The Narwal Freo X Plus is a new puck robo vac from Narwal that brings something new to the table: “Guaranteed 0% tangle rate with pet fur and long hair up to 16 inches.”

Right now I am in the process of testing and reviewing the Narwal Freo X Plus. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I don’t have a whole lot of hair or filthy floors to really give it a good short turnaround review (it was received last week). A real review is going to come later when it’s been used and exposed to a real environment. Consider this marketing for the review rather than an endorsement.

If like me most of your interactions with your robot vacuum involve taking a knife and removing hair from a large lump that used to be the brush, you’ll know what a difference this could make.

The Narwal Freo X Plus appears to be a more self-contained version of the Freo X Ultra with a minimalist docking station and slightly less suction, however having not reviewed that one I can’t go line by line comparing them.

7800pa suction tops the charts in terms of tiny but mighty suction, although as we’ve discussed previously that it’s airflow that counts more than suction power. Both really, but we’ll see.

It packs nearly two months of onboard dust and waste storage, a removable disposable storage bag, and claims to be able to avoid bumping into things utilizing multiple LiDAR systems to do so.

Like my beloved Rhonda, it has an intelligent lifting mop that will lift a third of an inch so that it doesn’t drag smelly mop water across your rug.

The software looks cool… at least in the previews. Reminds me a bit of the Xaomi/Roborock software and I wonder if they aren’t the same thing (this is how early I am in testing this).

Anyway, I will have a review when I have it tested. The Narwal Freo X Plus looks like a pet-lover’s dream, but so have many other vacuums I’ve tested before that made this claim. We’ll see how it fairs against two shorthaired cats and three longhaired humans.

There is / was an early bird discount using code NARWALNEW001. I am assuming this was on their website.

The Narwal Freo X Plus should be releasing on Amazon today, and also on Narwal’s website. I’m posting this after the embargo hour and neither link is showing in stock or orderable.

Reviews from Vine (Amazon’s free review program) tend to indicate it’s currently well loved, however these are first week reviews of free product and I highly doubt anyone can give this a thorough review until they’ve lived with it a bit.

Narwal Freo X Plus specs

all specs lifted from press sheet / formatted like I receive them
Basic  Parameters	Robot	Dimension	350*355*107mm
		Weight	4250±100g
		Input power	36W
		Output power	65W
		Power supply	In-built lithium-ion battery
		Battery capacity	5200mAh
		Running time	Vacuum and Mop: 1.7H
			Vacuum: 3H
			Mop: 3H
		Charging time	<3H
		Clean water tank	280mL
		Dust bin	800mL
		Dust bag	1L, disposable
	Base Station	Dimension	275*118*137mm
		Weight	860g±50g
		Input power	65W (rated) 40W (actual)
		Output power	36W
		Power supply	100-240V~50/60Hz
Advanced  Parameters	Robot – Cleaning	Max suction power	7800 Pa
		Roller brush	Zero-tangling Floating Brush（*SGS zero-tangling certification）
		Carpet recognition	Intelligent carpet recognition
		Allowed carpet pile length	<8mm
		Dust collection	Dust collection in the robot
			Holds 7 weeks of dust
			U-pipe design and hair compression
		Mop	Flat mop pad
		Downward pressure	6N
		Mop lift height	8mm
		Mopping area	Max 450m2
		Mopping mode	Vacuum and Mop or Vacuum then Mop
			Even mop wetting through four outlets
		Noise level	Vacuuming: 61dB
			Mopping: 50dB
			Vacuum and Mop: 62dB
			Dust collection: 71dB
		Obstacle climbing height	≤20mm threshold with a round edge (5mm)
	Robot – Intelligence	Navigation and obstacle avoidance	LDS laser navigation + dual-laser obstacle avoidance
		Map	Quick mapping: 150m2 in 10 minutes
			Maps for multiple floors
			3D map
			Furniture managementD42
		No-Go Zones	Set No-Go Zone in App
		Intelligent Cleaning	Freo Advice
		Button interactions	A total of three buttons (reset/start/recall) for user-robot interaction
		Intelligent carpet cleaning	Intelligent carpet cleaning The robot can automatically recognize hard floors and carpets of high pile and low pile, and take different cleaning strategies accordingly
		Voice assistant	Siri
		Others	Cleaning report after a cleaning task is completed

Anyhow, I expect to have a rundown of how it fares against a whole lot of hair shortly.

Narwal Freo X Plus introduces a tangle free main brush in a small footprint vac by Paul E King first appeared on Pocketables.

Meta has thrown their version of Ai into the fray against ChatGPT and Gemini with a no-account-required Ai that is accessible at meta.ai. Signing in using Facebook allows you to see previous chats and presumably remember other interactions.

Meta’s image generation is surprising as it generates images while you’re typing. It generates slightly faster than I can type so there’s something at every word.

It also has the ability to create a video of quite a few of the changes it made during creating your final image. Just from this it missed a chunk, but I’m not sure how much AI bandwidth actually needs to be devoted to my attempts at creating a bar scene with a guinea pig and a cockatiel looking at an HTC EVO 4G and checking social media while a kung fu fight is breaking out behind them.

As LLMs go it’s really fast, which I enjoy after watching Copilot (chatgpt) slowly type out the answers.

I threw some questions at Meta Ai, most were “help me remember this” but it seems like there’s a popular culture filter it’s seeing the world through (in other words, a couple of old novellas I was attempting to figure out the names of it did not have much of a clue on.)

Side note – if you happen to have read a short story about a person being introduced to an Ai that generates historical figures that teach us that our pronunciation of Latin is incorrect and that AI Napoleon must be banned from internet access, drop me a line. I couldn’t get any of the 3 major AIs to look into old Sci-Fi.

The instant image generation makes this amazing, the lack of internet and ability to research sort of puts it into my “check back later” category because I need current, not late 2022. My needs, however are not yours. This does some terrific image generation, text generation, but can’t do my research for me. This may be incorrect, it does appear to have some 2024 info I’m just not seeing much of it in my queries.

