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Barrington Special Edition Watch Winder review

REVIEW – I have a small but growing collection of automatic watches which I love wearing. In the era of smartphones and smartwatches, many say that old school timepieces are a thing of the past. But I would argue that watches are one of the original gadgets, their style and use still having a place in today’s modern world. But that is a debate for another time… Unlike a battery powered quartz watch, automatic watches wind themselves as you wear them. So, if they sit more than a few days they need to be hand-wound and time reset. Watch winders are engineered to keep the power reserve of your watch full and timepiece ticking while not on your wrist. In this case, Barrington has send their Special Edition single watch winder to review.

What is it?

As the name states, the Barrington Special Edition Watch Winder is a device designed to wind your automatic timepiece so it is charged and good to go at all times. In addition to their quality internal components, Barrington uses fine hardwoods in the construction of their Special Edition series of watch winders. For this review, they send me their single winder in unvarnished American walnut.

Design and features

Barrington is a British company focused on fine watch accessories. They produce high quality watch winders, watch winder safes, and various other accessories to maintain and store your watches. As you can see, their Special Edition watch winder is designed to hold/wind a single watch at a time with a variable number of daily turns and multi-direction capability.

In the box:

  • Special Edition Barrington Single Watch Winder
  • Standard or Flex holder
  • US power adapter
  • Connecting power cable

Inside the watch winder is an ultra-quiet Japanese motor that you can barely hear when operating. The movement is very smooth and precise. The physical dimensions of the watch winder measures 4.5in/11.5cm (W) x 4.7in/12cm (H) x 6.3in/16cm (D). A good size for on top of an armoire or shelf of a closet.

The Barrington watch winder can accommodate their Standard or Flex cushions. Here you can see my watch on their Standard holder. The Standard is designed for watches with a strap/bracelet circumference of 19cm to 24cm. The Flex is suitable for watches with a strap/bracelet circumference of 14cm to 20cm. According to Barrington, their Standard cushion fits approx 70% of customers and the Flex “is preferred if wrist size is slightly smaller”. They sent me the Standard holder and while it fits my rubber strap watch just fine cause I can adjust it. I would need their Flex cushion to accommodate my timepieces with brackets due to my scrawny wrists.

As I have mentioned, the Barrington watch winder has multiple turns per day settings (650/750/850/1000/1950) and rotation directions. The movement is smooth and nearly silent but Barrington says it best:

This single watch winder operates on a basis of gentle rotation to wind watches. Older generation Watch Winders were programmed to be always on (i.e. rotating without a pause) in an effort to wind the watch as quickly as possible. This can lead to over-winding of a watch and potential damage to the main spring. Gentle rotation ensures a consistent movement over a longer period of time that won’t over-wind your watch.

When initially turned on the rotor turns for 1 minute before pausing. The length of the pause is determined by the Turns Per Day setting (a lower TPD setting will mean a longer pause and vice versa) and once it is completed the rotor turns again for just 1 minute. This cycle continues silently until the watch winder is turned off.

If the Direction setting is set to clockwise then the rotor will always rotate in a Clockwise manner; the same principle applies if the Direction setting is set to Anti-Clockwise. However, if the Direction setting is set to the third setting, Alternately Clockwise/Anti-Clockwise, the first 1 minute rotation will be Clockwise, the next 1 minute rotation will be Anti-Clockwise and so on, ensuring your watch gets a balanced, yet gentle, rotation.

This watch winder can be powered by standard AC power or a pair of AA batteries. For this review, I powered the winder on batteries that have lasted nearly two months of on & off operation with no sign of running out of juice. Barrington’s ‘Jump’ feature allows multiple winders to be connected together via the supplied connecting cable and powered from the AC power source…aka there are two power ports, in and out, so you can daisy chain multiple single watch winders together powering them with one AC adapter cord.

