XTAR is a company that deals in USB rechargeable batteries among other things. In this case they asked if I was interested in reviewing their 4150mwh AA batteries and giving them a review. I agreed, but as these reviews take time, this is a running review of how they work for me.
TL;DR – running review last update August 5, 2024
In the past I had three USB rechargeable brands in a row that were, to put it nicely, not what was advertised. Each was filled to the brim with 5 star reviews talking about how much people were going to save but never any follow ups other than that they stopped working a couple of months in.
But, I tried USB rechargeable back in the early days, and also some relatively early consumer rechargeables, and my experiences were the same – worked for a couple of months and then I had spent $20 before they broke to replace $5 worth of standard batteries.
My experience with one USB rechargable battery manufacturer also showed me that attempting to get any after sale service (for 4 out of 8 batteries) was not worth it.
XTAR contacted me and asked if I wanted to try their 4150mwh USB rechargeable batteries and I figured why not? I’d love to see if rechargeable batteries have reached a point where they actually will pay for themselves, power my devices properly, and last as long as a normal.
What was in the box (August 5, 2024)
I received one XTAR Wall Adapter which is a Qualcomm 3.0 USB wall charger, 4xAA batteries and a charging dock for them.
While I don’t think you require the USB wall adapter, you do apparently require a USB output higher than my standing desk was providing and unfortunately I don’t have the specs on it handy at the moment. Batteries appeared to be charging and then the unit would shut off. Plugged it into the charger they sent and it seemed fine.
I believe the batteries were sent in a nearly charged state as charging did not take long. Only thing to really note here is that the indicators for charging (red) or charged (green) are difficult to discern at an angle.
Now to put them in things and see how they work…
On of my biggest gripes with rechargeables is that the ones I’ve had last about a week and are dead, so here goes… 2 in my utility flashlight, 2 in a kid’s toy. Flashlight light appears as bright as using my Amazon Basics AA batteries.
Today was an interesting day – as I may have mentioned I’m printing up fast removable suite number signs as a work project using a Bambu A1 Mini. Today’s task was to get our logo and a quick left/right directory for an elevator in which you’re given a quick orientation for which way to go when you exit the elevator.
The difficulty was our logo’s font does not exist, it was designed by an artist sometime in the 80s or 90s and we have a couple of high resolution files but no vector graphics. So my challenge was take a high resolution image and turn it into a sign with directional indicators to be placed in an elevator.
I decided I was going to use MakerWorld’s Make My Sign (free) for making this thing which did everything I needed it to do except provide arrows and turn a PDF the size of Rhode Island into an SVG.
For the arrows I just googled “left arrow emoji” and “right arrow emoji” and cut and paste them in a text box because that looked perfect. Placed white text on a dark background and I had everything I needed except our logo.
The task of turning a PDF image into an SVG involved me cutting the logo in Windows using windows-shift-s and pasting it into an MSPaint document, saving as a PNG, then going to PNGtoSVG.com (also free, no registration required, no emailing of link,) and playing with simplifying the logo from multicolor to 1 or 2.
Downloaded the SVG, imported into Make My Sign, resized, positioned, and printed.
Now it’d be really cool if I showed you what I made, but I’m not entirely enthused at the prospect of broadcasting where I work to the world (you can find it easy enough,) so I’ll just throw in the image of the Pocketables printable logo I made while attempting to figure out all the steps required to make my project work.
I don’t think the bluish part was thick enough, but for a simple little logo it’s done the job (this is not the one I did for my work)
Fun times. As a note I have printed several suite numbers with the removable contraption but this one was fun and made me a wee bit giddy printing up my company’s logo. Yeah I’m boring.
On August 13, 2024 DREO, the manufacturer of many of my favorite air-moving devices, will move into the kitchen space by moving air into milk and the like to froth it. The official kickstarter date is the 13th of August and for pre-order start the 15th September on dreo.com and some retailers.
Armed with a touch screen, a heating element, and magnetic driven frothing blades the BaristaMaker makes the perfect froth for drink art, and generally adds to any regular coffee to punch it up a notch.
We received the BaristaMaker a few days ago and have incorporated it into our coffee rotation, which is only a few cups thus far so bear in mind this is not a review of how it performs over time.
We’ve thrown 2%, oat, and soy milk at the thing and in each case ended up with a fairly frothy foam. With the oat milk I had already poured it in on the milk frothing impeller and discovered you can hot swap without your fingers touching the oat milk. Magnetic impellers are something new to me and appear to make cleanup a breeze.
I do hope to have more of a review near release date, but I am attempting to not waste milk, oat milk, soy milk, etc. This means with my and my wife’s coffee intake we’re using it about three times a week. We have thus far just progressed into coffee art but nothing to write a blog about yet. I can make a couple of lines and Kim was able to make something resembling a shrub.
While our art skills need upped, I suspect this is entirely on us and not the foam quality produced by the DREO BaristaMaker. I’m enjoying our coffee drinks about 20% more as it stands, the froth combines with Kirkland’s Finest coffee and some simple syrup to produce something I would not have an issue paying for at a coffee shop.
Anyway, hopefully by the time it’s out I’ll have more of a review. Problem with not drinking huge amounts of coffee after my surgery and not wanting to waste milk have slowed said review down.