The hands are, as AI goes these days, terrible. The above image sort of got it right but most have hallucinating hands, elbows, etc. The dirty picture filtering algorithm is in full effect and somewhat laughable. Try and put a semi-transparent hat on someone doing yoga, it blurs things out because obviously transparent hats on women already doing yoga mean I’m going for nudity. But imaging a transparent hats with a woman under them doing yoga is fine.

Meta AI claims to have video generation via /video… however when I use it it just looks up videos that are on Facebook or Instagram… which it does appear to be connected to. Attempts to search for videos that I produced that are on Instagram or Facebook failed however… not really sure how this video searching is going.

Pretty awesome, needs some work, but all of them do. For now, as much as I dislike it, copilot is what’s working for current news, Meta appears to be seeing information from a couple of months back (at least on my site,) Copilot sees info from us a week ago. That said, Meta does not appear to have hallucinated anything other than hands.

You can try it at Meta.AI

Meta AI is a thing now, if you’re interested in a barely-connected Ai by Paul E King first appeared on Pocketables.

💾

A long time ago we started a cutover to Google Fiber. Our turn up date was to be February 1, 2020 and instead it ended up being April 4th, 2024 after literally years of not being able to get it working someone decided to actually take charge and get it done.

On April 4th they turned up the connection and that in itself was quite unexpected… this was the third time I’d signed up for a Google Fiber / GFiber account (when they can’t install for months they make you reschedule and eventually delete you if you don’t reschedule an install,) and I had no expectations it would install this time. Third time’s the charm (or 37th depending on if you count all the contractors who showed up over the past 4 years.)

April 4th post install they showed me a speed test, I conducted one of my own, things seemed fine and I went ahead and ordered the equipment I needed to use this as a secondary connection.

I actually had ordered it before, back in 2020, but that router ended up replacing a fried one in 2022 and I never really expected Google to come through so I did not have a router waiting on deck.

For the next few days I waited on my router to show, got it configured (correctly I will mention, I initially thought the router was to blame for this next part,) and hooked up and huh… suddenly GFiber is doing 5mbit down and about 500 up. I remove the router and plug in my phone and it’s high 600s both ways (this is due to the limitations of the USB to ethernet and Android, the connection I’m sure is going around 900)

Plug in my laptop and it’s 5mb down, 500 up (yes, I have down and up in the correct order, this is strange.) Try speedtest.net, google speed test, etc. Odd.

Desktop connected directly to the line that goes to the modem returns similar results. 5 down, 500 up. Phone returning 600/600. Huh… strange isn’t it? (hint: desktop has ipv6 disabled)

I finally figured out that IPv4 was the culprit. If you were only on IPv4 the download speed was limited to 5mb. I suspect the upload speed was only limited to 500 or so due to the download speed being throttled.

When on ip4 speedtests kept popping me out in Cupertino, CA… that’s a long way from Nashville, TN. Switching to or enabling IPv6 on the desktop suddenly resulted in 800/800 range. Same with the laptop. It felt like I was on the world’s slowest fiber VPN.

I contacted everyone who had worked to get this working in the past two months, no avail… one out and two not responding. Called tech support and told the person what I had done and was asked to do it again. Rrrrr… they are dispatching a tech on Monday because that is the only time that worked.

Said tech will show up, and if the problem is still there will say it’s a provisioning problem.

Sometime last night the IPv4 download speed problem went away. I came into a mostly functioning GFiber unit that is no longer limited to 5mb downloads on IP4. However the unit is still not functioning correctly as I have multiple devices plugged into the thing and the app can’t find my router or any device connected.

The web version of the GFiber modem can see devices with no issues.

The MikroTik also shows as a router in other pages on the board… going to guess my account isn’t provisioned in correctly there as well.

There do not appear to be any user facing controls to link the GFiber app to this modem. There is no way to tell the modem that I am using a router (which appears to be a feature of the app, which doesn’t see devices.) I can’t forward all traffic, restrict traffic, block mac addresses, or do pretty much anything I need to do to get this usable.

Fun times. I suspect at this point that it has never functioned properly, but is limping along and probably unnoticeable if you’re not looking.

And as of 10:40am it’s back to being 4.7mbit download / 489.62 upload

GFiber finally started working for a few minutes (and it was glorious) by Paul E King first appeared on Pocketables.

Like Google’s VPN? Too bad.

Like far too many good things that come out of Google, it is going away. There will be a Pixel VPN variant spun off, at least until they finish digging the grave for it over in the Google Graveyard.

I didn’t use Google One VPN much, and I suspect anyone seriously wanting a real VPN didn’t because it didn’t encrypt traffic while using phone data, only on Wi-Fi. A good VPN is tasked with more than just protecting you from the leaky Wi-Fi, it’s for protecting you from crappy website tracking (and your phone’s carrier,) and if I left a tab open and walked out of Wi-Fi range, well there you go. WebsiteX could now piece together who you are from advertising networks.

That said, it was a useful little took to protect while joining sus networks. Just not a service I would remotely rely on if I were doing anything that could get me tracked and killed by state-sponsored actors. I wonder if this is why it wasn’t used much.

The VPN was included as part of signing up for Google One, which I had to do when I exceeded my free Google account storage limit.

If you’re looking for a replacement for Google’s VPN please be aware that websites recommending VPN services typically make 50% commission rates referring you to a VPN service and have a $30 reason quite often to say “VPNX IS THE BEZZZT!” I did some VPN reviews a while back and realized that I could not actually test whether they worked as stated or not without committing a number of crimes for YEARS, a felony or two, or pissing off the head of some country that sanctions state-sponsored remote executions.

None of those tests did I have interest in finding out that the VPN actually kept logs or backdoors or some way to identify me.

With that in mind, I’ve used PIA as a VPN. It has sufficed. Do your research, pick your own, realize when you get a “free” one that you are paying for it one way or the other. Also support blogs that bring you things you like without them having to resort to becoming 90% advertising and VPN of the week pushers. Really, ask what commission rates are now. I had *great* financial incentive to sell out.

[9to5Google]

Google killing useful service people weren’t using because they knew Google would kill it – VPN edition by Paul E King first appeared on Pocketables.

