Dependent On Gadgets @dependentongadgets - Tumblr Blog | Tumlook (2025)

The Samsung Quick Charging Wireless Smartphone Stand Takes The Hassle Out of Topping Up

If you look on Amazon, there are a seemingly limitless number of battery-packs available to help you coax your busy smartphone through all full day. I know, I get asked to review them all the time.

Smartphones themselves are wonderfully slim and powerful, but the battery capacity inside it peaked some time ago and it’s only clever power management that sees them still scrape through a day. Many of us invest in these ‘brick-like’ solutions in order to fully enjoy our devices. Developments are promised, but little has appeared.

In fact, the only improvement that has really made it out of the lab is the speed at which the battery can be charged.‘Quick Charge’ enables rapid charging of an empty battery, slowing down as it reaches capacity (thereby protecting the delicate internals).

Samsung have long supported Quick Charge in their phones and just X mins at the socket will give one of their phones X time away from the socket. Now they have gone and taken quick charge and made it work in a wireless charger.

This is the Fast Charge Wireless Convertible; Samsung’s premium charging accessory. Designed to enhance your office desk or fit in at home, the faux-leather disc can slide out and up to convert into a convenient stand - wirelessly fast-charging your phone without the hassle of connecting trailing cables.

I must admit that I’ve been sceptical of premium chargers in the past. After all, it costs less than £1 per year in electricity to run a smartphone, so why spend upwards of £50 on the device to charge it?

There’s no doubting the convenience of wireless charging, especially somewhere like an office desk or side table at home. Each time you sit down, put the phone down on the plate and it will charge. You can almost completely forget thinking about the battery level. It stops mattering.

At least it does with Samsung’s effort. I’ve had failed attempts with wireless charging in the past, simply because it was too slow.

That’s no longer a problem.

Even with quick charging on-board, this one isn’t as fast as a quick-charge cable. But it’s plenty fast enough and with it being no hassle to simply place the phone on it to get going, you’re going to use it more than a cable.

The real reason I love this charger is only partly due to the wireless - it’s the fact that it’s also a stand.

At my desk, I can run an app like Spotify and leave the screen on permanently. It’s far easier to skip a song, or enjoy the album art as it moves past on the carousel rather than turning the screen off.

Even if I’m not using the phone, I’m more confident to use the ‘always-on’ screen mode that the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S8 offer.

Now my phone is a useful desk-clock and calendar with the battery only being used when I’m on the move.

This one spent the first few weeks on my desk at work, but it now lives at home, as my wife has treated herself to an S7. Now, both of us can enjoy the convenience of topping up at the sofa - but for my wife, who is currently on maternity leave, it’s been an absolute God-Send. The phone remains within reach, ready to grab at any time, never having to worry about that low battery warning.

Spending £50 on a charger is definitely a bit of a treat - but, fast-charging has finally ade wireless charging viable, the convenience is worth some investment and if you prefer a house without charging adaptors and cables sticking out of every socket, then this is a very aesthetically pleasing solution until next-generation battery tech finally lands.

Jp

Standing Up for Tablets - Filofax eniTAB360 Universal Tablet Holder Review

Our devices are getting bigger. Size, remains everything. We want 6” phones, 10” tablets and e-Readers that can rival a book sized page.

We also want to be able to use them one, or occasionally no-handed.

Trouble is, without a bulky case, there is no way these expensive electronics, wrapped in glass are standing up by themselves and lean them up against things at your peril!

Only Nintendo appear to have bothered to integrate a stand into their excellent Switch games console - but even that is rumoured to be a bit of a half hearted effort.

No, if you want your device to stand up for itself, you’re going to need to invest in a stand.

The eniTAB360 from the curiously-named ‘Filofax’ store (look it up, readers under 30) is an interesting effort. The design is all based around that green disc in the middle, which sticks like glue to your gadget, without any of the permanence or messiness that actually using glue would bring!

No, this is a micro-suction technology which grips on for dear life, but will come away without leaving any residue when you decide you wan to take it off.

More on the disc in a moment. The rest of the stand is made up of a durable, but perhaps slightly cheap looking plastic that has an adjustable friction hinge able to support an iPad up to 140 degrees. Which should be enough viewing angle options for anyone. The ‘foot’ of the stand is a silicon rubber that has been nicely merged with the rest of the supporting arm, so it’s hard to tell between the different materials are in use here. Anyway, it should stop your precious device from sliding around.

Now I must admit, I was initially a bit disappointed. The packaging is nice and smart and, given the list price, I was expecting something more expensive looking when I unboxed the contents. I’m not sure if I was hoping for a nice aluminum finish or whether it’s the 90’s beige (Filofax call it ‘Stone’) that the review unit came in - but it certainly seemed more functional than beautiful.

My second reason for not experiencing love at first sight, was the learning curve which came with taking the eniTab360 off of my iPad Pro. In the box, you get a plastic near ‘credit-card’ sized slice of tough plastic, which you use to prise the stand off the back. Boy does it stick hard! I had to use some real force and worried that I might damage the iPad! Once off, the green disc looked very sorry for itself. All peeled and rippled. I wondered if I should contact Filofax to see if I had a dud.

But then, the cleverness started to reveal itself. First, a few hours later when I came back to the eniTAB360, it miraculously looked like new again! Whatever that green stuff is, it’s got a memory and it was restored to a nice flat disc, ready to go again. Second, I learned to dig the plastic card further under the disc, before peeling it away. It’s easy now and I’m hugely impressed with the strength of that grip. I was never going to hurt the iPad.

Whilst I’m still not in love with the beige-like plastic, it is nice to have something to hand that is light enough to go unnoticed in a bag, but strong enough to hold up an iPad Pro 9.7 at any angle I need. I regularly watch YouTube videos in the kitchen whilst cooking, or use the iPad to follow recipes and this has become my go-to stand for that environment. The neat 360 mechanism means I can switch between portrait and landscape mode, without having to remove and reapply the stand.

With a young baby in the house, it also presents opportunities for hands-free reading, either to myself today on the Kindle app, or together in a few month’s time when my little one is ready for some children’s storytelling.

So, would I recommend the Filofax eniTAB360 universal tablet holder?

Yes, I would. It’s a clever solution for large tablets (a small one is also available) that gives you a stand that grips so tight, it’ll feel like it’s part of the device, but is easy to remove, once you’ve practiced!

I’m still not in love with the way it looks, it adds little to an iPad’s aesthetic, for example, but at the end of the day, you’re looking at the front, not the back and this makes a tablet really useful in those places where zero hands are required! Other tablets will likely suit it better.

In the future, I’d love to see it available in a range of colours and perhaps a premium material option. The technology they have in the green disc should not be restricted to just one choice. But otherwise, it makes for a good option.

Jp

Finally a Decent Way to Use WhatsApp on Your iPad - iPad Messenger for WhatsApp Review

What's Up?

So it turns out that the app is dead (well, sort of). For the last decade or so, they’ve shaped how we use the mobile internet, downloaded by the billion. But now, in the US for example, nearly 50% of citizens don't download any at all, month to month.

So where did everybody go? Well, many went to messaging services. A place where WhatsApp is King. Or at least royalty. With over a billion users worldwide, you can text, enjoy real time chat and share photos, files and more. You can even go old-school and speak to your contact using audio or video calling. This all without advertising (for now) or someone listening in due to the end-to-end encryption technology. There aren’t many places on the internet that are this private.

As a mobile solution it’s near flawless and my only concern is that under Facebook’s ownership, there seems to be a creep towards adding more and more features. I love it for its simplicity and certainly don’t want it to end up being the confusing mess that is FaceBook Messenger.

If there was one new feature I was really pleased to see, it was Whatsapp-Web. This is a solution for accessing your WhatsApp conversations on your computer’s browser. It’s great when you have your laptop to hand and want to enjoy the benefits of a proper keyboard when you’re having a longer conversation with someone. You still need your phone, it’s doing all the work, but it’s so convenient. I just wish I had it on my iPad too!

Looking at the App Store, it’s clear other people do, as riding high in the charts there’s always an unofficial app claiming to bring WhatsApp to the iPad. Usually advertising supported with a pay-to-remove in-app purchase, I’ve been nothing but disappointed by how clunky and slow each of them have been. The worst don’t even work, which makes me wonder if Apple are lowering their standards by even letting them in at all! App Store reviews show similar disdain.

What's Changed?

Whilst I wish FaceBook would consider an App for iPad I’m pleased to report that I’ve found the best of the bunch. Messenger for WhatsApp is another attempt to bring WhatsApp Web to the iPad and, unlike every other one I’ve tried; this one works.

On loading it up for the first time, there is immediate evidence that effort has been put in. IPad specific instructions have been written and the app itself is free of ‘chrome’ showing only what you’d see on the web version - maximising your iPad’s screen space. If you’re not willing to hand over the (slightly steep) £2.99 to remove the ad-banner, then I’m afraid it is rather intrusive - but not a deal breaker.

What's Good

Typing on other Whatsapp appe was always the biggest deal breaker, as they could be very unresponsive. As if each key press had to be sent to the internet individually before the next one would be accepted. On Messenger, there should be no problem keeping up with your usual typing speed, on the touchscreen or a physical keyboard.

I do find that switching conversations sometimes takes more than one tap on the screen, and occasionally the conversation needs scrolling down to the latest update after I switch, but generally, once you’re up and running, performance is good.

What's Less Good

Like the competition, Messenger for WhatsApp does seem to struggle getting started up. Be prepared to wait a while for your iPad to connect and pick up your phone’s connection. At the top left of the app, there is what looks like a ‘refresh’ button. I often find that tapping this speeds things up, as does opening Whatsapp on your phone. It’s still disappointing when you’re hopping between apps on the iPad and nearly every time this one makes you wait.

What Matters

Happily, the app fully supports split-screen multitasking, so you can enjoy watching videos and chatting, surfing the web or whatever and the app looks fine sharing 50% of the screen with something else.

