Posted in Products with tags ZIKE on April 23, 2024 by itnerd
AirTags are great. But they aren’t perfect for every use case. That’s why third party tracking cards that are compatible with the FindMy Network are handy. Specifically the ones that are roughly as thin as a credit card as that broadens the use cases what you can track. There’s two problems with these third party tracking cards though. The first is none of them have UltraWideband support which would allow you to have the ability to precisely track the card like an AirTag. The second is that none of these cards allows you to replace the battery. The ZIKE Smart Tracking Card solves the second of those problems in an interesting way. Let’s have a look at the card:
This side of the card really doesn’t have anything interesting on it, other than the fact that it has a picture that implies that this card can help you find your stuff:
This side of the card has more pictograms that show all the use cases. A lot of them facilitated by the fact that this tracking card has a slot to allow you to have it hang off luggage or any other item. If you look at the top right corner, there’s a button that activates the card, but doesn’t seem to do anything else after that. For what it’s worth, the cards are IPX7 dust and water resistant. Which means that it expands the potential use cases.
The card is thin. ZIKE claims it’s 2mm and if you look at it relative to my PRESTO transit card, it’s slightly thicker than that card which is roughly the thickness of a credit card.
Adding it to your items on the FindMy app is stupid simple:
Open the Find My app on your iPhone
Go to Items and click on the plus sign
Click on Add Other Item
Press the button that’s located on the top right corner until it makes a sound
Follow the onscreen prompts and agree to the fact that law enforcement will hunt you down if you use this for illegal purposes.
Done! Declare victory and have a beer!
Now once you’ve added it you can track it. But only via Bluetooth as it has no UltraWideband support. Which means that you’re going to have to play a sound and play a game of “Marco Polo” until you find it. That brings me to how loud this card is. According to my Apple Watch Ultra, it puts out 76dB. By comparison, the Chipolo CARD Spot was 10dB louder. The sound it high pitched so you should be able to hear it, but it would have been nice if it were a bit louder. The one thing that it does that the CARD Spot does not have is the ability to recharge the built in battery via wireless charging:
If you look carefully at the word “ZIKE” in the top left corner, you will see a red light and a green light. The red light means that it is charging, and the green light means that it is charged. But you may have to fiddle with the placement of the card to get it to charge. Based on my testing with this wireless charger, the charging coils for the card are at the bottom of the card. I was also able to replicate that with a MagSafe Adapter (which it actually sticks to by the way). Larger wireless chargers like this wireless charger had no issue in terms of charging it. Likely because the charging coils are larger making placement less of an issue. In any case, 30 minutes of charge should get you a year of usage. I clearly haven’t had these for a year. But I can say that I charged them in about 30 minutes when I first got them, then a week later I was able to get a full charge into them in a couple of minutes. That suggests to me a year of battery life is plausible.
Now these cards aren’t exactly cheap. MSRP for each one is $66.89 CAD but they are currently going for $47.38 CAD at the moment. And there are discounts if you buy more than one. My thinking is that this price is based on the fact that ZIKE isn’t going to be selling you one of these cards every year when the battery runs out. Thus they have to get their cash up front. Regardless, The ZIKE Smart Tracking Card has earned a place in my Ekster Carbon Fibre Cardholder to make sure that I don’t lose it.
Posted in Products with tags Apple on April 21, 2024 by itnerd
In late 2021 I bought my 16″ M1 Pro MacBook Pro. It corrected all the sins of Apple laptops since 2016. On top of that it has Apple Silicon which literally destroys any processor from Intel. It’s been my workhorse since then. Now while I did a review that comprised of Part 1 and Part 2 of this notebook, I decided that I should to circle back to it to give you an update in terms of how I have got on with it.
