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The Kwilt Shoebox Plus review


Not very long ago, I tested and reviewed the Kwilt Mini Shoebox, which is a device that allows me to transfer and/or backup any or all of the videos and photos from my phone or tablet to storage attached to this device via my network. I found it to be a very nice and useful gadget, but with some flaws. Just recently, Kwilt released the Kwilt Shoebox Plus and allowed me the honor of reviewing their upgraded device. So, here we go:

What is it?

The Kwilt Shoebox Plus allows you to transfer/backup your photos and videos from your phone or tablet, and to have access to them and any other media attached to the shoebox from anywhere in the world and at any time, as long as you have internet access.

What’s in the box



1 x Kwilt Shoebox Plus
1 x 64GB Thumb Drive
1 x Micro USB Power Adapter
1 x Quick Start Guide
1 x Additional Information Leaflet
1 x Ethernet Cable

Design and features

Much like the previous model, the Kwilt Shoebox Plus is a small and lightweight device that allows you to connect a relatively limitless amount of hard drive storage via its 4 built-in USB ports. You can transfer your pictures and videos from your mobile device to “free up” storage, or you can create a backup of your content. The device allows you to have access to the content from anywhere in the world as long as you have internet access and the app configured on your device. You can set up additional accounts for family and friends and others. You can display the photos and videos on a display via the HDMI port and hear any audio via the audio port.
On one of the long sides of this device, there are 3 ports. From left to right there is a power port, an HDMI display port and an audio out port.


On one of the short sides of the device, there are 4 USB ports and an Ethernet jack.

Performance

Once again, much like the previous model, the initial setup of the Kwilt was very easy right out of the box, with no issues at all. This time around, they provided a 64GB flash drive to get you started which as I stated in the first review, is simply amazing and a great gesture by the manufacturer. Since the app was already loaded on my devices, as soon as I connected the Kwilt Shoebox Plus to my network, it showed up as a second Kwilt in the app. (This time around, I connected the Kwilt via the Ethernet cable). The instructions were easy to follow, and since I had already created an account for the first Kwilt, in a few seconds, all was set and ready to go. When I opened the app, the first screen asked me to create a name and password for the new device.


Once I gave the device a name, (Unlike my first Kwilt, I just named this one Kwilt Plus), the next screen was the main screen with a thumbnail view of some of my photos/videos, and the icon in the upper left corner for the choices.


First I selected Manage Kwilt Shoebox to see what the app showed for my devices.


Once that selection looked good, I selected the choice to Transfer to Shoebox and both Kwilt devices were displayed for my selection.


This time around, when I selected the Kwilt Plus option to transfer my photos and videos together, I had no problem with the app. I selected the option to transfer all files including both videos and photos, and the process was flawless. When I tested the first Kwilt, whenever my phone went into sleep mode, the app would stop the transfer. This time around, the phone stayed awake and successfully completed the transfer.


Another great improvement and also a pleasant surprise is that unlike my failed efforts to contact support during my testing of the previous Kwilt device, on this occasion, I received the following email shortly after setting up the Kwilt Plus:


All of the functions included in the original Kwilt Shoebox are also included in this version. To see the review of the first Kwilt Mini Shoebox, click here: Kwilt Shoebox review.
In addition to the app functions to edit and share your photos, you can also perform the following functions:

  • The KwiltKeys photo keyboard for IOS allows you find any picture and place it into any relevant app.
  • The Kwilt for MS Office365 add-on allows you to find and insert any photos into Word or PowerPoint.
  • The Kwilt for MS Outlook add-on that allows you to find and insert any photos into MS Outlook.

What I like

  • The addition of wired Ethernet for this new model.
  • The great improvement of the functionality of the app.
  • The great improvement in the Customer Support function.
  • The addition of multiple USB ports for flexibility and expansion.

What can be improved

  • In my opinion, there is nothing to be improved. They got it right.