As I mentioned, one of the big draws of messaging over say SMS/texting is that you can easily share media and the Messenger developers have done a nice job of allowing you to share photos from the IPad. Something I’ve yet to see in the competition.

If you have an Apple device, it’s likely that you’ve tried out iMessage. Apple have done a superb job of making it nice to use on each device that you have. Whatsapp is a mobile app only and WhatsApp-Web is an okay compromise to getting at your conversations on a computer. Until Facebook get around to providing proper support for iPad users, then Messenger For WhatsApp is currently the edible apple on a rotten tree.

Jp

How the Arlo Pro Wireless Security Camera Made me a Calmer New Dad

Nine weeks ago I became a Dad for the first time. Those weeks have brought such change that they feel like a lifetime.

Of course, for him, it has been!

My Wife and I have found the transition to parenthood to be surprisingly natural. We’ve been fortunate not to be hit too hard by the worry that this huge responsibility brings. One day at a time, with a little advice from friends and family and a lot of reading NHS guidance has gotten us this far in one piece.

The parenthood journey happens in phases. There are good bits and bad bits. None last long at this age, as they’re growing and changing so fast right before your eyes.

The latest phase for us was a bit of a challenge, as Baby P had started crying hard in the evenings without the usual solutions seeming to have much effect.

Long story short, we concluded he was telling us that it was time for a bedtime routine and that he should go up to the bedroom much earlier.

Sounds easy, right? Well, Baby P went easy on us, but I had my first bout of nervous Dad.

He went right to sleep after his bath and feed, and the 2.5” low res screen on our baby monitor showed that he was still and quiet. But was he actually okay? I couldn’t be sure!

He’s never been away from Mum and Dad, even one closed door away!

I had to go and see him. He was fine of course. Every time I did it. But now I was risking disturbing him.

That’s when I remembered the NetGear Arlo Pro wireless smart camera that I was reviewing. Currently sitting in the garden, waiting to catch the cats getting up to mischief (I was hoping we wouldn’t actually be burgled), I brought it in and plonked it down on our bed, pointing into his cot.

Now, despite it being pitch black in our bedroom, there was my lovely boy, in high definition, soundly asleep with his chest rising and falling gently. And relax . . .

The Arlo Pro is an entirely wireless, weatherproof, smart security camera. Activated by motion or audio (you can choose from either), it will sit anywhere in your house or garden and capture any goings on for as long as 9 months in between charges.

It’s relatively easy to setup. Connect the supplied base station (looks like another WIFI router) to your home network via Ethernet cable. Download the free Arlo app to your smartphone and follow the instructions. You’ll be up and running in 10 minutes.

The base station is an unassuming white box, which I guess gives Netgear more control over the quality of service you’ll get from its camera, than relying on your own WIFI router. That said, it seems pretty basic, only being able to talk over 2.4Ghz channels. With no 5Ghz option, there is a risk that it will suffer interference from other devices in the area, but 2.4Ghz does have better range and perhaps that’s the most important thing here. Certainly I had no problems, even with the radio-eating baby monitor running alongside it.

The camera itself is a sturdy little thing. Heavy with the battery installed, you can put it pretty much anywhere, but Netgear include a magnetic mount for indoor use and will sell you an outdoor mounting solution separately. Finished in gloss white, it does rather stand out when attempting to hide it in the garden. If you don’t intend to fix it to a building, out of reach, I’d consider getting one of the skins available. They encase it in black and include a hood that should stop it getting covered in condensation.

Once set up and installed somewhere on your property, you can check in with the camera anytime, anywhere, and view a live stream of what it can see through the 130-degree viewing-angle lense. Picture quality is great (even over 4G mobile networks), both in daytime and at night, when the night-vision kicks in and does a great job (but not through glass). You can remotely activate and disarm the camera from the app and set up a schedule for the week, meaning you can pretty much leave it to it. There’s also a geo-fencing mode, where the camera will activate whenever it sees that you (or your phone at least) have left the area.

If the worst happens, and something is picked up whilst activated, the Arlo app will alert you and you’ll be emailed. Again, you can have either, or neither of these enabled. The camera will then dutifully record what it sees and hears to your Netgear account in the Cloud where it will be held for free for 7 days (premium solutions are available). These videos are viewable, YouTube style, via the app at anytime and you can download them easily to your phone or tablet. You can also connect a USB hard drive to the Netgear router and recordings will be stored there too. Which is pretty cool.

If you want to, you can address the burglar by using the push-to-talk function and call them every name under the sun.

I don’t think they’ll necessarily hear you whilst they’re unscrewing your TV from the wall, as it’s a bit quiet, even on maximum volume. However, if you’re using it to keep in touch with family remotely (a quick comment up to the nursery or between rooms) then it could come in handy. What you should hit the burglar with, but definitely not a family member, is the 100db siren that can be blasted out of the base station. That should get the job done and make the video more entertaining when you hand it over to the authorities.

The Arlo Pro is not a cheap gadget, but given that there are no installation costs and you can use additional cameras to build up a very comprehensive home or small business security system, it can compete with the big boys. The free online storage solution should work for most people and the picture and recorded audio quality means that anything of interest that you capture will look great when you share it.

Burglars will be identifiable, cats will be hilarious and you can gaze at your wonderful baby as much as you like, without disturbing his precious sleep.

Totally recommended.

How to Share Your Emergency Contact and Health Details Safely on Your Smartphone

The TV news is pretty scary at the moment, with constant images of powerful men shouting about terrorist threats and violent crime. Truth is,we’re actually less safe from ourselves than religious extremists and axe murderers. Medically, we’re facing an obesity crisis with all sorts of related illnesses and we’re pretty good at falling off ladders and getting run over by cars too.

Thankfully, when these things happen, medical support is within close reach and emergency services like 999 in the UK or 911 in the US are accessible via our phones from almost anywhere. In the UK, if your network supplier is out of range, any available network is legally obliged to service your emergency call.

But what if you’re not well enough to make a call. Worse still, what if you’re unconscious?

Ten years ago, it was popular to have an ICE number in your contacts. Short for ‘In case of emergency’ a Good Samaritan could look it up on your phone, contact your nearest and dearest and get help from there.

Since then, we’ve all put our entire lives on our phones and all that data is (or at least should be) locked up safely behind a pin code or fingerprint reader.

So how can you make your ICE details easily discoverable in an emergency on your phone?

Well, it’s easy actually, but I didn’t know until recently and neither has anyone I’ve mentioned it to. Switch on your phone and, without unlocking it, bring up the dialler.

See the ‘Emergency Call’ button? Press it, don’t worry - It’s not a direct call button.

Android

On your Android phone, there’s now a dialler to which you can immediately get on to 999 or 911 etc. But notice down on the bottom left? There’s an emergency information button too.

This is where you can share emergency medical information that your saviour can use to help you more quickly. For example, you might be deaf or mute, which would explain why you’re not able to respond in a way they might expect. Or perhaps you’re allergic to penicillin. Your hero could mention this to the Emergency Operator or the Paramedic and save you a world of hassle.

To complete the information, simply go to your ‘Contacts’ app, open ‘My Profile’ from the menu and then select ‘Emergency Medical Information’ (Note: The latest version of Android, 'Nougat' has its ICE settings in Contacts >> Groups).

Now, when your saviour opens the emergency dialler, there are links to your ICE contacts and any medical information that you've chosen to share.

IPhone

Wake up the iPhone and press the ‘Home’ button at the bottom. If the owner has locked it, you’ll see the request for pin entry and an ‘Emergency’ button at the bottom left.

Tap on it and the dialler appears, ready to call your local emergency services number.

If the owner has chosen to disclose medical information, then ‘Medical ID’ will appear at the bottom left of the screen. Tap it and the medical information will be displayed.

If you want to setup this information on your own iPhone, then open the ‘Health’ app, tap ‘Medical ID’ at the bottom right of the screen and then ‘Edit’ the settings. Fields include ‘Medical Conditions’, ‘Allergies and Reactions’, ‘Blood Type’ and ‘Organ Donor’ statement.

Stay Well

Today your smartphone is something you’d likely to remember to bring with you ahead of a wallet or purse. If you’ve got a medical condition that you would want known in an emergency situation, then these features are a potential life saver. For everyone else, having a way to share an emergency contact whilst the rest of your digital life remains protected is another layer of safety in a scary world.

Jp

Best Notetaking app with text recognition for Apple Pencil on iPad Pro - Nebo Review

The iPad Pro 9.7 is my third iPad. I bought the first one on the day it was released. I fell for the beautiful retina screen on the iPad 3 and got hooked by the increased performance, improved screen and the new Apple Pencil on the iPad Pro.

The Apple Pencil is expensive, flawed and fantastic. For me, it’s made digital annotation and markup a joy. In meetings, the iPad Pro allows me to scribble away on digital paper, capture whiteboards with the camera and annotate all over them. I can quickly sketch visualisations and workflow diagrams, whilst keeping an eye on email, Skype and other office based distractions that I need to have around me.

These days, iPad Pro owners are spoilt for choice when it comes to digital scribblers. But one area where apps have almost universally come up short, is text conversion.

They just can’t do it, at least when faced with my ‘IT guy’ scrawl. Well, that’s what I thought before I downloaded Nebo.

I think I would have missed Nebo had it not been a ‘Free app of the week’ on the App Store. It actually sat unlaunched for quite a while before I broke away from OneNote and Noteshelf for long enough to try it out.

On the surface, it’s a clean, but slightly limited note taker app. A simple folder, notebook and page structure allows you to keep some order. It’s logical, but not as nice to look at as NoteShelf’s attractive library. Speaking of NoteShelf, Nebo also doesn’t offer a beautiful range of digital stationery that I love the former for. No virtual pencils and fountain pens here, just a simple pen and eraser. There is, at least, a nice colour wheel, so any ink colour you want is possible.

So far, so boring. What’s the, erm, draw?

