There’s a big flaw in the concept of fitness wearables; they really only work for running or biking. Weightlifting, calisthenics, boxing, and other workouts just aren’t conducive to having a watch on, and it cuts out a big chunk of the fitness market. Twelve South may have a solution with their new ActionSleeve Armband for the Apple Watch.
Every year at CES, there’s a slew of technologies aimed at parenting. Some are genuinely useful, and some are more of a “well, we can, so why not?” Mattel has announced Aristotle, an Echo-like AI speaker, that falls squarely in the second category.
Fitness, especially home fitness, has evolved quite a bit in the last few years. Suspension straps, kettlebells, and just plain bodyweight workouts have become extremely popular, and it’s been fascinating to watch equipment evolve to meet these new needs. So when I stumbled across The Yoak, I had to learn more.
We see some very odd product pitches here at Gear Diary. Every once in a while, we get one that is odd all by itself, but then the marketing material just zooms it right past ludicrous speed to plaid…and that’s where the Hand Liberation folks landed with The Butt Case.
It looks like Pebble isn’t the only wearables crash in 2016. Jawbone appears to have quietly imploded, leaving their website like one of those cars on the side of the road. It looks functional, but there’s nothing inside.
Kickstarter is an interesting marketplace. On the one hand, it sometimes produces truly interesting products, but it also attracts companies who interpret Kickstarter success as an excuse to shoot for the moon (cough, Pebble, cough), as well as companies that see Kickstarter as a source of easy money, with no intention of delivering exactly as promised. Juicies cables are rapidly looking like the latter.
Just about every person who identifies as anything other than straight has their “story”. We all have that moment where the niggle in the back of our head, the one said “something is different” finally turned into a full-blown realization. It’s something I’ve personally never seen expressed well in television … until Supergirl.
Pebble, once the crown jewel of Kickstarter, has officially folded as a viable company. They have sold some assets to Fitbit, and are in the process of refunding any outstanding Kickstarter orders. This is a sad day, since Pebble was an early smartwatch pioneer, and made some excellent watches.
Back when I had time to train for long races, I used a Garmin Forerunner GPS watch. I liked it, it was great, but there’s something to be said for the simplicity of a digital watch that goes from your workout to your everyday life with ease, even if you lose the GPS capabilities.
I have been a fan of slim front pocket style wallets for some time now. Once you get used to a compact way to carry your cards and cash, it’s impossible to go back to a bulkier setup. It feels like there’s an infinite number of styles in slim wallets.
At the risk of sounding like click bait, don’t read the rest of this post until you’ve watched the video below.
Quick, what’s the most interesting innovation to go mainstream this year? You can make an argument for a number of ideas, but it’s pretty clear from the ad blitz that home automation, especially from Amazon’s Echo and Google’s Home, are at the forefront of ideas that have gone from tech-y to everyday. Surprisingly, Apple appears to be letting that business slide right by them, which is an ominous sign for a so-called innovator.
For some odd reason, the folks at Hammacher Schlemmer seem to think my household is the ideal market for their catalog. We’re not sure why, but I look forward to the excellent insanity that arrives each year, and this year my friends at Hammacher Schlemmer have simply outdone themselves.
I am a big fan of strength training in various forms. When we had a gym membership, I spent quite a bit of time following Stronglifts 5×5, and now that I work out more at home my routine is a mix of calisthenics and kettlebells.
It’s a very tense Election Day for America, so the Washington Post has helpfully added a bit of levity by investigating a key question: Can astronauts who are in space vote?
I have an unusual last name. Now, lots of people have last names that are unique, or hard to spell, but I doubt many people have the same claim to fame that my last name has … which is that there’s a 0.000004371% chance of someone in the United States has the same last name as me.
I have a love/hate relationship with phone cases. On the one hand, I like to keep my devices protected. On the other hand, I have a hard time balancing protection with style. I may have finally found my ideal case in the Poetic Affinity for my new Moto Droid Z Force!
In the book “Stranger in a Strange Land”, one of the characters finally grasps laughter when he realizes humor is just laughing at someone else’s suffering. The logical, if painful, end to that theory has been realized in “The Moon Ring”.
We’ve lived in our house for 3 1/2 years, so we figured it was high time we dealt with all the miscellaneous boxes that landed in our attic. Old clothes, baby items we don’t use anymore, the soundtrack to the TV show “Charmed”, and many other random items were all living up there. We made piles of “keep” and “give away”, and things were going well until we hit the DVDs. Luckily, a quick Google search led me to Decluttr, which saved the day!
The wearables market is becoming as crowded as the starting line at the NYC Marathon, with devices of every price and feature set floating around. Want a heart rate monitor? Need a color screen? A personal coach? Maybe just your steps?
We’ve all had that moment in the middle of the night: the baby cries, you need a glass of water, you heard the unmistakable sounds of a dog about to puke on the carpet. So you rocket out of bed, only to start stumbling around because, well, it’s dark. And you don’t want to turn on the lights, but you need, well, a nightlight. The SnapPower Guidelight, to be precise.