Euro Tech News

Unboxing a Mac mini: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Install My Own SSD with Mac Mini(malism)

2026-03-18T23:09:45.804+00:00

Recently it was time to upgrade to a new shiny M based silicon Mac (the old Intel one was on its last legs). As it was going to be used as the main system and for day to day use, the Mac M4 mini Pro seemed ideal.

The new Mac Minis come in a simple white box (it’s a shame that the strips have to be torn to open it).

Mac mini Pro box

Once the lid is removed the power chord sits on a thick card with a hole in, lifting this reveals the Mac Mini and that’s it. Apple minimalism to the maximum.

Power chord removed and cardboard with hole

Removing the Mac Mini reveals an aluminium case with nothing on the top and air vents and the power button on the base.

Top and base of Mac mini Pro

The back has a power socket, Ethernet socket, full sized HDMI socket and 3 USB-C/Thunderbolt sockets.

Rear of Mac mini Pro

The front has 2 USB-C/Thunderbolt sockets, a power indicator and a headphone jack socket (maybe the more professional audio types still use wired headphones).

Front of Mac mini Pro

Since this is a Mac Mini Pro it’s all Thunderbolt 5 and the Ethernet is 10G. There’s also 14 CPU cores, 20 GPU cores and 16 Neural engine cores, 64GB RAM and 512GB of SSD.

512GB of SSD may seem a bit low, but there’s a reason for that and that’s a 3rd party 4TB SSD upgrade.

M4-SSD box

Again the SSD upgrade from M4-SSD.COM is a simple box, the side indicates what model of Mac Mini (Mac Mini or Pro or various Mac Studios).

M4-SSD showing model

Opening the box the SSD is lying in what looks like conductive foam.

Internal SSD on conductive foam

Lift this layer off and there’s a card separator with a hole (similar to the Mac Mini packaging) and then instructions on how to install the SSD.

conductive foam removed

Below that is a bag containing a screw driver and bits to open the case.

SSD install instruction manual

There’s a metal strip that can be inserted into the Mac Mini case and a “spluger” to insert once the base has separated and can then be slid around to pop open the clips.

Screwdriver and tools in bag

There’s screw driver has all 3 heads that are needed to open the various screws in the Mac Mini Pro (slightly different from the Mac Mini version).

Screwdriver, metal separator and spludger

It’s nice that everything is included that’s required to open the Mac Mini unscrew everything and put it all back together and the instructions are very clear.

All the heads needed for screws

The Mac Mini Pro has enough CPU/GPU/NPU grunt to do the things you want when needed, is beautifully small and is more cost effective than going to its big brother the Mac Studio.

Memory is key (especially in the modern age of running LLMs locally) so the largest memory configuration is 64GB, that's built into the main M4 silicon, so no option there but to pay Apple's prices, however the internal SSD disk is removable and now there's a lot of 3rd party vendors who offer Apple substitutes (Apple buy standard NAND memory and then put them on their own proprietary SSD modules - why they just don't support standard PCIe NVMe SSDs making life easier for everyone?).

Apple charge £1200 for a 4TB SSD, while going to M4-SSD gets you an upgrade for a M4 Mac mini or M4 Mac mini Pro for a lot cheaper. The 4TB for the M4 Pro is $699.00, which is just over £530.00 (at the time of writing). There's shipping to add, but it's not a lot.

Opening a Mac can be daunting, especially for the uninitiated, but M4-SSD include the right tools to open it (a metal pry and a plastic picker and a screwdriver with the correct T heads for all Apple's screws). The metal pry is placed into the (thin) gap between the base and case, then the plastic picker is inserted and moved to where the clips are and just prise the base up with a bit of pressure, go around the case and repeat for all 4, allegedly a spudger works better (from someone like iFixit), starting from the opposite side of the power button is safest as you don't want to damage or disconnect the cable. The base is attached by a small cable, which connects the power button, be careful and rest the base on the side of the main unit, then remove the 8 screws around the edge of the next layer and again carefully lay against the side of the unit as this has the WiFi/etc antennas and don't damage or disconnect the cable. Then remove the screws around the fan and lay this against the side. This now exposes the internal SSD, unscrew it (it's screwed in tightly). Wiggle the SSD out and replace with the 3rd party SSD. Ensure it's fitted securely and then screw the screw back in.

Opening the Mac mini Pro

Then the whole process is reversed, fit the fan, the heat spreader/antenna system and then pop the case back on. Make sure all the screws are placed somewhere safe after they've been removed as they are very small and easily lost.

Closing the Mac mini Pro

The whole process took about 30 minutes, it would have been quicker but not having done this before there were a few niggles including doing the video stuff. Also ensure the camera will not just stop videoing after a certain time, the Sony RX100 m6 limits to 5 minutes.

The next stage requires another Mac as the new SSD in the Mac mini Pro has no operating system or anything else on it. The process requires putting the system into DFU mode, this requires powering the Mac mini down, then holding the power button on (while connected, preferably by a high speed USB C cable) to the other M series Mac. The power LED will go orange and then release the power button and the other Mac will recognise it and then go into DFU mode, downloads the latest macOS and transfer it to the Mac in DFU mode (that's why having a high speed USB cable helps). The USB cable must be connected to the USB C port at the back with the Thunderbolt icon (on the M4 Mac mini Pro it's the middle USB C port).

DFU in progress

This takes quit a while as it has to download a full copy of macOS and transfer between Macs, but it's not something that requires watching, either it will error out (and the process needs repeating or it could be that the SSD isn't fitted/seated properly and the whole opening the Mac needs redoing) or it will just work. Luckily all went smoothly so all that was required was unplugging the M4 Mac mini Pro and rebooting (with monitor and keyboard/mouse connected) and it will be in macOS setup mode and boom there's a 4TB SSD Macintosh HD.

The SSD is fast too (it uses the same NAND memory that Apple uses) and people have shown it operates as the same speed (some reports say improves vs Apple). No issues so far. Bigger SSDs tend to operate faster as they can spread the read and more importantly writes across all the memory so reducing SSD wear.

The M4 Mac mini Pro is fast, it runs programs really well, including large beasts like Fusion from Autodesk for 3D design.

The Mac mini will probably last quite a while, the Mac Studio was tempting with the greater RAM capacity, but it's a lot more expensive. If you want to run large LLMs the the Mac Studio is probably a better choice with 128GB+ RAM which will be able to run the larger models - the Mac Mini Pro can run Meta’s Llama but not the full sized one.

Real geeks will run multiple machines and link them through Thunderbolt 5 (using RDMA) as now macOS supports shared execution so a model can be split between them. Though probably real power users are still probably going to link multiple Mac Studios rather than Mac Mini’s. There's even software to support this now (EXO) which makes setup a breeze (well considerably easier with a nice UI to drive it all).

Going back to a simple one machine setup, the Mac Mini Pro is a great choice (especially as future releases of macOS are no longer going to support Intel Macs). Thunderbolt 5 is fast and adding a good USB Hub means that you’ll get great performance from peripherals that operate at high speed. Adding external USB disks also makes sense (especially fast SSDs).

Unfortunately there seem to be shortages now (or long ship times) due to the popularity of using things like Openclaw (a local agent using ‘AI’ to monitor and control the Mac that can automate personal tasks. Memory prices have also drastically increased since this was started. NOTE due to RAM pricing increases the Mac Mini Pro now is only available with a max of 48GB of RAM.

Though this was for the M4 Mac Mini Pro (retail £1299), Apple have released M5 based systems, so there’s likely to be an M5 Mac Mini soon. It also included the Apple Magic Keyboard with TouchID (initially thought this was a waste of time, but it makes accessing passwords and paying for stuff so much quicker and easier).

The M4-SSD upgrade was $699 / £530.

This upgraded a 5K 27” i7 iMac and the performance difference is amazing. The only issue with the upgrade is that a new monitor is also required and Apple’s Studio Display is costly. There are good offerings from other vendors. As an aside, initially a BENQ 32" monitor was acquired and connected via HDMI. This worked well, though there would be occasional vertical red or blue lines appearing on screen and the monitor would occasionally (randomly) lose sync, the screen go black and a few seconds later turn on again. Replacing HDMI with a USB C / Mini DisplayPort made all those problems disappear and the HDMI port is now used for a second older HD monitor.

reMarkably, reMarkable have done it again (with the Paper Pro Move)

2025-09-27T15:06:00.003+00:00

reMarkable have been making tablets for a while (see the last post for history and details of the reMarkable Paper Pro) and though the Paper Pro is a great device for note taking it's quite large and heavy (just under A4 size weighing 525g i.e. just under 1/2 Kg). It's not unmanageable and it's not bad if used to lugging a laptop around, but it's not really what you'd call portable so you can carry it around at all times.

Well now reMarkable have come out with a solution to your portable notebook needs, the reMarkable Paper Pro Move. It's small enough to put in a (large'ish) pocket and definitely small enough to carry in a messenger bag or a large purse.

The Move is 195.6 x 107.8 mm , has a Canvas display supporting 20,000 colours, it's slightly thicker than the Paper Pro (6.5 compared to 5.1 mm) and it weighs 230 g. The 7.3" display has 1696 x 954 resolution (264 PPI).

note: why are displays always quoted in inches when the dimensions and everything else are metric?

The battery is 2,334 mAh supporting up to 2 weeks use and it charges to 90% in around 45 minutes. There's 64GB of storage which equates to around 800+ notebooks. The pen-to-ink distance 920 µm and there's a 12mS of writing latency. The system charges by USB (USB C to USB C cable included) and can also be used for data transfer (USB 2.0). WiFi is 2.4/5GHz.

When ordering the basic Marker is included and there's the option to get the Marker Pro which has the eraser. There's also a choice of Folio covers.

Again it comes with 100 day try after buy and includes 100 days of the Connect service.

reMarkable Paper Pro Move and folio cover

The packing is all paper/card, it looks nice and it's almost a shame to tear open the strip on the right hand side.

Side strips removed

Once the side strips are removed the inner (cardboard) packaging can be slipped out.

Open Folio cover and reMarkable packaging

The packaging on the reMarkable needs to be torn open too.

open packaging showing reMarkable

The Move is protected with something like tracing paper which is removed.

Marker Pro, USB cable and spare tips

Under the Move is the Marker Pro, the USB C to USB C cable and spare tips. There must be different versions of the package if the Marker is selected.

reMarkable removed and asleep

The Move removed from packaging and not powered up.

reMarkable attached to Folio case and Marker Pro

The Move attaches (quite securely) to the Folio cover with magnets and the Marker Pro also attaches magnetically. When closed, the front side is also held down with magnets as is the flap holding the Marker when closed. No more losing the Marker in your bag.

reMarkable starting after pressing power

Press the power button and the system will wake-up. This is a soft button so the unit will still slowly discharge if not used.

Booting up

As the system is running Linux underneath, it really is booting up.

Instructions to start (with blue scribble)

The post initial boot screen (before the system has been setup). The screen shows a blue scribble.

Red scribble on screen

The scribble changes to red. Set-up involves setting a PIN, WiFi and the Connect service (a desktop/mobile is required to sign-in/sign-up to Connect etc.).

After set-up when the Move is powered on it will ask for a password (if set), then show the Home Screen/notebooks/folders etc.

This really is the notepad that that everyone will be using, though it's not the cheapest on the market, the reMarkable devices have always been known for the paper like feel and this one is no exception. The software is always being updated and there are now some great templates and folders make organising things so much better rather than just having notebooks (the name for a document) scattered on the Home Screen. It's slightly heavy, but much more convenient than a laptop and it really does go everywhere and isn't out of place.

An A4 screen is more usable for various sketches, but for portable note taking the Move's size is perfectly adequate.

The basic device costs £399. The Marker is included and Marker Pro is an additional £40.

