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Mine still catches me off guard when I’m shoving them in my bag or pulling them out. I’ve mostly learned to grab the stem part, but if I’m rushing it’s pause city. In the car or a hotel room it’s fine once they’re seated, just the handling that gets me.
I pull them out between charges, mostly because the shed isn’t wired and I only drag an extension lead out there when I’m actually charging. Since I’m away for weeks at a time that’s the bit I’m still unsure about, a sealed box sounds good until I think about leaving the charger sitting in there with nothing moving the air around.
Yeah the swings are decent here, cold nights and then it warms up a fair bit during the day. That’s the bit I’m not sure about either, since the vent could just be letting the damp air straight in. I haven’t had it set up long enough to know if it actually helps or not.
Travel routers do usually handle the portal once and then share that connection out, so in theory your phone and laptop both just work. My actual experience has been a bit mixed though. At one place it worked exactly like that, signed in on the router and both devices were online without any extra steps. At another hotel the wifi kicked everyone off after a few hours and the router didn’t reconnect on its own, so I had to pull up the portal page again anyway. Still nicer than doing it on each device, since it’s one login instead of two. For a phone and a laptop I’d say it’s worth it just to avoid retyping those long room number passwords on a tiny screen. The setup part takes a couple minutes but after that it’s mostly hands off.
Cold here gets down to maybe minus five for a week or two in winter, nothing too wild. Good shout on the bricks though, mine just sits on the floor and I hadn’t thought about what’s crawling under it. The lightbulb thing does sound like a lot of fuss for a couple of drills.
I travel a lot so I’ve gotten used to things going dumb the second hotel wifi flakes out. What helped me was just checking which plugs still respond on the same network without internet, some of mine do and some don’t. It’s not a full fix but at least I know which ones to actually rely on before a trip.
I set mine up so my wife and I both have it on our phones and it’s been fine. We both travel a fair bit for work so whoever’s home ends up doing the walk, and it was pointless having the app on just one phone. She just downloaded it and logged in with the same account I made when I paired the collar, took her like two minutes. Both phones get the alerts now, which is actually the part I care about most. If the dog slips out while I’m away somewhere, I still get pinged even if she’s the one at home.
One thing I noticed is the two phones don’t always update at the exact same moment. Like if I open the app and she’s already got it open, sometimes mine shows a slightly older spot until it refreshes. Not a big deal for us, just something I picked up. It’s not like one phone blocks the other or anything, they just both pull the location on their own.
So yeah, for two people walking the same dog it does what you’d want. I’ve got enough gadgets that only work on one device and it’s always a pain, this one wasn’t like that for us.
I mostly use mine for hotel gym stuff and the odd run when I’m traveling, and the HR is fine for the overall picture but not something I’d stare at mid workout. When I’m on a treadmill it seems to keep up okay, but if I’m moving around a lot or gripping handles or whatever, it kind of drifts. Not in a crazy way, just enough that I’d notice. I usually just let it record and check the app after, then compare the average to how the run actually felt. For that it’s been good enough. I’m not doing intervals or anything serious though, so if you’re chasing exact numbers the ring probably isn’t the thing. Mine’s been solid for everything else so I just live with it.
Mine actually feels snappier than my old Roku remote, no joke. I use mine mostly in hotel rooms when I travel and the remote has been totally fine for scrolling around. Maybe I just got a good one but I haven’t noticed any annoying lag.
App setup is the easy part. The thing people skip over is what happens after you set the safe zone. I messed with mine for like 10 minutes thinking I was done, then realized the zone I drew was way too small for how my yard actually sits, so every time my dog wandered near the back corner I got an alert. Took me another round of adjusting to get it right. So the setup itself is quick, but if you want the alerts to actually be useful you’ll probably end up tweaking the zone once or twice after seeing how it behaves in real life. Not an afternoon thing, more like a first day thing. Also make sure you’re somewhere with decent signal when you pair it, that part was smooth for me but I did it at home.
I picked one up mainly because it fits in the little storage bin I keep in the trunk, and at first I figured it was just another nozzle that would end up rattling around and never getting used. That changed after I actually started keeping it in the car on trips. It’s turned into the thing I grab for rinsing off beach chairs, muddy boots, the bumper after a long drive, stuff like that. So my take on it went from “probably a gimmick” to “okay this actually earns its space.”