Below is the press release, and feel free to ask me any questions while I continue to use the BaristaMaker
DREO Unveils BaristaMaker: The Ultimate Smart Milk Frother for Perfect Latte Art
Clifton, NJ – July 25, 2024 DREO, a leader in smart home innovation, proudly announces the launch of the DREO BaristaMaker, the most professional smart milk frother capable of creating latte art with all types of milk. This revolutionary device is set to take home coffee making to the next level, delivering barista-quality microfoam at the touch of a button.
With a unique blend of food science and barista mastery, DREO’s new milk frother allows coffee lovers to achieve the most exquisite frothy milk at home effortlessly. This new milk frother is the culmination of extensive research and a patented propeller technology meticulously designed to replicate the technique of professional baristas. After thousands of simulations mimicking the frothing process of expert baristas in their R&D kitchen, DREO has developed a milk frother capable of emulating the froth quality found in commercial coffee shops, surpassing the capabilities of most traditional, off-the-shelf home frothers with unmatched froth quality and texture.
DREO BaristaMaker Milk Frother will be available on Kickstarter from 13th August and for pre-order from 15th September on dreo.com and trusted retailers including Amazon and select authorized partners.
Stunning Microfoam for Latte Art
DREO BaristaMaker Milk Frother creates 0.5mm micro-bubbles, producing silky, shiny, dense microfoam similar to that found in coffeehouses. DREO has developed a patented impeller tip that precisely controls the direction of flow. Traditional disc tips may not always move the milk in the right direction, but BaristaMaker’s impeller blade ensures that the milk is consistently directed to the center for continuous mixing. As the milk is drawn to the center, DREO’s specially designed micro-level screen transforms normal-sized bubbles into rich, dense microfoam during the multi-stage frothing process.
DREO has also created a multi-stage milk frothing program that replicates each frothing step used by an expert barista with a high-pressure frothing wand. It starts by quickly heating the milk to the perfect temperature, creating the right balance of texture and flavor. Next, it mixes air into the milk to create larger bubbles by increasing the speed of rotation. Once enough foam has formed, it slows down the speed, directs the milk to the center using the impeller, and meticulously transforms these larger bubbles into dense, silky microfoam.
Compatibility with Plant-Based Milks
The popularity of plant-based milks has grown significantly in recent years due to dietary preferences, lactose intolerance, and environmental concerns. Recognizing this shift, DREO developed BaristaMaker to ensure it could produce perfect microfoam with both dairy and plant-based milks, bringing versatility and superior performance to a wide range of users. DREO’s food scientists carried out in-depth analysis of the protein and fat content of these milks from a range of different brands and developed a special algorithm that adapts to these different types of milk and delivers consistently high-quality frothing performance. Whether you’re a fan of almond milk, oat milk, soy milk, or coconut milk, this amazing machine can froth it all to perfection.
Versatile from Frothing to Stirring
BaristaMaker offers multiple frothing settings, allowing you to choose from microfoam, thick foam, and cold foam, depending on your preference and the type of beverage you are making. This versatility ensures that you can enjoy a wide variety of coffee styles at home. In addition to coffee, BaristaMaker is an excellent companion for powdered beverages such as matcha, hot chocolate, and other specialty drinks. Its frothing capabilities enhance the texture and flavor of these beverages, creating a rich and satisfying experience every time.
Designed with the User in Mind
BaristaMaker includes a professional stainless steel pitcher and is dishwasher safe. Its user-friendly features ensure that you can concentrate on enjoying your coffee without complicated settings or difficult cleaning procedures.
Endorsed by Media Enthusiasts and Barista World Champions
On the 16th of July, DREO hosted an exclusive media event in New York City, where media partners from top-tier media outlets got a hands-on experience with BaristaMaker. The media partners were impressed by its innovative features and intuitive design, as well as its ability to create micro-foam for latte art. And they’re looking forward to publishing dedicated reviews of this impressive machine!
DREO is proud to announce partnerships with three distinguished baristas: Anthony Douglas, the 2022 World Barista Champion; Dale Harris, the 2017 World Barista Champion; and Mikael Jasin, the 2024 World Barista Champion. These renowned experts will serve as ambassadors for BaristaMaker and the DREO brand, showcasing the technology and exceptional results of this groundbreaking product.
Anthony Douglas commented, “If I’m focusing purely on the quality that I get from the BaristaMaker it would have to be a 10 out of 10. It’s the best milk I’ve experienced and it’d be pretty hard to top.”
Availability and Exclusive Kickstarter Offer
“It is an invitation to elevate your coffee making experience and bring the art of perfectly frothed milk to the consumer. We believe that great frothed milk should be accessible to everyone and BaristaMaker is our way of making that possible. Going forward, DREO will continue to invest in and develop new technology within the coffee category and revolutionise the home beverage experience,” said Joshua Gunn, VP of Sales at DREO.
DREO BaristaMaker Milk Frother will be available on Kickstarter starting August 13th, with a Super Early Bird offer of up to 30% off the suggested retail price of $99. Don’t miss out—pre-orders will open to the wider public on September 15th. Plus, by joining the DREO community, you could win a grand prize valued at up to $3,200! Be part of the coffee revolution. Support us on Kickstarter and be among the first to experience the future of frothed milk!
I’ve got my A1 Mini at work because 1) I’ve got a large work project I am doing on it 2) I have no space at home, and 3) every time that printer is printing I am sneezing. So I use it when I can be in another location.