The folios are

Premium Leather (brown or black) £119
Mosaic Weave (basalt, burgundy or cobalt) £89
Polymer Weave £59

The Connect service is £2.99 per month or £29.90 annually which gives access to

Templates from reMarkable Methods
Send to Slack
Unlimited cloud  storage
Create and edit  in the reMarkable apps
reMarkable  Protection Plan (3 years device protection)

reMarkable apps are available for macOS, Windows, iOS and Android. The system also supports Dropbox and Google drive integration (there's also a developer mode allowing ssh into the system - it runs Linux under the hood and it is possible to develop apps that run on-device).

There are also Microsoft Word and Powerpoint "Send to reMarkable" add-ons.

If you hadn't wanted an electronic notepad before, now's the time to get one that can be carried with you at all times. Almost perfect!!! Once you've used a reMarkable, you'll not want another notepad ... (maybe not even paper).

How can something so reMarkable get even more reMarkable (Paper Pro)

2025-09-19T16:47:00.002+00:00

reMarkable have been around since 2013, launching the reMarkable 1 in 2017 and then the reMarkable 2 in 2020. Those were both monochrome e-ink tablets, those lucky enough to purchase a 1 got the connect service for life which syncs the reMarkable to the cloud and desktop and mobile applications (with a live view possible). The connect service is now only free during the 100 day trial (during which the reMarkable can be returned) and then £2.99 per month.

The reMarkable 2 is a great way to take and store notes, it can use templates and it's possible to annotate PDFs (and read ePub books). It really does feel like writing on paper (it's not exactly the same but much better than say an iPad even with a grippy screen protector). Being e-ink is also very pleasant on the eye and easy to read in most lighting conditions.

Both of the above are slightly smaller than A4. The reMarkable 2 is 246 x 188 mm and weights 404g with a 10.3" black, white and greyscale display (226 DPI). It weighs 404g and is 4.7mm thick.

The new reMarkable Paper Pro is slightly bigger at 274.1 x 196.6 mm with a 11.8" colour display (20,000 colours) and 229 PPI. It weighs 525g and is 5.1mm thick with an adjustable reading light (e-ink display work well in sunlight).

All reMarkables come with a marker that is suited to the display so it feels like a pen/pencil and it comes with spare tips (which can also be purchased separately). Though standard EMR digital pens can be used, not all the functions (such as erasers) will work and some of the tips may damage the display. Of course there's a premium marker available with an eraser on the rear (in UK £40 extra).

Though a case isn't necessary, having one that fits well and securely holds the reMarkable is important to some and the reMarkable polymer Book Folio is good enough for £79 (other cases are available such as a leather (brown or black £169), mosaic (basalt, burgundy, cobalt £129).

There's also a Folio keyboard which is an extra £219.

The Marker Plus, Book Folio and reMarkable Paper Pro

The packaging is all paper/cardboard so can be recycled.

Ripped packaging

Ripping the strip opens the packaging.

opened packaging

The reMarkable inside in it's off state.

USB-C and instructions

Under the device is the USB-C cable and instructions, again all in cardboard.

Book Folio

Again the Book Folio comes in cardboard packaging that you rip a strip off to open. This is the grey polymer weave folio.

reMarkable in Book Folio

The reMarkable Paper Pro sits on the case and is held by magnets and knows when the folio is closed. The screen is pre-powering the device.

Marker Plus (inc spare tips)

The Marker Plus has a textured finish and comes with several spare nibs (though a lot of use is required before they wear out).

Marker Pro on side of reMarkable

The Marker (and Pro) attach to the side of the reMarkable Paper Pro and are held magnetically.

reMarkable Paper Pro with Marker Pro and flap

The new Book Folio has a flap that can be pulled from the back (again held magnetically) which is good when the device is in a bag or similar as it can't come off. The original reMarkables didn't have this and the marker would fall (or be knocked) off when moving around and then the hunt for it would begin. This is a much better design for transport.

Bootup - colour screen

When the reMarkable starts up it displays a nice colour graphic. The scroll bar at the bottom shows the progress (it's Linux underneath).

Start Screen

Now get the marker out and press start. WiFi and other details need to be entered. Then any system updates will be applied. As a new user there's 100 days of the Connect service for free (after £2.99 per month or £29.90 per year), this allows sync'ing with other devices. There's a Windows/macOS/iOS and Android reMarkable app, the device will show a code and this is entered on the reMarkable website. There's also live sharing which will update another reMarkable (app or device) in real-time.

reMarkable 2 and reMarkable Paper Pro

The difference in size between the reMarkable 2 (on top) and reMarkable Paper Pro underneath. Also shows the lack of marker holder on the reMarkable 2.

Opened book folios showing reMarkable displays

When the reMarkable 2 and reMarkable Paper Pro are opened, the Paper Pro has a significantly larger display.

While the reMarkable 2 is a great system and great for notes and sketches, the Paper Pro's colour display makes a huge difference. Being able to sketch in colour makes it more like sketching on paper and though the colours are never going to be as good as an iPad or such like the e-ink display is superb and the colour screen still maintains that paper like feel (yes you can get tips for the Apple Pencil and screen protectors that improve the feel - they are not as good as this).

With the Connect subscription (which is definitely worth it - though original reMarkable users still get their original subscription for free), as well as the sharing systems, there's also access to templates and workbooks - productivity, planning, community, strategy, note-taking and communication. There's also integrations with Slack and unlimited cloud storage. There's also a 3 year protection plan.

The reMarkable Paper Pro is £599 and includes the Marker.

The Marker+ adds £40.

The Books Folios are

Premium Leather (Black or Brown) £169
Mosaic Weave (Basalt, Burgundy or Cobalt) £129
Polymer Weave (Grey) £79

The Type Folio (keyboard) £219

There's free shipping to UK.

There are also business Connect subscriptions which give different features like device management and single sign-on.

All in all recommended.

Connex the Pocket-Sized Connectivity tool That Actually Delivers (data and power)

2025-09-15T17:25:00.003+00:00

The The Krafted Connex is about 9.5cm long, 2cm high and 3cm wide, looking more like a pen knife than a multi-connector product.

Cardboard Sleeve

It comes in a cardboard sleeve and inside a cardboard holder.

Cardboard container

The actual unit is made of metal and a silicon feeling material (actually ABS). The connectors swivel out and there's a USB-A input port on one side (and the end pulls off for a USB-C input, which is nice, but that's the bit that's going to get lost when you're in a coffee shop and it falls off the table or such like). On that side there's a lightning and a micro-USB connector.

On the other side is another lightning and USB-C connector.

All the connectors are on a silicon flexible material so they can wiggle a bit and fit at non-straight angles.

For those that want to carry it around with them, there's a key ring hole extending out the top/side.

Top of Connex

One lightning connector is rated at 4A and the other at 2A (both can be used simultaneously), though not stated, presumably it's the lightning port on the same side of the USB-A/C connector with the high power rating.

Though multiple devices can be plugged in at once (good for charging), data between multiple devices is pretty much a no, PD charging is only supported for a single device being connected. Data transfer can also take place to the PD device simultaneously.

Bottom of Connex

It does remove the need for have a spaghetti selection of cables and it's reasonably small and compact that it can easily fit into a laptop or tablet bag. At under 90g (~87.5g) it's not too heavy.

It's meant to support 25W (but it's actually rated slightly lower 5V @ 4.5A i.e. 22.5W), and it will supply

Input 5V 3A: 2 outputs receive 1.5A. 3 outputs receive 1A.
Input 5V 4A: 2 outputs receive 2A. 3 outputs receive 1.3A. 4 outputs receive 1A.

If you can connect devices via USB you'll generally get better speeds than WiFi or even Ethernet.

So it can be a useful device to carry around, it retails at £29.99 from the usual on-line stores or directly from Krafted (in charcoal grey or in green)

AI Meets Ultrabook: Acer Swift Go 14 Wonders if You've Tried Turning It Off and On Again.

2025-06-16T14:45:00.001+00:00

The Acer Swift Go 14 AI is a premium laptop by Acer using a Qualcomm Snapdragon X processor to power its bright, crystal clear LCD screen. Out of the box the laptop features a sturdy build that feels strong but light enough to carry with you and appears refined and modern in its simplicity. On initial use the touchpad and keys feel responsive and good to use but occasionally have a mushy feel around the edges of the touchpad. Additionally, the backlight is bright around the keys themselves but needs to remain on for longer. The hinge initially felt sturdy and had no wobble and after extended use remains as solid as when it was first unboxed. The laptop is fairly large compared to similar competitors, 12.7 x 9 x 0.72 inches in total, but still can fit into most backpacks and briefcases without issue. The grill present between the display and keypad is strangely sharp on the edges and could scrape skin if handled without being cautious but due to its positioning should not pose much of an issue.

The display features up to 2.5k resolution and up to 120hz refresh rate that gives accurate colour clarity and is perfect for video calls or web browsing. Blue light reduction settings are intensive and work perfectly and can be easily adjusted and set to timers to ease stress on the eyes in darker environments. The display has a matte black bezel that is thin enough to appear premium and sleek but still provides good contrast against any background you position the laptop against.

The available ports are 2 USB-A ports on either side of the laptop, 2 USB-C which are strangely positioned on the same side and finally a headphone port for wired connections. Due to the positioning of the USB-C ports which the provided charger connects to you are somewhat limited in the angles you are able to have the laptop in whilst charging, it would have been better to have one USB-C on either side of the laptop.

The speakers are clear and loud, providing accurate enough sound for day to day use and Bluetooth connection is available as standard. The built-in camera is good enough for video calls but for professional recordings it can lack depth and the lens angle is slightly too wide. The microphone performs moderately well, about as expected for a laptop microphone, but will be outperformed by almost all mid-range standalone USB microphones that you can purchase. The AI features mentioned later in this review can help mitigate some of these problems but are still limited by the provided hardware. The camera also functions as a biometric security feature which worked okay but felt unneeded and sometimes failed to work in lower light areas. The physical shutter provided for the camera is a nice privacy feature and something that more laptops should include.

Charging is fast and it retains charge for extended periods of use but during charging the laptop is prone to heating and can have a static feeling around the edges of the laptop. However, even after several weeks of consistent use the battery remained solid and impressive, rarely needing charging throughout the day and reaching full charge within a few hours from 20%.

The laptop comes with 1TB of storage which is more than enough for most day to day use but users working on complex projects or multiple extended tasks at once may find that they quickly run out of storage, which is non-expandable. The laptop does prompt you to use cloud features to upload your files and digitally expand your storage which is a common feature nowadays and works well on the Swift Go 14 AI as expected. The Wi-Fi 7 connectivity provided should make uploading and downloading files quick and efficient.

The performance of the laptop is exceptional for day to day use, web browsing, watching videos and coding were easy and no performance issues came up. However, it does struggle to perform well for most graphically intensive tasks such as gaming or rendering with an unremarkable fps and often stuttering during these tasks. The Qualcomm X processor features integrated graphics therefore the laptop does not have a dedicated GPU, limiting its use for rendering and gaming. Despite this, videos were able to be watched at high resolutions with no noticeable performance drop and minimal heating issues. The Swift Go 14 AI is available with either 16GB or 32GB of RAM but even with 32GB you are limited in what you are able to do, with only 16GB the laptop will probably struggle far more than its competitors.

The CPU performs well on Geekbench 6 while only using a single core but its performance drops off for multitasking, complex tasks and, as expected, any image processing. This fails to reach the higher end of ARM based laptops but still is more than adequate for day to day usage. However, when put through these more complicated tasks the laptop produces a lot of noise and heat which can become annoying after extended use.

The AI features can be nice but often feel unnecessary for tasks other than coding suggestions and clean-up which were somewhat useful. The clean-up for video calls was also nice but as the camera is not suitable for professional recordings anyway also felt slightly unnecessary. One good use case is the noise filtering whilst traveling, it is able to completely eliminate background noise on trains or traffic, which is a nice feature but very specific. AI image generation and manipulation fell into the same category, while it was nice to have it is rare to find a use case for it, perhaps in a few years the software will catch up with the hardware and enable more interesting features.