Well, for starters, the inking technology is fantastic. There’s next to no lag and accuracy is as good as you would want from the Apple Pencil. In meetings, you won’t be fighting this app and wrist rejection etc all functions perfectly. It’s even faster than the aforementioned Noteshelf!

Secondly, gestures. If you’ve made a mistake, scribble it out and the app will delete it. Need to drop some text to a new line, or separate a word into two? Simply draw a short downward stroke and the app will do the work for you. No more stopping writing for some cut and paste to stay organised!

As is common in these apps, you don’t just have to write. You can also sketch, draw diagrams or even equations! Starting one of these opens a resizable box on the page into which you can start to draw pictures, flowcharts or get down to some numbers.

It works really well and all these boxes can be moved around if you want to change the page order later.

So we have all the ingredients for a good quality, simple note taking app. Final ingredient - fast, accurate text recognition and conversion that actually works! Yes!

As you write, you can enable a realtime window that floats above the line showing you what it thinks you’re writing. Obviously it’s not 100% perfect, but I challenge you not to be very impressed. Also, if you see it’s got a word wrong, tap on it with the pencil and it will make other suggestions. It’s rare not to see the correct word in the list, so another quick tap and you’re back on your way!

Other common notetaking formats are also recognised. If you have a title, draw round it and the text after conversion will be highlighted. Underline a phrase and that is detected as a title and set to a heading. Bullet points are also recognised and even my shaky flow diagram was tidied up reasonably well! All of the individual items are still available to edit after a conversion, so corrections are easy.

Nebo is an app that does everything it does well and the text conversion elevates it to near essential. Whilst it lacks the huge functionality of something like OneNote, I think it’s simplicity will appeal to people who actually just want to augment what they get out of a paper pad.

That said, there are a couple of things I’d love to see them add. I’d love to have a virtual pencil case alongside the pen for the sketches. I’d also love to see cloud backup and (or) automatic export into something like Evernote or OneNote. It worries me a bit that,unless I export everything by hand, a lost device equals lost work!

Finally, I’d love to be able to add tags. Nothing major, but just single out say actions from meetings or things I need to remember. Perhaps a gesture like circling a word means ‘Action’?

Otherwise, Nebo is a fantastic tool for iPad Pro users and there’s no need to slip into a debate about whether it can replace the PC because Windows owners can also enjoy Nebo on the Surface Pro. Each to their own and long live the stylus!

Jp

Samsung Gear 360 UK Owner's Review

If you’re the lucky owner of a recent Samsung flagship device (models like the S6 or S7) then you may have decided that you have all the camera that you need. Certainly it’ll give a dedicated point and shoot snapper such a run for its money, that you might as well leave your cash in your pocket.

Except Samsung don’t want it in your pocket, they want it in their pocket. Happily, it’s their job to think hard how to get you to part with it and they’ve come up with a new camera that does things that your smartphone cannot.

When I first saw the Gear 360, I thought it was going to be an extreme sports camera and that 360 degree video is only worth shooting if you’re hurling yourself down a mountain or out of a plane. Now I’ve had one for a few weeks, I’ve discovered it’s a wonderful new way for mortals to capture and revisit their memories too.

The unit itself is about the size of a snooker ball. It doesn’t create the most flattering look in your pocket, but it’s a neat piece of technology. On each side is a fisheye lense capable of capturing stills and video in 180 degrees. Operating side-by-side, your phone, or a Windows PC can be used to easily stitch them together and now you have a memory that can be experienced and shared on tablets, smartphones and, best of all, the Gear VR headset.

It’s quite good fun to use too. Instead of stopping everyone for a pose - stick it in the middle of the dining table, or on a standard camera-mount in the middle of a room and it’ll capture hours of video or photos of your event (you’ll need a decent size MicroSD card) ready for you to edit into something watchable later on. The camera can be set up directly, by simply selecting a mode (still, video, time-lapse) and then press the large button on top to start - or by controlling it whenever you want from the app.

Whilst you can preview your files directly from the Gear 360, you’ll eventually want to copy them over to your phone. Prepare for this to take an age! Perhaps chop up an evening’s filming into smaller segments to help get around this.

Playing back files and sharing them is pretty easy with the free mobile app. Posting them on Facebook and YouTube works well, with mobile-owning friends able to take a ‘look around’ using their tablet’s accelerometer, or by swiping the screen around OR by jumping into a Gear VR headset and experiencing your memories as if actually there!

The Gear VR is the single best reason to have a Gear 360. Treasured family memories are relived so vividly by climbing back into the video itself and looking around. The video is not super-sharp compared to the 4K 2D video we’re all getting used to, but the novelty of the experience makes that forgivable. Photos remain nice and sharp, even in the Gear VR and they’re a pleasure to experience in 360 too.

The smartphone has taken away the need for a separate camera for many people - your smartphone can’t do this stuff (yet) and the price is about a match for a good bridge-camera so I recommend giving it consideration as an alternative.

JP

Samsung Gear S3 Frontier Edition UK Review

Smartwatches seem to be having a difficult time of it. When they first appeared, expectation was enormous and hopes were high. I have a Pebble Classic, which arguably kickstarted (see what I did there?) the trend. Although distinctly retro, it won enough love for many to believe we had found the next big platform after the smartphone and that everyone would be wearing them within a year or two.

It didn’t turn out that way. Sadly Pebble are no more (consumed by Fitbit, the health monitoring company who are getting ever larger), big players like Motorola have said they won’t be producing another smartwatch and Apple, who’ve made quite a nice one that I at least see on wrists when out and about, won’t publish their numbers.

Past It

So it’s backlash time. If the smartwatch isn’t going to dominate, then clearly it must disappear and die. The tech world is fickle and harsh.

I’m taking a more moderate stance and whilst I do think its appeals are more niche, there’s enough demand out there to see them here to stay.

And besides - smartwatches are getting better all the time. Take Samsung’s efforts; they’ve gone through several generations of smartwatch in a very short space of time, but now with the Samsung Gear S3, I believe they’ve finally cracked it.

Time to Improve

This is the S3 Frontier Edition. The outdoor version to partner the ‘Classic Edition’. In the UK, both versions are exactly the same under the hood, but other countries can get a Frontier with LTE on board.

First and foremost, this is a beautiful watch. I’ve seen criticism of its size and yes, it’s a large watch - but that’s also the trend in traditional watches, so try one on before you write off the idea.

Samsung have gone to great lengths to make the experience as close to a traditional watch as possible. The materials and attention to detail make this feel like a premium piece of wrist jewellery. The screen is big and bold with an always-on mode (called Ambient mode) that keeps your choice of watchface alive at all times, whilst still achieving a couple of days away from the charger. If you’re content for the watch to sleep when you’re not looking at it, then four days is possible and the wireless dock is convenient for overnight charges when you’re at home (perhaps less so when you’re travelling).

Me Time

The S3 is also compatible with the industry standard 22mm strap and the aftermarket for good, cheap, quick-release straps has exploded, meaning you can enjoy a different watch look and feel every day! The supplied silicone strap is very nice, but I opted for a lovely metal affair from the good people at BritainBroadway via Amazon.

I must admit, I’ve become rather addicted to hunting down the perfect watch-face. The best ones are generally had via the S3 mobile companion app, but there is a huge range of community watch-faces available via ‘Facer’ too and if you want to have the S3 look like a Rolex or a Tag for example, then this is the easiest way to do that. The compromise with the generic watch-face stores, is that they rarely take account of the S3’s ability to run a high quality screen all the time, so will switch to very basic layouts, or turn off entirely to save power, as that’s what most other smartwatches need to do.

So Samsung can now make a good watch. Even better, they could already make a good smartwatch. With Tizen, I believe they have the best watch-operating system on the market. The menu system is based around rotating the bezel around a simple set of icons and then tapping the screen when the correct app is highlighted. ‘Back’ and ‘Menu’ buttons on the side provide support. I like to avoid touching the screen where possible, the smudges are never nice and you can have the S3 auto-open an app, which triggers when you hover on an icon for a few seconds.

Time Waits for No Man

On board you get the usual fleet of smartphone extensions. Notifications are handled well, at least on the Samsung S7 Edge that I’m testing this one with. Be sure to read other reviews to check it plays just as well with non-Samsung phones. When Samsung have both sides of the coin, all of your messages (SMS, WhatsApp, Messenger etc) can be received and responded to. There’s a choice of responses, including the usual canned reply, emoji and voice dictation, all of which work okay. There’s even a full keyboard, based on those old T9 layouts we had to text with back in the early 2000s on our Nokias before the touchscreen took over. I was surprised to find that I’m still demon-fast at it. I’ve never achieved much speed on the newer touchscreen.

Other notifications like emails can be responded to or archived. New Twitter followers can be followed back and Wunderlist and Google Reminders can be ticked off as you win at life whilst the phone stays in your pocket.

Sadly, one area where the decision to go with Tizen has yet to pay off is in the app-store. I was happy to see Spotify released just before Xmas and Uber is there too. Unfortunately there are precious few other big names there. For me, this is no big deal, but if you’re coming from Apple or Android, you may be disappointed. I also miss Google’s voice recognition, especially for reminders. The reminders-app on the watch only lets you type ones in for the next 24 hours. Dates are achievable using S-Voice, but it’s clunky by comparison and easily flummoxed by background noise.

Keeping Time

Having Spotify on your wrist is fantastic. Premium subscribers can stream music direct to the watch over WIFI to a pair of bluetooth headphones, or you can use it as a remote for the app on your phone. In face, once Spotify is running anyway (like your PC or a Chromecast) the watch is then your remote, which is really handy when you’re up and about. If you’re not a Spotify user, there is 4GB of storage on the watch which you can use for music, or you can remote control music apps on your phone using the preinstalled control app.

