The lovely people at Mokin keep sending me their USB-C hubs to review, and I'm happy to do so. They work splendidly with my Linux and Windows machines, and they provide more ports than I ever thought necessary. This one is positively festooned with extra ports. Let's take a look. USB-C Plug your power adapter into the hub, and then the hub into your laptop. With most hubs, that's it; you've…
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You can never have too many USB-C ports, right? It's rubbish having a cheap laptop with only a single USB-C port. So, the good folks at Mokin have sent me a gadget which turns your single and lonely USB-C port into FIVE USB-C ports. Along the side you get 4 USB-C 3.1 ports which are theoretically capable of 10Gbps in aggregate. At the bottom is a USB-C 3.0 Power Delivery port which can take…
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Supertoys last all summer long! But batteries do not. The last set of rechargeable batteries I had leaked everywhere, and I could never find the right charging lead for the gizmo which pumped power into them. So let's cut out the middle-man and plug a USB-C cable straight into our batteries! What? These were the cheapest AA batteries I could find which took USB-C. £16 including delivery, for …
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I genuinely think that USB-C might be the defining feature of the 21st century. A little port which is cheap enough to add to the most trivial of devices, and that can carry an impressive amount of power and data. All of my gadgets have it - phone, eReader, headphones, laptop, thermal printer, battery, games console - and now, my mosquito bite zapper! This is the "heat it" - it's about £30 on …
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The good folks at Fifine have sent me this neat little microphone to review. Unboxing Sound Quality Writing about microphones is like painting about flavour. So here's what it sounds like: 🔊 💾 Download this audio file. No noticeable hiss. Captured my voice perfectly. It picked up a little clack from my keyboard as I typed. Colleagues could hear me clearly - even if they were som…
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The good folk at ChubbyCable have sent me a trio of gorgeous USB-C cables to review. If, like me, your work colleagues always "borrow" your cables never to be seen again - these are a godsend. They're available in a range of colours - you can even design your own. You'll never have to say "where's my boring black cable? Janice? Do you still have it?" No, you'll see the dayglow colours from…
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Without a doubt, the most annoying aspect of using VR is that the equipment eats batteries. On the Oculus Quest, the headset is rechargeable via USB-C - but the controllers take plain AA batteries. By default, there's no way to recharge them 😭 So a whole industry has sprung up to fix Meta's mistakes! The good folks at ZyberVR have sent me this smart docking station to review. Let's take a qu…
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My doctor told me that sitting at a desk all day was slowly killing me. So I purchased a standing desk adapter. Then my doctor said I ought to take better care of my feet. So I purchased a massaging foot mat to go with my standing desk. Now my doctor says that I need to do more exercise rather than standing still all day. So I purchased a standing desk treadmill. I suspect my doctor might work …
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I have upgradeitis. If something newer and shinier comes out, my stupid monkey-brain compels me to buy it. Seven years ago, we installed a solar battery. It was part of an experimental project which looked at creating a community power-grid, so it came at a subsidised price. As I explained to BBC Click, the 2kWh capacity was reasonable - but I expected the future would bring higher capacity,…
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I've been looking for this rare beast for ages - a hub which has multiple USB-C outputs! You see it is a truth, universally acknowledged, that computers don't have enough ports on them. And laptops? Pah! A couple of USB-C if you're lucky, and one of them has to be used for power. What a world! This is the MOKiN USB-C Triple-Display Docking Station - MODK1402. It's a bit over £100 depending on …
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The last smartwatch that I tried was some awful early Sony device with a locked-down ROM. The battery died after a day and I couldn't find the proprietary charger. It slurped up all my data. It was garish to look at. And it was expensive. The Watchy is the opposite in every single conceivable way. It is an Arduino powered, open source, eInk display, with no data guzzling tendancies. And is only …
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Last year, I reviewed the X-Sense wireless interlinked smoke alarms. They were a multipack of smoke alarms - set one off in the kitchen and the one in your bedroom will start chirping. As I noted at the time, they were only smoke alarms. Without an interlinked heat alarm, they may not have been compliant with Scottish legislation. Well, I'm pleased to say the fine folk at X-Sense have released…
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