When first using the laptop, immediate popups for Acer's control centre, McAfee and Adobe software appeared and were also advertised in the bloated taskbar, a common feature in Windows 11 computers that, while easily fixed by removing the unnecessary tabs and readouts, is annoying and makes the user experience feel cheap. During the use of the laptop, constant prompts to subscribe to McAfee for virus protection and other services came up, reducing the overall premium feeling.

Overall this is a pretty reasonable Windows on ARM system and will work well for applications that have been ported over, but may struggle with gaming and other graphics intensive apps.

Pricing varies between about £645 and £899 (depending on the version) online.

Is Your Air Making You Air-itated? AirGradient Knows.

2025-04-30T13:26:00.001+00:00

AirGradient make air quality sensors both for indoor and outdoor use. Both currently utilise the same sensors, but the outdoor one is designed to be kept outside (and can be made visible on AirGradient's map, while indoor units are private). The indoor under is the I-9PSL (AirGradient ONE, 9th Generation).

AirGradient Indoor Air Quality Monitor

The units come fully assembled or as kits (slightly cheaper, though construction isn't difficult). The indoor unit came as a kit, and only took a few minutes to put together.

AirGradient box open

The packaging is very simple cardboard, with little wasted.

USB cable and sensor in packaging

The USB A to C cable used right angle plugs, useful for the indoor unit (USB C) but less so for the USB A end, which plugs into a standard USB power supply.

Indoor Sensor box (front)

The indoor unit has the PCB/display already attached to the case.

Inside Indoor unit

Separating the case reveals the PCB and the large Plantower PM1/2.5/10 sensor.

Inside Indoor unit and sensors

The three sensors units need to be (simply) attached to the PCB. There are headers that the sensors just plug on to. The two smaller ones are temperature and relative humidity and TVOC/NOx sensors and the larger the CO2.

Inside Indoor unit with sensors plugged in

It's important to connect the sensors the right way around. The CO2 sensor is obvious while the smaller sensors should face outwards. The Plantower particulate matter detector is pre-installed.

Indoor unit boot screen

Once plugged into power, the system boots does some self tests.

Indoor unit successful boot

Once booted, it shows the firmware version.

Indoor unit LED test

It's possible to press the button and do a LED test.

Indoor unit successful setup

Once everything's done it shows the air quality measurements.

Indoor unit assembled with USB power

The rear of the case showing the USB cable attached and slotted through the case. The feet are also attached (they snap into the airflow slots).

When in setup mode the system enables a local hotspot. Once joined to the hotspot, the device should auto-connect to the hotspot which allows setting the SSID/password of the network to connect to.

Once it connects to the WIFi it will then try and call home and connect to AirGradient's servers. Initially it will show not configured and an account needs to be setup on AirGradient and then using the devices MAC address the device can be added and it will start sending data. The dashboard gives an overview of the air quality, but clicking on the menu item, allows many configuration options.

AirGradient Dashboard

It's possible to access your own data through the AirGradient API or by being pushed out to a MQTT broker, but internal monitor's data won't be pushed to external services such as OpenAQ. Outdoor monitors have a checkbox to allow pushing the data out.

It is possible to connect the unit to services like ESPHome, Prometheus, and openHAB and Apple Home Assistant.

It's all run with a ESP32-C3-MINI (32-bit RISC-V single-core processor, up to 160MHz, 384 KB ROM, 400 KB SRAM, 8 KB SRAM in RTC, 4 MB flash in chip package) and uses a Texas Instruments watchdog timer.

In terms of actual sensors there's the: -

Particle Sensor Module - Plantower PMS5003 (laser scattering principle). Accuracy Fully Assembled & Tested Model (I-9PSL-DE_asd): Accuracy PM2.5: ±4μg/m3@0~100μg/m3, ±8%@100-500μg/m3. Accuracy Kit Version (I-9PSL-DE_kit): Accuracy PM2.5: ±10μg/m3@0~100μg/m3, ±10%@100-500μg/m3. (PM1 and PM10 are also measured but PM2.5 has the highest accuracy).
CO2 Sensor Module - SenseAir S8 (NDIR). 400 to 10000ppm. Accuracy: ±40 ppm ±3% of reading at 5 to 30°C, 20- 70%RH (400 - 2000ppm range). SenseAir S88 (NDIR). 0 to 10000ppm. Accuracy: ±40 ppm ±3% of reading at 5 to 30°C, 0- 85% RH (400 - 3000ppm range).
TVOC/NOx Module - Sensirion SGP41. Accuracy: TVOC <±15 @ 0 to 500 VOC Index (also available in ppb); NOx<±50@0-500NOx Index.
Temperature and Humidity - Sensirion SHT40. Accuracy: Temperature ±0.2°C @ -40 to + 125°C; Humidity ±2% RH @ 0 - 100% RH.

Though everything works fine, some of the sensors are relatively old now.

THE OLED display shows: -

OLED display

There's a single status LED at the top of the unit and then a row of Pollutant LEDs that indicate air quality.

The status LED shows: -

Status LED

Red: Connection to WI-FI network failed. This may be due to incorrect credentials or unsupported encryption.

Yellow: Connected to WI-FI network but the server can not be reached through the Internet, e.g. blocked by firewall.

Purple: Server is reachable but there is some configuration issue to be fixed on the server side.

The Pollutant LEDs: -

Pollutant LEDs PM2.5

The default settings is to show PM2.5, but this can be changed in the settings to showCO2 (carbon dioxide) settings: -

Pollutant LEDs CO2

Though AirGradient sell units the software, hardware and even the case are available under an open source license.

Though there can be fiddly issues with the install (read the instructions first), it's easy to build and the set-up is easy. WiFi is only 2.4GHz but generally that shouldn't be a problem as even newer WiFi access points etc. still support 2.4GHz.

Again follow the instructions to connect the unit to AirGradient's dashboard and it just works.

It is possible to better calibrate the PM2.5 sensor for low levels (the unit should be placed outside or next to an open window to read the local base environment and left for 20 minutes to calibrate.

The indoor units cost $195 fully assembled, or $138 as a kit and the outdoor unit is $190 assembled and $125 as a kit directly from AirGradient.

There's also shipping to add (from Thailand), but sub $200 for a pretty reasonably accurate air quality monitor is pretty reasonable.

If you happen to be interested in you indoor or outdoor air quality environment, definitely recommended (and with all the integrations available suitable for geeks who want to do their own stuff too).

NOTE: there are other GPIO pins exposed so other sensors could be added and then new firmware adapted to support them.

ConceptDraw Office 11: Your Productivity Suite Just Got a Promotion!

2025-01-23T16:56:00.001+00:00

ConceptDraw Office 11, released in October 2024, is the latest version of the software suite. It includes several updates and enhancements compared to ConceptDraw Office 10, which was released in October 2023.

Here are some of the key differences between the two versions:

ConceptDraw Office 11:

Updated Applications: Includes the latest versions of ConceptDraw DIAGRAM 18, MINDMAP 16, and PROJECT 15.
macOS 15 Sequoia Support: Full compatibility with the latest macOS 15 Sequoia.
New Features and Improvements: Each application within the suite has been upgraded with new features and improvements based on user feedback.
Operating System Support: Supports Windows 10, 11 (64-bit) and macOS 14 (Sonoma), 15 (Sequoia).

ConceptDraw DIAGRAM 18:

Support for LaTeX which enhances complex mathematical formulas, tables, and matrices which is useful for scientific diagrams, business infographics, technical drawings, and other visuals where precision and clarity in representing equations and data structures are crucial.

A version of the Pages panel was added in a tree structure format. You can now choose between a linear and tree structure to browse your multi-page document.

The Align and Size panel has been improved with a new Align to Page tool that helps you arrange shapes and connectors neatly and evenly.

Application security has been improved with the implementation of an anti-hacking protection system.

Improved import of MS Visio files is important for users. It allows them to continue leveraging content created in Visio while benefiting from advanced diagramming tools.

ConceptDraw PROJECT 15

ConceptDraw PROJECT allows you to assign three levels of access to a document:
Project Manager (PM) - full access. Can read, edit, and generate reports.
Resource Manager (RM) - can read a document, edit resources, and generate reports.
Viewer (V) - can read a document and generate reports.

The calendar year can be changed to the financial year for better budgetary and business alignment.

Resources can now be sorted alphabetically in Resource and Resource Usage tables

ConceptDraw MINDMAP 16

New Format Options

The new Complex layout, added to the Arrange panel, combines the circular arrangement of mind map topics at the first level and subsequent topics arrangement — at an angle to the topics of the first level.
New design options for mind map topics and lines have been added to the Topic Format options.
The "Ribbon" topic tail shape and the "Structure" topic shape have been added to the Format options.

Enhanced integration with Evernote: Import of Evernote notes (ENEX) has been added.

Integrations with Google Drive, MS OneDrive, and Dropbox have been added.

Import from Mail (macOS) improved: Added the ability to set time frames for imported messages. It helps to convert communication into actionable insights and structured knowledge.

Export to Word improved: If a topic has an attached image, it will also appear in the MS Word document when exported, just like images inserted into the topic.

Solutions:

There are 233 solutions of which 21 are paid for.

Building Plans

Electric and Telecom Plans
Fire and Emergency Plans
Floor Plans
Plant Layout Plans
School and Training Plans
Seating Plans
Security and Access Plans
Site Plans
Sport Field Plans
Cafe and Restaurant Floor Plan
Gym and Spa Area Plans
HVAC Plans
Landscape & Garden
Office Layout Plans
Plumbing and Piping Plans
Reflected Ceiling Plans
Tilt and Turn Windows

Business Infographics

Agriculture Infographics Buy
Economy Infographics Buy
Education Infographics
Energy Industry Infographics Buy
Financial Infographics
Green Energy Buy
Management Infographics
Marketing Infographics
Mass Media Infographics Buy
Oil and Gas Buy
Politics Infographics Buy
Travel Infographics Buy

Business Processes

Business Process Diagrams
Business Process Mapping
Classic Business Process Modeling
Cross-Functional Flowcharts
Event-driven Process Chain Diagrams EPC
IDEF Business Process Diagrams
Logistics Flow Charts
Workflow Diagrams
Business Intelligence Dashboard
Business Process Workflow Diagrams
Healthcare Management Workflow Diagrams
Logistic Dashboard

Business Productivity

Presentation Exchange
Word Exchange

Collaboration

ConceptDraw Dashboard for Facebook
MindTweet
Note Exchange
Social Media Response
Mind Map Exchange
Project Exchange

Computer and Networks

Active Directory Diagrams
AWS Architecture Diagrams
Azure Architecture
Cisco Network Diagrams
Cisco Networking
Cloud Computing Diagrams
Computer Network Diagrams
Google Cloud Platform
Interactive Voice Response Diagrams
Network Layout Floor Plans
Network Security Diagrams
Rack Diagrams
Telecommunication Network Diagrams
Vehicular Networking
Wireless Networks
Internet of Things Buy

Dashboards

Comparison Dashboard
Composition Dashboard
Correlation Dashboard
Frequency Distribution Dashboard
Meter Dashboard
Spatial Dashboard
Status Dashboard
Time Series Dashboard

Diagrams

Basic Circle-Spoke Diagrams
Basic Circular Arrows Diagrams
Basic Venn Diagrams
Block Diagrams
Concept Maps
Family Tree
Flowcharts

Finance and Accounting

Accounting Flowcharts
Audit Flowcharts

Food and Beverage

Food Court
Cooking Recipes
Health Food

Graphs and Charts

Basic Area Charts
Basic Bar Graphs
Basic Divided Bar Diagrams
Basic Histograms
Basic Line Graphs
Basic Picture Graphs
Basic Pie Charts
Basic Scatter Diagrams

Health

Health Informatics
Allergology Buy
Biomedicine
Genogram
Human Anatomy
Immunology Buy
Medical Illustrations
Medical Mycology Buy
Pharmacy Illustrations
Health Sciences
Medical Virology

Illustrations

Aerospace and Transport
Artwork
Audio, Video, Media
Business and Finance
Computers and Communications
Holiday
Manufacturing and Maintenance
Nature
People
Presentation Clipart
Safety and Security

