There are lots of travel mugs that promise to keep your drink hot or cold for hours, but they only work if you have them with you. The Auto Hot or Cold Cup Holder at Sharper Image is safe for any 12-20 ounce paper, foam, or plastic disposable cup and metal cans; images at Sharper Image also show it being used with a disposable plastic water bottle. The holder plugs into the car’s 12V DC power outlet (can’t be used with home power outlets) and keeps your beverage at a “stabilized” temperature. It has a power switch, or it will turn off automatically 10 minutes after the cup has been removed. The Auto Hot or Cold Cup Holder is $39.99.
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The Kia Stinger is a car that is practically 6 years in the making. It all started out as a Grand Turismo concept vehicle which evolved into a full-on passion project at Kia. The Stinger is actually Kia’s first high-performance focused vehicle, but you’d hardly believe it because they’ve managed to knock it out of the park the first time around.
The exterior of the Kia Stinger is so high-end looking that it almost had us mistaken for a Maserati the first time we saw it. Its design integrates Gran Turismo proportions with a fastback profile, long wheelbase, broad shoulders and a short front. The interior is equally impressive with hand-stitched components, an aircraft inspired cockpit, metal ringed gauges, and seats that can be customized with a choice of Napa leather (even in red) to compliment that high-end race car look and feel.
The interior is also very roomy – there is room to fit five comfortably. The driver seat is a 16 way driver seat, and the passenger a 12 way, so both driver and passenger alike will be able to attain that perfect driving position. And indeed that is the case, between all the position options and the longer wheelbase, the seats are superbly comfortable. There’s also plenty of room for cargo. The Stinger is actually a 5 door car with a wide sport-back hatch. You’ll be able to fit in 23.3 cubic feet with the seats up and 40.9 cubic feet with the seats down.
On the tech side, the Kia Stinger packs offers just about ever safety feature and tech amenity you can think off, including the likes of autonomous emergency breaking, dynamic bending headlights, a smart power trunk, power tilt and telescoping steering wheel, blind spot detection, rain sensor wipers, forward collision avoidance, lane departure warning, driver attention warning and high beam assist, and a head-up display that provides speed and turn by turn directions. The vehicle also comes with a large 8-inch touchscreen infotainment display (7-inch on the base model) with the latest versions of Android Auto and Apple CarPlay running on it. The built-in 720-watt Harman Kardon premium audio system packs in 15 speakers and it supports hi-res audio files. The audio system inside the Stinger is actually the best sounding speaker system we’ve ever listened to from all of Kia’s vehicles.
We took the Kia Stinger for a test drive around LA and it ended up being the most fun we’ve had on a test drive in a long time. That is because the Kia Stinger is simply a blast to drive and ride in. It truly drives like a sports car, especially in sports mode. The car is able to go from zero to sixty in 4.7 seconds, with a top speed of 167 mph. It offers the rush and “vroom” feeling you get from a typical race car, but with the welcome addition of lots of comfort and tech amenities.
The car handles curves so well, that it practically feels like you’re gliding along them. The steering control is excellent too. Personally, being prone to motion sickness, I often can’t handle riding in sports cars, but with the Kia Stinger I never once felt sick – not while driving on the highway, or even through the windy and very narrow Hollywood Hills. I also appreciated how quiet the interior is.
When you take a look at the Stinger’s competition, which includes the Audi A7 and the BMW 440i, the Stinger is actually faster. But what is really surprising is just how much more affordably priced the Stinger is in comparison to the competition. The base price for the lowest cost stinger model is $31,900. The Stinger comes standard as a rear wheel drive system, but it can be upgraded to an all wheel drive for an additional $2,200. The GT2 that we tested costs $49,200 and included pretty much all of the available upgrades. That is a pretty amazing deal when you consider that pricing for the competition starts at around $49k for their base models and typically rounds out to about $80k for what you can get from a $49k Kia Stinger.