I started a print on Friday with some brand new PLA from Bambu labs. I had printed a few things earlier in the day and had no problem but then one of the projects I downloaded from Maker World printed so weirdly I aborted it (globs, not sticking to the surface.) I was in a rush and closing down the software and accidentally chose to update preferences and now I get spaghetti.
Womp womp. The above spaghetti is off of a spool which was not the new spool and had been nothing but working prints until I accidentally updated something.
I highly suspect I managed to break the settings on a project, but yeah now I’m trying to figure out how to fix this. Fun time since it’s not at my house and I can’t clear the plate to fix until tomorrow.
So I now know spaghetti detection is not implemented yet on the A1 mini…
Oddly not seeing a lot of help when I’m searching this up other than delete a profile, log back into the program, and do not sync cloud profiles.
Will reveal the amazing solution when I find it. At a little over a month this is the first challenge I’ve faced made more of a challenge by being 8 miles away from me at the moment.
Fix appears to have been close Bambu Studio, open it, log out, log back in, do not sync cloud values and settings. I’m at 3/4ths of an SS Benchy with the new filament and no evident issues.
That said, the spaghetti I was printing up there appears to have been fine through about a quarter of the print and then the base was flung off the textured plate. I now have questions about whether this may be an issue of the print piece not being centered more than a bad setting.
But all appears well with the world at the moment… which is nice because I actually lost sleep trying to retrace my steps
Other possibility is a Dreo fan I recently reviewed was running at an odd number, may have been blowing on the unit and cooling the front of the plate down which is where all my fails seem to have occurred. I suspect Google Assistant misheard something and set it to Tornado.
With the world’s eyes on France for some reason this week, Withings has decided to get into the game by launching the Withings Health Games, a two- week challenge encouraging people to go for a medal in their health journey.
The games run until August 11, 2024 and pit Withings users against themselves (and possibly others) using an Acti-score… want a gold in dishwashing? Might be yours for the taking. Bronze in dog walking? You can do better.
Due to some other games going on in my life I managed to miss this announcement and the Withings games have been going on for a couple of days. So catch up!
The Withings Health Games should appear in your Withings app and probably require one of their amazing watches, which I highly recommend.
While we have wired file exploring on all versions of Windows in use today, and a clunky phone integration, but a new method will appear (if you want it,) and wired or wireless and allow you to move files from or to your phone even if it’s sitting on a wireless charger in the living room (or sitting in the car) directly from Windows File Explorer.
It’s currently available only for the Windows Insider crowd, but will probably filter to Windows 11 main soon enough.
Not world shattering, but does mark the final days of plugging a phone into a computer to move off 200 gigs of photos.
There have been third party methods of doing this in the past, but this is the first MS attempt and is one of the few of MS’s new everything-in-one-OS strategy I appreciate.
If you already know how, skip. Nobody’s forcing you to read. For those who don’t know how to share a Wi-FI AP and Password without trying to run through “Lowecase T as in Tom, the number 1, two hash marks, an elephant emoji, and the word COW all in lower case, 2444666668888888” there’s a freakin’ easy way to share on Android (probably iOS too but I am sans i-device at the moment).
Swipe down, choose internet, locate the Wi-Fi you want to share, open it up via the cog, choose share, you may be prompted to verify that it’s you sharing this, and a QR code will be produced.
Simply have the person who needs it open their camera app, point it at your QR code, and they should get a prompt to join a Wi-Fi without being prompted for a password. If for some reason the process fails, you at least have the password up on the screen and they can type it in.
Should you want to print up a QR code that does similar so your guests don’t have to deal with a complex password when joining your network, we have a tutorial on how it needs to be formatted here if using a QR Code generator and text input, or you can go to any QR Code generator on the net and do it for free. I would personally advise setting up a guest network and giving them access to that Wi-Fi rather than your home secure network, but you do you.
Also if using QR code generators on the internet, there’s zero reason to sign up, pay, etc. Don’t be scammed. I am not putting a link to a QR code generator in this article, so do not email me asking if I would insert your QR code generating website ;)
The story part about why I’m writing this article and includes references to my ancestors mostly omitted, but I did have to share Wi-Fi networks quite a bit recently and it seemed nobody knew that you could just open the camera app, look at a QR code, and it would trigger a Wi-Fi connect.
Last month I picked up a 3D printer, the Bambu A1 Mini. My plans for this are to design two items that simply do not exist, and a project for work. For the moment I’m learning quite a bit and printing up fidget toys and waiting on some black filament for the work project.
So far I’ve had no major disasters, a couple of minor printing errors that I believe were due to shaky table and badly positioned trash bucket, and have been impressed at the point I’ve stepped into the game it appears really user friendly. I guess going on for the past 40 something years have given it a pretty good head start for me.
I had a short vacation during this time, so there’s only a couple of weeks of me playing with the thing but man, the A1 mini has been a really good experience thus far.
A coworker is going to be bringing in another 3D printer that was abandoned by his kids because it was too hard to learn and we’re going to see if his kids just had a problem or if the thing really is that much harder. Supposedly was a good printer, but I’m new to the game so just taking that on what was told to me.
If you’ve ever been curious about it, Bambu’s entry price wasn’t bad, and I’ve so far printed up enough toys to probably have offset the price.
Now my task is to see whether I can actually create what I want to build and it be useful. One of my personal tasks unfortunately requires more print space than I can get with the A1 Mini, so I’ve got to figure out a way to print it in parts and while that doesn’t seem that difficult it’s something I had not factored into my near-impulse buy.