Industrial Engineering

Analogue Electronics
Audio and Video Connector
Basic Circuit Diagrams
Chemical and Process Engineering
Digital Electronics
Electrical Engineering
Electron Tube Circuits
Electronic Block Diagrams
Fault Tree Analysis Diagrams
GHS Hazard Pictograms
Home Automation and Wiring
Mechanical Engineering
One-line Diagrams
Power Circuits
Specification and Description Language (SDL)
Telecom and AV Circuits
Transport Hazard Pictograms

Infographics

Data-driven Infographics
Pictorial Infographics
Spatial Infographics
Typography Infographics

Management

Calendars
Decision Making
Enterprise Architecture Diagrams
Fishbone Diagrams
Organizational Charts
Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA)
Seven Management and Planning Tools
SWOT and TOWS Matrix Diagrams
Timeline Diagrams
25 Typical Orgcharts
Business Diagrams
Critical Infrastructure Sectors Buy
CRM Center Dashboard
Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance Buy
HR Dashboard
HR Flowcharts
Public Utilities Buy
Stakeholder Onion Diagrams
Sustainable Development Buy

Maps

Australia Map
Continent Maps
Directional Maps
Germany Map
Metro Map
UK Map
USA Maps

Marketing

Customer Journey Mapping
Marketing Diagrams
Matrices
Pyramid Diagrams
Sales Dashboard
Sales Flowcharts
Target and Circular Diagrams
Funnel Diagrams

Project Management

Cash Flow Reports
Current Activities Reports
MINDMAP Diagrams Buy
Custom Excel Report
Knowledge Reports
MINDMAP Reports
Overview Reports
PM Agile
PM Dashboards
PM Meetings
PM Personal Time Management
PM Planning
PM Presentations
PM Response
Resource Usage Reports
Visual Reports
Kanban Board Buy
PM Mind Mans and Tables Buy
Project Diagrams Buy
Scrum Workflow Buy

Quality Management

House of Quality
Quality Mind Maps
Total Quality Management Diagrams
Value Stream Mapping
Seven Basic Tools of Quality

Science and Education

Astronomy
Biology
Chemistry
Language Learning
Mathematics
Piano Sheet Music
Physics

Software Development

Android User Interface
Class Hierarchy Tree
Data Flow Diagrams
DOM Tree
Entity-Relationship Diagram (ERD)
EXPRESS-G data Modeling Diagram
IDEFO Diagrams
iPhone User Interface
Jackson Structured Programming (JSP) Diagrams
Mac OS X User Interface
Object-Role Modeling (ORM) Diagrams
Rapid UML
SysML
Website Wireframe
Windows 10 User Interface
ATM UML Diagrams

Sport

Baseball
Basketball
Chess
Football
Ice Hockey
Soccer
Summer Sports BUY
Winter Sports

Statistical Charts

Area Charts
Bar Graphs
Divided Bar Diagrams
Histograms
Line Graphs
Picture Graphs
Pie Charts
Scatter Diagrams

Overall:

ConceptDraw Office 11 offers the latest features, better compatibility, and improved performance compared to ConceptDraw Office 10. If you're considering purchasing or upgrading, ConceptDraw Office 11 is the recommended choice. Office 11 costs $299 (down from $499) for macOS or Windows.

Individual costs are:

ConceptDraw DIAGRAM 18 $199
ConceptDraw PROJECT 15 $299
ConceptDraw MINDMAP 16 $199
ConceptDrawMINDMAP 16 & PROJECT 15 $399

Nank get real with OE mix True Wireless Earphones

2024-11-11T18:57:00.002+00:00

Nank (previously known as Naenka) has been big in the bone conduction earphone space, now there's a move to open ear and the first True Wireless earphones the OE Mix.

Nank OE Mix box

The box contains the earphones in their case, a USB A to USB C cable and an instruction manual.

Open Box

The earphones are light, weighing in a 6.7g each (i.e. left and right) and are coated with a non-skin irritable silicon.

Open case

Bluetooth is now at version 5.4 and supports 60mS latency for gaming. Battery life is 24 hours (but each earphone will hold charge for 6 hours and then has to be put in the case to recharge). Whilst charging the LED on the case flashes red and turns green when fully charged.

Earphones

The drivers have a 0.0096mm diaphragm and support Super Base 2.0 (Nank's terminology).

Earphones

There aren't any physical buttons on the earphone, but they are touch sensitive and touching the left and right top of the earphone perform the following: -

Double touch L/R - switch between music and call.
Single touch L - volume down
Single touch R - volume up
Long touch L - rewind
Long touch R - fast forward
Long touch L/R (1.5s) - call hangup
Triple touch L/R - microphone

The first thing you notice (well don't notice) is how light they are. It can feel a bit awkward placing them over the ear in the correct position, but when they are there, they are very comfortable. Though they stay in place, they can easily be knocked off by say brushing your hand against them while doing something else.

When removed from the case, the earphones turn on and will automatically connect to the device they're paired with (the first time they turn on they will automatically go into pairing mode). When put back into the case they will start charging and the case green light will flash. The earphone turn themselves off - though they can be turned off by touching them for a longer time i.e. over 1.5 seconds - they tell you they're turning off. Though as soon as they are removed from the charger they turn themselves on again.

The earphones are IP55 rated and survive getting wet from sweat etc. As they don't completely cover the ear, you can still hear your environment, so these are good for activities like cycling or running. They can't be fully immersed in water so aren't suitable for swimming.

The sound quality is very good and there are decent highs and lows (notes) as the earphone speakers are placed just outside the ear canal projecting the sound inwards and unlike other Nank bone conducting earphones don't suffer the issues of some of bass being lost or tickling against the skin.

These are a nice addition to the Nank line and at the website price of £43.32 they aren't going to break the bank.

ConceptDraw Office v10: Taking the "Office" Out of Office Work (In a Good Way)

2024-05-16T15:10:00.004+00:00

ConceptDraw OFFICE from CSOdessa has released its 10th version, pretty amazing since Ukraine's been illegally invaded by Russia.

ConceptDraw Office v10 has arrived, and it's shaping up to be a game-changer for visual thinkers across all industries. This productivity suite bundles three powerhouse applications: ConceptDraw MINDMAP, PROJECT, and DIAGRAM (formerly PRO). Let's dive into what makes v10 such a compelling upgrade (or just a compelling purchase).

ConceptDraw has always been known for its intuitive diagramming capabilities, and v10 takes it a step further. DIAGRAM boasts a sleek interface and an extensive library of pre-built templates and symbols, allowing you to create stunning flowcharts, network diagrams, mind maps, and more – all with just a few clicks.

One of the biggest strengths of v10 is the seamless integration between the three applications. Brainstorming ideas in MINDMAP? Effortlessly convert them into actionable tasks in PROJECT. Need to present your project plan? Export your data directly into a polished DIAGRAM for maximum impact. This streamlined workflow eliminates the need for juggling multiple programs, saving you valuable time and frustration.

New features are: -

Apple Silicon support and macOS Sonoma so the programs run natively on M series Macs.

Rapid Draw - Сreate diagrams faster than ever with expanded Rapid Draw functionality. You can personalise RapidDraw for creating flowcharts using your customised objects.

Grouped Objects in a Diagram - Editing objects in a group individually is easy. You can use a special command to change one object in a group without affecting the others.

Multi-page Mind Maps - Easily create and design multi-page mind maps. Apply the first page style to the entire multi-page map with one click.

Outline View - View and edit your mind map as a diagram with an updated interface and new editing capabilities.

Micro Reports - A new line of micro-reports to remind your team on project deadlines. Create manually or set up automatic creation of ready-to-send deadline reminder emails.

Export to MS Excel - Export project data to MS Excel spreadsheets "as is", including project schedule, resource allocation, cost data, etc.

Interface improvements -

New captions on the buttons during apps and solutions installation process.

Built-in Help including instructions on activation, proxy set up, and keyboard shortcuts.

Office now comes 222 solution packs of which 163 are free and 59 are paid for, they are: -

Business Infographics

Economy Infographics $25
Education Infographics $25
Energy Industry Infographics $25
Financial Infographics $25
Green Energy $25
Management Infographics $25
Marketing Infographics $25
Mass Media Infographics $25
Oil and Gas $25
Politics Infographics $25
Travel Infographics $25

Business Processes

Business Process Diagrams FREE
Business Process Mapping FREE
Classic Business Process Modeling FREE
Cross-Functional Flowcharts FREE
Event-driven Process Chain Diagrams FREE
IDEF Business Process Diagrams FREE
Logistics Flow Charts FREE
Workflow Diagrams FREE
Business Intelligence Dashboard $99
Business Process Workflow Diagrams $49
Healthcare Management Workflow Diagrams $49
Logistic Dashboard $49

Business Productivity

Presentation Exchange FREE
Word Exchange FREE
Collaboration FREE
ConceptDraw Dashboard for Facebook FREE
Mind Map Exchange FREE
MindTweet FREE
Note Exchange FREE
Project Exchange FREE
Social Media Response FREE

Computer and Networks

Active Directory Diagrams FREE
AWS Architecture Diagrams FREE
Azure Architecture FREE
Cisco Network Diagrams FREE
Cisco Networking FREE
Cloud Computing Diagrams FREE
Computer Network Diagrams FREE
Google Cloud Platform FREE
Interactive Voice Response Diagrams FREE
Network Layout Floor Plans FREE
Network Security Diagrams FREE
Rack Diagrams FREE
Telecommunication Network Diagrams FREE
Vehicular Networking FREE
Wireless Networks FREE
Internet of Things $30

Dashboards

Comparison Dashboard FREE
Composition Dashboard FREE
Correlation Dashboard FREE
Frequency Distribution Dashboard FREE
Meter Dashboard FREE
Spatial Dashboard FREE
Status Dashboard FREE
Time Series Dashboard FREE

Diagrams

Basic Circle-Spoke Diagrams FREE
Basic Circular Arrows Diagrams FREE
Basic Venn Diagrams FREE
Block Diagrams FREE
Concept Maps FREE
Family Tree FREE
Flowcharts FREE

Finance and Accounting

Accounting Flowcharts FREE
Audit Flowcharts FREE
Food and Beverage
Food Court FREE
Cooking Recipes $25
Health Food $25

Graphs and Charts

Basic Area Charts FREE
Basic Bar Graphs FREE
Basic Divided Bar Diagrams FREE
Basic Histograms FREE
Basic Line Graphs FREE
Basic Picture Graphs FREE
Basic Pie Charts FREE
Basic Scatter Diagrams FREE

Health

Health Informatics FREE
Allergology $49
Biomedicine $49 Genogram $25
Health Sciences $25
Human Anatomy $25
Immunology $49
Medical Illustrations $25
Medical Mycology $49
Medical Virology $49
Pharmacy Illustrations $25

Illustration

Aerospace and Transport FREE
Artwork FREE
Audio, Video, Media FREE
Business and Finance FREE
Computers and Communications FREE
Holiday FREE
Manufacturing and Maintenance FREE
Nature FREE
People FREE
Presentation Clipart FREE
Safety and Security FREE

Industrial Engineering

Analog Electronics FREE
Audio and Video Connectors FREE
Basic Circuit Diagrams FREE
Chemical and Process Engineering FREE
Digital Electronics FREE
Electrical Engineering FREE
Electron Tube Circuits FREE
Electronic Block Diagrams FREE
Fault Tree Analysis Diagrams FREE
GHS Hazard Pictograms FREE
Home Automation and Wiring FREE
Mechanical Engineering FREE
One-line Diagrams FREE
Power Сircuits FREE
Specification and Description Language (SDL) FREE
Telecom and AV Circuits FREE
Transport Hazard Pictograms FREE

Infographics

Data-driven Infographics FREE
Pictorial Infographics FREE
Spatial Infographics FREE
Typography Infographics FREE