The Barrington Special Edition series is all about the hardwood enclosures. As a lifelong, part-time woodworker, the unvarnished American walnut is gorgeous. The exterior is nicely finished with excellent old world craftsmanship. The seams are perfect with ‘BARRINGTON’ routered into both sides of the wooden box.

In addition to American walnut, the Special Edition watch winders are available in: santos rosewood, gray koto, oak, zebrano, and ebony Macassar hardwoods. For those of you not tempted by their Special Edition winders, Barrington’s standard single watch winders are available in: crimson red, glacier white, midnight blue, electric yellow, shadow black, racing green, and burnt amber for a fraction of the cost.

What I like

  • Well made with quality materials
  • Old world craftsmanship
  • Keeps your watch wound and ready for use
  • Variable turn and directions suitable for nearly any watch
  • Capable of daisy chaining multiple winders

What needs to be improved

  • Expensive

Final thoughts

The Barrington Special Edition Watch Winder is the first watch winder I have ever tried and the convince is obvious. Historically when I switch watches, 99% of the time I have to wind and set it but now that all-be-it minor hassle is a thing of the past. The Special Edition’s wooden enclose is beautiful and mechanism within nearly silent. You can definitely find cheaper watch winders or you could take the time and effort whenever the need arises to do it yourself. But the Barrington SE watch winder is a luxury accessory for your old school timepieces that alleviates that task and looks great while doing it.

Price: $395.00
Where to buy: Barrington
Source: The sample of this product was provided by Barrington.

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Barrington Special Edition Watch Winder review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on August 30, 2018 at 9:00 am.

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ILive – Voice Activated Clock with Amazon Alexa Review

REVIEW – I am normally an early riser by nature and will often wake up before my alarm clock even goes off.  However, there are those occasions where I apparently needed the extra sleep and was glad I did have an alarm clock set to make sure I got up on time.  I had recently replaced an alarm clock I had been using for literally over a decade with a new alarm clock.  Much to my disappointment I found that the alarm was so high pitched I did not hear it in the morning (I wear earplugs at night, but that is a whole other story!).  So when the opportunity came to review the new ILive Voice Activated Clock with Amazon Alexa I jumped on it.  Let’s see if it worked for me and made sure I was out of bed on time.

What is it?

The ILive Voice Activated clock is exactly what it is named.  It is a voice-activated clock that works with Amazon Alexa.  You can give it voice commands like any other Amazon Alexa enabled device as long as you have signed into your Amazon Alexa account through their app.  You can tell it to set alarms, cancel alarms, ask it a plethora of questions, play music and play Audible books.  It has a really nice speaker that has both left and right channels on it and it gives a much better sound than any other Amazon Alexa device that we have in the house.  We have the original Echo, Echo Dot, and the newer Echo Show.

Hardware Specs

  • Amazon cloud-based Alexa service
  • Voice activated
  • Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi direct
  • Bluetooth connectivity
  • Support for multiple streaming services like Pandora, Spotify and IHeartRadio
  • Nightlight at the bottom of the clock
  • USB port for phone charging
  • Multi-room and multi-user capable
  • High-performance speaker
  • ILive Wifi App

What’s in the box?

In the picture above you can see what comes in the box.  You get the clock radio (the light colored band at the bottom is the night light).  You also get an ac adapter,  an advertisement for a WiFi booster service, instruction booklet, quick start guide and an advertisement for Spotify Premium.

Design and Features

In the pictures above you can see my original alarm clock on the right and the new ILive alarm clock on the left.  The ILive is definitely larger but still does not take up a lot of space on my bedside table.  The next two pictures below show images of the top and back of the device.  There are a lot of buttons on this alarm clock.    Many of the buttons have dual features as you can see.   Starting from left to right on the left picture the top button is the power button.  I found this particular button rather deceiving.  When I plugged the clock in, it immediately lit up and displayed 12 am which made me think the clock was on.   I was unable to begin the configuration process until I pressed the power button and the light bar between the light and snooze button started blinking.   Also worth noting is once the clock is all set up and connect to your WiFi, if you were to lose power and have it come back on, the device will self-power back on after 2 minutes.  It sits with the 12 am display and will eventually start to self-search for its WiFi connection.  If it finds it, it will display the proper time again and pull back any alarms you set from Alexa.  So no battery backup is necessary.