What I am have invented is going to make life slightly better for people in a couple of highly specific situations… if I can figure out how to print a medium sized build on a mini sized printer.
Or maybe it’s crap, but I can probably tell within the next week or two.
Man, I wonder what I would have done when I had more than 5 minutes between interruptions.
One of the recurring scams you’ll run across on Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, and anywhere where a scammer can operate is the free PS5 or free high end notebook. Substitute any free item really, the scam is the same.
There’s usually a backstory on the gaming systems about how either their kid died and they want someone to get enjoyment from the thing, their kid is terrible and they want them to suffer. The backstory on the notebook is usually cheating husband/wife/whatever and now it’s time for revenge in a fashion in which you actually are agreeing to be part of an illegal transaction (you can’t give someone else’s stuff away, that’s called stealing).
But illegalities aside, you know it’s a scam but what is the scam?
Comes down to it costing $20 or so to ship because even though they’re local somehow this laptop, gaming system, etc requires shipping and possibly an insurance fee against damage and you have to pay it to the scammer. Now, $20 or so for mailing doesn’t seem like a lot for them to gain, but they’re doing it to a whole lot of people simultaneously. Quite often you’re paying a compromised Paypal/Venmo/cash app that the owner isn’t aware yet they’re involved in scamming people.
In my neighborhood we had people offering to purchase homeless people’s identity for use on Cash App / Venmo / etc to use as a “legitimate” looking cash app tunnel for a few hundred dollars. It’s fairly easy to get a formerly legit identity and when you go after the person, well, they sold that to someone else and what are you going to take from them?
Short of it becomes are you going to spend 8-12 hours fighting with PayPal or Mastercard over being scammed $30? File a police report? At least some people are not, saying something to the effect of they didn’t get that much and I’ll be smarter in the future, and thus we have a thriving scam running barely checked until the end of time.
It falls under Advance Fee scams although that page (run by the US govt evidently,) doesn’t address it exactly.
There’s a Monty Python scene where there’s a man saying he’s not dead yet while two other people are arguing about whether he is and that’s what this feels like. Not dead, just busy, learning new things, and still recovering from that surgery.
I had a meeting with a Crowdstrike representative about a month ago, told them many times our office was not a candidate but they wanted me to view a demo and I was like ok… you’re supplying wine but it’s not happening. Decided against them for reasons that totally have to do with me foreseeing Friday’s disaster. I kid, just was not for us, but yeah bullet dodged.
Been chugging along with the Bambu A1 Mini with a work project and also working on designing my fridge condiment stacker I came up with in 2020 as a way to free up about a foot of storage space in a fridge by storing certain shaped condiments at angles. Will it work? Not a clue.
I have no big plans for the site, but I am dropping the theme and will be dropping our ad network at the end of this cycle. Ads have become more problematic than profitable lately.
On that note, I am probably going to shut down the forums in the next couple of months. Nobody uses them and the primary activity I see there is spammers spamming unsuccessfully. I was never a member of the Pocketables forums when they were popular, coming from G&E after the merger when the commentary had died down significantly, so they’re not a thing for me – if you use them for reference I suggest archiving them.
To chase the algorithm I am probably going to start removing content that’s just terribly outdated and serves no purpose. Much of this is decades old Apple related that for some reason gets an insane amount of bot traffic.
Had more to write but got to pick up a vehicle and drop my dad off at a doctor’s appointment
Have you ever wished you could create your own cell phone company similar to Mint Mobile or Ting and just call it “TMobile sux” with T-Mobile doing all the towers, maintenance, billing, and day to day operations? Well that’s happening with T-Mobile’s “Your Name, Our Wireless” service.
It looks like from the description that they handle pretty much everything and you slap some words and a picture in and they handle the rest from billing to tech support and a web portal to mange customer data.
I highly suspect we’ll see branded political MNVOs being sold soon enough, as well as plenty of deceptively named services, although I suspect that’s against their terms of service although I would love to see a couple called Better Than Verizon and AT&T Can Suck It Mobile before the whole thing implodes with small timers setting up MNVOs.
I can’t see this being anything but a dumpster fire waiting to happen. It’s like this was presented to a board room and someone said “Why now?” and someone else said “Brilliant… YNOW… YOUR NAME OUR WIRELESS” followed by ca-ching sounds while throwing paper.
I will be surprised if many popular musicians didn’t have an MNVO by the end of the year.
I gave the kids a week to pack and come up with any tech requests they needed. All they needed really was headsets and a portable batteries or two and they could be through the airline portion entertained. They couldn’t find any of these which is strange because I’ve given each of them three headsets and they stole all of my portable batteries.
Balanced rocks in water. Not sure if this was done by my wife or by the people who were balancing rocks before we got there. Outskirts of Olympic National Park.
I learned that my AOHI Magcube for some reason fell out of every bottom outlet I plugged it into in Oregon and Washington. I do not have that problem in any outlet I tested it in in Tennessee and can only assume that the age of the places I was staying probably had something to do with it.
I took 3 power cables for four devices, of those 2 power cables two went bad in my bag. I used to be the person who wondered what people were doing to their power cables to destroy them and now I’m getting USB-C cables with no apparent damage getting slow <1amp charging.
I got to drive one of the sportier 2024 BMW models as a rental because Enterprise Rent-A-Car was out of the family wagons we wanted. After a week with it I have enough tales for an article, which will be forthcoming probably. BMW’s offline navigation occasionally wants you to drive through someone’s yard is one of the highlights.