Final thoughts

The Kwilt Shoebox Plus is a great improvement to the first model and continues to be a really nice device that is designed to perform a very useful and convenient function. Just like its predecessor, it provides for virtually limitless storage for your mobile picture and videos, far beyond the built-in storage capacity of any phone on the market today. It continues to allow access to others persons of your choice, and with a bit of imagination, it can be useful in more ways than mentioned in my review, including as an example, when you get a new cell phone and you are switching from say Android to IOS. The Kwilt Shoebox Plus makes the process of safeguarding your priceless pictures and videos that are on your cell phone, easy and painless. I can’t wait to see what Kwilt comes up with next. In my opinion, this is a win.

Price: $119.00
Where to buy: Kwilt Shoebox Website.
Source: The sample for this review was provided by Kwilt Shoebox.

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The Kwilt Shoebox Plus review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on August 11, 2018 at 9:00 am.

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Kwilt Shoebox Mini smartphone backup adapter review


REVIEW – While I love my iPhone 8 Plus, I hate paying so much money to get the version with the most storage memory. It would be much easier to have all of my pictures stored on a drive and to have access to them whenever and wherever. The Kwilt Shoebox Mini smartphone backup adapter claims to be able to give me exactly what I want. Let’s see!!

What is it?

The Kwilt Shoebox Mini backup adapter, allows you to offload your photos and videos from your phone or tablet, and have access to them and any other media attached to the shoebox from anywhere in the world and at any time, as long as you have internet access.

What’s in the box


1 x Kwilt Shoebox
1 x Mini HDMI to HDMI adapter
1 x Micro USB to USB adapter
1 x 32GB Thumb Drive
1 x Micro USB Power Adapter
1 x Quick Start Guide
1 x Tips Leaflet
1 x Additional Information Leaflet
2 x Kwilt Stickers

Design and features

The Kwilt Shoebox is a small and lightweight device that allows you to connect a relatively limitless amount of hard drive storage and apart from offloading your pictures and videos from your mobile device to “free up” storage, you have access to the content from anywhere in the world as long as you have internet access and the app configured on your device. You can set up additional accounts for family and friends and others.


On the back of the device, from left to right, there is a mini HDMI port, a micro USB data port, and a micro USB power port.


The picture below shows how the cables are connected.


With the mini HDMI to HDMI adapter, you can attach to a TV or monitor and view the content stored on the shoebox. You can connect a thumb drive to the micro USB to USB dongle as shown below, or you can connect a USB hub with multiple drives.

Performance

The initial setup of the Kwilt was very easy right out of the box, with no issues at all. The fact that they provided a 32GB flash drive to get you started is simply amazing and a great gesture by the manufacturer. After downloading the app and following the setup instructions, all was set and ready to go. Before I go any further, here are some of the features offered:
• Creates virtually unlimited phone/tablet memory
• Share with others
• Transfer large volumes of photos and videos
• Store other types of files

Once you sign in to the app, there is the main screen that displays some of your photos and videos as a background, with the options overlayed. In the upper left corner, there is an icon that looks like a large shoebox. Selecting this icon takes you to the options to transfer your photos and videos, as well as to set your preferences. Below are pictures of some of the screens. (Not all of the screens are included in the pictures. There are too many to show, but these should give you an idea).



When I selected the option to transfer my photos and videos together, the app crashed every time without completing the task. Eventually, I selected just the videos, and those transferred successfully. At that point, I figured that it was no big deal, and I would just transfer my pictures separately. However, no matter how many times I tried, the app crashed and I had to try again.  Despite my efforts to reach their customer support by sending multiple emails via their in-app email, I never received a response from their customer service. However, I decided to try the app on my iPad and everything worked. After taking a closer look at what was happening, and comparing my iPhone settings with my iPad, I realized that the Kwilt app does not run in the background if your phone is set to auto lock and if it goes into that mode before the transfer is completed. I find this strange and quite inconvenient since unlike my iPad, I set my phone to auto lock after 5 minutes for privacy and security reasons. The solution here for the first transfer that included a large number of photos was to disable the phone’s auto-lock feature, and then the transfer was successful.

The Kwilt Shoebox can also be set to perform automatic transfers one your device connects to the same network that the Kwilt is on.