Who is the Kia Stinger for? The Kia Stinger is as well-suited for the parent who always wanted a sports car, but needs room to fit the whole family, as it is for someone simply looking for a fun car to drive that won’t totally break the bank. One thing is for sure, the Kia Stinger might be the first high performance vehicle from Kia, yet they’ve managed to hit a home-run. To that effect, not only is the Kia an attractive and incredibly fun car to drive, it manages to undercut the competition with its pricing. Overall, the Kia Stinger has managed to be the newcomer that has impressed us the most in 2017, and we’re sure that it will impress you to.
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There’s a creeper in my garage! A tool creeper that is. Like many shade tree mechanics, I am plagued with tools and loose items rolling around my garage floor. The Mychanic Tool Creeper aims to help that problem.
Manufactured from durable ABS plastic
Dimensions (Tray): 24″ tall x 20″ across x 20″ deep
Dimensions (Casters): 2” swivel
Weight: 5.2 lbs
Patent pending
There is a little bit of assembly required. Thankfully, there are only three casters to attach, and a small wrench is included.
I was surprised to discover that despite the casters, the tray didn’t just roll off on its own. It pretty much stayed where you leave it unless you give it a good push.
I just happened to have a project to do in the garage that day, so the Mychanic Tool Creeper worked out just right. I’m happy to say I didn’t lose a single nut, bolt or socket that afternoon.
Source: The sample for this review was provided by Delk. Please visit their site for more info.
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If your home is anything like mine, we don’t use our front door much. More times than not, we come and go through the garage door, even when not using a vehicle. Inevitably, the door gets left open, creating an ideal habitat for many friendly (and not so friendly) woodland creatures. This doesn’t happen much since installing the Chamberlin MyQ Wi-Fi Hub and Home Bridge.
I’ve owned and happily used Chamberlain’s MyQ Wi-Fi Hub happily for several years. Without a doubt, it’s one of my most frequently used home automation gadgets. It’s allowed me to open, close and check the status of my garage door anywhere I have an internet connection, even half a planet away. I’ve used it to allow access to pet-sitters, repair people, meter readers, and open the door more than once when the battery in my vehicle opener was depleted. I’ve found it absolutely indispensable, particularly when I accept a ride in someone else’s car.
The first part of my system was the chamberlain Smart Garage Hub with MyQ Smart Phone Control. For about two years, it has flawlessly controlled my Genie door opener. It beeps and flashes a warning when about to close and the integrated area light stays on for a short time after the door opens or closes.
The device was easy to set up. After creating an account, I found my Wi-Fi signal in the garage was sufficient so I placed in near the opener, mostly to centrally locate the light. Also included are the power supply and a wireless, battery-powered position sensor that attached with sticky tape and rides on the door to tell the base unit if the door is closed open. Before you ask, no, it’s not intelligent enough to know the exact position of the door so you can leave the door open a little for your cat to get in but does provide information that the door is open, closed, or in motion.
The app walks through the setup process which connects to the device using Wi-Fi, adds the security credentials of my home network, and finally programs the MyQ to use the correct frequency to control my existing garage door opener. It’s compatible with many different opener manufacturers, but you should definitely check compatibility before you buy. Chamberlain also makes garage door openers with MyQ built in, so the Wi-Fi Hub isn’t needed.
The app sends push notifications letting me know when the door operates. Initially, I thought this might be annoying, but it’s added a large degree of comfort knowing when a family member arrives or leaves home. The app also has an Apple Watch component allowing door operation and status checking without needing to dig the phone out of my pocket, which, at least in my state is illegal when driving.
Initially, the app had the functionality to open or close the door on a schedule. I found this feature particularly useful for ensuring my door was closed daily at bedtime, particularly because my daughters were notorious for leaving it open, resulting in a family of chipmunks living in comfort and the subsequent purchase of a Have-A-Heart animal trap to evict the little boogers. Unfortunately, Chamberlain stopped this capability (although the app still has the scheduling portion intact a year later) due to a communications issue with the door position sensor when the battery was low.