You can’t get your cell phone to focus and take a picture in the time a whale is up. Just put it on video or drop the camera.
When roaming into Canada for the first time on T-Mobile you’ll get a text telling you you’ve got 5GB of data included with your T-Mobile plan.
If two people on the same T-Mobile tower choose to navigate to the same location chances are there will be two different results from Google Maps. My result of course took us through a 50 minute traffic jam caused by a stalled car.
No matter what I set my Nest thermostat to do it would override me eventually and I’ll wake up to an alert that my house was getting hot from another device I have that monitors temperature among other things.
I got tricked by Google Ads when I was attempting to install Parking Kitty and instead clicked their advertised content. Really don’t know how that happened but it did.
Learned that playing music on a child’s profile there’s no way to keep it playing through the night if they have a downtime. I’d add 24 hours and the phones would lock at midnight or so and kiddos would wake up. Both listen to music or white noise on their Google Home devices so this was a change we expected would be manageable via their phones. But I don’t trust either of them with an unlocked phone after bedtime, so problems all around.
I will probably never purchase a Sony TV and sound system. Inlaws got one and man… from motion smoothing on everything to boomy echoing on the sound system everything felt like I was sitting outside of a drive-in theater trying to watch the movie listening to some dude’s car stereo from half a mile away. Their biggest complaint is turning it off evidently involves exiting whatever app you’re in, going to the home screen and then pressing power. I thought I turned it off one night and nope, it was still on.
I’ve reviewed a few solar panels in the past but the EBL 120W panel is the first I’ve run across that you can bend when mounting. The flexibility allows for mounting along curves of vehicles nicely, but could probably be utilized for making sure a portion of the panel is facing the sun all day.
I can’t call this post much of a review because I don’t cover solar much, it appears it just works, and seems well built. If you’ve ever read my reviews you understand this is problematic. A thing that works and doesn’t have a couple of things it need right off the bat, sounds like I’m selling something.
You can bend slightly further than this but not without some force
Bending aspect aside, it’s a fairly standard solar setup. I never quite got it to reach 120 watts while I was testing, but I neared it. Overcast, muggy, humid weather stopped it short. I attempted to test against a 100 watt solar panel I have, results ended up being similar. Unfortunately I don’t have an artificial sun to test with so I’m going to say it did what it claimed it would
On a bright and sunny day I almost filled this battery (not included) from dead
The unit comes with some straps for temporary mounting, but no adapters for tiny little batteries like pictured above (I have a few for this purpose.)
During testing nothing came up except for some overcast days. It’s survived a couple of storms and is plugging along as expected. This is a weird review because I always find something to pick on even if I like a product, but other than the flexibility there’s not a lot different between this and every other solar panel I’ve encountered.
At this point I do not have anything against it. It just seemed to work and has some potential I can’t exploit as nobody has given me an RV to test it on (anyone want to send me an RV?) so I will be attempting to plug it into my house and save a dime a day in electric / perhaps chain it with the other two similar but foldable solar panels I have sitting about.
A while back on Vine I’d picked up a tablet of remarkable minor problems. One of them being that the USB port only worked on the most antiquated chargers I had. I had never investigated setting it up for ADB as this was my for my kiddos on managed accounts and hidden behind a password. Secure enough for a kid’s tablet.
The device developed a little crack from a drop, which was no big deal, it was still usable. I attempted to instill the understanding of the need for a password as I assume (erring on the side of caution) managed accounts have some of my information. Even if they don’t I want my kids to have a lock on their phones so if they lose them someone else can’t make calls to <pick country that would cost a lot to call> or be used to call in fake emergency services calls. Simple security.
The tablet’s main user decides what she’s going to use as her password. Yay! Then she figures out how to set the wallpaper on the lock screen so it shows her her password in case she forgets it. Boo!
And then someone steps on the tablet.
We were left with a tablet that the touch screen was completely unresponsive. I attempted to get into the bootloader, nope, attempted adb, nope (didn’t even recognize it,) even looked up the part for the screen and it was more than the tablet was worth.
Exhausting all methods I knew from my ROM flashing days I resigned myself and went into the Google Family Link program and chose to wipe the tablet as there was no saving this beast.
And nothing happened.
Nothing.
The tablet was connected to our Wi-Fi, powered on, I could lock and unlock it from Family Link, but the wipe and erase function straight up did nothing. We waited hours. I repeatedly wiped and erased remotely. I made the unit beep for it’s location and to verify that it was getting commands. But it never wiped the tablet.
I spent about two weeks attempting everything I could think of, bearing in mind my rooting days were about 3 phones behind me, and I couldn’t even see that anything was connected when I plugged the tablet into my computer. There was only power drain. Never anything.
Then again, might not be anything if ADB was never turned on… but I couldn’t turn it on. The only thing I didn’t try was a USB Keyboard and mouse and I would have needed a USB-A to C adapter which have gone off somewhere to hide for a decade.
Deciding this was a gaping glaring security risk it was time to take the mini sledgehammer to it. I whacked it in a bag hard enough to pop the screen off the back, gently removed the battery as I didn’t want to let the magic smoke out, and went about destroying the storage.
That accomplished I felt it was now safe to recycle the rest.
I may have been a bit paranoid thinking her managed account could somehow come back to bite me, but let’s put it simply that I don’t want to find yet another zero day in which a compromised child account manages to gain access to an adult’s OAUTH2 tokens or some such.