Management

Calendars FREE
Decision Making FREE
Enterprise Architecture Diagrams FREE
Fishbone Diagrams FREE
Organizational Charts FREE
Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) FREE
Seven Management and Planning Tools FREE
SWOT and TOWS Matrix Diagrams FREE
Timeline Diagrams FREE
25 Typical Orgcharts $25
Business Diagrams $49
CRM Center Dashboard $49
Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance $25
HR Dashboard $49
HR Flowcharts $25
Public Utilities $25
Stakeholder Onion Diagrams $49
Sustainable Development $25

Maps

Australia Map FREE
Continent Maps FREE
Directional Maps FREE
Germany Map FREE
Metro Map FREE
UK Map FREE
USA Maps FREE

Marketing

Customer Journey Mapping FREE
Marketing Diagrams FREE
Matrices FREE
Pyramid Diagrams FREE
Sales Dashboard FREE
Sales Flowcharts FREE
Target and Circular Diagrams FREE
Funnel Diagrams $25

Packages

Building Design Package $180
Business Diagrams Package $230
Business Infographics Package $130
Business Management Package $367
Education Package $160
Health Package $180
Project Management Package $158

Project Management

Cash Flow Reports FREE
Current Activities Reports FREE
Custom Excel Report FREE
Knowledge Reports FREE
MINDMAP Reports FREE
Overview Reports FREE
PM Agile FREE
PM Dashboards FREE
PM Docs FREE
PM Easy FREE
PM Meetings FREE
PM Personal Time Management FREE
PM Planning FREE
PM Presentations FREE
PM Response FREE
Resource Usage Reports FREE
Visual Reports FREE
Kanban Board $25
MindMap Diagrams $99
PM Mind Maps and Tables $25
Project Diagrams $49
Scrum Workflow $49

Quality Management

House of Quality FREE
Quality Mind Map FREE
Total Quality Management TQM Diagrams FREE
Value Stream Mapping FREE
Seven Basic Tools of Quality $25
Science and Education
Astronomy FREE
Biology FREE
Chemistry FREE
Language Learning FREE
Mathematics FREE
Physics FREE
Piano Sheet Music FREE

Software Development

Android User Interface FREE
Class Hierarchy Tree FREE
Data Flow Diagrams (DFD) FREE
DOM Tree FREE
Entity-Relationship Diagram (ERD) FREE
EXPRESS-G data Modeling Diagram FREE
IDEF0 Diagrams FREE
iPhone User Interface FREE
Jackson Structured Programming (JSP) Diagrams FREE
macOS User Interface FREE
Object-Role Modeling (ORM) Diagrams FREE
Rapid UML FREE
SYSML FREE
Website Wireframe FREE
Windows 10 User Interface FREE
ATM UML Diagrams $25

Sport

Baseball FREE
Basketball FREE
Chess FREE
Football FREE
Ice Hockey FREE
Soccer FREE
Winter Sports FREE
Summer Sports $25

Statistical Charts

Area Charts $25
Bar Graphs $35
Divided Bar Diagrams $25
Histograms $30 Line Graphs $25
Picture Graphs $40
Pie Charts $20
Scatter Diagrams $25

Some of the paid solutions are actually complete packages where some free and paid solutions are bundled.

All the programs are easy to use and offer a sensible alternative to incumbent application from the dominant players and they work well together (though Mindmap, Project and Diagram can be purchased separately).

The current price for ConceptDraw OFFICE 10 £239 (usually £399) May 2024.

Individually ConceptDraw DIAGRAM 17 is £159, ConceptDraw PROJECT 14 is £239 and ConceptDraw MINDMAP 15 is £159 and there is a ConceptDraw MINDMAP 15 & PROJECT 14 which is £319 (which make no sense when the whole suite is £90 cheaper). There are also upgrade options if you own a previous version.

See Clearly, Clean Safely: The TOFARO Visual Ear Cleaner

2024-03-19T16:11:00.002+00:00

Another day, another Kickstarter. Who doesn't want an in-ear camera system?

Ever felt like you're flying blind when cleaning your ears? Traditional cotton swabs can be ineffective and even push wax further into the ear canal. TOFARO, a new visual ear cleaner on the scene, promises a safer, more precise clean with the help of a high-definition camera.

Box

TOFARO boasts a 1080p HD camera that transmits a live feed to your smartphone or tablet via a dedicated app. This allows you to magnify and examine the inner ear, ensuring you only clean what needs cleaning. Blurry images are a thing of the past, thanks to TOFARO's advanced lens technology.

Inside box

Safety is paramount when it comes to ear care. TOFARO features a detachable cleaning head with a built-in storage compartment. This not only keeps the head clean and hygienic but also prevents accidental loss. The 360-degree angle detection and a smart gyroscope ensure you have complete control and can maneuver the cleaning rod precisely within the ear canal.

Silicon scraper

TOFARO is designed to be compact and portable. It can be carried around easily (though would you want to?). It has a WiFi hotspot that you connect your phone/tablet to and then the app simply connects via this.

Camera with cap

Though not a medical device, it's always important to ensure the device is used safely and shouldn't be used if previous problems with any parts of the ear.

Cap removed

Looking inside your ear may show unexpected things and if these are serious seek medical advice rather than poking around and damaging yourself.

Unit twisted, exposing tube and light that is inserted

The silicon scrapers are relatively soft and if placed behind any wax and gently pulled forward, the wax usually comes with it.

USB-C charging

Again, if wax lodged in the ear and doesn't want to move, don't try forcing it, you can do damage to the surrounding area.

In Ear

The above is a view from the camera of a real ear.

It's a novel device with a decent camera (and gyroscopic stabilisation if required).

Nank(was Naenka) Runner Neo: Bone Conduction for the (Active) Soul music

2024-02-20T18:52:00.002+00:00

Bone conduction headphones have risen in popularity with runners, cyclists and other sports enthusiasts as listening to music doesn't mean you can't engage with your surroundings and you're aware of what's going on around you.

Product Box

The Nank(was Naenka) Runner Neo's come in three colours, red, grey and green (though the red is quite orangey and the green quite light). A great improvement to other Nank and competitor products is the wireless charging, The charger connects via USB A and has a white LED to showing it's powered. The right control section magnetically sits on the charger and the white LED in the arm will flash (along with the LED in the charger) when it's charging, both light are steady white when fully charged.

Tech Features: -

IP66 water resistant
Bluetooth 5.2
Skin-friendly silicone
10-hour Playtime (2 hours charge time)
Dual-mic Noise Reduction, Clear Sound Quality
QCC chips from Qualcomm (High Performance with Low Power Consumption)

Also included with the headphones are 2 Earplugs, 6 sound quality enhancers and a user manual.

Headphone in box

The Runner Neo boasts a sleek, minimalist design with a one-piece, fully-silicone frame. This not only contributes to a cool, futuristic aesthetic but also enhances durability and sweat resistance – ideal for workouts. The headphones are lightweight, weighing just 28 grams, and sit comfortably on your skin without causing pressure or irritation.

Sound quality enhancers

The core of any bone conduction headphone is its audio delivery. The Runner Neo utilises advanced bone conduction technology to transmit sound vibrations through your cheekbones. This approach keeps your ears open, allowing for ambient noise awareness, which is crucial for safety during outdoor activities.

The sound quality is surprisingly good for bone conduction headphones. While it won't match the bass punch of over-ear options and some in-ear options, the Runner Neo delivers crisp highs, clear mids, and a decent amount of low-end rumble. Podcasts and audiobooks come across clearly, and music playback is enjoyable, especially for genres like pop, rock, and electronica.

The sound is enhanced when the "sound quality enhancers" are placed in the ear, but that sort of removes the ability to hear what's going around you, which is the main point of bone conducting earphones.

Charging cable

The wireless charging is a great feature, as it removes the need to plug anything in or have contacts exposed, which makes the whole system waterproof and little chance of sweat or rain getting into the internals.

Charger on earphones

Call quality is decent, with the dual microphones effectively picking up your voice well.

Controls are simple and intuitive, with three buttons located on the right earpiece. These buttons handle power, volume, playback, and call functionality.

Showing charger attached

The headphones can do multipoint pairing and connect to two devices simultaneously.

Though they are comfortable, if the volume is too loud they can vibrate on the skin which gives a tickling sensation which can be annoying.

Maybe not as high fidelity as some competing bone conduction headphones, but for the price they perform pretty well. They are currently £60.31 from Nank's site.

Dualit EcoPress™ Duo Max Pod Recycler, finally, a Way to Feel Good About Your Coffee Habit

2023-11-06T14:15:00.000+00:00

Dualit, famous for their high end kitchen equipment, make Nespresso compatible coffee machines, coffee pods and recyclers.

EcoPress™ Duo Max Pod Recycler,

Recently the EcoPress™ Duo Max Pod Recycler was released. It's slightly more complex than the original EcoPress™ Aluminium Capsule Recycler in that it empties two pods at once and also has a container to hold the emptied pods for washing.

Showing pod recycler left and emptied pod holder right

The pod emptier has a base that can be removed and it sits in a slight depression in the main base that holds the second section.

pods

Pods are placed silver side down on to the recycling section (the thinner end pointing up), the lid is pressed down and the pod will empty into the container. It can hold about 12 pods worth of coffee before it needs emptying. The other section holds maybe 40 to 50 emptied pods.

pods on recycler

When lifting the lid off the emptier, it's easy to move the container, so it's no longer sitting in the depression and as quite a lot of force is required to push down, then container can slip.

Lid on top of pods

Emptying the container is easiest by just inverting and shaking the grounds out of the holes, though sometimes a pod will be pushed in and then the base has to be removed. Removing the base for normal emptying isn't recommended as it's fiddly and the holes have to stay on top (or the grounds will fall out).

Emptied pods in recycler

Though most of the grounds stay in the containers, there will be some spillage on to whatever the recycler is placed. It also must be quite sturdy as a fair bit of steady effort is required pushing down the recycler lid.

If there's a lot of pods to recycle, it's definitely quicker than using the original, but probably not worth an upgrade.

It retails for £19.99

Nank(Naenka) Runner Diver2 Bone Conduction Swimming Headphones that Will Make You Sing Underwater

2023-10-25T17:10:00.003+00:00

Nank(Naenka) formally known as Naenka are a Chinese manufacturer specialising in bone conduction headphones.

The Runner Diver 2 are its latest product. As well as Bluetooth (v5.3) support, there's 32GB of memory allowing for music files to be stored on the device itself.

The come in a box (that is remarkably similar dimensions to a competitor) which is mainly cardboard with some plastic inserts to hold various items such as the ear plugs, sound quality enhancers and the headphones themselves. They're also a USB-A charging cable and instruction manual.

Headphone box

If the USB cable is plugged into a PC (macOS or Windows), the headphones appear as a USB disk and music files which are MP3/M4A/WAV/APE/FLAC can be transferred. The headphones support multipoint paring (i.e. multiple devices).

Diver is probably not the best description for the headphones as they are only IP68 certified which is 1 metre depth in water for up to 30 minutes - so maybe Runner Swimmer would be more appropriate. While swimming it's necessary to use the MP3 mode as a Bluetooth connection may cut out when the headphones are submersed and will then try and reconnect as they come out of the water.

Looking under headphones

Bone conduction works by transferring the audio vibrations through the cheekbones so how the headphones fit is quite important. They comes with some silicon inserts called sound enhancers that fit into the ear itself, sitting on the indented bit before the ear canal (so not in the ear canal like in-ear earphones). The sound enhancers come in small, medium and large. The headphones then are placed over the ears.

Sound enhancers

The sound enhancers made a huge difference in sound quality and fit, however head shape has a lot to do with it and they may not make a huge difference for everyone. An obvious issue is that they sit in-front of the ear canal so do block some of the sounds from the environment which is why some people are using bone conduction headphones in the first place. There's good bass, midrange and treble supported by the 16 mm speaker. There's also built-in noise cancelling for the microphones.

looking form back

Battery life is 10 hours (at 60% volume) and 150 hours standby and a full charge takes 1.5 hours and 15 hours talk time. The magnetic connector is polarised so it will only fit one way, but the pins do protrude and can easily short onto any flat metallic material especially if it's ferrous as the magnets will be attracted to it.

