The LOHNtech store at Etsy has another idea for adding a stable place to set your drink without needing to add a table to your room. Just lay the laser-cut arm rest table over the arm of your sofa or chair (or flat out on the sofa cushion beside you), and you can rest your beverage without risking damage to the sofa. The arm rest table also has a built-in stand to hold your cell phone.
The table measures 15.1″ x 7.8″ x 0.28″. It’s made of multiple strips of poplar wood with a felt backing, so it can conform to the shape and thickness of the arm of the sofa. The built-in mobile device stand is available in two sizes to fit devices with a thickness 9mm or less or devices between 9 and 12mm.
It’s available in a couple of wood stains or in a selection of colors to match your decor. The LOHNtech laser-cut arm rest table is hand-made in Italy and is ready to ship in 3-5 business days for $45.57 from the LOHNtech Etsy shop.
The new Sonoma Tote from Oberon Design is beautifully designed and US bench-crafted, as we expect from Oberon Design. The bag is made of black leather with tooled leather panels on the front and back of the bag. The image seen here is the Oak Leaf design in the middle; other choices for the tooled panel include Acanthus in navy, Cloud Dragon in wine, Paisley in orchid, and Wild Rose in black.
Each bag measures 12″ X 14″ X 5″, has straps with a maximum of 12″ under-arm space, and weighs 1.8 pounds. Construction details include triple-stitched, taped, and bound seams and solid brass Sam Browne studs to attach the straps and close the bag. The interior has a 9″ x 7″ zippered pocket, 2 additional pockets, and a pen pocket; these are made from spill-resistant, top-grade ballistic nylon. You’ll also find a key loop at the mouth of the bag, so you’ll never need to scrounge for your keys.
The Sonoma Tote is $295.00, priced according to their new Oberon Direct program, which means no wholesaling of this bag results in a very reasonable price direct to the customer. And now for the “do good” part: In support of the vital ongoing efforts controlling the Sonoma, California fires, with this introductory offer, $20 of every purchase will go directly to the Sonoma County Fire Relief Fund. The Sonoma Tote can be purchased at Oberon Design.
While cars have gotten much safer over the years in terms of protection, there is still little to protect you from other drivers. In the event of an accident, even a little fender bender, it’s easy to miss important details that could prove vital in an insurance claim. We could all use a little more peace of mind in that regard, and that’s exactly what Conbrov hopes to bring you with their T17 Car Dash Cam.
What is it?
The Conbrov Car Dash Cam is a tiny HD video recorder that can be easily secured to the windshield of your car for recording events and details while driving. It automatically records while your car is running and could provide vital proof in the event of an insurance claim or if you like to record yourself on off-road adventures.
It’s like a little spy camera.
Hardware specs
Camera size is 2” x 1.4” x 0.3”
Captures 1080P HD resolution footage
Loop Recording
Night vision mode
“World’s Smallest Dash Cam”
1.5” LCD screen
Auto accident detection feature triggered by G-sensor automatically locks videos in event of an accident
Supports up to 32GB microSD cards (not included)
12-month warranty
Everything you need … except an SD card!
What’s in the box?
T17 Car Dash Cam
Car charger
USB cable
Car bracket with suction cup
Card reader
Pin for reset button
User-manual
VIP registration card
Design and Features
Let me start by saying this camera is tiny. Conbrov claims it’s the smallest dash cam in the world, which always seems to be a haughty claim, but they might be right in this instance. This allows the camera to be positioned in an area that’s out of direct sight from the driver, namely obscured by the rear view mirror, and that’s great for reducing distractions from a tiny, floating rectangle while driving at night.
Installation and usage are straightforward, as seen below.
Setup
The Conbrov Dash Cam was very simple to set up.
Handy little suction cup stayed on tight.
Once I found a spot on my windshield that was just out of my field of vision (I placed it so that it was mostly obscured by my rear view mirror).
Hang in there, baby.
