sensor is meant to monitor the cooking temperature of the oven or BBQ. It is located in the black plastic end of the probe.

Along with creating a very easy to use, high quality device, the folks @MEATER have developed a very polished ecosystem/app to make cooking with the MEATER nearly foolproof. The MEATER’s Smart Guided Cook system walks you through every step of the cooking process. The app guides you thru the type, cut, and doneness of the meat.

The MEATER’s dual sensors continuously monitor internal and ambient temperatures concurrently. The app also gives you elapsed cooking time and estimated time remaining until your meal is ready to serve.

Then to walk you over the finish line, the app let’s you know when to pull the meat from the cooker, let it finalize it internal cooking (aka letting it rest), and when its ready to eat. The estimated cook time has been spot on…within 5 minutes or so. Not bad considering the roast took nearly two plus hours to cook.

Overall, the whole system is brilliant. I used the MEATER several times over the holiday season and every cook in the room loved it, we all geeked out. All of the were a bit jealous and seriously considering buying one ASAP. The agreed upon, most loved features of MEATER was it being truly wireless, with built-in internal and ambient sensors, and its ability to estimate cooking time so accurately.

The only real limitation of the MEATER is it’s range and lost connectivity. I wouldn’t even consider it a true negative just a known issue that needs to be worked around. You’re sticking a small under powered Bluetooth device into a metal box, it’s range is going to be pretty limited. I found both in the BBQ and oven, the range of the MEATER was approximately 10 feet but would quickly reconnect once back in range.

Positives

  • Well made, thought out design
  • Truly wireless
  • Water resistant, dust-proof, easy to clean
  • Built-in dual sensors
  • Excellent app/ecosystem

Negatives

  • Limited wireless range

Final thoughts

I would give the MEATER 5-stars if it weren’t for its limited range. The soon to be released MEATER BLOCK will hopefully take care of this limitation. That said, I love this device and in most, if not all circumstance would make an excellent tool for any and all grilling/barbecuing aficionados. The MEATER’s truly wireless, dual sensor design in concert with its Smart Guided Cook system makes cooking meat stress-free and nearly idiot-proof.

Price: $69.00
Where to buy: MEATER
Source: The sample for this review was provided by MEATER.

This Bluetooth speaker harkens back to the days of vinyl LPs

Unlike most Bluetooth speakers today which are usually black, utilitarian, and often cylindrical, the Vintage Vinyl Bluetooth Speaker combines the looks of an old horn-shaped gramophone and the appearance of an old vinyl 10″ LP on display.  Actual reclaimed vinyl albums are turned in to a horn speaker to give a new spin to your modern music collection.  And to make the speaker truly personal to your tastes, you can customize the speaker in a variety of ways:

  • Request a genre, and Jeff Davis (the maker) will select an album for you.
  • Create a custom label by choosing a design and specifying your own text.
  • Supply a photo or artwork to have a photo label created for your speaker.
  • Send in your own album and have Jeff turn it into a speaker for you.
  • Request a particular album, and Jeff will source it and add it to your speaker.

The speaker stands 15.25″ tall x 8.5″ deep x 12″ wide (at horn); the 12- diameter horn has a 3.9″ depth; and the wood base is 6.8″ deep X 10.9″ wide.  It connects via Bluetooth to your modern digital audio sources, or you can plug an audio source into the AUX input on the back of the speaker.  The Vintage Vinyl Bluetooth Speaker is $225 for request-a-genre, $235 for custom label or submitted albums, and $275 for requesting a particular album.  Purchase it at UncommonGoods.

This stand from Filofax puts your tablet at the perfect viewing angle

Were you here last week when I posted a quick review of the SmartStand360 universal phone stand? No? Ok, click the link and check it out. I’ll wait. Done? Great! That little stick-on stand for your smartphone totally reminds me of this much larger stick-on stand for your tablet.

From the same people who brought us the Filofax comes the eniTAB360. This stick-on stand has been designed to work with any tablet. It uses micro-suction technology instead of 3M adhesive strips. Yay! It also features a folding non-slip rubber foot with a friction hinge that opens up to 140-degrees for custom viewing angles.

The Filofax eniTAB360 is priced at $19.99. You can buy one from Amazon.

IOGEAR Compact USB-C Docking Station with PD Pass-Thru review

We recently bought a new Apple MacBook Pro for my wife.  It’s a fantastic device, but one of its limitations (I’m sure Apple would say advantages) is that basically the only ports on it are four USB-C ports.  I do like USB-C and I’m looking forward to the day when old-school USB is phased out of devices far and wide in favor of USB-C, but until then I thought it would be useful to have a way to connect non-USB-C-cable based peripherals to our new MacBook Pro.  The IOGEAR Compact USB-C Docking Station with PD Pass-Thru is one way to address this. Let’s check it out!  Gadget on!

What is it?

IOGEAR Compact USB-C Docking Station with PD Pass-Thru is a compact docking station that is intended to effectively turn your laptop into a full-functioning desktop workstation.  It includes a total of 10 ports and slots for various cable an memory card types and can also perform pass-through charging of your laptop.