After the destruction we went over security measures once again and that making the lock screen wallpaper be your password was a bad idea.
The stepping on the tablet, it’s an accident and why they got an inexpensive device. Next one I will make sure to add some sort of remote access app for times when this happens as evidently I can’t trust Family Link to do it.
I thought about taking some pictures, but I didn’t really like the destruction. I didn’t want to do this, I just wanted to recycle the thing, but it’s somehow tied to my Google account, however minutely, and I just watched my accountant’s digital life go down in flames due to a scam app, so not really willing to risk it.
Hi, I’m Paul and I recently discovered I needed to make a few things that apparently don’t exist at the moment. Now, the journey to making those things isn’t this article, this is just about setting up the unit, my first tugboat, and my first print on the first 3D printer I’ve ever had access to.
TL;DR – total noob vs well planned out device
After discussing in the discord channel that I was looking for a 3D printer Bambu Labs was mentioned and I went on to watch a few videos discussing why the A1 Mini was not terrible. I was more interested in the “meh, get it” reviews than the vast majority of the reviews out there saying that it was great. Even people with the absurd systems tended to think at least it was a great starter printer and all around probably pretty decent.
I checked the rave reviews after this and decided that if I had checked them first I probably would have wandered off due to built in positive commercial blocking.
So I decided to order the Bambu Lab A1 Mini Combo and 3 spools of Filament due to there being an anniversary sale (still going on) and that I thought I was ordering 4 spools… eh, my bad.
I placed the order, and maybe two days later I had the spools and notification that the A1 Mini Combo had shipped.
What happened next, only UPS knows as they took possession of it and then it sat with the status “emergency situation or extreme weather” for several days. I wasn’t in a particular rush as I didn’t have the place set up for it and I had a vacation I had to attend to, but Bambu Lab had done their part and I contacted them the day UPS released it and gave a date for delivery.
I wanted to devote 3 hours to setting it up and a first print, so it sat for a few days until I could do this. Based on the pictures I have from unboxing to printing my first tugboat was an hour and 13 minutes. This included several minutes in which the printer went through an initial calibration and noise testing and otherwise did things it will probably not do on a routine basis.
I was a bit surprised at the packaging and setup process. The packaging seemed overkill and includes having to remove 4 screws and an arm that exists solely to prevent movement. This encased in foam, cardboard, etc. I’ve got a trash can full of half recyclable materials here. Maybe better safe than sorry.
Attempting to pair the printer to my Bambu Handy account had some bumps… seems like I had some minor issue creating the account where it would just sit and spin for a minute before giving me an error message and then disappearing. That either cleared up or I chose to log in using Google, I can’t remember which.
My first print started and after gazing at a print head printing stuff for suitably long enough I returned to another project. Things seemed to be going along well so I left it unattended until I heard a weird noise, turned around, and most of the printing part of the unit was off of a table and about to throw itself to the floor.
I didn’t know what to do at this point other than grab the not-hot and not moving parts of it and move it back to the table. As such I believe was the creation of the issues with the back of the boat and at least one line on the front. The unit was not in a stable enough position and was shaking itself silly.
I decided to do a second print and was informed there was an error and that I needed to do run a self test. Wish I’d taken screen shots, but I ended up having to Google it and whatever it did took less than a minute and as it finished I was informed there was a firmware update and chose to take it.
After the firmware update and issues I didn’t have enough time to do a second print that day – it was now saying it wanted me to oil the Y access and I saw no printed documentation for that. Figured I would do that in the morning and print up something one of my children wanted. I did not want to run another print unattended because 1) I had not oiled it yet and wanted to make sure I did everything properly, 2) I did not want to come back to a printer on the ground.
A quick and easy lube later I printed my first Axolotl (highest rated in the Bambu Handy app, I have no idea how to link it yet.) With the printer positioned in a much more stable location and using a different filament I had no visible printing issues like I had previously with the boat.
I fully realize at the end of day 2 I have only reached the point of printing other people’s stuff, but with the time I have been able to devote to it that’s where I expect to be.
My goal tomorrow is to take a logo for my work with a font that does not exist and print up a small door plate. This is going to be interesting because I see how to do it if you have the font, but many moons ago (sometime in the 90’s) work’s logo text was designed and drawn and as such I have PSDs, PDFs, but no fonts.
So far I feel like I’m on a guided adventure with the Bambu Lab A1 Mini Combo… there was the thrill of setting it up, the boat which was there waiting for me (assuming on the SD card,) my first error and having to figure out how to get the printer to do anything (if you say I need to run a self check give me a button to run a self check people,) a requirement for lubricating the Y access after the first print, and who knows what the rest is going to bring as I have grease as well, and a couple of tools that have not be used or referenced yet.
I’ll probably end up shortly making some drawer organizers and lock pick holders because I’m cool like that.
Anyhow, just a story of my first two days… I’m on print #3 now and may trust the unit now that it’s positioned better to print something when I am not in the building.
Had an interesting thing happen earlier in the day and that is that every time I opened Chrome my camera notification came on.
I’ll save the long an unnecessary SEO improving pages of why you should be scared of the camera kicking on…
I killed all my chrome tabs, killed chrome, and every time I would come in the camera notification would kick back on.
Earlier in the day I had accessed a web page sent by car insurance people that had me line my car up and take pictures of some damage, and I highly suspect that was where this started as I had to answer yes to allowing Chrome to access the camera to take photos.