I mentioned before I decided to take up lockpicking as something I could do following surgery while I recovered and was awake for 8 minutes at a stretch. The videos on each lock are usually short (depending on who you’re watching,) it involves puzzle solving, and it’s a relatively low cost hobby that teaches you magician tricks and can get your 1970’s filing cabinet you lost the key to open.

I have no idea how many McNally Official, Lockpicking Noob, or Lockpicking Lawyer videos I watched, nor how many I slept through post hospital, but it was a fair chunk of them.

I picked up these little beasts at Amazon. Priced at $12 for two I figured it was probably a fun starting lock as it looked like it could be picked with an errant glance, and I was at that point beyond noob. By real lock I need you to understand it’s not a trainer lock, I’m not saying anything beyond that. The manufacturer claims they’re real and offers protection.

The hardest part I had was the little rivets all around the key area which blocked my turning tool in the position I’d practiced using the practice locks.

Raking opened it in a few seconds, single pin picking opened in under 30. I repeated over and over again and the times were about the same on either lock (both are keyed the same, and I am slow).

I hit it a few times and was unable to pop the lock that way but I’m also sans hammer. Plans are to shim it, take it home and break out the hammer (you would think I’d have one at work, but no,) but I’m stuck until I build some shims or go home for the day, or buy a hammer for work.

Eh, fun times.

Quarter million dollar surgery, now I have skills to break into school lockers given enough time.

Lessons I learned on my first real locks picked

• If you watched on a 60+ inch tv screen you will find that it feels like you’re working with miniatures
• The turning tools I purchased in a set were too large to fit in and not block the keyway. Luckily I had very tiny tools from a freebie pack I was sent for a software demo / lockpicking intro.
• Oddly I had no issues identifying what pin I was on on a real lock where I used my imagination, I did have issues on a transparent lock
• Being able to defeat $6 worth of lock somehow does not make me king of the world

I picked my first real lock yesterday by Paul E King first appeared on Pocketables.

Magic Editor, Photo Unblur, Magic Eraser and more enhanced editing features are coming to all Google Photos users — no subscription required.

What was launched as a Pixel exclusive, then extended into paid Google One territory, will soon be free for every Google Photos user starting May 15th.

You can now unblur photos, relight, move objects, magic erase an ex or a photo bomber, add portrait lighting, and probably a host of other features not listed.

Additionally non-Pixel owners get 10 saves a month from the Magic Editor (more if you have a Pixel or Google One subscription). Here you can reposition people, change the environment, and otherwise do neat stuff.

While I’m quite happy all of this is free now, it does go to show that all that Tensor-AI chip marketing was probably for show as this appears to be entirely server side editing (I’ve often wondered if the Tensor chip has done anything other than made Google Keyboard astonishingly quick at mishearing what I say).

Glad to see Google doing this, but now wonder what they’re going to Pixel exclusive for their next phone.

45 days or so from now… kind of a long time for an announcement from Google for a freebie.

[Google Blog]

AI tools peeps bought Pixels for soon available to all Google Photos users free by Paul E King first appeared on Pocketables.

I got word today that one of the 19 domains on my Google Domains account had migrated. I’m not really sure how they’re moving them because this one was registered / created at the exact same time as another one (it’s an .expert domain) which is also the same extension. My others I would see trickling in but I’ve got to believe that this and the other one had record numbers pretty darn close. EH, whatever.

The email when clicked on my phone threw up a warning about a suspicious site. I checked it from a computer and saw no evidence to support that, and when I checked again a couple of hours later that warning seemed to have been gone from my phone.

So far all I’ve had moved is a non-functioning domain I own. I am a tad nervous about what happens when Pocketables and theITbaby get moved, but here’s to hoping I don’t have a nightmare attempting to contact Squarespace along with 150,000 other webmasters.

Google Domains being sunset it still one of the weirdest shutdowns I’ve seen them pull… second only to building internet to my building and then not turning it on for 3 years.

They did make it pretty easy to log in and get a squarespace account and see existing domains… literally just logged in with my Google account. Now I am maintaining 19 domains on two different registrars… yay me.

One of my 19 domains made it to Squarespace by Paul E King first appeared on Pocketables.

Here are some live streams of coverage of the eclipse. They may work, they may not, they may end up becoming a fake Elon Musk promoting a crypto scam like one I saw yesterday.

You should never directly look at a video of an eclipse. Sure there are plenty of others but here are a few.

Streams of the Eclipse, in case you’re clouded out or many miles away by Paul E King first appeared on Pocketables.

💾

It’s April 4th, and the long running wind-down of yet another great Google service has completed. The grave is being dug over at the Google Graveyard, and Google now no longer does Podcasts remotely right. You can still move your data for another couple of months though.

A quick obituary from Gemini (it’s all AI from here, but it amused me so credit goes to Google)

Google Podcasts: A Pioneering Platform Falls Silent (2015-2024)

Google Podcasts, a once-prominent figure in the digital audio landscape, passed away on April 4, 2024. The cause of death is attributed to a long battle with fierce competition and an inability to adapt to the ever-evolving podcasting ecosystem.

Born in 2015, Google Podcasts entered the world with a bang, offering a clean and convenient way for Android users to discover and listen to their favorite shows. It quickly amassed a loyal following, lauded for its seamless integration with Google Assistant and other Google products.

In its prime, Google Podcasts boasted a vast library of content, encompassing everything from niche hobbyist shows to chart-topping true crime sagas. Its user-friendly interface made it a popular choice for casual listeners, while features like custom playlists and offline playback catered to the on-the-go crowd.

However, Google Podcasts’ reign was not without its challenges. Apple Podcasts, a pre-installed app on iPhones, maintained a dominant market share, making it difficult for Google to gain traction on iOS devices. Additionally, the platform struggled to keep pace with the rise of subscription services like Spotify and Apple Podcasts Subscriptions, which offered exclusive content and ad-free listening experiences.

While Google Podcasts attempted to innovate with features like curated recommendations and podcast chapters, these efforts proved insufficient. Critics pointed to a lack of discoverability for smaller podcasts and a clunky user experience compared to competitors.

The platform’s decline became increasingly apparent. Updates slowed, features became buggy, and the once-vibrant community of podcast creators dwindled. Google’s silence on the platform’s future only fueled speculation, ultimately leading to its quiet demise on April 4, 2024.