Adding the Home Bridge was as simple as a procedure as adding the Smart Garage Hub – connect to Wi-Fi and add to the app, but there is another step added to push a button on the Garage Hub to get the components to play nicely together. Another few pokes of the screen added the capabilities to Apple’s Home Kit. This means I can ask Siri to open or close my garage door or check status – Very nice! Now I can close the garage door without even having to pick up my phone. However, I was disappointed that the scheduling features require Apple TV which I don’t have at the time of this writing, but I might request from Santa this Christmas. As an alternative, for $1 a month or $10 a year, Chamberlain’s app will integrate with IFTTT, adding countless home automation possibilities. Since I really wanted the timer functions to protect my tools and to prevent our local skunk from calling my garage home, I opted to take the yearly subscription and successfully got the timer working. I’ve since added another IFTTT applet to turn on my hallway WEMO light when the door opens meaning no more walking into a dark house. My wife is going to love this!
In the two years, I’ve used the MyQ Hub and the week with the Home Bridge, I’ve found the Siri integration fun and useful. I would love to see integration with Alexa and a fix to the app’s timer scheduling functions (alleviating the need for IFTTT or the purchase another piece of hardware). Chamberlain’s MyQ hub and Home Bridge are some of my favorite and most frequently used devices. I look forward to product improvements and many more years of use. When my venerable Genie screw-drive garage door opener inevitably is put out to pasture, I will likely be looking at a Chamberlain with MyQ to fill the gap.
Source: The sample for this review was provided by Chamberlain. Please visit their site for more info and you can order from Amazon.
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I’ve been patiently waiting for the Thinkware F800 dashcam to make it to the US market since Thinkware announced their latest flagship @CES 2017, hopeful they would send one my way to review. The F800 is similar to the Thinkware F750 Julie reviewed last year in many ways. Though Thinkware has added polish and features to its latest flagship dashcam making it even more tech-worthy in the process. Let’s see if my patience has been worth the wait .
Note: Photos may be tapped or clicked for a larger image.
Like Thinkware’s previous F-series flagships, the F800 is screen-less, shaped more or less like a thick deck of cards with a growth on its side to house the lens assembly. I’m not saying that is a bad thing. I love the minimalistic, non-distracting form factor of the F800. Other than verbal/audio notifications, you can hardly tell it’s installed in my fast car being tucked behind my SLK’s rearview mirror. In addition to just looking sweet, the F800 is packed full of the latest tech, features, and Sony’s 2.13MP Exmor CMOS camera.
Security LED / Operation Status LED/ GPS Receiver LED/ Wi-Fi LED
Package Contents:
Main Dash Cam Unit
Mount with 3M tape (1ea)
Cigar Jack Adaptor
Adhesive Cable Holders
MicroSD memory card with adapter(consumable)
Quick Start Guide/Warranty Card
F800 Hardware:
The F800 is one of Thinkware’s latest dashcams featuring full HD resolution, GPS, WiFi, 3-Axis Accelerometer G-Sensor, Night Mode 2.0, dual channel recording, etc. As I said, I really like the F800’s form factor…preferring screen-less dashcams, finding them less distracting or intrusive.
The top of the F800 has four slots that slide onto the mounting plate which allows for easy installation and removal of the device. The mounting plate is securely held to the windshield by a 3M adhesive strip (vs suction cup mount). The dashcam locks into place with a secure, wiggle-free connection.
The main face of the F800 has the mute, SD card format, WiFi, and power buttons in addition to the GPS, recording, and WiFi status LEDs located on the left. The F800’s speaker is also located on the front of the device. I have to say the speaker impressed me, definitely the clearest and loudest dashcam sound I have experienced to date.
The bottom, front facing edge of the dashcam has LED security lights that are managed via the Thinkware smartphone app.
The F800’s camera is on the left side of the device, engineered to sit very close to the windshield to reduce distortion and glare. The camera housing is able to rotate vertically approximately 90 degrees to accommodate nearly any windshield angle and vehicle design.
The right side of the F800 has its video-in, power, and external GPS ports.
The top of the F800 has the recessed reset button, microSD card slot, and microphone.