Where there is still some general enthusiasm for wearables is in fitness monitoring and here the Samsung Gear S3 plays some aces. It has a plethora of sensors on board, including WIFI, GPS, altimeter, barometer, accelerometer and heart-rate monitor. Combined with Samsung S-Health, the comprehensive competitor to Google Fit and Apple Health, you can keep track of all manner of exercise including your daily steps and climb and various sports.

The S3 even has auto-detection, so in theory you don’t even have to tell it what you’re doing. In practise I’d label this as ‘needs work’ since going for a walk in the rain with an umbrella was generally picked up as being cycling and putting up a cot in the nursery (big times in the JP household!) was deemed to be using a cross-trainer! Still, even the dedicated fitness monitors are proving to be less than perfect accuracy and auto-detect aside, I found the fitness functions to be motivating and fun. The watch is IP68 water resistant, but don’t think that makes it a swimmer’s watch. Rain? Yes. Odd dip? Yes, but try not to. Swim? No.

Time Flies

Smartwatches are a challenging sell. If you live on your smartphone and spend your time in social networks, it may not enhance your life. Your phone is in your hand already.

I like them, because I love all the productivity apps that help me feel organised, but don’t love the constant interruptions that my phone demands. The watch allows at-a-glance dismissal of the internet ‘noise’ and quick interactions with the small jobs like ticking off lists and picking up reminders. Easy access to calendars, messages and a remote control for music have tipped me over the edge and I can’t imagine not having one now.

If you feel a little bit like that too and you also like the idea of your watch being of the premium variety, then the S3 is well worth a look. Yes, it’s not brimming with apps, but otherwise it’s beautiful to behold, easy to use and it keeps the internet at bay when you’re doing real stuff.

Jp

The Smallest Speaker With The Biggest Sound - Damson Cisor 2017 Review

The big players in gadgets and technology didn’t deliver much of excitement in 2016. Virtual Reality is here, but it’s hard to tell what kind of splash it will ultimately make. Smartphones like Apple’s iPhone 7 are impressive, but lacking in innovation (and headphone sockets) and wearable tech seems to be having a torrid time, sadly claiming the startup that arguably sparked the trend for smartwatches, Pebble.

Like music, it seems that the most interesting and experimental stuff now comes out of the indie groups and exploring indiegogo or Kickstarter can still turn up some really interesting stuff.

Take this, for example, the Damson Cisor.

It’s not easy to guess what it is (well, you can, you read the title!), which already makes it a neat talking point for gadget fans.

Yep, It’s another bluetooth speaker review. But not an ordinary one.

This tiny little chap has a BIG sound, because it does things differently. The Damson Cisor is a surface diffusing, or vibration, speaker. For those curious to learn in more detail what that means, Damson have a thorough explanation here, but basically, it does away with the need for a cone and disperses the sound across and through the surface it’s been placed on.

The result is a tiny speaker without the tinny sound. Depending on the surface you place it on, you can achieve a sound normally associated with a much bigger box!

More on that in a moment, let’s take a closer look at the gadget itself.

Finished all in black, this unassuming little cylinder actually feels quite weighty. The casing is anodised aluminium and the top is a rubberised plastic. At the base is a stand with a very grippy plastic that the sound is passed through.

Controls are few. This is a simple device to operate. Twist the top counter-clockwise and the Cisor powers up and is ready for playback via the 3.5mm line-in. Twist the other way and the bluetooth connection is enabled. Pair up your phone or tablet and it’s ready to belt out your tunes. Finally, there is a single button for play or pause (bluetooth only) and a usb-c connection for charging.

It feels solid and well made, although I’d rather it was a micro-USB, rather than USB-C. Yes, USB-C is where it’s all headed, but most of us aren’t there yet and it’s an inconvenience to carry an extra cable when travelling right now.

So what does it sound like? Well, that’s a tricky one. It’s very dependent on where you stick it! That’s a good thing though. The whole joy of owning this thing is trying it out on different surfaces to see what it does for the sound.

In my experiments, the Cisor sounded best on a cardboard box, the coffee table and glass windows. For an extra charge, Damson will sell you an adaptor that will stick the Cisor safely to glass windows. I’d recommend getting this too, especially as the sound travels both into the property and outside. Great for summer parties!

It doesn’t sound fantastic everywhere though. Dense materials don’t really work. That granite kitchen worktop won’t be so great, and nor will anything concrete. My MDF/veneer breakfast bar sounded bassy but muffled in the kitchen, but the solid wood coffee table in the lounge sounded great!

Overall I would say that the volume of sound that you get for the size of the Cisor is very impressive. Bass is just amazing - but it can lack in detail at the top end and as a result music can sound a little ‘compressed’ compared to a good traditional bluetooth speaker. There really is nothing this size that I’ve seen before that can fill a room as well as this, so Damson have really accomplished something.

For the music and gadget fan looking for something a bit different, I recommend checking out the Damson Cisor. Although they’re crowd-funding, at the time of writing they have completed devices for sale from Mid-January, so you’re not putting your money into something that may never appear. It’s not the last word in audio-fidelity, but it’s definitely a great talking point (hit ‘Play’ whilst holding it and then place it down on the table - all onlookers will say ‘Wow’) and it will keep you amused and the neighbours annoyed whilst you try it out on cars, windows, doors, noses . . .

Jp

Last Minute Gadget Gift Ideas Christmas 2016

It’s been a good month now since the shops put their Christmas decorations up and looped The Pogues and Wizard endlessly. As we get into December, it’s probably time the rest of us accepted that we need to start thinking about presents and go spend some money.

But look on the bright side! It’s also the time of year you can revisit those gadgets that you couldn’t afford, or justify, then ask a family member if they will buy them for you!

After all, Santa doesn’t question your wish list, does he?

Dependent On Gadgets has seen a few very cool gadgets this year. Many that would make great presents. So here’s a top 5, in no particular order, hopefully suitable for different people and wallet sizes.

1. EC Technology Folding Keyboard

As the photos in the review will attest, I have a bit of a weakness for keyboards. This folding one goes everywhere with me. Not only was it very cheap, but it’s also light and superbly portable for something that folds out to an practical and sizable device. It’s great for productivity geeks, as it makes your smartphone an awesome notetaker and even better for social networking addicts who want to keep up with the conversations on WhatsApp, Facebook etc. It’ll happily pair with your Android or IOS tablet or phone and is great for touchscreen users who miss the feel of a physical keyboard.

2. Fiio Q1 DAC and Headphone Amp

The music lover in your family or friends circle is likely to already have a nice pair of headphones, a subscription to a music service (or massive mp3 collection) and a computer or smartphone to enjoy their tunes on. That’s everything you need, right?

Wrong. Playing back music on a phone or computer is fine, but doesn’t sound great. In fact a nice pair of headphones might even help the keen listener pick out the flaws. No, what this lucky person needs is for you to give them a Fiio Q1. Put simply, it’s a beautiful portable device that takes over producing and amplifying the sound from your music player and makes it sound fantastic. Take a look at the full review here, or just buy one.

3. Expower BT28S Bluetooth Speaker

The high street and internet are awash with bluetooth speakers. Most with brands that you’ve never heard of. You’ll want to check whether the person you have in mind already has a bluetooth speaker, but if they don’t - then save yourself about £50 and get an Expower BT28S from Amazon. Seriously, this well built, aluminium clad speaker sounds as good as anything I’ve heard at twice the price. I reviewed it as part of a rant about Amazon earlier in the year - but here I am recommending you buy from them.

4. NetGear Arlo Q

Everything has to be ‘smart’ these days. Well, that’s what the ad-folk think anyway. Whilst the toaster and the fridge can probably do without an internet connection, these ‘Arlo’ branded cameras from Netgear are absolutely fantastic.

Easy to set up, they become an home security system that you can monitor via an app from anywhere there’s a connection and when armed, any trigger will see high quality video clips recorded to the cloud for your viewing pleasure - probably when Grandad has been caught nipping the Xmas gin at 3am. Full review.

5. Amazon Fire Tablet

These dropped to under £30 during the Black Friday sales, but even under £50, they still represent fantastic value. Tech fans and geeks might want to look elsewhere, but for children and the non-iPad loving grown-up user - these little tablets are far more capable than their lowly specs would suggest. Highly recommended budget tech. Review.

Gadget 2017

Happy Christmas dear reader. Thanks for being here. I didn’t get to write as often as I wanted in 2016, but I have discovered some pretty cool stuff as I journeyed through this very strange year.

2017 will bring in big change for me as I become a father for the first time. No doubt the gadgets on the blog will reflect that, as I’m currently researching video monitors and other baby related technology. But I’ll also hopefully have time to report on some seriously cool stuff, starting with the Samsung Gear 360 camera. I promise not to only use it to record videos of cats and babies. Well, not promise, but I’ll try.

Have a good one everybody. See you on the other side.

Jp

Is the £50 Amazon Fire a Good Christmas Present Idea?

In the run up to Christmas, when the likes of Apple are suggesting we might like to buy someone an iPad as a present, here is a tablet so cheap that you can buy one each for a family of four and still have £40 left compared to one entry-level iPad Mini 2.

The Leader Demands a High Price

Apple will likely sell a lot of iPads this Xmas. After all, the word ‘iPad’ is pretty much synonymous with ‘tablet’ and a lot of people wouldn’t consider anything else for fear of getting it wrong.

The Fire brand can bring some competition, because it has the might of Amazon behind it and they’ve decided to offer a wider range of models, starting with the basic Fire here, which can be had for under £50!

Cheap or Value?

But can any £50 tablet really be any good? Well, as unfair as it is to compare it to an iPad, I’m afraid I’ll slip into that trap occasionally, because almost everyone has had a go on an iPad and it’ll help set expectations.

Delivered in a brightly coloured box that’s been designed to stand upright, this Fire has ‘gift idea’ written all over it. Well, not literally, but it’s neat packaging.

Opening the box releases a compact tablet that, whilst conservative in design (bland), feels well made, good in the hand and is about the weight of a small hardback book.