I’ll start with the bad first. I’ve had two keyboard replacements on it. The first was a year ago, and the second was a few weeks ago. Both times the repair was covered by AppleCare which illustrates why you should always get AppleCare. But if you’re not convinced, you can read this to give you a few other reasons to always get AppleCare. Now I am chalking these keyboard failures up to how I type rather than a defect in the computer, by that I mean the sort of issues that Apple had with the infamous “butterfly” keyboard, because the exact same key on the keyboard went bad both times. Thus I have changed my setup to hopefully keep a third time from happening. Specifically I now run the MacBook Pro in clamshell mode attached to a monitor and an external keyboard as opposed to how I was running before which was in this manner. By the way, I’ll be doing a desk setup article in the coming weeks once I have my new setup finalized. I should also note that both times that the MacBook Pro has been in for repair, Apple has had to replace other parts. Specifically a new trackpad which failed calibration during the second keyboard replacement, and a logic board (the motherboard in Apple speak) during the first keyboard replacement because whatever on the logic board that interfaced with the ambient light sensor failed. But there was an upshot to these repairs. To replace the keyboard, Apple has to replace the entire top case. That top case includes a battery as well as a keyboard. Thus I got a new battery with 100% battery health both times. That’s a win.
Now over to the good. And there’s lots there that is good:
The 16″ mini LED display is still the best display available in a notebook short of going to something with an OLED display. The only display that it competes against is the super expensive Apple Pro Display XDR which doesn’t have ProMotion (variable refresh rates up to 120hz) capabilities, but has HDR capabilities like this 16″ display. In fact, if you run this in a multiple monitor setup, you’ll find it difficult to find an external display that matches the 16″display in terms of quality. Which is my challenge at the moment as once you get sight of this display, anything else is second rate.
The speakers are incredible. I honestly have never thought of adding external speakers to my desk setup because the built in ones are so good. And combine that with the microphones which record audio so good that fools people into thinking that you’re wearing a headset or you have a pro quality microphone in front of you. That makes it really handy for a Teams call if you don’t have AirPods handy.
The fact that Apple brought back all the ports that people use so that way you don’t have to live “the dongle life” is very much appreciated. For example, I use the built in HDMI port all the time to plug into projectors when I do presentations. The SD card slot allows me to pull photos off of my camera as well as update the maps for my car which reside on an SD card. The only dongle that I carry these days is a 2.5 Gbps ethernet to USB-C dongle as I often have to connect to things like enterprise routers and enterprise network switches to do things like firmware updates and to tweak their configurations.
It’s still fast. Three years later I am still able to do exactly what I need it to do and it doesn’t feel any slower than it did on day one. What I often have to do is create virtual machines with different operating systems using VMWare Fusion so that I can replicate client environments to do anything from testing to troubleshooting. But to be completely honest, If I didn’t have to do that on a regular basis I likely would have gotten a MacBook Air or something like that as I would not have a use case for this computer.
Though I will admit that this observation is affected by the fact that the battery has been replaced twice, battery life has never, ever been an issue for me. In fact, one of the few times I have taken the power adapter with me when I leave home is when my wife and I spent a week in France last summer. Bonus points for the fact that I can also use a third party USB-C charger to charge the MacBook Pro if I had to.
The camera is “only” 1080p. But it’s far from trash. It’s actually pretty good due to the fact that Apple does all sorts of wizardry to make images look good.
The only other thing that I will mention is that my wife also got a 16″ MacBook Pro shortly after I got mine. She “only” got 16GB of RAM rather than 32GB. But it does exactly what she needs it to do. Which is Word and Excel along with Zoom and Teams. It is overkill for those needs, but at the time, this was the only way to get a large screen on a MacBook as the 15″ MacBook Air had not been announced. She runs hers in clamshell mode most of the time though only taking it out of the house on a handful of occasions, including our trip to France. And she’s had no issues with it at all. Both of us agree on one thing though, we don’t see a need to replace these MacBook Pros anytime soon. This despite the fact they are three years old, and we’ve tended to replace our Macs every three to four years in the past. The fact is that these MacBook Pros were a quantum leap above the Intel models that they replaced, and the M2 and M3 versions of these MacBook Pros are more iterative upgrades. Thus unless Apple comes out with something that is a quantum leap above these MacBook Pros, our incentive to upgrade is zero. In fact, we’re not the only people who feel this way. YouTuber MKBHD reviewed the 16″ M3 Max MacBook Pro when they first came out. But before he got the review unit from Apple as he’s one of the few people that Apple will send review units to, he ordered one fully maxed out. Then cancelled the order once the review unit arrived, and he did his testing for his review. The TL:DR is that he discovered that there wasn’t enough of a difference between the M1 Mac MacBook Pro that he has been using and the M3 Max model. And keep in mind that his job is to edit videos for YouTube and he shoots them in 4K. Which means he pushes his MacBook Pro way harder than most of us ever will. Here’s the video where he explains his reasoning. But it illustrates how good the M1 series of MacBook Pros were. And still are.
