While I was at OggCamp, I noticed a few people had repurposed supermarket eInk shelf displays as name-tags. Nifty! I wondered if there was a retail version I could hack around with. I found the HSN371. It is a colour eInk screen with a lanyard hole. The picture quality is amazing given the technology, the update speed is acceptable, and the supplied app is crap. Let's take a look! Picture Quality Colour eInk isn't designed to be as vibrant as an OLED display. But that's not why you get…
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People like to send me gadgets to review. My motto is "if it has a USB-C port, I'll review it!" So the good people at Flexispot have sent me a chair with a USB-C port. Fair play! This is the Lotus XR6 Recliner Chair - the electric variant of the XC6. Here's what it looks like when assembled: And once fully reclined: Not completely flat, but good enough for a quick snooze! Tech Specs There's both a USB-C and a USB-A port. I measured the power output using an in-line meter. I wasn't …
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Ever since phone manufacturers killed off the headphone jack, there has been an epidemic of people blasting sounds from their shitty speakers in public. Music, TikTok, phone calls - it seems some people want the whole world to share their sonic experience. Forget that noise! I have a passive-aggressive death-wish and want to hand out free headphones to people annoying me on public transport. Time for our-lord-and-saviour USB-C! With Apple finally succumbing to the inevitable it should be…
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I am easily influenced. At EMF Camp, I saw my friends Skylar and Cameron using some nifty walkie-talkies out in the field. Skye (patiently) explained to me the joys of PMR446 and - because I was quite drunk I hastily bought some radios on Amazon. Hey, they were on special - £30 for a pair! After a few days of use, I've come to the conclusion that they're… basically fine? My main reason for buying them was that they did USB-C recharging (we live in the future now). They didn't come with ch…
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I'll review anything with a USB-C port. When hardware companies offer to send me a gadget to review, I'll always reply back with "only if it has USB-C". The EBL C9010N has a USB micro socket. *sigh* We live in the future now. Don't buy anything which requires you to have multiple cables and adapters. In terms of what the products does, it is… basically fine. Plug in Ni-MH or Ni-CD batteries and they will slowly charge. The batteries go in at a slight angle, which makes them slightly easier …
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The good folks at Kaiweets have sent me their KTI-W01 Thermal Camera to review. You can use coupon code TEB15 for an exclusive 15% discount. Let's get this unboxed and working! Demo Photos The photos are stored as JPGs which can be read by any normal graphics program. They also contain the thermal metadata which you can extract with specialist tools. Here's the full photo taken with the camera. It shows the interior of an office with some computer equipment on a shelf. You aren't…
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The good folk at WAVLINK have sent me their Dual-Screen USB-C adapter to review. Plug it in to a USB-C socket and you now have two extra monitor ports. It'll even work on a USB-A socket, if it is USB 3.0. But is it any good? No. Not really. Hardware It's a fairly chunky hub, with a tragically short USB cable. The USB cable has a dongle which converts it from C to A. That's handy if you don't have enough C ports. But the cable being so short means it is sort of awkward to place. If you're …
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I want to make one thing very clear. Despite my propensity for IoT gadgetry, I did not connect my toilet to the Internet! It's 2024. Why are you still scraping your arsehole with paper like some kind of 20th century throwback? A decade ago, I got a cheap bidet attachment. It wasn't great. The water was cold, the fittings leaked, and the plastic was creaky. For our recent bathroom renovation, I decided that I wanted to get a proper Japanese style toilet with integrated bidet and all the…
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Recap - I want to build an NFC reader expansion card for the FrameWork laptop. So I've bought a couple of components. This is the ACR1251T-E2 - it's a USB pen-drive sized NFC reader with a side-out USB-A plug. Costs about £40. There's a recessed green LED which flashes to let you know that it is working. It doesn't beep or vibrate when it detects an NFC token. It is a little bit tricky finding the antenna as the internal circuitry slides down the plastic housing - as can be seen in these …
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Recap - I want to build an NFC reader expansion card for the FrameWork laptop. So I've bought a couple of components. This is the ACM1252U-Z2 and Oh! It is a dinky little component! The only sign that it is working is a flashing green LED. There's no buzzer on the board. It really is a tiny thing. Side on it is almost invisible. Does it work with Linux? Oh yes! It has a Micro-USB port, so I got a USB-C OTG cable. I plugged it into my laptop and ran lsusb - which shows it as 072f:223e…
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I needed to read and write NFC cards on Linux. I only buy USB-C peripherals now, so I found the brilliantly named "ACR1252U-MF" which appears to be the only USB-C reader on the market. Total cost was about £35 on eBay. It's a cheap and light plastic box with a short USB cord. When you plug it in, there's a flashing light which can't be disabled. When it is powered up, or it detects and NFC chip, it makes this weird and scratchy beep: 🔊 💾 Download this audio file. On Linux, it shows…
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I have mixed feelings about Multi-Factor Authentication. I get why it is necessary to rely on something which isn't a password but - let's be honest here - it is a pain juggling between SMS, TOTP apps, proprietary apps, and magic links. I'm also not a fan of PassKeys. It feels weird to me that my computer is the password. I get the theoretical way it works - but it rubs me up the wrong way. So, Yubikeys? I find them an annoyance. I never have my keys to hand - which sort of defeats the…
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