Other than the mute, format, WiFi, and the power buttons, configuring, managing and viewing/downloading video is all done via the Thinkware app available for iOS and Android devices.
Setup and Management:
To customize the F800’s multitude of settings, you have to connect to the dashcam via WiFi and use the mobile app to tweak things as you like. The process requires you to press the WiFi button on the front of the dashcam, directly connect to the its WiFi (for me it is Thinkware53), then start up the app.
In addition to accessing the F800’s camera (memory card/camera/recording/road safety/system) settings, the app also provides a listing of recordings and enables you to download these files from the microSD card to your smartphone wirelessly. Each 85mb file takes approximately a minute to download. Viewing videos are definitely easier by removing the microSD card and watching them on the Thinkware viewer on your computer.
Noteworthy Features:
Built-in GPS sensor – the F800 has absolutely the FASTEST built-in GPS I have ever tested.
Driver assistance – Includes lane departure, forward collision avoidance, and forward vehicle departure warning.
Speed camera alerts – the F800 has an internal database that warns you when you’re coming up to an intersection or location with a known speed camera standing watch.
High-temperature protection system – a built-in thermal sensor protects the F800 hardware and data against intense heat by automatically turning it off to prevent overheating.
Dual channel capable (aka second camera) – Thinkware also offers a rear camera that captures HD video @30fps.
Optional Parking Mode with permanent installation – Thinkware has an optional wiring kit that allows you to hardwire their dashcams directly into your cars electrical system. This enables you to use the F800’s Parking Mode with time-lapse recording to capture video when you leave your car or regular video if it detects an impact.
Daytime Video:
Like the X550, the F800’s daytime video is good with solid resolution, excellent color, and better than usable image quality. Even though the F800 has a 2.13MP Sony Exmor CMOS image sensor, some details are lost at HD (1920 x 1080) quality video.
The F800 uses the Ambarella A12 Chipset able to record 1080p simultaneously on both channels. The lens has 140 degrees of viewing angle with little fish-eye effect.
Here is a screen capture from this video where you can make out the street sign but not the vehicle’s license plate passing by.
As I have stated in past Thinkware reviews, I firmly believe Thinkware needs to up its game in this department, bumping its higher-end dashcams up to 4MP – 2K (2560 x 1440 @30 fps) HDR video.
Nighttime Video:
Thinkware’s Super Night Vision 2.0 and Sony Exmor CMOS image sensor are very good at capturing light, producing excellent nighttime video. The example shows excellent control of glare and exposure while producing well lit, very usable video.
Thinkware Viewer:
The Thinkware PC viewer is one of the best features of using their dashcams, very well polished and intuitive. Other dashcam manufactures either create a half-baked viewer or do not offer one at all. The Thinkware viewer is an excellent integrated tool for viewing not only your driving video but speed, lat/long, Google map location, and three-dimensional G-forces the car is experiencing at any particular moment. These G-forces are illustrated in the bar graph under the video and the dial with a car in it with X- Y- and Z- axis in the lower left corner of the window. Like the X550, the F800 records in 1:00 minute blocks that are approximately 85mb in size. The only issue I had with the viewer was the Google mapping integration was a bit hit or miss but I believe it might be the security settings on my Mac and/or iPhone.
F800 vs F800 Pro:
Thinkware also creates a F800 Pro version of its flagship dashcam. Other than its very cool all black casing, I have not been able to find any significant difference between the two. The Pro version is available on Thinkware’s worldwide website but not in the US.
Bottomline:
I really like the F800’s screen-less, minimalistic form factor. This feature rich, WiFi enabled dashcam is without a doubt a keeper. I would prefer a high resolution sensor but Thinkware’s flagship device has solid video quality and definitely gets the job done. Many of the Road Safety Warning System features may not be for some users but can be disabled in the Thinkware app. The hardware, smartphone app, and viewer are all well thought out and very nicely done. If you’re in the market for a high end dashcam the Thinkware F800 is definitely worthy your consideration.
Source: The samples for this review were provided by Thinkware. Please visit their site for more information and visit Amazon to order.
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