One final point. If you’re wanting to get into the Apple Silicon game and you want something more than a MacBook Air, Apple on their refurbished store in Canada and the US still sells the M1 Pro and M1 Max versions of the MacBook Pro with a decent price cut. Plus you can still get AppleCare for items bought from the refurbished store. So that is a great way to get a powerful computer and save some cash at the same time. Thus if you’re in the market for a MacBook Pro, I highly recommend that you go that route as this is a great computer which will likely fit your needs for a long time as my wife and I have discovered over the last three years. Make sure that you get AppleCare, and you’ll be happy.
Posted in Products with tags Apple on April 15, 2024 by itnerd
There’s a bit of a story behind this Mac mini that I’ve been using for about two weeks now. Which is that I was planning on replacing a rather large PC that I had been using for the online cycling platform Zwift for some time with something a lot smaller and more efficient. But I was planning to hold out for the M3 Mac mini models that are sure to appear seeing as the M2 models have been out for over a year (Exactly 454 days as of the day that this review was posted). But what forced my hand was the fact that my 16″ MacBook Pro started to have keyboard issues. Again. Since I can’t afford to be without a computer as I have a business to run, this forced my hand into buying this Mac mini. Since I knew that it was possible that this could be replaced at any time by something faster, I went the route of buying it from the Apple Refurbished Store. That saved me $260 CDN and as I described here it’s still eligible for AppleCare which I did buy as well. So once I had it in my hands, I transferred my data and applications to it from my MacBook Pro, took the MacBook Pro in for repair at The Apple Store and carried on running my business. Then when I got the MacBook Pro back (And for the record The Apple Store replaced a top case which includes the keyboard and battery along with a trackpad and got it back to me ten calendar days later), I moved my data back the MacBook Pro and factory reset the Mac mini so that I could repurpose it as my Zwift computer.
With the backstory out of the way, let’s start this review by describing which Mac mini I got:
M2 Pro processor with a 10-Core CPU (6 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores) and a 16-Core GPU
16 GB RAM
512 GB Storage
16-core Neural Engine
Four Thunderbolt 4 ports
Two USB-A ports
HDMI 2.1 port
Gigabit Ethernet
Headphone jack
WiFi 6E
Bluetooth 5.3
This is one of the higher end models as the Mac mini starts at $799 CDN. But for that price you get an M2 processor with 8GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage. To be frank, Apple’s base models are pretty useless because 8GB of RAM isn’t nearly enough for most people, and 256 GB of storage is slower than their higher tiers of storage on top of not being enough storage for most people. Which is why I skipped the base model (And you should too). Plus I wanted a more powerful processor for Zwift. Which is why I went to the M2 Pro and not the M2. I should also note that Apple has another version of this M2 Pro model that comes with 2 extra CPU cores and 3 extra GPU cores for $379 CDN more. But I didn’t see that on the refurbished store. Which is why I went with this one instead. Here’s a look at the Mac mini:
It’s a pretty small and light computer as the general design of the computer hasn’t changed since they introduced them in 2005. You could easily pop it into a backpack and take it with you if you wanted to and have space left over. It’s also a bit of a fingerprint magnet as you can see. That’s a side effect of the recycled aluminum that they use for the chassis. Though as you will see, the back end of the computer is just as much of a fingerprint magnet:
Here you see the gigabit ethernet jack, 4 Thunderbolt ports, the HDMI port, the two USB-A ports, and the oddly placed headphone jack which in my opinion should be on the front as it’s not all that accessible. Though you could also make an argument that it’s fine on the back because you’ll need to plug in a quality set of speakers into it as the built in speaker isn’t all that good to be frank. It has a decent sized vent, though in the two weeks that I’ve been using it, I’ve never felt any significant amounts air hot air coming out of it, nor have I heard the fans spin up. It’s been silent. I guess that also means that I clearly don’t push the computer hard enough. Speaking of pushing, this Mac mini moves very easily on your desk. As it slides about when you try to plug literally anything into it if you don’t hold it steady. It could use some rubber feet on the bottom to stop that from happening because if you plug a lot of stuff into this Mac, that will be something that will annoy you very quickly.