As for the squeak, if it’s just noise when you’re turning the dial and the water still comes out the way you want, I wouldn’t go swapping parts or taking anything apart over it. That’s what I’d do, just keep using it normally and pay attention to whether the spray pattern itself starts acting up. If it ever stops holding pressure or the stream gets weak no matter where you set the dial, that’s when I’d look at it differently. But a bit of noise on its own isn’t something I’d mess with. Mine has made odd little sounds off and on, and it’s still doing its job fine.
Mine actually fit my small ears better than the last two pairs I tried, mostly because the nozzle isn’t as chunky. They survived a whole flight without falling out, which is more than I can say for my old ones.
I picked one up before a work trip in July and have been wearing it pretty much nonstop since. The app hasn’t asked me for a cent. Everything I actually look at is still there, sleep, heart rate, the stress thing, all of it. I travel a lot so I mostly check it in hotel rooms at night, and it syncs fine whenever I open the app.
The only thing I’ve noticed is they’ll show you other rings they sell in the app sometimes, but it’s not a popup in your face or anything, just sort of sitting there if you scroll. No countdown, no “your trial ends soon” nonsense. I’ve had cheap trackers before that basically bricked themselves after a month, so I was watching for it. Nothing so far.
I can’t promise they won’t change it down the road, but as of now it’s just free and that’s been my experience.
I grabbed a bottle for the car before a trip and it cleaned up some door scuffs in a hotel parking lot pretty quick. Spray and buff took me like five minutes. That said, for actual scratches I still keep the compound around.
I’ve used mine with a bucket a few times and it ran fine, though I did notice you go through water faster than you’d expect. Not sure how it’d handle a whole patio on one bucket though. For the car it was fine.
I keep mine clipped to the gear loft and it’s fine for reading a few pages before bed. Not as bright as a real lantern but it’s one less thing to pack, which matters more to me. The repellent part I can’t really vouch for, but the light alone made it worth keeping in my bag.
Ended up just clipping it to my bag strap where it stays visible, works fine for me. Good to know the noise carries either way though, takes some pressure off getting the placement perfect.
Mine mostly stay parked in the quiet setting too. I travel a lot for work so I end up wearing them in hotel rooms, rental cars, random waiting areas, and honestly the one-on-one talking thing is where I notice them most. Not because voices suddenly sound amazing, but because I stop having to ask people to repeat themselves as often. That alone is worth it for me.
I did try flipping through modes the first week and then just kind of stopped. Social mode was fine but I didn’t feel like it made enough of a difference to bother, and switching stuff around while someone is mid sentence is annoying. So they just live on quiet mode now unless I’m watching TV.
For a plain room with two people it’s a subtle improvement, not a magic fix. If your hearing is only a little off you might not notice much. But if you’re constantly leaning in or guessing at words, it takes the edge off.
I keep mine in my travel bag and use it for quick dust stuff in hotel rooms and the car, so I get the whole “is this overkill” question. For garage shelves I think it works as long as you use the variable trigger and don’t just hold it wide open. The one thing I’d say is it kicks up more than a cloth would, so if the dust is really settled in, you’ll see it float around for a second before it clears. But for light dust on open shelves it’s fine. Tight corners are actually where mine does better than I expected since the nozzle gets in there. Runtime is short though, so don’t plan on doing a whole garage in one go. I usually just do a section, put it back on the charger, and grab it next time.
Mine pulls in bugs fine with a bit of ambient light, so I don’t think pitch black is a requirement. I’ve used it in hotel rooms where light leaks under the curtains and it still caught stuff.
I use mine mostly for protein powder and it handles that way better than I expected. The clumps were my main worry too since I usually mix shakes in a shaker bottle and hate when you get those dry pockets stuck to the sides. With the MixMate I just hit the button a couple times while I’m getting my stuff together and it comes out pretty smooth. Not totally perfect every single time but close enough that I stopped dragging the shaker bottle around on trips. That’s really why I keep using it, it’s one less thing to pack and rinse out. For matcha I can’t really say since I don’t drink it, but if it’s anything like protein powder I’d guess it does fine as long as you don’t dump everything in at once.
I don’t think the in-air part matters that much. I used mine on a couple of trips and it was more about seeing that the bag made it to the right city, not tracking it mid-flight. For that it did the job fine.