Side view

The headphones are reasonably light weight at 32g and are covered in silicone that is skin friendly being soft, hypoallergenic and breathable. The design is meant to resemble a seahorse (well the bone conducting part).

Top view

There are 3 buttons, Power, "+" and "-".

Power button

Long Press 3 secs - Power On / Power Off
Double click - Wake up Voice assistant / exit voice assistant
Click Once - Play/Pause / Answer/Hangup
Double Click - Ignore call
Triple Click - Bluetooth/MP3 mode
Quad (4) clicks - Sequential/Random play in MP3 mode

+ Button

Click once - Volume Up
Long Press 2 seconds - Next song

- Button

Click once - Volume Down
Long Press 2 seconds - Last song

They retail for around £140.00 but a 15% discount is available using the code "Steve" (no quotes required).

As stated without the sound enhancers, the sound quality and fit wasn't brilliant and they vibrated against the skin annoyingly, with the sound enhanced things improved dramatically but that relates to head shape so things might be completely different for other users. With the sound enhancers sound quality was pretty good (as least as good as the competition). Not a bad headphone.

Feel the Beat of a Different Drum: Shokz OpenRun Pro Bone Conduction Headphones

2023-09-14T13:03:00.001+00:00

Shokz (previously known as Aftershokz) have been producing bone conducting headphones for a while, their latest headphone is the OpenRun Pro. This has two sides connected by a titanium band that goes behind the head and over the ears, while each side has a "speaker" that sits in front of the ear connected to a solid bit that connects to the loop (the right hand side has the charging connection and the on/off/volume buttons). This bit has been redesigned so the charging connection is on the angled back, which makes it impossible to even try to force the magnetic connector on the wrong way round. The left speaker has the multifunction button.

OpenRun Pro headphones

Bone conduction works by vibrating the bones which then transmit the sound to the inner ear, this does mean that if the volume is too loud, then you can feel a vibration against the skin (like being tickled) which can be annoying, but assuming the volume is at a sensible level, this doesn't happen. Being "open ear" means you still hear what's going on around you, which may not be what you want if immersing yourself into a movie or travelling on the tube, but for runners, cyclists and even working out in a gym when you want to be aware of your surroundings these definitely work well.

Though similar in design to the older Aeropex, the OpenRun Pro is slimmed down in size for a more lightweight feel and only weighs 29g.

Bottom view

Audio quality has improved markedly in the OpenRun Pro and sounds more balanced with better depth in the lower frequencies (TurboPitch). Higher frequencies have always worked better and are crisp and clear. The volume can be adjusted sufficiently to overcome wind noise without distorting. Unfortunately fidelity is unlikely ever going to match traditional headphones, the OpenRun Pro delivers pretty good sound quality (Shokz claim 20Hz - 20KHz frequency response).

Top view

On the base of the right hand there are only two buttons, volume up and down, the volume up button is also the power button, if the OpenRun Pros are off, long pressing it will turn them on (and the blue LED will turn on too), holding it down when on, will turn them off. If turning on and continuing to hold, then the LED will flash red and blue, indicating it is in pairing mode.

There's also a multifunction button on the left speaker that pressing will pause/play music, answer a call etc.

Power connection

There are dual microphones which pick up speech which means calls and video conferencing work well.

The OpenRun Pros are also IP55 allowing them to be used in sweaty environments. There is a built-in moisture detector.

Bluetooth is now version 5.1 (though 5.3 is the latest version), but that should allow more stable Bluetooth connections and supporting multipoint pairing (i.e. multiple devices). The SBC codec is supported as well as A2DP, AVRCP, HSP and HFP Bluetooth profiles.

Battery life is now 10 hours on a full charge (which takes 1 hour). A 5 minute charge will give 1.5 hours of usage. Standby is up to 10 days.

Shokz now provide an app (IOS and Android) that allows for 2 levels of EQ (equalisation) optimising for music or voice. The app also supports pairing, multipoint pairing, listening customisation, and user tips.

In the box there's also a hard shell carry case that holds the headphones and a USB-A charging cable (that can fit into the carry case under a strap).

Hard shell carry case

As an artefact of bone conduction technology, if you have slight hearing loss that is caused by something say in the ear canal or similar, sound can actually sound better (or louder) as it's directly stimulating the inner ear [NOTE this is NOT any advice re hearing loss].

Not the most expensive headphones on the market they can be directly purchased from the Shokz site or other retailers for £159 (purchasing from Shokz gives a 2 year guarantee in certain territories).

Ear's to Nothing: Why Nothing Ear (2) is Music to Our Ears

2023-05-26T16:55:00.004+00:00

Nothing has come out with the second version of the Ear phone (earphone) called unsurprisingly the Ear (2) phone.

Founded by Carl Pei (previously having founded OnePlus), Nothing is his new mobile first company making tech that is affordable and aesthetically pleasing. The first product was the Nothing Ear (1) wireless earphones and now, they've raised the bar even higher with the release of their latest model, the Nothing Ear (2).

Nothing Ear (2) original package

The outer box has a tearable strip which allows the inner box to be removed.

Tearable strip

The inner box is very black.

Inner box

The top bit is the instruction manual in a sleeve.

Sleeve holding instruction manual

Removing the sleeve reveals the earphone case (in a removable plastic protective cover).

Case in protective plastic sleeve

Once the case is removed the side compartments are accessible.

Box side compartments

One side holds the USB-C to USB-C cable and the other the small and large silicon tips.

USB-Cto USB-C charging cable

Silicon tips

The case has a USB-C charging port and a button to initiate pairing.

Charging case

Charging case lid open

At first glance, the Ear (2) may seem like just another pair of earphones, but a closer look reveals its unique design and features that set it apart from the competition. The Ear (2) boasts a sleek, transparent design that showcases the inner workings of the earphones. This design not only looks futuristic but also allows for a better understanding of how the Ear (2) works.

Ear phones (2)

Looking from the other end, it's possible to see the metal filter that allows sound to pass through while now allowing ingress of particles from your ear.

Metal grill

But it's not just about looks – the Ear (2) also delivers top-of-the-line audio quality. With active noise cancellation (ANC), the Ear (2) blocks out all outside noise, allowing for an immersive listening experience. And now with an in-house designed impressive 11.6mm driver, the Ear (2) produces clear, crisp sound that rivals even the most high-end (fruity) earphones on the market. The diaphragm is made from graphene and polyurethane.

One standout feature of the Ear (2) is its press controls. With just a few presses, users can play or pause music, skip tracks, and even activate voice assistants like Siri or Google Assistant. The touch controls are also customisable, allowing users to set their preferred commands for even easier use. The Ear (1) used touch controls which could be triggered erroneously.

But perhaps the most impressive feature of the Ear (2) is its battery life. With up to 6 hours of continuous listening time and an additional 34 hours with the charging case, the Ear (2) can last through even the longest listening sessions. The earphone buds are also very light at 4.5g each (the case is 51.9g). Actual battery life will depend on use: -

Playback with ANC off: Up to 36 hours with case and 6.3 hours with buds only
Playback with ANC on: Up to 22.5 hours with case and 4 hours with buds only
Talk time with ANC off: Up to 20.5 hours with case and 3.5 hours with buds only
Talk time with ANC on: Up to 17.5 hours with case and 3 hours with buds only

Bluetooth is now at 5.3 supporting BLE, SPP, HFP, A2DP, AVRCP and AAC, SBC, LHDC audio codecs.

Water and dust protection has also been increased and is now IP54 for the buds and IP55 for the case.

It's important to download the Nothing X app (iOS and Android) as many earphone features such as ANC/bud fit and balancer/equaliser are adjusted within it. It's also quite likely there will be a firmware update and this is performed through the app too.

Nothing X App

When these arrived they also came with a Nothing baseball cap and the obligatory sticker.

Baseball cap

Sticker

The are available to buy from the Nothing store and cost £129 (actually cheaper than the Ear (1)).

Grounds for Good: How Dualits's Recycling Device Brews Sustainability

2023-04-21T17:17:00.003+00:00

Whether you're a fan of Nespresso or not (the coffee can be quite nice), the pods are a pain to recycle. They either have to be taken to a Nespresso shop or getting Nespresso to pick them up in a Nespresso (or coffee shop) recycling bag.

Now there's another solution get a Dualit Nespresso Unfill recycling device. It's all plastic with a base.

Dualit Until base

Then there's a green bit that sits on the base and fits semi-screws on to it (or positions itself via a slotted bit). It's ribbed/strengthen underneath.

Dualit Unfill rim (from below)

Looking from above, there's an inner ring where the pod sits on (foil side down).

Dualit Unfill rim (from above)

The lid has an inner protrusion which matches the base of the pod.

Dualit Unfill lid

When put together the green rim sits on the base, then the pod is sat on the rim with the narrower part facing up. The lid is then pushed down firmly and keeping it as straight as possible.

The pod will then be inverted and all the coffee (well most of it) will end up in the the base (some does stick to the remains of the pod). The base holds 7 or 8 pods.

Rinse the pods off and then they can go in household recycling (if there's a few, then wrap them in aluminium foil and they'll be detected as aluminium recycling more accurately, they can be pushed into each other for a compact result).

The coffee grounds can then be recycled in food waste, composted or used to add to soil (allegedly slugs don't like caffeine) and there's goodness in the grounds too that plants can use too.

It's available for £9.99 direct from Dualit or many good retailers.

Get into Zen sleep with Amaz(ing)fit Buds

2023-02-17T18:15:00.005+00:00

Amazfit (a Xiaomi sub-company) produce various fitness products such as watches and bands and also ear buds.

Now it has designed the Amazfit Zenbuds which are a pair of true wireless earbuds that offer a unique feature – they can help you fall asleep faster. These earbuds are designed with sleep in mind, with a number of features that are meant to help you relax and drift off to sleep.

In terms of sound quality, the Zenbuds offer clear and crisp audio. The earbuds are comfortable to wear and fit securely in the ear, making them a great option for sleeping or working out. The battery life of the Zenbuds is also impressive, with the earbuds lasting up to 8 hours on a single charge.

Zenbuds with small tips

One of the standout features of the Zenbuds is the ability to play white noise or guided meditations to help you relax and clear your mind before bed. These sounds can be customised and set to play for a certain amount of time, allowing you to drift off to sleep peacefully.

The buds are relatively small, with silicon tips (S/M/L) that fit in the ear canal. The outside of the buds have a silicon protrusion that helps hold them in place in the ear. They are also very light at 2g per bud.

One feature is the touch control system, which allows you to easily control your music and adjust the volume without having to pull out your phone. The earbuds also have a built-in microphone, allowing you to take calls or access your phone's voice assistant without having to remove the earbuds.

The buds come in a charging case with a USB-C port.

Zenbuds case (the lettering is silver and reflective)

The Zenbuds are also sweat and water resistant, making them a good option for working out or for use in wet conditions. The charging case provides an additional 4 charges for the earbuds, giving a total of up to 32 hours of use.

The top of the case swivels to open and the case has 3 white LEDs showing its charge. The left and right buds must be placed in their equivalent (correct) receptacles or they won't charge, but they do magnetically snap in.

Charge status LEDs

The buds have two electrical connectors for charging and they fit on top of the equivalent pins on their respective spaces in the case and are held magnetically.

Electrical connectors

The buds act like normal earphones but also have sensors in to measure heart rate when sleeping and in terms of connectivity, the Zenbuds use Bluetooth 5.0 technology, ensuring a stable and reliable connection to both Android and iOS devices. When sleeping The earbuds track your sleep patterns, including how long you sleep, how deep your sleep is, and how many times you wake up during the night.

This data is then synced to the Amazfit app, where you can view your sleep stats and get insights on how to improve your sleep quality. The app also offers sleep recommendations and suggestions for creating a better sleep environment.

Though the buds have the springy loop bit that fits into the ear, they can fall out, especially if your head moves around a lot and your ear rests on the pillow or mattress.