Why Chrome kept accessing the camera even with all the tabs closed, I don’t know. It has no need for it other than to report body damage to my car.
There seemed to be no extensions running, no weirdness, but no matter what I do the camera active icon pops on when opening chrome. To disable / calm my paranoia down, I went into app permissions and revoked the camera permission I had granted it earlier in the day and now things are back to normal.
Or my phone’s been hacked because T-Mobile wouldn’t get me the critical firmware update until yesterday.
Whatever the case, the fix appears to be to manually revoke permissions.
The Invoxia GPS Tracker pro is a small rechargeable tracker that works up to three months between charges over cell towers to pinpoint an item’s location. In the event of loss or theft of a vehicle that is being tracked they’ve included a scannable data sheet that an authority can scan and have details of the vehicle currently being tracked.
The connection to the cellular network is a subscription, so there is an ongoing cost but unlike a Bluetooth tracker this will work and report in whether there are iPhones or Androids nearby. The location update frequency can be cranked up to every 30 seconds in the event the object being tracked is actively moving, or the GPS can phone in any time it detects it’s being moved and you’ll have a device that lasts several months on a charge.
Alternately you can simply attach it to a USB in your trunk, or off of your motorcycle battery (some equipment required) and never think about power again.
While there is an around $9 a month charge for the LTE connectivity, the question becomes how much is what you’re tracking worth? Bluetooth trackers work on the kindness of nearby phone strangers, and simply getting a stolen vehicle off the beaten path can defeat them. With an LTE tracker you have to go a bit further and locate an area with no cell towers, or have a quite detectable and illegal cell phone jammer.
The base GPS Tracker Pro is $99 and the monthly service is $8.95 a month or $6.25 a month prepaid/long term (according to Amazon product description)
There’s a proximity radar in the app for when you’re in Bluetooth range to make the unit beep and find it so if you’re close it can get you closer.
You can configure alerts for movement, which I believe would be extremely useful if you’ve got this in a motorcycle and are not on said motorcycle. I will never forget informing a new rider that if you park a bike outside overnight the bike faeries come and escort the bike away. The only issue with the Invoxia GPS Tracker Pro is it’s large enough to be easily spotted in a bike’s trunk.
Nitpicking the Invoxia GPS Tracker Pro
The first thing that comes to mind with this is the theft report form – this is something that’s mailed to a police officer most likely and allows the officer to see via QR code where the tracker is currently reporting it is. Most notably missing useful information here is vehicle identification number, color, perhaps a picture of the vehicle, and contact information beyond name and email.
Thieves swap plates, but they’re probably not going to paint the vehicle and disguise the VIN
It’s a good start, but they need to talk to a police officer or someone who’s ever had their vehicle stolen.
The next thing in a similar vein is that the tracker is portable and you can swap it between vehicles or maybe just throw it in a bag for travel. I’d assume the ability to switch what you’re reporting stolen on the fly might be useful.
Next – it’s 2024, use USB-C already… the Invoxia GPS Tracker Pro has a Micro-USB connection. Come on man. A whole continent told Apple to get with the program due to cable waste already. No more Micro-USB.
There is no option to update more frequently when plugged in. This makes tracking a delivery driver less useful as they may make a stop, deliver an item, and be off before the tracker updates. If you’re paying the cell company charge for service, might as well utilize it when the device has an external power source.
And finally – for a brief time on the Invoxia website, this page in particular, there existed an article that I am told was for the wrong device. They have since removed this at my noticing, but it indicated you could send a help cry by pressing a button. Unfortunately the button is only for resetting the device, but it does seem that the software could be easily modified to report to the app when the tracker had rebooted as a backup emergency button.
Wrap-up
While I have done some nitpicking, overall this works well for a movable rechargeable tracker that stands alone. The app needs a little work, but it’s quite close to being everything I think it needs to be and I suspect they will keep working on it as long as people keep purchasing their products.
The Invoxia GPS Tracker Pro is available on Invoxia’s website and Amazon. The Amazon link is a tagged link, should you not want us to make a commission on sales just go to Amazon and search for it yourself.
GPS Tracker Pro
The Invoxia GPS Tracker Pro is a LTE-enabled tracker that does not rely on a network of strangers to locate your tracker, just a cell signal.
Ugreen has released a 48,000mAh (153Wh) portable power bank with 300 Watt peak output, 3 USB-C ports (one bi-directional) and two USB-A which looked to be the perfect travel companion for a weekend family getaway, so that’s how I tested the unit during 10+ hours of driving and two nights away from a wall-outlet charger.
TL;DR – performed as advertised, have some notes
The UGREEN power bank also sports a little flash light on the side that might be useful in a camping or roadside breakdown with low, high, and flashing, but I didn’t find anything particularly useful about it on my trip, which I guess is a good thing.
I was expecting a higher phone usage than normal, mostly due to taking pictures and video and bored kiddos on the rather un-scenic highways and did a quick bit of math to see what we would need. My Pixel 8 Pro was sporting a 5050 mAh battery, my wife’s Samsung Galaxy 21 Ultra and my oldest’s came in at 5000 each as well, and my old Note 8 had (I believe) a 3300mah battery. From drained to full for the entire family should have been 18,050 mAh give or take. I expected roughly two and a half charges for all our devices based on the mAh rating.