Moving on, at the bottom of the screen, there are 3 icons. From left to right, they are the live camera view, sub-menu, and settings icons. The first icon which is the live camera view, allows you to take pictures or record videos from within the app. The middle icon gives access to the sub-menu options. Once you select the middle icon, the sub-menu icons appear in a semi-circle across the bottom of the screen. Here are some screenshots:






The last icon to the right is the settings icon that provides tabs to additional setup options, preferences, account information, help options, social media sharing options and the Logout option.

What I like

I like that the Kwilt Shoebox is small and lightweight, and uses a wireless connection so that you can place it just about anywhere.

I also like that you can attach a drive of any size including a thumb drive, and even a USB hub with multiple drives. This makes the storage virtually unlimited and provides the ability able to accommodate just about anyone that you want to share access with to store their files as well.

The incremental automatic transfer once your devices and Kwilt are connected to the same network is also a great feature.

What can be improved

The app needs some work, since it crashes (or just stops working) if the device goes into auto lock mode during the transfer process.

Without a doubt, customer service/support/response must be improved.

Final thoughts

The Kwilt Shoebox is a really nice device that is designed to perform a very useful and convenient function. It provides for virtually limitless storage for your mobile picture and videos, far beyond the built-in storage capacity of any phone on the market today. What is even nicer, is the ability to allow access to others of your choice. This is a much-needed device that would serve many people very well. Once I figured out the issue with the auto lock, this device became a permanent and convenient asset on my network.

Price: $59.00
Where to buy: Kwilt Shoebox Website and Amazon.
Source: The sample for this review was provided by Kwilt Shoebox.

The post Kwilt Shoebox Mini smartphone backup adapter review appeared first on The Gadgeteer.

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Kwilt Shoebox Mini smartphone backup adapter review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on July 4, 2018 at 9:00 am.

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Picture Keeper Connect photo backup software/adapter review

Using a portable device is immensely freeing, as most of the world has discovered over the past decade. What happens, though, when you run out of space on your phone/tablet and don’t have a wireless service to back it up to? While having a Mac or PC around is nice, that defeats the mobility aspect, if you’re on a long-term trip or project where carrying a laptop is not practical. There are a number of small devices that have come on the scene to bridge this gap, and we were recently offered a new one that offers a few new wrinkles to this solution. It’s called the PictureKeeper Connect and is from Simplified I.T. Products, LLC.

What is it?

The Picture Keeper is a data backup/transfer device and service combination that gives you access to your mobile’s photos, videos, and contacts without having to have an internet service. With the standard USB type A port, you can upload this data to a computer, or download it for uploading to a new device for setup.

Hardware specs

  • Mobile Requirements: iPhone 5 and newer (iOS 8+) and Android OTG (Android 4.1+).
  • Computer Requirements: Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Vista, XP (SP3), Mac OS 10.7 (and newer) computers.
  • Newer devices with a USB Type-C (Thunderbolt 3) port will require an adapter, like our Keeper Converter.

What’s in the box?

In the box, there is the PictureKeeper itself (which has a USB type A plug on one end and a Lightning connector on the other), a cable to attach the USB-A plug to a micro USB device, and an instruction sheet.

Design and features

The Picture Keeper looks for all the world like a larger-than-normal thumb drive with an extra connector. One end is a standard USB type-A connector, and the other end has an Apple Lightning connector, which will fit any iPhone or iPad made in the last few years. The included female USB-A to male micro USB plug allows you to plug it into any but the most recent Android devices. If you have a newer device that requires USB type-C, the company will send you an adapter.

When you plug the PictureKeeper into either a portable device or a computer, you are given the opportunity to create an account, and can then backup photos, contacts, and videos. Once you’ve backed them up, you can then, through the app or your device, remove them from your device or from your iCloud backup.

Built into the software on this unit is also an installer for MacOS and another for Windows that will install a program to manage the picture archives copied from your portable device. This allows the same access to your data.

Once your photos, videos, and/or contacts are loaded, you can access them from any other device the PictureKeeper is inserted into. Data is stored on the unit itself but can also be linked to your online repository.

Creating an account isn’t required to use the device, nor is uploading your content to the service. (There is a separate app where you can upload photos for magnets, mugs and the like.) Initially, I could not figure out how to use it without sharing it with the service, which was a bit unnerving. With privacy concerns abounding due to data breaches, I’m less than excited about loading up one more online service from an unknown company with my most personal of data. But once I found the data is not tied to my iCloud account (unless I specifically link it), I was a little less panicky.