Now, another one of the reasons why I was sitting on the sidelines for the M3 models of the Mac mini is that on paper, the M2 processors really don’t have that much of a performance gain over the M1 processors. Though as you will also see, that’s an overly simplistic view of what the M2 is capable of. Let me illustrate that with some Geekbench tests. I’ll start with using my M1 MacBook Pro with these specs as a point of comparison:
M1 Pro with 10-core CPU (8 performance cores and 2 efficiency cores), 16-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
1TB storage
32GB of RAM
As you can see they have the same amount of CPU and GPU cores, along with the same number of cores for the neural engine. Thus this is as fair of a comparison that you could possibly get. Let’s start with what the scores are for the M1 Pro CPU cores in my MacBook Pro:
And now, let’s look at the M2 Pro In my Mac mini:
The single core score is a bit higher. But the multi-core score is basically the same. Thus there’s no difference right? Well, not so fast. At first glance these scores would suggest that Apple didn’t spend a whole lot of time to make the CPU faster. But keep in mind that the M1 Pro has 8 performance cores and 2 efficiency cores. And the M2 Pro has 6 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores. That suggests to me that Apple made this M2 Pro more efficient by swapping two performance cores for two efficiency cores, and then tweaking all the cores to allow the CPU to put out the same level of compute power as the M1 Pro. Or to use a car analogy, Apple basically went from using a V6 engine that puts out 300 HP to a turbocharged 4 cylinder engine that consumes less gas and puts out 300 HP. Apple likely did this to save on power consumption for portable computer use without sacrificing speed. It also explains why the Mac mini did not “feel” any faster than my MacBook Pro when I used it to run my business.
Now let’s look at the Metal score. That’s important as Zwift uses Apple’s Metal graphics API to render graphics on the screen. Again, let’s start with the M1 Pro GPU in my MacBook Pro:
Now over to the M2 Pro in the Mac mini:
Now there’s a bit more of a difference. Clearly Apple invested some time to make the graphics a bit faster in the M2 Pro.
So if you take the GPU and CPU scores into account, and also take into account that there was no M1 Pro version of the Mac mini, that would suggest that this would be an upgrade path for someone with an M1 Mac mini who wants a faster Mac mini. Or this would be the computer to pick if you are coming to the Mac mini from a PC for example, and you wanted a small desktop computer that has healthy amounts of compute power. While at the same time not spending Mac Studio kind of money.
But the real question is, how does this run Zwift as that was the point of the whole exercise? Well, let me get something out of the way. Zwift on the Mac platform limits the level of detail of the graphics that the game displays for reasons that I don’t understand to what they term as “high” graphics detail which is their second highest tier of graphics quality (“Ultra” is the highest that you can go on the PC side of the fence which is visually sharper than “high”, but you have to look for the differences between the two. And you need some serious hardware to run Zwift at that level. As in an RTX 3090 for example). But they do let you run it at up to 4K resolution. So what I did was some frame rate tests at 4K and my results are as follows:
The maximum frame rate that I recorded was 121 FPS
The average frame rates were between 87 and 101 FPS based on recording the average frame rate over 10 different one hour rides.
In terms of what “high” graphics quality looks like on Zwift at 4K, here’s a couple of quick video clips where I set a couple of PR’s in a couple of sprint segments while I was doing a training session:
The graphic quality is good and there’s nothing to complain about here. But you have to wonder what you would get if you could unlock the “ultra” setting on a Mac. I say that because I was monitoring CPU and GPU performance and there was headroom to spare on both fronts. Which means that Zwift can look better than it does now if they chose to take advantage of the hardware on offer to the application. As for how that compares to the PC that I was replacing? Well, first of all, you can find the specs for the PC in question here, but average frame rates tended be between 59 – 66 FPS. And I’ve never recorded anything past 67 FPS as a maximum frame rate. All of that was on the “ultra” setting at 4K. If I throttled it back to “high” I likely would have gotten better frame rates. But I think you see the point here. Which is this tiny computer has enough power to run whatever you need, in my case Zwift, without breaking a sweat. And it can do it better than some PCs.