Powering it on triggers the first of a few disappointments for those used to iPads. The screen is not magical by today’s standards. In fact, my example is worse than that, with visible light-bleed from two corners that wash out the blacks to grey and a scattering of dead pixels too. Perhaps this one received a bump in transit, but my first impression has also taken a hit.

Otherwise, we’re in familiar tablet territory here, with power and volume buttons, a headphone socket, micro-USB for charging and a micro-SD slot for memory expansion. It’s worth noting that the memory card slot will take up to 128GB. An iPad will take an upgrade of . . . nothing. You can’t upgrade an iPad.

Love Fire, Love Amazon

The Fire runs an operating system called FireOS. It’s basically a reworked version of Google’s Android, which is no bad thing. Waking up the tablet always reveals an advert, which itself is the beginning of another reveal - why Amazon might want to sell a £50 tablet.

The menu system will be familiar to anyone who has ever picked up and used a smartphone and I imagine, intuitive to the remaining few that haven’t. Tabs across the top of the screen divide the categories, starting with ‘Home’. Home is where all your apps live in a long sorted list of icons. Swipe once from right to left and you’re into the next category, which is Books. Keep swiping and you’ll see Video, Games, Shop, Music, Audiobooks and more.

Unlike home, each of these other views is essentially a storefront for one of Amazon’s digital services. Books is their Kindle service, AudioBooks is ‘Audible’ and Music is ‘Prime Music’.

Yes, to use a Fire tablet is to spend a lot of time in Amazon’s ecosystem and hopefully spend some of that money that you saved on the tablet on some of their other services.

If that sounds borderline cynical, it’s not meant to, but it’s worth being aware. I default to Amazon for a lot of online purchases, so actually don’t mind too much that there is a bias in their direction on this tablet. Also, it’s only a bias. If I want to listen to Spotify instead of Amazon Prime Music, or read e-books from my local library via OverDrive, I can simply download the app. Certainly if you’re an Amazon Prime member, all the included services you get come together beautifully and you may never want or need to download other paid digital content. Point is, Amazon won’t stop you if you run off to Netflix and everything works smoothly and responsively.

Third Party Apps

Whilst we’re covering the operating system, it’s important to understand that whilst it’s Google Android underneath all that Amazon-ness - it really is a different beast altogether. For example, there’s no access to the Google Play app store here. You have to use Amazon’s.

In terms of sheer numbers, that means less apps are available. However, there’s a lot less junk in Amazon’s app store and I was pleasantly surprised to find most of the ones I use regularly on iPad (and my Android phone) here, present and correct. There’s also a large amount of apps that are paid-for on other platforms that Amazon have made free here, which was a nice surprise. I did see a number of reviews from younger buyers that expressed disappointment that Snapchat wasn’t available. I’m afraid that’s still the case and could be a deal breaker for those of a social-network persuasion.

Other than that, you’re pretty well served. I’ve been enjoying Feedly, Pocket and Flipboard for reading; Netflix and iPlayer for TV and Wunderlist and Trello for keeping myself organised. I could even do a spot of work if I wanted to as I found Microsoft’s Outlook, OneDrive and OneNote on there and all connected to my Office365 account without an issue. I confess, I didn’t do any real work with it, but you can if you fancy it.

All of the above apps ran well. Amazingly well given the price tag, which I’m starting to find, well, amazing. After all, this is not a cutting edge piece of technology, but it works.

Performance

Obviously there is compromise. The apps take longer to load than they do on an iPad. You adjust to that though. The screen is also no where near as sharp and is clearly more limited in terms of colour reproduction and contrast. That said, short blasts of reading are fine - although it is text that suffers worst for the lower resolution. Pictures actually look pretty good and video looks great if you’re the type happy with DVD picture quality. Outside, the screen will not compete with bright sunlight, but in all indoor conditions, I was happy to watch videos and play games on it, without feeling that the screen was coming up short. If you have an expensive smartphone, or your other tablet is an iPad, maybe consider one of the HD branded Fire tablets instead.

Otherwise, it’s not nearly as bad as the spec-sheet suggested.

"Gaming is definitely one area where you'll want to be careful"

Gaming is definitely one area where you’ll want to be careful. If you plan to play the latest ‘console quality’ games, I recommend you put this review down and look further up the Fire range, or consider a fruit based tablet. But everyone else is well served. Popular titles like ‘Words With Friends’ and ‘The Room’ are here for the thinkers and even MineCraft Story Mode and Farming Simulator are available for those who plan to spend a few hours at a time gaming.

Again, everything ran just fine, after slightly longer than expected load times. I did notice the Fire getting rather warm during Minecraft, but at Christmas a hand-warmer is also a nice present! Sonic the Hedgehog also got a little bit choppy when he reached top speed, but it was perfectly playable and the kids will love it.

The Kids

Speaking of kids, I can imagine many readers are considering this as a present for a young friend or family member. If they can cope with the absence of Snapchat, then I recommend it. Firstly, because young people do not always respect their things and, in a protective case, it should remain protected against a hard life. You no doubt want to protect your children in their online lives too and Amazon have done a great job baking a ‘kids mode’ into the Fire.

Each family member can have a profile and there are two kid’s modes that can be applied - one for 10 and under and the other for 11 plus.

The first thing you can do is set a bedtime. This means the tablet will not only shutdown at said time, your child won’t be able to wake it up again until you’ve decided what time everyone, gadgets included should go back online.

Secondly you can set some educational goals. After all, tablets aren’t just good for games and, as well as reading obviously, there are plenty of good learning apps out there. But for example, you can set a daily goal of, say, 30mins reading. If you really want to get tough, you can ban all entertainment apps until the educational goals have been reached - but it’s totally up to you.

Finally, you can place internet browsing off-limits entirely (so they can only use the kid-friendly apps that you’ve given them) and you can block use of the cameras.

It’s a great system, very easy to setup and you can apply different settings for weekdays and weekends.

Verdict

When I received the Fire, I had to work a bit to make sure I wasn’t biased by my more premium personal smartphone and tablet. But I didn’t have to work that hard. Whilst my sample had a few broken pixels, it otherwise managed to impress me with both its simplicity and usability. Yes, the spec-sheet is not exciting by any stretch, but you really can do most things you expect to be able to do on a tablet and have a perfectly fine time.

This tablet is a great first entry point for adults who think they may want the pick up and use convenience of a tablet, but aren’t sure they want to commit too much money. Those who go on to spend hours on it, may do well to trade up to an HD model, as the Fire is also a good second tablet for families who are getting fed up with fighting over a single tablet.

It’s also a great gadget for kids - especially as Kids Mode will go a long way to protecting them as they explore the online world.

It’s not for those people already rocking expensive phones and computers. Next to an iPad, the screen looks poor and it is slower, at least when it comes for waiting for apps to open. If you don’t have one of those for constant comparison, you’ll likely not care or notice most of the time.

In short, the Fire is a good tablet and it’s astonishing that you can buy a good tablet for this kind of money. It will definitely ensure a happy Christmas for a lot of people this year.

Jp

Were Amazon Right to Ban Incentivised Reviews?

So this month Amazon managed to make me really happy and then really annoyed within about 2 days.

Let’s start with happy. I signed up to Amazon Prime after being convinced that between the video streaming service and the next day deliveries, I’d be getting my money’s worth. Within a day of the money leaving my account, this appeared right in my building!

Happy! Next day delivery right to the office. 21st century convenience at its best.

The timing was good for a second reason, because I had a nice little lot of gadgets coming my way from the people at Smart Technology. They would be providing the gadgets, I would be providing an honest review on Amazon and we’d all live happily ever after.

Except the day after they all arrived (at Prime speed to my new Amazon Locker) - this happened!!!

Yes, Amazon have now banned the so called ‘Incentivised Review’. They’ve not officially given a reason, but the timing is telling as a firm called ReviewMeta released the results of a study that showed these types of review were generating 0.5 more stars on average than the ones written by customers who actually paid for the same product.

What timing! Smart Technology were fine about it and although I’ve enjoyed receiving and reviewing items from them and others over the years, it’s not something I count on.

Now I’m over the initial reaction, do I believe Amazon are right to have implemented a ban?

Well, I do think it’s a shame. Small companies often depend on Amazon reviews as a way to inform potential customers about their products. Whilst they may have their own websites and social network pages, there’s no way they can have the impact and reach that the big brands do. Word of mouth, particularly online is very important to them.

I think the customer can also benefit from the discovery that a lesser known brand is producing a product that rivals a branded one, as it will often come at a fraction of the price!

But this issue of the incentivised reviewer giving too many stars cannot be ignored. Are they being dishonest in order to get more free stuff? Well, it has to be possible, even true, in some cases. There’s no real vetting process done of reviewers, either by Amazon or likely the seller. They often seed repeat customers based on the likelihood that they must already like their products.

But in the majority of cases, I suspect it’s something else. I think it’s the unwritten social obligation of reciprocating when someone gives you a gift. It makes you want to be nice and return the generosity. Marcel Mauss, the French Sociologist wrote of ‘total prestation’ which talked about the giver being forever bonded to the object they’re giving and this holds a power over the receiver giving them a strong sense of need to reciprocate.

It’s all a bit spiritual and whilst I’m not always convinced of these things, I know, for example, that supermarkets like Waitrose are not giving away free coffees to their customers purely out of the goodness of their hearts - it’s a way to form that ‘social bond’ and hope it gets reciprocated by the customer feeling obligated to buy stuff.

Some people will inevitably walk through, grab the coffee (or award the one star) and leave without giving it any thought, but most people will make a gesture at least (4 stars) just because they’re, well, nice!

So what about me? Was I awarding more stars? No, I don’t think so, but I’ve faced occasional dilemmas and it’s hard to be totally objective. I want to be nice to the firm that was nice to me, but I also have to stand by that review in the face of Amazon's ‘Customer Questions’ feature where potential buyers could grill me, or call me out on anything that I’ve said.