I secured the suction cup bracket, attached the camera, plugged in the charger and ran the lengthy cable from the passenger side floor, up the side of the door, and around the edge of the windshield to obscure it from sight.
The wire wedged nicely into the plastic around the windshield, but your milage may vary.
Once the cable was plugged in, I turned on the car and the camera turned on as well and instantly started recording.
The supplied adapter includes a nice USB throughput so you can continue to use it with other devices.
Usage
The thing about a dash cam is that, like most safety features on your car, you don’t really actively use it unless you have to, and you hope that you never have to. Once I had the camera in place, I didn’t touch it, save for checking out the footage that I had recorded. It was easy enough to forget about completely while in use.
Set it and forget it.
More on that point, it’s entirely hands-off. Once you start your car, the camera recognizes the power source and begins to record immediately. When you turn your car off, the camera continues to record for a set time (1 minute default, adjustable in the settings) and turns off.
While it does have a still camera setting, and you could use it like a pocket-sized video camera, the size and interface aren’t very practical for that purpose. It’s perfect for what it was meant for, a constant recording device that sees what you’re seeing behind the wheel, providing proof in the event of something eventful.
It never takes its eye off the road.
The camera features an adjustable loop recording feature. You can select the length of the recordings in the settings, in 1, 2, 5 and 10-minute increments. The loop recording basically means that it creates video files until the SD card is filled and then starts overwriting the oldest file. The size of the SD card determines how long the videos are archived.
For instance, the video files at full resolution took up about 800MB on average for a 5-minute clip. Given that, the oldest record on my 16GB SD card was about an hour and a half of drive time.
Fortunately, the camera features a G-lock setting which detects sudden stops, such as in an accident, and automatically “locks” the currently recording video. This prevents accidental deletion or overwriting of that important video file. One note: I found that a lot of the videos were locking themselves, which means the were not being overwritten and my card was filling up. I can’t figure out if it was because of the G-lock system being a little too finicky, so I ended up turning that setting off.
Video quality
Below are two examples of day and night recordings. The camera was set to 1080p resolution and highest quality.
Daytime
Nighttime
While reviewing the videos, I found the quality slightly lacking. It’ll do just fine for recording the cause of an accident in front of the car, but if you’re looking to capture something like the license plate of a hit-and-run vehicle, or any car that’s further than 20 feet away, that might prove difficult. Overall, it gets the job done. The night mode was pretty decent.
Positives
Very small and visually unobtrusive
Auto-start and stop
Relatively inexpensive
Negatives
Doesn’t come with a required SD card (which is common among dash cams I’ve found)
Power cable could be visible on dash
Mediocre video quality
Smaller SD cards fill up really quickly
Final thoughts
I was impressed with the Conbrov Dash Cam’s simple set-and-forget functionality. Thought it might not be the sharpest camera, its size and cost are very well suited for those looking for a little extra protection on the road.
Price: $42.99 Where to buy:Amazon Source: The sample of this product was provided by Conbrov.
Well, these wine-bottle stoppers aren’t planet sized, but they are planet shaped. The Solar System Glow-in-the-Dark Bottle Stoppers are made by Chinese artisans using lamp-working techniques to turn colored glass rods into beautiful spheres representing the Sun and some of the planets. As they are being made, a luminescent powder is mixed into the molten glass to make the spheres glow in the dark.
The stoppers are made of chrome, glass, and silicone. The stoppers are 3.75″ tall, and the glass spheres are 1.5″ in diameter, except for Saturn, which is 2.25″. In addition to the Sun, you can also select from the Earth, Moon, Mercury, Saturn, or Neptune. Saturn is $26.00; all other designs are $24.00 each. Choose your glow-in-the-dark cosmic bottle stopper at UncommonGoods.
Here we go with the first set of review updates for the new year. What are review updates? They are quick blurbs added to the end of our past reviews where we comment about how the product has performed since the review was posted or since the previous update. You can click the links below and then scroll to the end to read the latest update (except for the first one… I’ve made numerous updates to the favorite gear page).