One final observation is that WiFi on this computer is faster than the WiFi that’s part of the M1 Pro chip. How Much faster? How about 150 Mbps upstream and downstream in testing on my WiFi network? That’s not a trivial amount. And keep in mind that I have WiFi 6 here in my condo. That means that you get a bit of an upgrade in terms of WiFi performance that you may actually notice depending on what WiFi hardware you own and what you’re doing. For example you won’t notice this streaming Netflix. But I tripped over this speed difference by doing a Time Machine backup and noticing that the backups went somewhat faster versus a Time Machine backup on my MacBook Pro with the M1 Pro. I attribute this speed increase in part to the fact that the M2 Pro’s WiFi support can do up to 2400 Mbps which is twice what the M1 Pro can do. And clearly that speed increase isn’t just a WiFi 6E thing.
Gripes? The only gripes that I have are the usual ones that I have about Apple computers. They are not cheap (Though to be fair, you could make an argument that the Mac mini has the performance of a 14″ or 16″ M2 Pro MacBook Pro at a lower price point). You can’t upgrade them after the purchase which forces you to perhaps buy more computer than you need in order to increase the longevity of said computer. And the base models suck performance wise which means nobody should ever buy them. Other than that, there’s really nothing negative that I have to say.
Let’s get down the price. This specific Mac mini variant is $1699 CDN. Though I paid $1439 via the Apple Refurbished Store, which is how I would suggest that you acquire one of these computers if you have a use case for it. I say that because I fully expect it to be replaced with an M3 model or even an M4 model at any time over the next few months. One thing to keep in mind is that the Mac mini doesn’t come with a keyboard or mouse, and you’ll need to source a monitor as well. So you’ll have to factor that into the purchase price if you don’t have a spare monitor, keyboard and mouse lying around. Having said all of that, this is a good way to get a desktop Mac and it’s worth a look if this Mac fits your needs. Just skip the base model.
Posted in Products with tags EnGenius on April 11, 2024 by itnerd
The EnGenius EXT1105P Switch Extender is an interesting piece of kit with a very specific use case. And to understand that use case, let’s look at the the EnGenius EXT1105P Switch Extender:
This is the business end of the EnGenius EXT1105P Switch Extender. The gigabit input port is compatible with PoE++, which gives an input power of 51W to the switch, and the additional gigabit ports can all provide PoE+. With 802.3at PoE+, this can provide up to 25.50W to a device. And that’s all there is to this switch extender. There’s no power adapter on it because all the power comes in via the input port. Thus the use case for the switch extender goes something like this:
You need to power a bunch of devices in some corner of an office or warehouse that doesn’t have easy access to mains power. To get around that, you run a PoE cable to the location and plug it into this switch extender’s input port.
You then plug in your devices into any of the 4 ports. Given the level of power that it supports, I am guessing that this is intended for cameras or lower powered devices.
Setting this up was what I expect from any EnGenius product. Which is that it was laughably easy. All I had to do was the following:
Power on the switch
Use the QR code on the base of the switch to add it to the EnGenius app
Done. Declare victory and have a beer.
After that I pugged in some PoE cameras that I borrowed from a client of mine and everything was working perfectly. There’s honestly not much more to say here as it does exactly what it says it is supposed to do with ease. I could complain that it doesn’t do 2.5 Gbps Ethernet if I wanted to nitpick something. But that would likely require more power and make this solution border on unworkable. The EnGenius EXT1105P Switch Extender goes for $119 USD and if you have a use case involving PoE that fits this switch extender, consider this a must buy.
Posted in Products with tags EnGenius on February 16, 2024 by itnerd
Engenius last year launched a series of access points targeted towards home and small office users called EnGenius Fit. This line of products is meant to take aim at the pain points of these user by making them easy to deploy and manage. Today I’m reviewing the EnGenius Fit6 4×4 Lite (also known as the EWS-276fit) and here’s a look at it starting with the bottom:
1 x 10/100/1000/2500 N-BASE-T, RJ-45 Ethernet Port
1x DC Jack (this is a good time to mention that this is a PoE device and no AC adapter is included)
Reset button
On the side is a Kensington lock slot.