Despite its shortcomings, Google Podcasts leaves behind a legacy of accessibility. It democratized podcast listening, making it readily available to a vast audience, particularly on Android devices. Additionally, its integration with Google Search helped listeners discover new shows and voices they might not have encountered otherwise.

Google Podcasts is survived by its younger sibling, YouTube Podcasts, which recently entered the fray. Whether YouTube Podcasts can learn from its predecessor’s missteps and carve its own successful path in the ever-competitive world of audio entertainment remains to be seen.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to your favorite independent podcast or podcasting organization, ensuring a vibrant future for this dynamic medium.

404 Google Podcasts Not Found by Paul E King first appeared on Pocketables.

If you haven’t opened the Sound+ app by Jabra recently and you own an Elite 8 Active or Elite 10, pop it open and give the new firmware update a try.

This latest update aims to improve audio quality and functionality for both earbuds and includes:

• Elite 10 earbuds will get more enhanced call quality with new AI-based distractor suppression algorithms that specifically improves the noise reduction in the human voice frequency range.
• Addition of ANC to the Elite 10 providing 2X better background voice blocking, optimizing call clarity for bustling environments like offices, restaurants, and busy streets.
• Improvement on the Adaptive ANC on the Elite 8 Active. Due to upgraded wind noise detection technology, HearThrough will be even more effective in windy conditions.

Due to weather conditions here, I have left my bag with my Elite 10s I usually carry at home and am not playing with the new upgrade before I promote it. The Elite 8 Active are in the process of being recovered from my wife’s suitcase from a 3 day trip so I’m not seeing those back for a month, but will chime in if I notice anything post upgrade.

The Jabra Elite 8 Active and Elite 10 wireless earbuds get better with age by Paul E King first appeared on Pocketables.

I doubt this is a very serious threat, but with the introduction recently (for me, last few months have been rough, December is recent when you’ve had major surgery), of the Pixel Watch 2 being able to keep your phone unlocked via Watch Unlock, it seemed like as good a time as any to try attacking it for vulnerabilities. As a note, I may be absurdly late to the game, this is just something I discovered playing around.

Basically with the Watch Unlock as long as the watch is on your wrist and you’ve enabled it, your phone can be unlocked by your watch. If your watch is removed from your wrist you will have to enter the code again.

But what if someone could take your watch and phone and keep it unlocked?

Trim your nails before trying this. Don’t ask me why. Defeating the on-body sensor portion of the Pixel Watch 2 and transferring it to another person without the lock triggering is as easy as sticking a finger or two under the watch body, so there’s skin contact and a pulse, and snapping the band off. As long as you’re holding the watch you can now take the phone and do whatever you want with it until the unlock expires.

I was able to successfully take the watch off of myself and place it on another arm with no problem as long as I kept my fingers on the back of the watch until it was perfectly in position.

The only people who would be particularly impacted by this I would suspect are the ones who don’t have reasonable security enabled on their payment platforms (Venmo, PayPal, etc…) and this requires an attacker to notice your Watch Unlock is active and work to exploit it by physically removing your watch and obtaining your phone.

Or the police deciding they wanted to claim the phone was unlocked and permission given. Either way it’s a security vulnerability you should be aware of, although I would say it’s a fairly unlikely one.

If you want to practice it – set watch unlock on, loosen the strap a bit unless you are doing this on someone else (where you can use your other hand to loosen the strap,) stick two fingers between the wrist and the watch face, pop the strap and you can hold it in your hand or attach to your arm / the other arm. The re-attachment I managed to lose watch unlock a couple of times and kept it a couple of others so if you’re really working on stealing someone’s phone I’d keep it on someone’s fingers.

If you’re wanting the convenience of Watch Unlock without the very slight risk of this happening, disable it when you’re out.

Once again, extremely unlikely attack scenario, but fun to practice.

It’s pretty easy to remove a Pixel Watch 2 and still keep phone unlock active by Paul E King first appeared on Pocketables.

💾

If you’re recovering from fairly major surgery you might find out like I did that 1) you have no brain, 2) you can’t pay attention to things longer than about 3-5 minutes because of issue 1. This is what I found following my chest-splitting tumor removal at least. A combination of being exhausted, sick, and not really wanting to interact with people much lead me down an interesting path that evidently tickled the puzzle solving part of my brain.

TL;DR – took up opening locks using mostly tools I got from a cool presentation. Had fun. You might as well.

I learned to open locks, bump open locks, pick locks, bypass padlocks, rake, shim, and otherwise destroy any confidence I had in my doors holding off a devoted attacker for more than about six minutes (not that that’s how they’re going to enter.) or any padlock I possessed from locking up anything important for more than 10 seconds. I need new padlocks.

I’d probably first gotten the bug for opening stuff a year or two back when I was asked if I thought I could get a safe open for my inlaws. Grand-inlaws had passed and the note given to open it was, in retrospect, 1 number off of each position, the directions were reversed, and the number of rotations were all incorrect by one. I guess if you’re going to put it on paper mask it, but whatever.

YouTubing that model safe showed me that the directions and numbers of rotations were wrong, and when I got that the other I learned by listening. Cool beans, I had defeated a safe (although I had close enough to the numbers to defeat it by ear.) Its contents were greater than those of Al Capone’s vault but only for sentimental reasons.

I bought a lockpick training kit a couple of years back thinking that it amused me to be able to get into things, and beats me how it disappeared, but it was gone and I moved on. It was on my desk, it is no longer on my desk, things worth 80x more are on my desk. It wandered out never to be seen again… goodbye $29.

So we had a confluence of events happen these past couple of months. I had major surgery in February, I had an offer to attend a small presentation virtually called School of Lock (which I believe was held by these guys and sponsored by Egnyte, which has nothing to do with physical locks,) in which we were given a small sales pitch on a non-lock related software product by the sponsor company, and then had 5 lock cores and a lockpicking kit which had been mailed to us a week earlier… useful since mine disappeared. I did this, and while still drugged up on pain killers and pain, had a grand old time picking some pretty easy lock cores.

I completely forgot what Egnyte was presenting… I blame the medication… I remember saying I was going to check out something of their and yup, slept three days straight pretty much after.