Going clockwise the next two buttons let you control music playback manually on the clock itself.  The bottom button will control the LED clock display brightness (only 2 settings – light up the whole room and only slightly less light).  The last button on the left will let you pair with Bluetooth or a WiFi protected set up device.

In the middle, you have the light button that will let you turn on the night light at the bottom of the clock.  There are three levels of brightness for that.  The big button at the bottom is the snooze button.

To the right, you have a microphone mute button if you don’t wish to have Alexa listening to you. The plus and minus buttons control how loud the alarm and how loudly Alexa responds.  The bottom button with the microphone picture is just a manual button you can press to activate Alexa if you don’t want to call out her name first.

In the back of the unit is a USB port in which you can charge your phone and a DC in port for the power adapter.  I did note that when I plugged the USB from my wireless charger for my Galaxy S9 that it did not have enough juice to support fast charging.

The next series of pictures show you the process to get the clock connected to your WiFi.  It is a pretty standard setup where you actually connect your phone directly to the WiFi coming out of the clock itself then provide the clock with the home WiFi password.

Once connected you get the opportunity to name the device.  Then you proceed to connect to your Amazon Alexa account.  You give the app permission to access the Alexa voice service.   You even get the choice of specifying which language in which you want Alexa to speak to you.

Once I was through all of that I was then prompted for a firmware upgrade for the device which I did apply.

A nice feature which I mentioned earlier is the microphone mute button.  If you really don’t want Alexa listening in to the fun you are having in your bedroom you can mute her.

The next few screens show the plethora of playing options provided by the app to the clock.  I personally did not have any of those streaming accounts available, but I did have the clock read my Audible book to me.  I have to say I was really impressed with the sound that came out of the device.  It had a great base quality and was very clear compared to our existing Echo devices.

What I like

I love that it connects to Amazon Alexa.  We are a big Echo use home.  We own five existing echo devices, so using this clock came very naturally for me.   Just before going to bed telling Alexa to set an alarm for the next day is so easy.  You can even tell her to set the alarm for all weekdays if you like.  Alexa also now gives you the ability to set multiple alarms if you have two people using the same clock.  When it goes off you can talk and tell Alexa to stop the alarm or press a button on the clock to stop it that way.  I love that I do not have to remember to replace batteries in the clock to handle the battery backup issue.  That is also a con which you will see below.  The speaker on this clock is amazing for its size.  I often use it when I bring a load of clothes into the bedroom to fold.  Listening to music or a book certainly makes that job go much faster.

What needs to be improved

I really think that the clock could benefit from an actual battery backup.   A possible weak spot is that this clock is very dependent on WiFi in your home.  If you WiFi goes out, your alarm will not go off.   Another weak spot is if you wake up before the alarm goes off you only have two choices to cancel the alarm.  One is to talk to Alexa to cancel the alarm which can be loud for the other person still sleeping in the room.  The other is to open the Alexa app and cancel that way.  It would be awesome if there could be some way to configure a manual button press to cancel the alarm before it goes off.  Another issue is also dealing with the power issue.  If the power goes off in the middle of the night and comes back on, the clock will reconnect with your WiFi if your WiFi is available.  However, it is a noisy process with the clock talking and giving you a status along the way.  I would rather it do that soundlessly so it would not wake me up in the middle of the night.   My last issue is a pet peeve with pretty much all newer alarm clocks.  Dang those LED displays are bright.  I see people complaining that even the lowest display setting is still too bright for a dark room.  This clock is still pretty darn bright.  I will most likely be buying a film to place over the display to hopefully dim that sucker down.