In short, no. Just like on this blog, I felt a stronger bond to the person reading the review than to the company supplying the item. I’ve been lucky that I’ve not been sent anything bad and I will miss getting the odd surprise email and extra parcel through the door.

I do think it’s a shame for the sellers. Instead of just killing the idea, Amazon could do more to extend their ‘Vine’ programme so that properly vetted people can continue to provide detailed reviews - or, they could network with the blogger community who are used to properly testing products and well versed in writing about them.

Lastly, because I would like to reciprocate Smart Technology and honestly review each of the final items that they sent me, here’s a short review of each one. If you’re not convinced by my objectivity, feel free to deduct half a star.

Expower BT28S Bluetooth Speaker

Let’s start with an easy 5 star. I’ve been through a lot of Bluetooth speakers and what I can say about the BT28S is that it’s up there with the £100 units of last year and yet it costs half the price. Not only is the sound quality punchy with good bass thud, it’s a really lovely looking unit. Across the top is a nice slice of aluminium with basic music and call controls (yes, there’s a mic so this can be a hands-free kit for your phone) and the speakers themselves are wrapped in a stylish mesh grille. On the front you’ll see the cutouts for the stereo tweeters and round the back, a small woofer is providing the low notes. Bluetooth is nice and easy to setup these days, but if your phone is equipped with NFC then all you do is place it on top of the speaker for a moment and it’s all done for you. If you don’t want to use your phone, you can also slot in a microSD card full of tunes and it will play away for up to 10 hours. All in all, a lovely piece of kit that will make for a nice Xmas present this year.

Check it out on Amazon here

ExPower Twinkle Light

Not a gadget I would typically get excited about, but these 200 LED outdoor solar light kits are a simple way to bring a little sparkle to your garden. I’m actually well placed to judge these, as for five years we had a set of really pricing John Lewis ones decorating a climber in the back garden. They did a fine job, but were unfortunately destroyed in a storm earlier in the year that brought down all the fences too.

So Expower’s version comes in at half the price of John Lewis. Is it half as good? Well, I’ve not done five years of testing, but I’m confident that they’re way more than half as good. The solar box is a simpler unit, but it appears well built and should keep out the worst of the weather without too much trouble. Unlike the John Lewis kit, you can give these a charge via a micro-USB connection, so I put them outside fully charged to see what happens. After a week, I’m pleased to report that they’re gathering enough charge from the overcast Autumn weather in England to run for at least a few hours once it gets dark and the LEDs are as bright as you would want them to be.

Expower says that the batteries will be good for three years, so would I buy these over the John Lewis ones? Well, it depends where they’re going, as they’re tricky to install on an existing plant, but I’d definitely put these in the front garden and reserve a bigger spend for something that needs to be permanent.

Check them out on Amazon here

Exstud LED Golf Balls

I’m less qualified to review golf balls, although I do play (badly) from time to time. What I can tell you is that these make for a great gift for the golfer in your family or friends circle. They’re really nicely packaged in a reinforced cardboard box with magnetised lid. Opening the lid reveals a pack of 6 seemingly normal golf balls that are filled with red LEDs. What’s the practical application? Well, I guess at this time of year, playing into fading afternoon light, it might be handy to pick your ball out of the rough more easily.

It might also be that much more sad to lose it in the water trap mind you.

Check them out on Amazon here

Jp

Thanks to Smart Technology for the review samples

Simple But Clever Home Security - Arlo Q by NetGear Review

One of the best things about modern gadgets is how they’ve become more capable at the same time as becoming more simple to set up. In most cases, they’ve also become way cheaper too.

Take this Arlo Q home security camera for example. With this little guy connected to your WIFI, you can remotely check on your house via your smartphone from anywhere in the world!

We’re not talking grainy black and white CCTV style footage either. Night and day, the Arlo Q is able to capture and stream 1080p high definition video and an audio stream to your phone or tablet. Not only that, if you are being burgled - or more likely the cats are fighting again - you can have a two way conversation via the app and the camera’s microphone and speaker.

Well, one way with the cats, but you know what I mean.

An Absolute Steal?

So what do you get for your £150?

The Arlo Q looks like a posh webcam. It’s a little bigger than the latest of those, but it also has to squeeze in necessary smarts to carry out motion and audio detection, as well as package it up and send it to your phone and cloud storage locker. More on that in a bit.

In the box, you also get a stand, which is magnetised, a USB based power supply and a bracket and plugs for wall mounting.

The Arlo Q is a smart looking device, but with its techie webcam style, I did find I liked it a little less when it was deployed in my living room, as opposed to the study where I first left it. Of course, this is entirely subjective, but it would be nice to be able to change the colour or something with clip on covers to help it blend in with your home decor a bit.

Setup is pleasingly simple. You need to download the Arlo app and click on the ‘New System Setup’ option. You’ll then need to create an account and then the app goes on to connect the camera to the WIFI. To do this, it does a bit of a neat trick by displaying a QR Code, which you then show to the camera. Once it beeps approval, the settings have been updated and it connects itself up.

The app itself supports up to 15 cameras, so you should be able to completely cover your house, if you want to. I did note that the camera itself does get pretty warm, so don’t be tempted to secrete it amongst the curtains or cover it up.

21st Century Peeping Tom

You can name each camera and then click on any to bring up a live feed to see what’s going on at that moment. Well, almost at that moment - the time it took the camera to capture and stream the feed to my phone meant that the video was about 9 seconds behind. Your experience will likely vary depending on your broadband upload speed. Tablets get to display up to four cameras at once, which is pretty cool.

Whilst the ability to hear what’s going on, as well as see, combined with being able to speak over the app means that there are plenty of fun uses for this camera - its main ability is as a security device and it does a great job.

Here, I placed the camera in the living room. Initially, I just used default settings and as you can see, it had no problem capturing the cat enjoying her day (no mice were harmed in the making of this movie).

Each time audio or video was detected, the Arlo app alerted me and I was also sent an email. Of course with cats charging around, this was a pretty frequent occurrence, so after a couple of days, I decided to investigate the settings.

There’s a ton of things you can do. The first thing I did was switch off email alerts. The app alert is plenty. Second, I turned off audio detection and finally I found I was able to set the area of the camera’s view that motion detection would actually trigger.

This last feature was particularly useful as I could now have the camera focus on the door at ‘person’ height and now cats trotting about was ignored.

The final feature to get a feel for was scheduling. One of my friends was burgled once. Apart from the shock of the discovery, he was dismayed to find that he had forgotten to switch his cameras on that day, so no footage of the thief was caught.

The Arlo Q has a few ways to help you around that. The most easy to use is to set a schedule. Have it running overnight whilst you’re in bed and through the day when you’re at work. Perhaps at the weekend, just record overnight.

This worked nicely for me, as I keep a pretty regular daily routine and I could fill in the gaps by activating the camera from the app whenever I wanted.

Things will get even better in the coming months though, as Netgear are working on geofencing. Available in beta form on the app, basically when you and your phone leave the vicinity of the camera (IE move outside the geofence) then the camera will activate. Pretty neat!

So what does the camera do if the worst happens and it does detect something? It’s not much good if the thief goes and steals the camera, is it??

Well, that would be annoying, but the footage is quite safe in your digital locker. Log into your app and a library of footage is available in calendar order and stamped with the time of capture.

Netgear will host your files free for seven days. You can download them at any time, but if you want them to be held for longer, you’re going to have to pay.

At the time of writing, there are three packages. The basic supports five cameras for seven days and this is the no cost option. You can support up to ten cameras on the ‘Premier’ pack with 30 days of hosting, but now you’re paying for it at £6.49pm. If you’re really going for it, then go for the ‘Elite’ pack which covers fifteen cameras for sixty days for £9.99pm.

Of course, if you’re a business then it won’t be a surprise that people are moving around in your image, so then you can opt instead for a continuous video package which holds either 14 days or 30 days worth of footage. With these packages, a shopkeeper would be able to review when they think there might have been a shoplifting event.

Verdict - Seeing Was Believing

I really like the Arlo Q. Initially it was fun just to be able to see that my cats were home safe - although leaving it on was banned by my wife when she was home for the day as she didn’t like the sense of privacy loss. Once the novelty wore off and I wasn’t checking it all the time, there’s been a sense of peace of mind that there is an additional layer of security beyond the locked door and if someone does come into my life uninvited, I’ll be able to return the favour via the proper authorities.

Hopefully, that day will never come, so until then, I’ll just enjoy using the night vision to hunt for signs of supernatural activity.

Jp

iPad Pro 9.7 Review - Can It Really Compete in the Office?

I don’t know if you’ve seen the latest advert for the iPad Pro?

Apple seem very confident to tell you that it’s now a computer, which is to infer that the iPad is now ready to replace your laptop - with the ‘Pro’ label even suggesting that the claim extends to the workplace as well as at home.

Microsoft are having fun with this and their latest Surface Pro 4 adverts really poke ridicule at the very suggestion.

I’ve read quite a few tech-website reviews for the iPad Pro 9.7 asking whether Apple’s claims are true - but they’ve only applied the question to their own line of work; journalism.

Now correct me if I’m wrong, but word processing and light photo editing didn’t really challenge the iPad before the Pro came along - so I wanted to see how it coped in a different professional role. Mine. Let’s see if Microsoft is right to laugh.

As an IT guy in a large University, my role comprises of setting the technical strategic direction for customer-facing computing services and leading some of the larger projects through to production. Although I have my own desk in a shared office, campus life means I regularly move between meeting rooms, coffee shops and the various collaboration spaces that we have set up for students (but quite like ourselves).

At the Office Desk - 24” Widescreen or Two? Or a 9.7” Tablet?

Sitting down at my desk, it’s already easy to see why Microsoft is having a bit of a giggle. A Surface Pro 4 with docking station is hooked up to two 24” monitors, a large external hard drive and wireless keyboard and mouse. Even with Apple’s frighteningly expensive collection of adaptors, I can’t connect the iPad to all this. There’s clearly no competition here - if you’re desk-based, the iPad is not for you. Like the Surface Pro 4, the iPad is a mobile device, but the Surface Pro 4 is just at home as a desktop PC when you’re not on the move. I’ll allow Microsoft a bit of a smirk at this early victory - but we all know the iPad is not intended to be a desktop replacement.