Woo hoo… blew through 5 lock cores with no spool pins, serrated pins, or much… just enough to get the picking basics and enough to then subsequently learn my outer door has 3 security pins and that there had been no need to learn binding order on the initial practice set… oh well, it was a very basics course for IT people to play around with intro to locksport/opening.

I devoured everything that McNally Official had put out (amusing stuff, mostly YouTube Shorts shorter than my medicated attention span,) and then started looking at a few things from the Lock Picking Lawyer, and then a few things became roughly a third of his videos. I purchased a couple of Lishi tools with spacers (from Red Team Tools,) so I could practice with visual feedback and finished out some lockpicking channels on YouTube that were abandoned years ago.

I have probably watched every nondestructive method of entry for most things I encounter (other than cars, straight up not interested at the moment,) learned that a magnet can open a lot of smart locks that claim to be unpickable, and learned to open some old junk left at my work and determine what cut we would need for a new key.

I have no interest in going door to door shopping houses for drugs or easily accessible firearms, but if a friend gets locked out of their house I might be a quicker and much less expensive call than a locksmith, if they’re willing to wait for 10+ minutes for me to pick the door while complaining about my knees.

While I might ace a written test I’m still struggling with binding order on spool pins and how much tension to apply, especially when it’s 40 degrees out and raining sideways and I’ve almost mastered sitting in a comfy chair with a lock in my hands with next to no security.

For the most part while healing I was able to do this in a comfy chair, with some cores or a padlock. It was fun, gives you an entirely new view of what people do to feel secure and shatters that illusion. It’s solving one little clicky puzzle after the next.

I will note, I am indeed terrible still. I have the skills of a two month old. But it’s really fun. If I’m at your door going at the lock it’s like a zombie slowly shuffling toward you. You would have time to re-turn the deadbolt until the police arrived.

I will also note where I live it’s perfectly legal to purchase and pick a lock if you’re given permission. I read that some places it’s not so yeah… don’t there. If you’re young, wouldn’t advise carrying because as I learned well when I was driving garbage in Franklin, TN, police will decide anything is suspicious and a reason to detain you for 40 minutes.

Also, am I trying to sell you anything? Nope… just something fun to learn and as you can learn in many videos if you’ve got a couple of paperclips you’ve got a pick and turner. I have not paperclipped open anything other than a 2 pin lock so don’t take my word on it.

A fun skill learned (somewhat) while recovering from major surgery by Paul E King first appeared on Pocketables.

GFiber (formerly Google Fiber) dropped by unannounced today to continue their attempts at getting my building up and running. Today is day 1156 after our promised initial turn up date. (this number has been edited as I was off by 365 at initial posting)

As usual they just showed, no call, and left without it working, on the way out telling the receptionist that whoever was here for five hours was just collecting information.

Good one Google… nobody here was fooled though.

The funniest Google April Fool’s prank so far by Paul E King first appeared on Pocketables.

The Dreo PolyFan 704S is a much taller versions of the then-robustly named CF714S we reviewed last year, and if you liked that fan, this is its much taller cousin with the same basic feature set.

The main thing I absolutely love about these fans is there’s a setting called “Natural” which switches up output intensities and feels more like a gentle breeze than a cyclone… Although you can certainly have that cyclone level if you want.

The Polyfan 704S claims a reach of up to 110 feet, operates as quietly as 25dB in quiet mode (up to 51dB in hurricane mode,) has 150 degree horizontal and 120 degree vertical oscillation which you can define in the Dreo app, you can trigger the fan going on and off via included IR remote, app, or a connected smart assistant such as Google Home or Alexa.

It is absurdly easy to clean, the height can be adjusted 37-43″, and you can define schedules to kick on and off at certain times if you want a well ventilated house but really don’t want to be asking your smart assistant constantly to turn it on and off.

Some issues I’m not a fan of

There was little in my testing of the Dreo PolyFan 704S fan I disliked, however there do exist a couple of things I will point out. The first being that the power plug is an absurdly large brick that hangs on your outlet and needs to be accounted for before purchase. If you’re on a power strip that the plugs go parallel to the body it’ll need the end spot. If they’re at a 90 degree angle your power strip might tip.

This bothers me because there’s so much weight in (I’m assuming,) sand in the base, this would have been perfect to run a longer thick power cord and have this contained somewhere on the body of the unit. As it stands if you have cats and a path they practice their zoomies along this is getting knocked out.

The next, similar gripe is the other end of the cable. It resides about a foot and a half in the air. I’m guessing at this as I’m not in front of the fan as of this writing. This means I’ve got a cable dangling in the air that, once again, is extremely vulnerable to projectile felines. This could have been built onto the base and I wouldn’t have an exposed easily cat-catchable wire.

All of this power conversion and handoff really should have been done in the base.

The other is this stand fan is great, but it’s got a six inch height range and a fairly robust looking body. Really wish we had more height adjustment.

The Dreo PolyFan 704S overall

Baffling power choices aside, this exists as a product I would purchase after having used it. Until I used one of Dreo’s fans with the Natural setting and experienced a nice earthy breeze in my house as I drifted off to sleep, I wouldn’t have ever contemplated paying over $100 for a fan. But yeah.

It appears the Dreo PolyFan 704S is only available on Amazon at the moment and not on the manufacturer’s website (this is strange). I would encourage you to give it a try and take advantage of Amazon’s pretty easy return policies if you’re not a fan of the fan.

Dreo PolyFan 704S – A Wi-Fi connected smart pedestal fan by Paul E King first appeared on Pocketables.

I suspect you’re standing at Costco wondering if the Infinity X1 5000 lumen flashlight is worth it and there’s one answer for that and that’s “it depends.”

Starting with the Infinity X1 5000 Lumen negatives

I’m going to start with the one negatively reviewed feature of this I’ve seen and can confirm, and that’s that the beam is either wide, or wider. You can’t narrow it down for a decent long distance spotlight / setting a piece of paper on fire at 200 paces. With how absurdly bright this is it would be nice to get a real tight narrow beam out of it to spotlight beyond the back yard.