The current design only plays music/sounds for the set duration or until you fall asleep, but if you wake up again, the sounds don't resume which isn't much good for restless sleep. Though quoted for 8 hours, they can run out of power if you have a sleeping problem such as insomnia or don't fall into deep sleep so they don't detect your asleep at all.

An alarm can also be set in the app, so the buds will wake you in the morning.

They are available directly from the UK Amazfit store for £119 though can be found on other sites too.

They can help with sleep and white noise is preferential to other noises which can be annoying and stop you sleeping, it would be great if they detected you'd woken up again, and started the audio again to re-block external sounds.

Aeropex might Shokz you (after)

2022-11-01T15:59:00.000+00:00

Aftershokz (now Shokz) Aeropex bone conducting headphones (now discontinued, but the Shokz Openrun are similar) sit over the ear in contact with the skin and rather than sending audio into the ear canal like 'normal' headphones or earphones, they vibrate and use bones in the skull to send the audio into the ear itself.

The front portion contains the bone conducting technology and then a loop gives over the ear to another unit containing the batteries/electronics and Bluetooth and another loop goes behind the head to connect to the same setup on the other ear.

Aftershokz Aeropex

The headphones are very light weighing in at 26g, have an estimated 8 hour playback time and are rated IP67 (so good for sweat resistance, but not for swimming). There is a USB cable for charging with a magnetic connector to ensure it aligns with the 2 pin charging port (and cant be put on the wrong way around).

Charging port

Bone conducting technology is a bit of a Marmite® technology (i.e. you love it or hate it). When it works well, it can work very well, or it doesn't.

(After)Shokz are a premium brand and their headphones aren't the cheapest on the market, however they tend to work well and lot of Chinese clones that claim to offer similar technologies will disappoint. An easy test is to turn up the volume and if a buzzing is felt on the skin (like being tickled), then it's probably not a good buy. All bone conducting headphones can suffer this, but cheaper ones will do this at lower volumes

The Aeropex have titanium parts internally with a soft touch covering. There's a single multi-function button and volume control with an LED indicator (charging, Bluetooth). A full charge takes around 2 hours and they should last for about 10 days on standby. Bluetooth is version 5.0, supporting A2DP, AVRCP, HSP and HFP and up to 10 metres away from the audio source.

The claimed frequency response is 20Hz to 20KHz, however the lower frequencies don't tend to pass so well through bone conduction as they get lost on the device to skin. There are also dual microphones to pick up sound for calls etc.

The multi-function button performs the following: -

Play/pause music - click once - one beep
Next song - double click - one beep
Previous song - triple click - one beep
Answer call - click once - two beeps
End call - click once - one beep
Answer call waiting and end current call - press and hold for 2 seconds - one beep
Ignore a call - press and hold for 2 seconds - two beeps
Activate voice assistant - press and hold for 2 seconds - beeps
Redial last number - double click on standby - Redial last number

Power/Volume+/Volume- combinations: -

Power On - press and hold vol+ for 2 seconds - Welcome to Aftershokz
Power Off - press and hold vol+ for 3 seconds - Power Off
Mute - press and hold vol+/vol- for 2 seconds (on call) - mute on/off
Change EQ - press and hold vol+/vol- for 2 seconds (music playing) - EQ changed
Check battery status - click vol+ or vol- (music paused) - Battery high/medium/low/charge me
Just volume - vol- or vol- (music playing) - one beep

The LED indicates: -

Solid red - charging
Solid blue - charged
Flashes red/blue - pairing
Flashes blue - incoming call
Flashes red (every 2 minutes) - low battery

The moisture detector will indicate the headphones are wet if plugged into the charger and they should be dried.

Bone conducting headphones do take getting used to as the audio goes straight into the back of the ear, while allowing the ears to hear normally. This can be extremely useful for things like cycling or running so you're aware of your surroundings and what's going on. Probably less useful for wearing in a busy office environment and trying to zone out. They are extremely light and as they don't sit in the ear (or cover the ears) there's no long discomfort per se.

The only slightly irritating issue is the vibration on the skin if the volume is too loud or the frequencies in that particular range, but that's really a petty issue.

Though the Aeropex have been discontinued they are still available from sports' shops, the replacement Openrun is directly available from the UK Shokz site for £129.95, they come in black/grey, blue/dark blue, dark grey/light grey and red/dark red.

There's now also the Openrun Pro and Openrun Pro mini, which are newer models supporting Bluetooth 5.1, rated IP55, 12 hours play time, larger multi-function button and enhanced base also from UK Shokz site for £159.95 though they are 3g heavier.

Shokz now also do swimming bone conduction MP3 players and UC headphones.

Sky Stream, first look

2022-10-21T16:59:00.008+00:00

Sky (known for the satellite broadcast system) introduced Sky Glass a while back which is a TV with integrated Sky that uses broadband to deliver Sky content, no dish/satellite required (Sky also own Now TV which is a subset of Sky's services also delivered over broadband using an app or puck/box).

Now Sky has introduced Sky Stream which is the same as Sky Glass (in terms of services), but is only a puck/box and a remote (and a power supply and HDMI cable). It connects via Ethernet or WiFi to a home network. The puck is actually running Linux so there are probably some hacks around.

Sky puck

The basic service is HD (1080) but a service upgrade allows UHD. Netflix (basic) is included (watch on a single device), but there are two upgrade options for Netflix Standard (2 devices) and Netflix Premium (4 devices).

TV upgrade packages are Sky Cinema, Sky Sports, BT Sport and Sky Kids.

The packages can be bought on an 18 month contract or 31 days rolling (the later being more expensive).

The box arrives pre-configured with the account set-up, just plug it in to the TV via the HDMI cable, if there's Ethernet, plug that in and let it boot, the can then be set-up in the settings.

It takes a while to boot and a Sky logo will be in white on a black background and when up and running the screen will go to the standard Sky blue colour with white lettering for the options.

Sky initial screen

Then get the remote and press buttons 1 and 3 simultaneously (you have to hold them for a while) and the box will ask if you wish to connect the remote (by pressing the middle button on the remote to agree).

If Ethernet is being used, the settings should automatically be picked up (i.e. IP address/etc), otherwise the WiFi needs to be configured.

If the UHD package has been selected, then the default mode can be moved the UHD rather than HD. Various audio options are also available (as is what format is sent to the TV).

Once that's done, hit the Home button and all the channels are available (including terrestrial channels).

Then there are "apps" for Netflix, iPlayer, ALL4, My5, Disney+, Apple TV+ etc.

Paramount+ is also available and the app accessed through the Sky system, then an account set-up (again while in the Sky/Paramount app). The price will then be set to £0 per month (i.e. free) when a subscription is taken out.

If a current subscription to Netflix is in use, signing in through Sky means the billing is moved to Sky (i.e. free for Basic). Netflix will keep the current billing method "on file" such that if the Sky subscription ends, it will revert to the original.

The picture is very good and services work very smoothly, though using UHD means that at least 25Mb/s is required from the broadband service.

The packages are: -

18 month contract per month cost

Sky Entertainment and Netflix (basic) £26
Sky Sports £20 (offer)
Sky Cinema £11
BT Sport £30
Sky Kids £6
UHD and Dolby Atmos £6
Netflix basic SD (included, watch on 1 device) £0
Netflix Standard HD (watch on 2 devices) £4
Netflix Premium UHD (watch on 4 devices) £8

Getting everything would be £107 pm

31 day rolling cost

Sky Entertainment and Netflix (basic) £29
Sky Sports £22 (offer)
Sky Cinema £13
BT Sport £30
Sky Kids £6
UHD and Dolby Atmos £6
Netflix basic SD (included, watch on 1 device) £0
Netflix Standard HD (watch on 2 devices) £4
Netflix Premium UHD (watch on 4 devices) £8

Getting everything would be £114

Can then add whole home for £12 pm which allows additional pucks in the home (the first puck is free, more are £39 each).

Getting the full package on an 18 month contract saves £7 per month which is £126 over the lifetime of the contract.

Netflix have announced their new plans (from November) which correspond tp the Sky plans (including resolution and devices) i.e. Basic, Standard and Premium. There is an advertising supported basic plan for £4.99 per month, while the ad free services are £6.99, £10.99 and £15.99 per month respectively. So taking the Sky bundle is a saving if already a subscriber.

There are a few quirks with the system (hopefully they will be resolved in a future software update), the main bug bear is parental control. When accessing a channel where a program is designated that it needs parental control (12+ during the day), a PIN is required even if parental controls/daytime control have been disabled. If the program then changes to another (which also is deemed to require parental control), then the PIN needs entering again as the program changes.

The default PIN is the the last 4 digits of the mobile number registered with the service, but can be changed easily. Parental controls can be set to standard ages (U, PG, 12, 15, 18 or None) and also all apps or individual apps may be PIN protected.

There's also voice control so it's possible to say "Watch BBC 1" and it will change to that channel (by pressing the microphone symbol on the remote).

Sky Stream remote

The buttons nicely light up when the remote is moved making it easy to find what you're doing even in a dark environment.

Another niggle is that it can take a while for the Sky puck to turn on even after the power button is pressed on the remote, but it tends to work after a few goes.

All in all, this is a nice way to get Sky without having to faff with satellite dishes if your Internet connection can cope.

p.s. the Sky links are referral but if signing up through it, you get discounts too.

Apple Photos does OCR

2022-10-19T17:04:00.002+00:00

This feature seems to have appeared in Apple Photos.

Find a picture with some text in it, highlight the text and it's copied to the clipboard.

original picture

then highlight it

bounded box

The box will appear over the text when the mouse is selected at the start. Copy to clipboard.

The result of the clipboard is "BELSIZE PARK"

It works on horizontal and vertical text too.

It's bigger and brighter, the new Xiaomi Smart Band 7

2022-10-18T16:18:00.002+00:00

Xiaomi (Mi) have refreshed their fitness tracker the Xiaomi SmartBand 7. It comes in China and Global versions, the only real difference is that the Chinese version supports NFC payments (through Alipay). If you're lucky Alipay may accept your credit card as a payment type and then you can use it through the band. Both versions support multiple languages.

The 326 ppi AMOLED screen has been increased to 1.62 inches and is now much brighter (it can be distractingly bright), which is a 25% increase over the Band 6 display. The included USB cable has a magnetic connector on the end which aligns the connector with the band and holds it in place to charge.

Battery life is stated at 15 days, but that will be greatly reduced if various functions are turned on, such as some continuous readings.

Band 7 next to Apple Watch

There are a variety of straps that can be purchased apart form the standard black.

Watch faces are download to the watch (over 100 of them) via the Mi Fit app (now rebranded as the Zepp Life app). Some of them maybe quite Chinese in personality and seem quite odd to a western market.

The band has the following "health" functions: -

SpO2 Monitoring
Breathing Training
Heart Rate Monitoring
Sleep Monitoring
Pressure Monitoring
Female Health

SpO2 (blood oxygen content) and heart rate monitoring are continuous as is sleep monitoring (i.e. no need to tell the band you're going to sleep).

Band 7 supports 120 sports modes, some of which it will try and switch into automatically and it can be used for swimming down to 50m (but not diving). While training VO2 is estimated and time to recovery as well as aerobic and anaerobic exercise times. Standard sports are directly accessed while others via the All Workouts.