The top has a bunch of LED’s to indicate the status of the access point. One thing that I should point out is that this access point is really thin. Thus it’s more likely to go unnoticed.
This access point supports 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz WiFi. Which means that you can get up to 2400 Mbps in the 5-GHz frequency band & 1148 Mbps in the 2.4-GHz frequency band in ideal conditions. It also supports everything up to 802.11ax. In my testing using my usual testing protocol, I got these speeds:
4.5 meters away: 912 Mbit/s
10 meters and a pair of concrete walls to deal with: 569 Mbit/s
These are better than respectable speeds. If you had this access point, I doubt there’d be any complaints. Especially with multiple clients which this access point handed without an issue.
In terms of managing this access point, you get three options:
Option A – Cloud Management: Manage and monitor the Access Point through the FitXpress Platform with a mobile app or through the web portal.
Option B – On-Premises Management: If you want to manage the device in on-premises mode, you need an onsite management station running a FitController connected to the same network.
Option C – Standalone Configuration: You connect to the access point with a web browser and manage it that way.
I set it up using Option C, but it’s nice to have options for whatever you feel most comfortable with. And deploying it only took me 15 minutes.
The EnGenius Fit6 4×4 Lite Indoor Wireless Access Point is available now for a price of $149 USD. If you’re looking to blanket your office, or a home with WiFi that won’t break the bank, and at the same time have something that is easy to deploy and manage, this is totally access point is totally worth looking at.
Posted in Products with tags HyperX on February 14, 2024 by itnerd
When you’re serious about pwning n00bs in whatever game you play, skill only gets you so far. Because if you’re playing with the average mouse, that will be the difference between winning and losing. That’s where a mouse like the HyperX Pulsefire Haste 2 comes in. This is a very lightweight gaming mouse that has a maximum polling rate of 8000Hz. Meaning that if you sense that someone is behind you, this mouse will allow you to quickly spin around and pick them off before they can pick you off.
Let’s have a look at the mouse:
From the top, it looks like every other mouse out there. But the tell tale RGB lighting is present, which tips you off that this is a gamer focused mouse. But there’s another thing that will make it clear that this mouse is focused on gaming:
You can add rubber grips to the buttons….
…. and the sides to make sure that your fingers don’t slip at a critical moment. Speaking of buttons, you get four plus the scroll wheel. You can program all of the buttons on this mouse using the HyperX NGENUITY Software (and I should mention that you can customize the RGB light as well using this software), but you can’t reprogram the scroll up/down inputs, and the left- and right-click button functions can only be switched. Not a deal breaker, but some of the competition allow you that level of customization. One big plus is the cable. It’s made out of paracord material and I had no issues with it snagging on anything. Why is that important? It’s important because it’s distracting and that might get you pwned.
I tested this first with Call of Duty Warzone, then with Team Fortress 2. Long story short, this mouse works well. It’s light which means that it won’t tire your hands, and it is very precise. I was able to precisely get headshots in Team Fortress 2 much easier with this mouse versus the mouse that I usually use. All the buttons are very tactile which takes away that moment of “did I click the button” that one might have in an intense gaming session. Finally, the rubber grips are something that you should try, especially if you have sweaty hands as it simply makes gaming better.
The only real downside to this mouse is that left handed people need not look at this mouse. That’s not unusual for mice, but it would be nice to see a gaming mouse that can be used by anyone. Having said that, I’d recommend this mouse if pwnage matters above all else. The HyperX Pulsefire Haste 2 is $80 CDN and worth it as far as I am concerned.
Posted in Products with tags Lincoln on February 13, 2024 by itnerd
Last night my wife and I attended an event hosted by Lincoln that was intended to showcase their new 2024 Lincoln Nautilus. This is a 5 passenger mid-sized luxury crossover that is intended to play in the same space as the Lexus RX. But it has one thing that in my mind will make it stand out from the Lexus product. I’ll get to that one thing in a moment. But let’s look at the Lincoln Nautilus:
Lincoln had a black and white one on display. Personally I like the white one as it really shows off all the details of the vehicle.
The daytime running lights really stand out from most cars that I see because it really ties in the key elements of the front of the vehicle well.