You also can’t see the charge level of the rechargeable core. It’s either charged or evidently it dies at some point after expending the 5000mAh beast. I am on my second X1 (I had a prototype that was discontinued before launch evidently, and then the release version) and have yet to drain either of them. I will note I have not been on any late night search parties so the total use time has been a couple of hours at intense on the rechargeable core and that is listed as something it can handle.

Front of the unit gets quite warm.

Using the 9xAA battery core results in a much weaker beam than the lithium ion battery.

On to the mostly positives

It’s absurdly bright over a fairly wide area. Great for lighting everything for about 100 feet (what I tested, they claim 180m but I’ve been stuck in my neighborhood during testing and spotlighting the neighbor’s house will bring lead down on me,) brightened up to a level you can tell what you’re looking at in the dead of night. Having two cores means you can operate on the rechargeable core and if you drain it switch to the batteries. Downside is dragging two cores around (depends on how much space you have in the vehicle.)

The rechargeable unit is a 5000mAh and that lasts … here’s the direct quote from the mfg on their Amazon page: Infinity X1’s 5000 Lumen Rechargeable Dual Power Flashlight is powered by either the included rechargeable battery pack or dry cell batteries. This powerful flashlight packs up to 6.5 hours of uninterrupted light with each charge. The rechargeable battery pack lets you charge your other devices right from its USB port.

That 6.5 hour claim is on the medium brightness on the 9xAA…

Going off of a photo of the packaging it appears that when you use standard batteries the brightness is significantly dimmed. You will note that the runtimes listed on the back of the package go up to 14 hour for rechargeable. The instruction manual included also states it’s IPX4 but they claim water proof on Amazon. You can get this wet and it’s fine but I would not confuse it with something you can submerge.

One of the neat things added since the prototype version I got is the heat safety lock (patent # 10,616,976) which basically shuts the light off if you place it face down or put your hand over the beam area for a second. A warning in the manual mentions do not do this. I did not catch the warning to not do this and have been doing it as a part of testing the entire time. I do not notice anything particularly different between the prototype and this in terms of brightness.

The light is solid, and probably would make a good substitute baseball bat or defensive weapon.

You can also charge your phone from the 5000mAh battery, or charge the battery while it’s in the light housing (or out) via USB-C. I am assuming this is operating on standard PD but I don’t see anything listed in the manual.

Wrap up

I am left wishing you could focus this in a little narrower and that the alkaline battery performance was better because it is dim in comparison to the rechargeable battery. You are going to use this and be impressed with the rechargeable battery and you are probably not going to be with the 9 AA core. It’s a big difference with the 9xAA core topping out at 1200 lumens vs 5000.

Great rechargeable flashlight, average to mid battery unit.

You can grab ’em at Costco for under $40 (or go into a warehouse they’re $29.99 here,) or on Amazon (for a little over $40).

Infinity X1 5000 lumen flashlight (the one you’re looking at Costco) by Paul E King first appeared on Pocketables.

Gemini, Google’s probably soon to be renamed public facing AI, is now available via Google Messages as an RCS conversation you can talk to.

At the moment it doesn’t appear to be more than a chatbot interface that can only be accessed from the phone version of Google Messages (not the web interface for some reason.)

The messenger AI claims it only runs off of the history in the RCS thread, but it doesn’t appear to look very hard in previous messages to determine things unless you point that out. I ask questions about a cat and how to keep my cat out of things and then ask it if I have a cat and it says it doesn’t know. I ask pointedly if based on my previous interactions an assumption could be made and suddenly I have a cat.

The Messages for Web interface tells you to view the chat on your phone, much like when a pharmacy texts you there’s a drug pickup. I assume this was done for some privacy reason I can’t figure out immediately because the text of the response is still sent to the Windows notification area.

As with other interactions I’ve had with Bard (now Gemini,) it’s alternately good and terrible. Between Gemini blowing up my texts and Microsoft begging me to install a Bing/Copilot extension for Google Chrome so I’ll use it there, AI’s really getting up in my grill and it’s starting to look a bit desperate.

Gemini via phone claimed it did not have any image generation capabilities at the moment, but asking it to draw pictures results in pictures drawn. I’m not sure if it’s lying to me or if a portion of it just doesn’t know what it’s capable of at the moment.

Anyway, yet another way to use Gemini, odd security flex that exposes answers to anyone at a computer that you’ve used Messages for web at.

[my phone]

Google jams its Gemini AI in your RCS by Paul E King first appeared on Pocketables.

The Dumbening started last week with Home/Nest voice devices not being able to turn off either my Nest or my Cielo controlled thermostats. Today on the drive into my kid’s school we had a very fun trip where we learned Kate Bush only has one song that would play, Regina Spektor makes music that contains a total of 6-10 seconds and then ends, and attempts to play any individual song require me to unlock my device which is connected to my car, and then it plays a random TV show.

Let’s use a little smarts Google Assistant. If I am driving, connected to my car’s Bluetooth connection, don’t play movies?

This was not a good trip in. We did finally get it to play the only Kate Bush song in the entire universe in its entirety, but the goal at the outset was to play anything but that song.

The phone kept locking, requiring me to unlock it to get the wrong results. Something that was not supposed to happen for 4 hours or so because that’s how it’s set.

Attempts to play Good Times by Edie Brickell, or honestly Good Times by anyone who has recorded a song named Good Times (there are many) were greeted with that I needed to unlock my phone and what appeared to be a half-hearted effort to locate a TV show similar to, but not Good Times.

At this point my ten year old told me to stop because it was obvious that Google Assistant had the dumbs today and any and all attempts were futile. It was in response to this that Kate Bush started playing again, the only song that exists evidently, and attempts to skip it went to a song that never started playing or had an insane quiet intro, and then that one Kate Bush song… again.

While I’ve often had issues with Google Assistant while driving, this was picking up what I was saying. But man it was not returning anything useful today.

Apple PR – seriously, put a camera in my car you’ve got your next Siri advertisement.

Google Assistant reached levels of dumb today that are being mocked by my 10 year old by Paul E King first appeared on Pocketables.