Hitting the Coffee Shops

So let’s get out and about. The iPad is a nice device to carry around and disappears in a bag. The Smart Keyboard, exclusive to the Pro versions of the iPad is a cover that protects the screen (but not the back) in transit and folds out cleverly to reveal a compact keyboard and stand for you to get some work done. Although undeniably well designed and made, this is a love it or hate it solution.

If you like your key travel to be deep, this is not the keyboard for you. It’s also not great on your lap and has no backlighting. As on the MacBook, with its controversial flat keyboard solution, there’s little give in these keys - but I’ve been pleased with just how fast I can type on it, having had it for over a month now. It’s obviously a compromise over a traditional laptop keyboard, but the fact that it also folds neatly around the back of the screen when you’re feeling ‘tablety’ and its near invisible weight means it does a good enough job when you need it and a great job of getting out of the way when you don’t. If you want to emulate a laptop, then some great third-party keyboards are appearing which get this right, but at the expense of weight and portability.

Sitting in a coffee shop now, I’m noticing other things I really like about the Pro over the Surface 4. The screens on both are amazing and Surface Pro’s is bigger. But the iPad has a trump card. It’s not reflecting anything. The screen is crystal-clear and bright. In fact although it’s a Retina display like several generations of iPad before it, the improvement in colour reproduction on the Pro is remarkable and made all the better that I’m not looking trying to peer past my own reflection in this bright environment. My daily-driver, a Dell laptop is impossible to use anywhere near a window because the screen is turned into a mirror - but the iPad is working well, even if I take the coffee outside and sit in the sun.

In terms of applications, Windows can always claim to be better supported in the professional environment. After all, it runs full desktop applications, not skinny apps. Corporate networks are designed around Microsoft technology and it’s as easy to drop in a Surface Pro 4 as any traditional computer. The iPad presents your IT guys with challenges, but increasing demand for iPads in the office is seeing those barriers set aside one by one.

I must say though, that the limitations apps have faced in the past due to lower processing-power on mobile devices has forced them to innovate and now I’m often drawn to doing some of my tasks on the iPad, even when a desktop computer is nearby!

More ironically, we have Microsoft to thank for much of this, as Outlook on IOS is probably the best email app on the platform. The desktop version, whilst powerful, is a cumbersome beast by comparison. If you or your company are signed up to Office 365, then you get rather good iPad versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint too, with cloud file-storage provided by ‘OneDrive for Business’ and instant messaging and voice communications with ‘Skype for Business’ - there’s a whole lot of ‘office’ in this little tablet! Yes, they are cut down versions of their desktop relations, but the right bits have been left in and they’re much more intuitive in use.

Bored Room Killer?

Time to head into a meeting. A big boardroom. Almost everyone else has turned up with a pad and paper, but there are a few laptops booting (haha, when you’re ready people!). I whip out an Apple Pencil. Actually, I very carefully take it out, as it’s frighteningly expensive and Apple haven’t seen fit to include in the design a way to secure it to the iPad. I never have to think about the Microsoft pen, which is clasped to the slide of the Surface Pro 4 by strong magnets. I even had to destroy a Pentel mechanical pencil to get a clip which would stop the Apple Pencil rolling off the table every time I put it down!

In practice, the Pencil is a joy for note-taking. Unlike my Adonit Jot Pro, there’s no issue with my wrist touching the screen as I write and the pressure detection helps make it feel as natural as possible. It’s also supported by some of my favourite apps, including NoteShelf (which won my last app round up). I can keep multiple ‘notebooks’ in there and scribble away in virtual ballpoint, pencil and even fountain pen whilst the meeting drones on. Again, Microsoft are keen to help out by offering up an excellent version of OneNote. It’s not quite as excellent as the desktop version though. Any Surface Pro 4 owners happily scribbling away with the equally excellent (and provided in the box!) Microsoft pen will be enjoying additional features like handwriting-recognition and being able to pull the meeting details over from the Outlook calendar in one click, but it’s not a huge victory.

Once again, I’m pleased that the screen, now face up on the table is not reflecting the bright overhead lights too badly. Laptop users are having to adjust their screens, but not me.

Tablet Owners Shouldn’t Get Snappy

Tablet owners have been known to make fools of themselves using the cameras on the back for taking photographs and I know to some, the decision to include the amazing camera from the iPhone 6S seems a waste. I wouldn’t be without it though and today I’ve used it to quickly ‘scan’ some printed paperwork and I’ve dropped the shot into my OneNote. OneNote and Evernote are both great at this, because you don’t even need to be directly in front of the page or whiteboard. Place the page down in front of the tablet and it will straighten it out for you itself. It’s a big step toward your paperless office dream becoming a reality. I’m glad of the nice iPad camera, but I agree that it’s not an alternative for holiday snaps. It’s an awesome scanner.

When my turn comes to present, I’m a projector-adaptor away from being able to deal out some Death-By-PowerPoint, or maybe try to be interesting and use one of the myriad presentation apps available on iPad.

Get Some Real Work Done

A few hours before the end of the day to get my head down to do some work. Productivity apps are plentiful on the Apple Store, so I fire up MindNode and add some ideas to a mind-map I’m building for a project. I can easily share it with colleagues by exporting it as a PDF, or a FreeMind file and sharing it out from my OneDrive storage.

After joining a short conference-call on Skype for Business, where I note the forward facing camera does a good job and the sound is excellent for a tablet, I realise I need to check the help desk for any technical support tickets and . . . Well this is where I come unstuck. None of our corporate apps are happy with the iPad. I can’t easily look at the support help desk, nor can I file my expenses. Some of the bigger players are now providing apps for these, but not yet at my place. I have a workaround - I can connect to a ‘virtual desktop’ running Windows (basically an instance of Windows running on a server somewhere that is simultaneously supplying about 50 other Windows sessions to other users) so that I can do ‘Windows’ stuff on my tablet. It works well - Windows 10 in particular adapts to the screen resolution and touch interface of the iPad and I’m able to complete my work. A bit of a cheat? Maybe, but it could be the way things go for a lot of mobile workers moving forward as companies invest in this kind of technology.

Just an Appliance?

So is the iPad a computer? Well it clearly is. It can compute. In IT we now talk of running appliances and computers (or servers). Appliances are preconfigured by the manufacturer and can be dropped into the IT environment ready to do their specified job, whereas a server is an open platform where the IT Guy or Gal can turn it to, well, anything they want to. The server is more flexible, but the cost is complexity.

Perhaps the iPad is an appliance and the Surface Pro 4 is the computer. In IT we’re buying more and more appliances to drop into data centres as they get more powerful whilst remaining comparatively simple. I think the iPad Pro is a sign that we’re going to be putting appliances on people’s desks soon too and the computer will take a step back towards a niche.

Before that happens, there are still areas where the iPad Pro has got some serious catching up to do. For example the browser. Desktop browsers like Google Chrome can run rich web-apps that rival or beat tablet apps. You can also install browser plugins add functionality and customise the web-experience to taste. Also, as huge as the Apple App Store is, if Apple don’t like it, you can’t have it. You can install anything on the Surface Pro 4 written for Windows from the last 12 years or so!

Verdict - Viable for Some

I’m not quite ready to proclaim the iPad Pro a laptop replacement for everyone. At home it might just be there, I hardly touch my laptop outside the office. If you’re a Manager though, then maybe now is the time. It’s a complete machine for the meeting room and coffee shop warrior and it indicates Apple’s strategic direction, where one day I can see the iPad really break its way into the workplace and the computer start to become more niche.

Today though, the iPad Pro has at least conquered the original criticism of tablets - it is now just as much a productivity device as it is a consumption one. It remains the best tablet on the market and a superb secondary device for work.

J

Is Your Healthy Lifestyle Paying Off? Find Out More With The Smart Scale From Beets Blu

There is now a booming market for wearable devices and the current niche generating all the sales is fitness-tracking.

I’ve been using a Fitbit ZIP for about four years and although I know the accuracy of these devices is questionable, they are at least pretty consistent and the data presented in the apps are motivating and fun.

Whilst your phone, smart-band or smartwatch might be able to tell you how much energy you’re burning and how much sleep you’re getting - you’re likely to still be stepping onto a set of basic scales to see if all this stomping about the place is keeping the weight down.

If you’ve found yourself wondering if there are smart-scales that can complete the measurement picture for you, I can tell you that there are. If you’re addicted to FitBit, then they make their own called the Aria. Undoubtedly nice, but £100 for scales? It must be possible to get them for less than that!?

Well, if you insist on Fitbit holding all your data, then I’m afraid it’s Aria only. However, if you’re content to hold the weight data elsewhere or you use an alternative like Google Fit, then there are many more choices and I settled on the Bluetooth Scale from Beets Blu. These come in at just over half the price of the Aria, which make them tempting value.

Although comparatively cheap to buy, these full-sized, quite heavy scales do not feel cheap in the flesh. Most of that flesh is high grade plastic, but the top is of tempered glass with metal plates to run the low power current through your feet. Yes, these scales can tell you more than just your weight, but we’ll come to that in a minute.

Setting up the scales with your phone is simple. Install the ‘Smart Scale’ app and your phone is ready to work with your scales with no further configuration required.

The app itself is similarly friendly. It’s not as slick as anything that FitBit release, but the information is all there and easy to read back. In settings, you fill out some simple profile data like your gender and height and you can set yourself some goals.

You can also link your scales to Google Fit, which means it will get your weigh in data too. I recommend doing this, even if you don’t use Google Fit for anything else as it charts your progress over time really nicely. Everyone knows that anytime they get on the scales and the weight has gone up, it’s a real disappointment. Once you’ve got a few months under your (loosening) belt then the odd pound increase doesn’t look so bad if the general trend is a downward one.