Final thoughts

All in all, I really do like this alarm clock.  It will stay on my nightstand and become my personal alarm clock.  Fortunately for us we rarely lose power so the backup issue is not that big of a deal.  I just really love the sound that it produces and I can actually hear the alarm in the morning.

Price: $71.07
Where to buy: Amazon
Source: The sample for this review was provided by iLive.

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ILive – Voice Activated Clock with Amazon Alexa Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on August 5, 2018 at 9:30 am.

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The future is NOW: MATRIX PowerWatch runs on body heat!

I’ve been a daily watch wearer for over 30 years now, and one thing I’ve always wished for has been a watch that never needs a new battery (or a recharge, in the case of today’s smartwatches).  The clever folks at Matrix Industries, Inc. may have finally made that dream a reality.  Their MATRIX PowerWatch is the world’s first smartwatch that is powered by your body heat.  How awesome is that?  Not only that, its thermoelectric technology also measures accurate calories burned, activity level (step tracker), and sleep quality—and you won’t have to take it off to charge it overnight.  It even has a power meter to display how much electrical power you are generating, which increases with activity output level.  A PowerWatch App for iOS and Android acts as a data interface with your smartphone.  Currently, there are three PowerWatch products: silver standard version for $199.00, all-black Black Ops version for $239.00, and the PowerWatch X version (with notifications, 200m water resistance and other added features) for $279.00.  Visit MATRIX PowerWatch for more info or to order.

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The future is NOW: MATRIX PowerWatch runs on body heat! originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on June 12, 2018 at 12:00 pm.

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Know the time, if not the star date, with the Star Trek Clock

Fans of Star Trek will like these clocks from the YOUgNeek shop on Etsy.  The body is made of glass and brushed metal.  The hour markers and the center of the clock are all populated with vintage, classic Action Fleet Micro Machine starships, warships and other vessels.  The clocks are hand finished in a black and silver pewter-like color.

The vessel in the middle can be either Deep Space 9, Borg Cube, Federation SpaceDock, or Space Station K-7, or you can request the Star Trek logo.  The maker uses whatever vessels they have on hand, but you can specify your favorite series or even specify particular vehicles you’d like to have.  Be aware that special requests can take longer and may cost extra if rare vessels, like Voyager and Defiant, are used.

The clock itself measures 11-11/16″ in diameter, but may be as wide as 14″ (at the widest point) with the vessels attached. The Star Trek Clock is $129.99.  It is handmade to order, so allow some extra time for delivery.  Order your Star Trek Clock at the YOUgNeek shop.

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Know the time, if not the star date, with the Star Trek Clock originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on June 11, 2018 at 10:00 am.

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The Misfit Path smartwatch will make you feel pretty

Let’s be honest, the vast majority of smartwatches are designed by and for men. I’m not saying all smartwatches have a bulky masculine style, but most do and it’s time to find a smartwatch that is smaller and more feminine. The Path Hybrid Smartwatch from Misfit looks like it fits that criteria.

Misfit is well known for their fitness and activity tracking wearables, and the Path Hybrid smartwatch won’t disappoint with its feature set. The watch includes fitness tracking features like steps walked, calories burned. sleep tracking, and movement alerts that will keep you from sitting too long.

The Path Hybrid is swim-proof and water resistant to 50 meters and is available in four color combinations including the rose gold and black stainless steel shown here. In addition to the fitness features, the watch also alerts you when you have an incoming call, text message, and app alerts. There’s even a button that you can program to play music, take a picture, and find your phone.

The Misfit Path watch will run for up to 6 months on a replaceable CR2025 battery, so you don’t have to worry about charging it each night like you have to do with other watches.

The watch is available now and is priced at $149.99. You can save an additional 25% off if you use the code PATH25 when you buy it from Misfit’s site. The discount code expires on 5/13/18.

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The Misfit Path smartwatch will make you feel pretty originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on April 28, 2018 at 11:00 am.

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