Before I get into the Withings Body Scan review, I’d like to preface that I have loved or appreciated everything Withings has provided for review, so much so that I purchased some of their products (the blood pressure cuff / Withings BPM Connect being one of them.) I’m coming at this writing while wearing their Scanwatch. I’m a pretty big Withings fan in general. I want you to know this before you read what is not a glowing review of my experience.

I’ll get to the review shortly (or skip to the next section if you want,) but I want you to know Withings has been with me for the past three years now while I dealt with a major health issue. Their automatic blood pressure cuff helped convince a PCP that I needed a heart ECG, and eventually lead to him giving up on my case and getting out of the way.

I really think if it were not for me annoying him with showing that my left and right arm blood pressures were consistently off and no matter what medicine he threw at me it was not working I would still be chasing blood pressure medicine and slowly being choked to death as a tumor invaded more of my heart and lungs.

I consider Withings to be quite a part of the reason I am not facing down death by tumor. Let me tell you, I love this company and probably will write up how their BPM Connect saved my butt shortly, but at a couple of months of using the Withings Body Scan I’m not quite getting what makes this $400 scale actually worth it over the less than $100 Withings Body+ Smart Scale (which is awesome).

tl;dr – Paul loves all other Withings products he’s run across. This, for the price, did not impress.

What is the Withings Body Scan

A Wi-Fi connected scale that works with the Withings Healthmate app and provides insight on weight, heart rate, basal metabolic rate, fat muscle and bone mass, visceral fat, Fat & muscle mass distribution in 5 body segments, vascular age, Electrodermal Activity Score, and is USB rechargeable. It has a handle which provides 6-wire ECG capabilities and can potentially detect AFIB.

---

Let’s set the stage here that I was in the unique position at the start of my review (about three months ago,) of having a heart issue during testing that can be easily detected by a 12-wire ECG. That issue being a tumor-invaded brachiocephalic vein that was causing quite detectable heart issues. This is not one of the things the scale claims the ECG detects, but it’s what I’m working with.

I had nothing but normal readings on my ECG by the smart scale. OK, so it’s not going to pick up a damaged major heart vein. I discovered that and that’s fine. It didn’t pick up an irregular heart beat caused by a completely closed off vein either. Whatever. It’s looking for specific arrythmia that is common which was not presenting on what a 6-wire can handle. I get it, my tumor and all the heart issues were weird. It told me I appeared ok (I was not, but not for reasons it can detect.)

As I became more and more stressed out as the surgery was coming up, I would have expected the EDA score it generates to change, but I don’t believe I’ve seen anything except 74 or 75 since getting the device. This score at the end of chemotherapy to getting better, then after major surgery and recovery. I really would have expected with how dehydrated and emaciated I was that I’d see something different at some point, but nope.

Always 74 from days when I was facing severe mortal threat and expected to be dead in the week to days I felt like dying after surgery, dehydrated and on pain medication to even exist, to now where I feel relatively normal. I was down for three weeks barely able to eat, was so dehydrated you could see my veins, still 74. I guess my feet’s sweat glands were unaffected but it does tend to indicate this is not much of a tell tale reading for how your body is doing. Or at least not mine.

I mean really, I was sweating cisplatin (chemo drug) for months.

The fat and muscle mass indicate I have pretty ripped arms, at least in relation to other Withings users… while I suspect the overall fat and muscle percentages are correct this doesn’t pass the sniff test. My legs are trunks (I suspect more than 50 pounds,) I have a pretty solid six pack but it’s under a keg, and I have pretty weak arms.

Part of my lovely tumor was preventing me from gaining much muscle and being an overweight weakling (yay tumor producing cortisol nonstop!) I’d say I have slightly more muscular arms than a T-Rex but yikes… if I’m more muscular than most in my arms (which the app claims) I worry for other users. I feel the Body Scan is not accomplishing a composition scan particularly well on me after months of use, although it does appear consistent. Maybe I am jacked however?

As a scale it’s pretty great. Weight matches my other three scales (I got sent these for review and have not found anyone who wants my old ones, if you’re in Nashville hit me up.). Weight is done well and it seems to decide quite quickly what your weight actually is – if you’re fidgeting around on the scale it will wait until you stop and bam, got your weight.

What it doesn’t do quickly is everything else. It appears to be doing the heart rate, body scan, EDA in serial operation meaning you wait for each scan to progress and if it fails one and you wanted that scan there’s no option for “this didn’t work want to try again?” (yes, you can grab your phone and bypass this but not from the scale).

Since my surgery my vascular age has decreased five years (indicating I’m younger,) by destroying a vein pathway and blocking a large chunk of my blood supply, being laid up for a month of no exercise, but that is the only thing indicated from a scale that I would have thought would do more. There’s no negative change shown now that my brachiocephalic vein has been capped off (messed up by the tumor, then sizzled by doctors,) other than to say my vein age looks much younger than it used to with newly impaired pathways. That seems odd. Really, even when the tumor was in the vein I had better blood flow.

Perhaps I am judging this a bit harshly, but after losing 54 pounds (several months, not during this review,) facing my own mortality, having major surgery, being in bed for just under a month on oxycontin, and the scale doesn’t really budge it makes me feel like there’s not a lot of useful general health monitoring. No “hey buddy, you just lost 54 pounds in the past few months, you ok?” “you appear severely dehydrated, drink some water,” “you appear to be stressed out facing the potential end of your own existence, go grab a taco,” Or maybe my body just was so used to operating under terror conditions nothing really changed in my reports.

In the end no matter how bad I felt, how terrible the pain I was in, what level of hydration I was at there was little to indicate it in the results I got from the Body Scan other than that I lost some muscle mass over the past two months.

Interesting guesses at my muscle mass locations that I don’t quite buy. I’ll believe the percentages but the locations no. My fat percentage appears about right based on what I learned during my long medical ordeal. Heart rate fine when it can find it (yes, I have the pads touched correctly). The EDA does not show anything of much use to me.

That was my experience with The Withings Body Scan. Great scale, fat/muscle/bone mass seems to be accurate. Distribution of fat/muscle does not seem quite right. EDA score effectively useless for health indication for me. Doesn’t pick up other heart anomalies.