Back to the Smart Scale app and on the front page you can see all the data the scales are able to extract. You’ll get your body fat content, muscle percentage and your BMI along with the headline - your overall weight.

When I got started with the scales, the motivation of a new toy saw me easily lose a few pounds during the first week, but disappointingly it turned out by the weekend that I’d actually gained a small amount of fat and what I was losing was muscle. There’s no hiding from the truth with these scales!

Speaking of the truth. It’s hard to know how accurate scales actually are. I tested by weighing in on a Wii Fit scale, a traditional home scale from IKEA and the Smart Scale and all three reported the same weight to within a pound. That sounds good to me although I would warn (as do Beets Blu in the instructions), these scales do not like carpet or lino. Take them into the bathroom and use them on level tile.

If you’re not keen to take your mobile into the bathroom with you, don’t worry, you don’t need to. The bluetooth range means you can fire up the app and leave the phone in an adjoining room whilst you weigh in. The scales power up when you press down on them. The first thing they do is reset, so lift your foot off and then climb aboard when they show zero.

A button underneath allows you to switch between metric and imperial units and within a few moments you’ll see your weight displayed and an icon flashes showing the data being transmitted to the phone. The phone will then spring into life shouting out your data to the world in an unfeeling robotic voice. Another reason to make sure it’s a good result??

Back in the app you get at a glance progress for the last seven and last thirty days. At the moment, mine are all in the red, so I can’t honestly tell you that these scales alone are going to save my waistline - but I do feel better about knowing the truth and I also believe that scales that track you over time are far more useful than ones that just give you plain weight right now.

The Smart Scales from Beets Blu are well worth your consideration. Just make sure you don’t spend the £40 you saved on the FitBit Aria on chocolate and wine!

Jp

Chromebook

Once upon a time, a shiny new Windows laptop could be reduced to a slow crawl within about three years. Endless security updates take their toll on the processor and memory. The hard drive fills up with fragmented junk and badly written applications hog the system or simply take it down with them as they crash.

These days, a well maintained home laptop should expect a good five year life and that’s partly because you’ve likely gravitated toward your tablet and/or smartphone for your daily internet fix.

It’s a little more heartbreaking to replace a home laptop these days, especially if it’s not your main machine now that mobile devices have taken over much of the load. But at the same time, it’s nice to have a proper keyboard, big screen and access to the ‘desktop’ versions of websites from time to time.

What to do? Well, perhaps see if you can get more useful years out of your existing laptop by ditching Windows and installing the CloudReady Chromebook experience.

You may have noticed Chromebooks on the shelves at your local electronics store. They’re usually stripped back laptops that are designed to run the Chrome browser from Google and nothing else. They’re hugely popular in US schools, but haven’t taken Europe by quite the same storm. Some argue that they’re a bit too limited given the lack of functionality without a live internet connection - but honestly, how often do you use your computer without an internet connection?

The advantage of a Chromebook is simplicity. It boots up in seconds, you log in with your Google account and you’re on the internet with the Chrome Browser and Chrome Apps. All the patching and updates are done silently in the background by Google and there is little or no performance degradation over time.

With CloudReady, home users need not go out and buy a ChromeBook, they can convert their Windows laptop in a series of simple steps for free!

I tried out the process on a Dell E4200 dating from about 2008. It’s one of about 200 supported models and it really had reached the end of its useful days as a Windows machine - but there was nothing at all wrong with the hardware and I still find it a pleasure to type on. The whole process took about 25 minutes. You download the software onto a USB stick, then use a Chrome app to put the computer into a ChromeBook recovery mode. The computer then boots up from the USB stick and installs the ChromeBook operating system. Do remember to back up your data. Everything will be wiped!!!

As a Chromebook, it now flies. Booting in about ten seconds and coping just fine with as many tabs open as my own brain can handle - it’s become a genuinely useful device again for keeping up with email, editing documents in Google Docs and general web-surfing.

As a solution for families, I can see this saving some real money. The laptop gets a new lease of life. There are fewer ‘technical support’ requirements, if any, AND if it gets damaged by the kids, it’s not the end of the world.

The CloudReady software can be foundat Neverware’s site and instructions for installing the ChromeBook experience are here. Note that you’ll need a USB stick handy with at least 8GB capacity. Neverware have done a good job with the written instructions, but if you have any trouble, they have posted a useful YouTube video, which talks you through the steps whilst demonstrating the steps on a computer.

CloudReady is free for personal use, but they also have packages for business and education that include a management console so that you can run a fleet of these in a school or college.

If you’re a fan of the Google Chrome browser and fancy turning that old laptop into a something useful again, then this is a simple and effective way to give it a new lease of life!

Jp

How to Protect Your Children in Their Online Lives and Keep Them Safe

21st century children have a lot. As a 21st century adult, I marvel at a time when so much content, entertainment and communication are available at the touch of a screen. My inner child can’t quite believe it all!

I don’t envy children though. There are costs and risks. I won’t launch into a hysteria article (this isn’t the Daily Mail) but there are very real threats out there that can reach your children whilst they’re shut ‘safely’ away in their bedrooms. Let's face it, even without the outside threats, they're also young and perfectly capable of making their own mistakes. Today those mistakes might not go away so easily and could go on to haunt them long after 80's children would have forgotten and no evidence remained.

Up to a certain age, there’s no technology better than a good old fashioned parent to protect a child online. Same as offline. Keep all the computers in the living room and keep physical tabs on what you’re little one is up to. Early positive engagement will hopefully educate you in terms of what the kids are up to these days and also help them develop a healthy relationship with technology.

Once into their teenage years, your young adult is likely to be a lot more defensive over their personal space - again both online and offline.You’re left trying to strike a balance between keeping them safe and letting them gain their independence.

Perhaps this is where a bit of tech can play a part and perhaps your child might accept a bit of a digital boundary in life in order to be given a level of freedom and a shiny gadget!

So what can you do on that shiny gadget to protect your kid?

Selfie Cop

When I first read about 'sexting' I imagined it was newspaper hysteria and that kids sending each other naked-selfies that then leak all over the school etc would be a rare thing - but no, I've talked to several teachers who say they deal with situations like this weekly!

Selfie Cop is an app that will attempt to make your kid stop and think before they go on to share their photo. A little nudge that once shared, this photo could be seen by ANYONE could be enough to make them think twice rather than acting on the spur of the moment.

You can also take things one step further and use the parent app to review your child's photos to check they're safe. This link between parent's and child's device is encrypted, so this level of sharing should be quite secure.

With support for most popular social networks, this is an app I'd recommend any parent of growing kids and young teenagers consider. More here.

Screen Time

They say that young people's online and offline lives are inextricably linked. If that's true, it's a bit of a problem for parents, as they can often find themselves completely shut out. Whilst technology and gadgets should be celebrated - children should be given variety and too much screen time means missing out on a lot of other wonders of life. So what do you need? A digital 'you' applying a few rules!

Screen time allows you to control the family devices from your own. For example, you can set time limits on your kid's tablets or smartphones. Perhaps you'd like to let them have a little more time if they do their homework, or tidy their room? No problem, you can approve some more time at the touch of a button once the toys have been put away and algebra has been mastered.

You can also take things the opposite way and pause screen time, perhaps for dinner, or block access to certain apps during school hours. Bed time? Then it's screen-lights out. All the while you can check on your own phone an audit log of what your child has been up to, ensuring that they're staying away from trouble.

I can imagine a certain amount of resistance to this sort of technology - but introduced early with good use of the incentives, you may find it's easier than physically trying to separate child from tablet at mealtimes.

There's a long list of functionality - some of which should be thought carefully about. For example you can check your kids location at any time. Even set up a geo-fence (an alert when the phone moves outside a defined area on the map). It's controversial , but may offer value in a trusting, honest and open family relationship.

Unfortunately the app isn't free, but you can try it free for two weeks to see whether it works for you.

Check out the site here.

Minor Monitor

The reason that children live through their screens so much is the lure of social networks. Whilst there is plenty to be positive about - these networks do put a lot of pressure on the young as the need to keep up and fit in becomes a 24 hour requirement. Not only that, but bullying is a real problem online and in the longer term, this generation's Facebook wall and Twitter feed could be a vital part of their CV/resume.

Minor Monitor is a free app that allows you to audit your child's Facebook and Twitter accounts getting detail on what's been going on. It's not quite the same as the other apps in that there's no way to lock the app down, so your child needs to agree to your monitoring - but if they do, it could be really useful.

UKnowKids

Okay, this is the big one. If you really want to keep track of your child's online activities, check out UKnowKids. In the physical world, this is the equivalent of being with them at all times, so again it's worth a think about where to draw the line and allow independence. Once the ethics have been agreed, this is a powerful tool.

Not only can you monitor their use of all the major social networks, you can also track their sms/ text use, phone call log, contacts, photos and videos and, like some of the others, their location.

An app must be installed on their device and for IOS devices, you'll need their Apple account credentials.

There's a lot to this one, but if you'd like to know more, here's a video showing how it's all set up

There's also a demo version of the dashboard available, so you can get some hands on time with it before deciding whether to lay down a subscription.

https://www.uknowkids.com/features/dashboard/

In summary

Whilst kids are finding their way in the world, they need their parents close by and the online world is the same. These tools exist to support parents as they prepare their kids for independence. On their own, they're not the complete solution however and I'd recommend one more app to keep yourself educated and that's the NSPCC app based on their NetAware campaign. Below are links to the Android app, IOS and the main website.

With caution, the Internet can be a wonderful place for kids, but I must admit, I think I'm glad I was a kid in somewhat simpler times.

Android

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.org.nspcc.netaware&hl=en_GB

Web

https://www.nspcc.org.uk/preventing-abuse/keeping-children-safe/online-safety/

IOS

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/netaware/id1094371370?mt=8