You’re laughing at me at this point, I know. The Pixel 8 pro and Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G both list a 19.25 Watt Hour battery, and the Note 8 is showing 12.71Wh. 70.4 Watt hours total. I should have been expecting slightly over two charges for everyone but I had my eyes on vacation.
I had planned to exit the house with everyone’s phone charged and hit the road for three days and use nothing but this 48K mAh power bank. I woke up to a mostly dead phone on the day we were leaving, 3 actually… ok no problem – I plugged the input line into my car and plugged the two USB C ports into my kid’s phones and watched as the unit went from 100 down to 96 and then back up to 100 over the first day of driving. Mine slowly charged in the wireless cradle, and off we went.
Set up in the hotel I went to charge three phones for for the night and woke up the next morning and two were charged. My Pixel 8 had not charged much, it shut off for adaptive charging that night and did not kick the charging back on when it was supposed to. I unplugged it and plugged it back in and went to eat the delightfully terrible hotel breakfast and came back to a mostly charged phone.
The second day we managed to drain everything other than the battery. Someone had impacted my car in a parking lot, phone calls, videos, and a very long call in a very little service area and just a whole day of looking up places, driving to them and enjoying… and two kids playing Roblox during the boring moving parts meant 4 dead phones on night two.
I woke up to a fully charged phone family and the UGREEN Power Bank claiming it was down to 26%. This was more use than I expected. It had been in the 70’s the night before and now was 35% down. By this point we were at a good 6 phones charged, and that night with dead phones my phone and my wife’s took the last 26%.
The last day of our three day vacation we woke to a completely drained power bank. Plugged it in the car, headed back toward home, and by the time we got home 6ish hours of driving later (different route,) the UGREEN 48000 mAh power bank was full or close to it again.
Other than forgetting that you go by wattage and not mAh this went about as expected with us using and receiving about the expected charge.
The unit fast charges, super fast charges, and probably does some other nifty speed charging tricks, but it delivered the 153 expected Wh give or take, and was a device power station for four people who were taking photos, syncing to the cloud, using data in the middle of nowhere.
Re-reading this at this point I realize this sounds like a fairly device centric vacation. It wasn’t other than Google Maps, and my calls and documentation of the damage to my car.
UGREEN 48000mAh shortcomings?
The lack of plugs or any way to charge this built in feel like an oversight. Just a little wall port charger that can attach and you’d have a complete little travel buddy. As it stands if you walk out with this and forgot to charge it it’s a lump.
While all the fast charging speed options are cool, I do wonder if this had the ability to switch into slower charging mode if less power would be lost to heat. Not that there’s a lot of heat with these.
Wish there was a “display off” button for when you’ve got it on the nightstand for charging everyone’s phones. It’s possible the one button on the front does this, but as it annoyed me awake and tapping things blindly didn’t turn it off I don’t know. (This is on me, not on them)
Overall
Appeared to do exactly as advertised in terms of Watt to Watt transfer. Fast charged what could, and looked neat while doing it.
However, at nearly $1 per Watt Hour current pricing on Amazon, the unit feels a little overpriced. Then again, I’m pretty cheap.
Ugreen has released a 48,000mAh (153Wh) portable power bank with 300 Watt peak output, 3 USB-C ports (one bi-directional) and two USB-A which looked to be the perfect travel companion for a weekend family getaway, so that's how I tested the unit during 10+ hours of driving and two nights away from a wall-outlet charger.
Product Brand:
UGREEN
Product Currency:
USD
Product Price:
139.00
Product In-Stock:
InStock
Editor's Rating: 4.2
Pros
Delivers expected Watts
Fast charging
Carrying handle
Cons
Price
Would have been nice to have a way to charge it built in
When you dial 911 for an emergency several things happen with your phone, and one of them is that call blocking and screening gets disabled in case an emergency operator needs to get in touch with you.
At 7:45 today I called 911 as there was a truck bed tool box in I-440 in the middle of the slow lane near the bottom of a bridge over I-65. Now, had this been anywhere but 440 I might have attempted to tackle this myself, but the speed limit here is 55 which meant the slow morning traffic was probably doing 70+ and I had no interest in being squished at high speed. I had also moved to a different lane and was well beyond it before I would have been able to stop, but that’s another story of inertia.
Made a quick call to 911 to get someone with blinky lights out there and after that hung up. All was well until I got my first spam call of the day. Now here’s the thing, with the Pixel 8 I’d pretty much forgotten about telespammers so I manually hit call screen and they refused to answer. Shortly thereafter I got another unknown caller, similarly not blocked or screened, and then another, and at this point I went to investigate.
One of the many notifications I had from the time I placed that 911 call was that call blocking was disabled. I didn’t catch that until two+ hours after the 911 call by going into my historical notifications. I must have dismissed it without seeing it, but it’s there under phone notifications.
In the interim I had rebooted the phone and at this point no unknown number has called so entirely unknown if it’s working correctly post-reboot but will know shortly.
I’ve called 911 many times in the past for road issues that would kill someone, this blocking staying on for any amount of time is new to me. The only difference is newer OS and that I hung the phone up rather than the 911 operator (the call was done).
Unfortunately I can’t trigger a telespammer to test this out and I do not know how to make it so my phone re-screens a caller… my office phone goes straight to ringing. So we’ll see if a reboot fixed it soon I guess.
A reboot did indeed fix the issues. I had to wait until I actually got some telespammer calls to determine that however.
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