They are: -

Running

Outdoor running
Walking
Treadmill
Indoor walking
Race walk

Cycling

Outdoor cycling
Indoor cycling
BMX

Swimming

Pool swimming
Fin swimming
Artistic swimming

Outdoor workout

Fishing
Skateboarding
Roller skating
Rock climbing
Parkour

Indoor workout

Freestyle
Elliptical training
Rower
Indoor fitness
HIIT
Core training
Aerobic combo
Strength
Stretching
Stair climbing
Flexibility
Stepper (forward)
Stepper (backwards)
Gymnastic
Yoga
Pilates
Aerobics
Mass gymnastics
Cardio Combo
Cross training
Spinning
Horizontal bar
Parallel bars
Battle rope

Dance

Ballet
Belly dance
Square dancing
Street dancing
Ballroom
Dance
Zumba
Latin dancing
Jazz dancing
Folk dance
Hip Hop
Pole dance
Break dance
Modern dance

Combat workout

Kendo
Karate
Boxing
Judo
Wrestling
Tai chi
Muay Thai
Taekwondo
Martial arts
Kick boxing
Jujitsu
Fencing

Ball workouts

Tennis
Football (soccer)
Cricket
Baseball
Bowling
Squash
Basketball
Softball
Gateball
Volleyball
Table tennis
Handball
Badminton
Beach volleyball
Wall ball
Billiards
Sepak takrav
Dodgeball
Water polo
Ice hockey
Shuttlecock
Futsal
Hacky sack
Bocce
Jal alai

Water workouts

Sailing
Rowing
Dragon boat
Kayaking
Snorkeling
Flowriding

Winter workouts

Curling
Ice skating
Indoor ice skating

Leisure workouts

Hula hoop
Frisbee
Darts
Kite flying
Tug of war
Shuttlecock
Esports
Airwalker
Swinging
Shuffleboard
Table football
Somatosens

Board and cards

Chess
Checkers
Weigl
Bridge
Board game

Others

Jump rope
Archery
Equestrian

What the band can actually measure during say a board game is questionable to say the least. Other sports modes to seem to work and it will pick-up walking and running without having to actually switch to that mode.

Tracking is reasonable and compares to other much more expensive devices.

Nicely Xiaomi have now added a lot of products to their international store, including the Smart Band 7 which retails for £54.99 in the UK version (mi.com detects your location and uses that to deliver a local store). Straps costs £9.99 (they do break and the button on the clasp can break too).

It is also possible to go to your friendly Chinese site and buy it considerably cheaper (though pricing has changed recently and shipping charges can be more expensive and there will be VAT/Tax added at the point of sale).

Mice should always have worked like this

2022-06-25T13:53:00.002+00:00

Apple Macs use mice and Apple don't give you too many options for configuring them.

System Preferences / Mouse

That does give some control and of course it's optimised for Apple mice (which are really trackpads nowadays as they don't have wheels on anymore). 3rd party mice may well have their own software / system preferences pane to allow some adjustments.

3D Connexion Preference Pane

In their wisdom Apple make scrolling accelerate as it's used continuously, so scroll down a page and suddenly it can jump to the end because the scrolling has sped up (especially noticeable scrolling long pages).

Now there's a helping hand (well a little utility that lives in the menu bar) called LinearMouse and it'a free. It can be directly downloaded from the site (.dmg) or installed via Homebrew

#brew install --cask linearmouse

The source code is also available on Github so it's possible to build the app yourself (more importantly ensure it's not doing anything suspicious in the background).

Once installed a mouse looking icon appears in the menu bar and clicking it brings a dropdown menu showing the mouse options and click on LinearMouse Properties.

LieanMouse Preferences

Reverse scrolling does just that and the scrolling direction will be reversed, but the magic is enabling linear scrolling as this stops the scrolling speeding up. Once you enable it, you'll wonder how you ever lived without it, it's a game changer.

One of the best utilities you'll find for your Mac (now of course Apple will integrate the functionality into a future version of macOS).

Working from home, be Shure to use a MV5C microphone

2022-06-22T23:45:00.004+00:00

Shure is known for its professional in-earphones, headphones, microphones and wireless systems and have been around for a long time (since 1925). The in-earphones can produce very high quality audio as they isolate the sound form the outside world and musicians have custom earpieces made so they fit completely into and on to the ear canal (this also allows the audio to play much more quietly which is better for the ear drums and reduces damage).

More recently conferencing systems have also become part of the portfolio very much aimed at businesses.

Now with everyone working from home, Shure has moved into the home office space and produced a microphone to suit video and voice calls, the MV5C microphone.

Shure MV5C box

There is some assembly required (screw the large sphere ended screw through the base into the microphone ball).

Parts from box

The microphone connects to the computer via micro-USB (why not USB-C in this day and age?). There's also a headphone socket at the back for connecting wired (jack) earphones or headphones so it's possible to monitor the raw input.

Back of microphone

The completed unit looks quite professional, though the ball of the microphone is made of plastic.

Microphone with Shure logo on front

The microphone should be placed as close to face of the user as possible (in front of the keyboard, the base can slide under some keyboards and still allow the keyboard to be used effectively). The voice quality is very good.

The main problem is it's very easy to pickup background noise, especially hum from hard disks (i.e. older computers with hard disks inside or backup external disks) and fans. Newer solid state disk (SSD) based systems will sound much better. It would also be possible to mount the microphone on some sound abosrbant material as the hum comes mainly via the base.

The following are 3 recordings made using the MV5C and Audacity (44KHz sampling with 32bit floats) and and images grabbed of the capture - the base line waveform amplitude shows the hum/background noise.

Desktop

The background hum can be heard, but still great quality.

Off desktop was recorded using some sound absorbing material. The hum is slightly lower.

The final version was recording while holding the microphone so isolated from the desktop (which the computer and backup disk is on) and a screen behind the microphone between it and the computer.

With each capture the background noise is reduced and placing the microphone where it won't pickup extraneous noise will make a huge difference to the audio quality - though if offline editing, then noise removal would help.

As a desktop microphone and set-up correctly (and near to the person using it), it is a very good quality mic and can make a big difference compared to poor quality mics in headphones or other devices when using video conferencing or telephony applications.

The MV5C also works with the ShurePlus MOTIV mobile recording software (free download for iOS or Android) though it will require the correct cable (i..e device to micro-USB). The software gives tools to chop audio into clips, fade in and out and save in various formats.

It retails for £115 direct from Shure though it can be found online considerably cheaper.

Bose Soundlink Flex speaker

2022-06-09T16:31:00.003+00:00

The Bose Soundlink Flex speaker is designed for outdoor use. It has an IP64 and IP67 rating, so water and dust proof and can be submerged down to 1 metre for up to a minute. The case is metal with a a "soft touch" silicon coating and the grill has a fabric coating. It's a portable size at 20.1cm across by 9cm height and a depth of 5cm and there's a fabric strap so it can be carried.

There's a single USB-C port used for charging (a USB-A to USB-C cable is included), it's a shame the port can't be used to connect to an audio source directly so it could be used as a wired speaker/DAC. It takes 4 hours to fully charge the system.

The audio is only available via Bluetooth (v4.2) and it works up to about 30m.

There are also front facing microphones which can be used for calls and voice assistants.

There are 5 buttons across the top, power, volume down, multi-function and volume up and Bluetooth (with indicator light) that can initiate pairing.

Single pressing the power button turns the device on (and it speaks the battery percentage remaining - which is enabled by default). Single pressing again will turn the unit off. If nothing is playing/connected the unit will auto turn off after 20 minutes, this can be disabled by holding the + (volume up) and multifunction button simultaneously (or in the app), or if disabled this will re-enable it. While on, the amount of battery power will be spoken by pressing the power and keeping it pressed.

The multi-function button does multiple things depending on mode: -

When playing audio, single pressing will play or pause, track forwards (double press) and track backwards (triple press).
Pressing and holding will activate the voice control capabilities of the connected device (i.e. Siri or Alexa etc). Pressing and holding again will exit voice control.
When there's an incoming call pressing will answer, pressing and holding will reject the call. While in a call pressing and holding will end the call.
When there are 2 active calls, pressing quickly will switch between them.

If on a call, pressing volume up and down simultaneously will mute the call.

Though not required, there's an accompanying Bose Connect app (iOS/Android) that enables various functions such as party mode (where multiple Bose speakers can be linked and will all play the same audio) or stereo mode where 2 devices will (after having been connected in party mode) play left and right through each device.

Once paired the main screen shows a nice picture and what's playing. Touching the on-screen buttons plays/pauses, rewinds and fast forwards and the volume can be adjusted.

The main screen just shows the device connected.

Settings then shows the various that can be changed such as party mode, voice prompts, voice language etc.

Clicking the user icon takes you into Profile settings where a few user settings can be set.

The USB charging port is visible on the left

and the strap on the right.

NOTE: as can be seen from the photos, the black silicon coating picks up dust very easily which sticks, it obviously doesn't effect the sound, but it can look a bit nasty.

When the speaker is initially turned on, voice prompts are in English, but the speaker supports the following languages: -

English
Spanish
French
German
Mandarin
Japanese
Korean
Italian
Portuguese
Swedish
Dutch
Russian
Polish

The language can easily be selected in the app, but to change via the speaker, press and hold the multifunction button and then press + or - to cycle through the languages, then press and hold the multifunction button again when you are on the language you require.

The speaker can be paired with up to 8 devices at a time, though only 2 can be used simultaneously and only one can be playing at any time. To switch between two connected audio sources, pause the one playing and then start the other source. To clear all connections, press and hold the Bluetooth button for 10 seconds.

When it's time to party 2 Bose products can be connected in "Party Mode". This allows them both to play left and right or in Stereo mode, one will be left and the other right. Doing this is easy within the app, but can be done through a connected speaker. Make sure both devices are on and one is connected to the Bluetooth audio source and then press the Bluetooth and volume up (+) button together. The speaker will say “Press the Bluetooth and volume down buttons simultaneously on a second Bose device” which should then be done on the other Bose speaker.

Once in party mode to put them in stereo mode press the Bluetooth button and + on either speaker until it announces “Stereo mode”, then one will say "left" and the other "right". Pressing the Bluetooth and + button again will turn off stereo mode. To disable either mode just turn off one speaker.

Only via the app, the speaker can be connected to a Bose soundbar using the sync system and whatever's playing on the soundbar will play through the Flex (limited by Bluetooth range of 30m).

Bose claim a 12 hour battery life, however if the volume is near 100% (which is often required outside or in a large space like a gym), then battery life is considerably reduced to somewhere over 3 hours. An external power source can be used and works well for topping up the internal battery.

The microphones do work, though placement is key and it's quite easy to get a muffled conversation and probably best to use the phone directly for that important work call.

The speaker comes in 3 colours (black, stone blue and smoke white) and costs £149.95

There are cheaper speakers out there, but this does have good base and plays well. Battery life could be better and it's a real shame the USB port can be connected to an audio source for wired playback, but a nice solidly built Bluetooth speaker.

Padlock those fingers with a Kitty

2022-05-06T14:26:00.002+00:00

This is another Xiaomi (supply chain) product made by Youdian, the Kitty Smart Touch/Fingerprint padlock. It comes in 4 colours (Coral Red, Mica Blue, Gold, Bluestone Green) and is 33mm wide by 15mm which and just under 60mm high (including the steel lock). The body is a zinc alloy and is IPX2 water resistant.

The fingerprint detector is about 1cm across.

In the factory reset state (as shipped) any finger touching the sensor will unlock the padlock. When unlocked an administrator fingerprint should be stored. Hold the required finger on the sensor for 8 seconds until the LED above the sensor goes blue, then 5 successful fingerprint readings will store fingerprint as the admin.

Locking the padlock will now only allow the admin finger to open it (the lock will open and the LED will go green).

If the padlock is unlocked and the admin then holds their finger on the sensor until the LED goes blue, then another fingerprint can be stored (again 5 successful readings are required). Up to 20 fingerprints can be stored.

It's not possible to delete individual fingerprints, but the padlock can be reset to factory default by unlocking, placing the admin finger on the sensor until the LED goes red, then removing it and placing on the sensor again. All stored passwords will then be removed.

There's a 100mAh/3.7V (cobalt polymer) battery inside, which Youdian claim will give a year's worth of standby (i.e. leaving the padlock locked and returning within a year it should still unlock). Multiple unlocks will reduce the time, so probably worth charging from time to time (the LED will stay red until it's fully charged). It is charged via micro USB and a USB-A cable is included.

The padlock does just work and it failed to open with non-registered fingers. Quite useful when you don't want to carry keys around and lock an e-scooter or bike (or even luggage). The padlock is quite secure, though it's probably reasonably easy to break if required.

It's available from your usual Chinese sites and costs around £15 (before VAT etc).