Performance

I was kind of shocked that the device would hold as much as it does. I’m not sure if there is some sort of compression going on beyond what is normal, but I have quite a few photos at very high resolution, and they did not fill this 16 GB of storage. I think I may have stopped it early since there’s not really a way to tell it “only back up the past year of photos.” The interface is a bit spartan, only offering a view of 6 at a time on my iPhone 8 Plus. There’s no way to do anything other than “Select All” or “Unselect All” from the menu, and no filtering at all. For a product offering to help manage large photo collections, there are few data management tools.
Also, there is zero security. When you plug it in, you have to create an account, but putting in any combination of characters that fit the format will create an account on the device that will then be able to read every file stored on it from any account. I’d rather they not have the account thing at all, rather than give the illusion of security without the reality. (I was worried I would forget my password or which email address I used until I tested it with the default data in the fields.)

What I Like

  • Small, easy to use “one trick pony” that does what it says.
  • The softwaree is functional and supports all major platforms and devices
  • Allows sharing data without giving access to iCloud accounts

What needs to be improved

  • No deep filtering of data
  • No indication on the device when data is being written or read
  • No real security – any account can read everything on the drive

Final thoughts

I like the idea of this device, but I think it’s about 6 years too late to market. Between Google Photos and iCloud, not to mention the dozens of others not tied to an operating system, there are any number of ways to backup and share photos and videos that don’t require keeping up with another device.

Only two scenarios where this device would be needed come to mind in 2018: You’re traveling to a truly remote area that has no cell signal or wifi, and are planning to document a lot of activity. The jungles of Costa Rica, Peru, or Africa, for instance. I have been to the far north of Wales, the West of Ireland, and central Italy in the last 5 years, (not to mention rural areas in the US) and have never been more than a few hours away from an internet connection if I wanted it. (When you’re in a Gaelic-first community and the publican understands the phrase “Wifi Password” in my Southern US English, the internet is truly everywhere!)

The second scenario is if you’re someone who is just violently opposed to putting your photos online, then this would be a good thing. I feel the security risk of losing this device, however, is larger than having your iCloud or Google account hijacked – unless you are reusing passwords or just cluelessly careless. Those are not traits that are going to go well with an unsecured device like this.

As a point of price comparison, the price of online storage on iCloud is cheap. For a dollar a month, you can get 50 GB of online storage that is way more secure than this, and share it with your “family” account – up to 4 other people, on all their devices. At the Picture Keeper’s $120 price for 32 GB, that’s almost twice the storage for a full ten years! I’m sure I’ll lose this device or it’ll get broken in less than 10 years. And what do I do when I run out of room on this device? I’ll have to buy another, but with iCloud, I can get four times the 50 GB storage for only 3 times the price ($3 a month for 200 GB), and it’s instantly available as an increase in space, not another account. For $10 a month, I can get 2 TB. And if there are several family members in various places, how do you share a physical drive? My advice? Bite the bullet and pay the buck a month to iCloud.

Price: $119.00 USB-C adapter adds $4.99
Where to buy: Picturekeeper.com and Amazon
Source: The sample of this product was provided by Simplified I.T. Products, LLC.

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Picture Keeper Connect photo backup software/adapter review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on April 20, 2018 at 9:00 am.

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Sandisk’s iXpand Base charges and backups your iPhone’s data

With up to 256GB of storage, the Sandisk iXpand Base has been designed for iPhone and iPad users to backup the device’s images, videos, and contacts every time the device is charged.

Just plug it in your iPhone or iPad and the iXpand Base takes care of backing up your data while it fast charges your device.

The iXpand Base has a soft rubber top that holds your iPhone in place while charging on your desk, a nightstand, etc.

The iXpand app will let you quickly restore your files to your current device or a new one.

To learn more about the Sandisk iXpand Base, visit sandisk.com and to buy one, head over to Amazon where they are priced from $99.99 up to $199.99 depending on the storage capacity.

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Sandisk’s iXpand Base charges and backups your iPhone’s data originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on September 5, 2017 at 11:11 am.

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