I love Withings products, and if this were at a lower price point or included the Withings+ subscription I’d be less judgmental, but it feels like a Body+ with a couple of extra features that didn’t seem to fly with my body and situation. Perhaps this is aimed at significantly less tumor-burdened athletes, but I really would have hoped that a health scan I did daily would have picked up some change during the worst couple of months of my life. As far as I can tell it didn’t.

I suspect some of this can be addressed with a software update down the line, but I’m reviewing what it has been and is for me.

The Withings Body Scan is available on Withings.com. I’m going to suggest one of their other fine products however.

---

Withings Body Scan – a daily check up in your bathroom? by Paul E King first appeared on Pocketables.

The Dreo Purifier Tower Fan MC710s is a dual motor oscillating tower fan with an air purification filter in the base that can be controlled via the fan, a remote control, or the Dreo app (which works with Google Home / Assistant and Alexa.)

It moves air at up to 27 feet per second (1558 cfm,) through a user swappable HEPA H13 drum filter and has a second motor devoted to air purification (and oscillation?). Areas of oscillation can be defined as well as whether you want to use it or not, and the fan can be cranked to paper-scattering speeds or down to something called night mode.

Being in the south, this “night mode” is not something I would consider using as it does not drown out the sound of crickets, or traffic.

I hadn’t really appreciated what a connected fan could do until I got a Dreo fan that I believe has been renamed. You just never remember to kick on a fan until you’re in bed half asleep and realize you have not kicked on a fan… ok google, turn on the mini fan.

The Dreo Purifier Tower Fan MC710s has temporarily taken up residence at my work as we are going through some issues with the heating and cooling… specifically that my office suddenly doesn’t have any duct work going to it (someone took it). Seems to work pretty well in a smallish office to move air around, and if it had a heating element I know three people who would be bugging me for it. No heating element… womp womp.

One of the things I dig about the tower fan is that it has a regular power plug and not something my cats can simply disconnect when the zoomies hit. This has been a problem with two of my previous Dreo devices (the easy pull out 5 volt plug.) Oh yeah, not that my cats are in my office just giving an example.

The Dreo Purifier Tower Fan MC710S also provides you with information about air quality in the house, and temperature. All of this is visible on the app and the device, however on the device you have to select through items.

Small issues encountered with the Dreo Purifier Tower Fan MC710S

While there are few problems encountered there are two things I feel were noteworthy. The first being that connecting the Dreo app (on Android,) to the MC710S started out great but then it told me to press and hold a button for 5 seconds that was just not there. I discovered I needed to press and turn it on, even though it was found and connectable. Then I was able to pair it by pressing a button that became visible with backlighting.

The other issue involves the drum and it’s a procedural one I’m feeling we could skip. The drum has to be removed from plastic before you can use the unit unless you want to risk fire damage. Why? The wrapped up drum was in a completely bagged up Dreo Purifier Tower Fan MC710S in what without the effort of UPS would have been an airtight box. Just not a lot of reason I see to ship something with a large warning label that it’s flammable.

Wrap up

Nice little device, I suspect Dr. Who fans will see a Dalek as the base wearing a tophat. It’s not exactly the look I would have chosen but it looks fairly sleek and modern.

There is a lot of Dreo’s tower fan to love coming in at about 4 feet tall. I don’t have the MSRP as of writing, so can’t really comment on pricing but Dreo filters are going to be an ongoing expense you’d want to factor into your purchasing budget.

You can grab a Dreo Purifier Tower Fan MC710S from Dreo’s website.

The Dreo Purifier Tower Fan MC710S: Remote, Wi-Fi, tower fans, and an air purifier all in one by Paul E King first appeared on Pocketables.

I’m going to assume you know what a Bluetooth speaker is and are probably in the market for one and have stumbled across this wondering if the Tribit Stormbox Flow is any good. It appears so.

tl;dr – decent speaker with no obvious red flags, slightly uninspiring outdoors but perfectly acceptable for personal music outdoors.

I’ve been impressed with Tribit in the past with the Tribit Stormbox Blast taking a spot on my shelf and used in quite a few of my wife’s Girl Scout events as it just works, sounds great, etc. As far as I can tell I’ve kept or kept up with every Stormbox product they’ve sent me with the Stormbox Micro 2 now living with my neighbor who needed a small speaker to play some music for their baby.

The XBass technology sounds remarkably almost like a much more expensive speaker, but you can feel the difference. It does a great job of faking it but you might want to disable this if you’re attempting an entire weekend (waking weekend,) of music. The XBass cranks it to 11 by adding another 10d and sounds pretty decent but drains the battery faster. Unfortunately that even gain gets lost pretty quickly in the open air unless you’re somewhat close.

I did distance tests for Bluetooth range in a fairly corporate hellscape of wiring, and it worked fine. It’s far too loud for an office, not loud enough for a party of more than 8, but pretty good for a few friends and something like a campsite.

You can also charge your phone off of the 4800mAh/3.65v 17.5Wh battery, however you’re limited to the top half of the battery so the max you’re going to be able to charge is about 2400mAh if the unit is fully charged.

Unit can pair with another to create a nice stereo effect. I didn’t test this as I only had one. I have no answer as of publication if this is capable of stereo pairing with another of the Stormbox series although other reviews tend to indicate that’s a negative.

I find myself in a weird area here with this being a fine speaker, but I vastly appreciated the Blast and Micro 2 significantly more. This is a solid entry but doesn’t have quite the oomf to make it the greatest, but that’s ok because it’s solid.

It appears you still have to have an account to access firmware updates, but there are some that come out of the gate and you should grab them to prevent discovering anything obnoxious.

This product was supplied to me by Tribit, and it arrived right before my surgery and the post surgery testing has not involved a lot of real world testing how it works being dropped off a cliff or submerged in a bucket of water, but it’s been an acceptable and pleasing performance.

It’s a solid addition to the Stormbox line, but fails to excite me at the current product pricing. I’d say “wow” if it where in the $50 range, but it feels a bit high right now. Eh, I’m a cheapskate though.

You can grab a Tribit Stormbox Flow on Amazon or Tribit’s website.

Tribit Stormbox Flow – BT 5.3, 25 watts, 30 hr of use by Paul E King first appeared on Pocketables.