Design and Features

As mentioned above, the IOGEAR Compact USB-C Docking Station with PD Pass-Thru includes the following ports:

  1. USB-C
  2. Memory Card Reader for SD or MicroSD cards
  3. USB 3.0 (Type A)
  4. USB 3.0 (Type A)
  5. USB 3.0 (Type A)
  6. Gigabit Ethernet LAN
  7. HDMI video
  8. Mini DisplayPort video
  9. VGA video
  10. Headset/Microphone jack

 

Above, the front of the IOGEAR Compact USB-C Docking Station’s packaging.  It includes an accurate photo of the product contained inside.

The rear of the IOGEAR Compact USB-C Docking Station’s package includes a detailed list of features include a list of all ports.

One thing I noticed when unboxing the Dock was that the tape seal had already been cut.  I wondered if this was evidence that I had not received a new device as a review sample.  I wondered this further when the Dock itself seemed to have some cosmetic scuffs on its exterior.  In any case, it seemed to function just fine.

Above are the contents of the package, which are also listed below:

  • IOGEAR Compact USB-C Docking Station
  • Quick Start Guide booklet
  • Troubleshooting card

My initial impression of the Dock was that its aluminum case had a look and feel quite similar to an Apple MacBook laptop with its silver, matte-type texture.  More detailed on this below.

In the closeup photo above, my wife’s new Apple MacBook Pro is on the left, and the Dock is on the right.  As mentioned, both aluminum surfaces are very similar in appearance and texture, though I would note that the MacBook Pro is Space Gray in color; were it the Silver version, I think it would appear to match the Dock almost identically.

Above is a closeup of the USB-C docking interface cable that is intended to be plugged into your laptop.  This single cable provides all of the port replication of all peripherals plugged into the Dock.

As seen above, the underside of the Dock includes symbols adjacent to each of the ports to indicate their compatibility.

 

The underside of the Dock also has a silicone foot at each corner, as shown above, to keep it from sliding around while sitting on your desk or another surface.
The Dock has ports on three sides (the USB-C docking interface cable that plugs into the laptop protrudes from the fourth side).  The side depicted above has, from left to right, MicroSD card slot, standard SD card slot, and USB-C port.  This single USB-C port is intended to plug your laptop’s power supply into, to enable Power Delivery Charging (PD Pass-Thru) while the Dock is connected to your laptop and in use, with up to 60W of charging power.  Also, when you are away from home, the bus-powered Dock does not need a power supply to connect your devices.
The next side of the Dock includes the ports shown above: HDMI video, VGA video, Ethernet LAN and Mini DisplayPort video.
The final side of the Dock includes a headphone/microphone port and three USB 3.0 (Type A) ports.  Per the port symbols on the underside of the Dock, the USB 3.0 port to the far right also has a small lightning bolt near the USB port symbol, indicating that this USB port can be used for fast charging of phone, tablet or another device.Above, from left to right I’ve placed a MicroSD memory card, a standard SD memory card, and the laptop’s power supply USB-C cable into the Dock.
Next up, I’ve inserted, from left to right, an HDMI video, a VGA video cable, and an Ethernet LAB cable.  The fourth port is a Mini DisplayPort, but I don’t own such a cable to illustrate this, so you’ll have to use your imagination here.  The Dock gives the ability to connect two additional monitors (both at 1080p resolution) alongside your laptop’s monitor if using a Windows laptop, or a single additional monitor (at 4k Ultra HD resolution) alongside your laptop’s monitor if using an Apple laptop.
Finally, in the photo above, I’ve inserted an Apple Earpods cable and three old-style USB cables: one for an external hard drive running Apple’s Time Capsule backup software, one for a keyboard and one for an iPhone.

Above, a photo of the Dock connected to our MacBook Pro, and with multiple devices connected to the Dock.  The Dock is very compact and easy to use; once all of your peripherals are plugged into the Dock, the Dock’s single USB-C cable is all that is needed to quickly add a significant amount of desktop-like capability to your laptop.

Positives

  • 10 ports and slots allow a variety of peripherals to be connected to your laptop quickly and easily
  • Pass-through charging allows your laptop to be charged while still utilizing any of the connected peripherals
  • Slim, compact design that mimics the Apple MacBook in appearance and style

Negatives

  • None

Final Thoughts

We found the IOGEAR Compact USB-C Docking Station with PD Pass-Thru to be quite useful alongside my wife’s new Apple MacBook Pro.  It provides a quick and easy way to attach multiple peripherals with a single USB-C docking interface connection.  We were able to routinely connect an external backup hard drive as well as an HD TV as an external monitor and a keyboard on occasion, and all while continuing to charge the laptop’s battery.  At around $100, this dock isn’t necessarily cheap, but compared to other, similar docks, it seems to give a lot of features for the price.

Price: $99.99 MSRP
Where to Buy: Amazon
Source: The sample of this product was provided by IOGEAR.