Even though this is a mid sized crossover, it visually looks bigger because of the long hood. That’s going to give it a lot of presence on the road.
The theme with the lights that you saw at the front continues in the back with a single bar across the back of the vehicle. One thing that I will note is that there’s minimal branding on this vehicle. I am guessing that Lincoln wants to make the design of the vehicle speak for itself.
Now let’s move to the show stopper feature of the Lincoln Nautilus.
Meet Lincoln’s new 48″ 4K panoramic display. This display packs 1000 nits of brightness and insanely high resolution that approaches retina quality. The display is divided up into three parts:
Critical: This is the section of the display in front of the drive. You’ll see your speedometer and other critical driving related info.
Supportive: This is the centre section of the display where mapping and real time traffic info will live.
Glanceable: This is where less important info will live. For example I saw weather, Spotify and Tidal in that section.
This setup is great from a drivers perspective because when I first saw this display, my concern was that there’s so much here it would be distracting. But clearly Lincoln thought the same thing and went though the time and effort to make that less of a concern.
The infotainment system is powered by Google and Google Assistant allows you to do things like change the temperature in the car via your voice as this is intended to be a voice first system. But if Amazon Alexa or Apple’s Siri is your preference, this system supports that.
That brings me to my next point. Unlike a certain member of the big three North American carmakers who dropped support for Android Auto and Apple CarPlay in their electric vehicles, Lincoln is playing nice with everyone and giving them the choice of both, or just using the Lincoln Digital Experience by itself. And Lincoln gets bonus points for the level of integration that they offer. Have a look at this:
If you have. look at this picture, you’ll see that Apple Maps is on the centre of the 48″ display as well as the lower display. I point this out because most manufacturers do the bare minimum to put Apple CarPlay and Android Auto into their cars. Lincoln has gone the extra mile here and need to be commended for doing so as it simply creates a much better user experience.
Another thing to point out is that the Lincoln Digital Experience gets access to the Google Play Store. Which means that it will have its own app ecosystem. At launch, you’ll be able to access the following apps:
Spotify
Amazon Music
Audible
Tidal
iHeartRadio
On top of that, if you’re not driving you’ll be able to use the following apps:
YouTube
Prime Video
They didn’t stop there. You can browse the web using the Vivaldi Browser app and a Bluetooth keyboard. Google Chrome is coming soon as well. So are video conferencing apps, though I couldn’t get a list of which ones. But I have to assume that the usual suspects being Zoom, Teams, and WebEx will make an appearance. Finally, this system supports games. And it was demoed to me using a Bluetooth connected Xbox controller which allowed me to play a quick game (badly I might add) of Asphalt Nitro 2 which is exclusive to Lincoln. In terms of the quality of the gameplay, my wife commented that this vehicle had a better graphics card than some gaming PCs as the quality was great. I noted a tiny amount of lag that I suspect is due to the controller being connected via Bluetooth. But I would need more time with this vehicle to confirm or deny my suspicions. But that was the only thing that I noted in terms of lag. The Lincoln Digital Experience was otherwise quick and responsive when doing pretty much anything that I tried.
The next thing that I want to touch on is privacy. You might recall last year that privacy within vehicle infotainment systems blew up in the media when it came to light via Mozilla that cars were “rolling privacy nightmares” as they collected all the data they could and sent it to car companies so that said car companies could monetize it. I am going to go out on a limb here and suggest that Lincoln must of taken note of this because the Lincoln Digital Experience at first glance is not a “rolling privacy nightmare”. I was shown where I could allow or deny individual permissions, such as microphone access on a per app basis, as well as stop the Lincoln Digital Experience from communicating with Lincoln at all, as well as controlling any advertising that may pop up. While this is another one of these things that I would need to dig into more to see how far this extends, I am glad to see Lincoln recognize that there are people out there who really care about their privacy, and build an infotainment system that addresses that need.
Wrapping up here, I want to touch on updates and security. This system will get regular over the air updates in the form of updates that enhance the system, updates to apps, and even the monthly Android security updates that Android users are used to. And it’s all done automatically over the air via 5G. That’s good to know because for someone like me who lives in IT and constantly preaches to people to install all available updates to stay secure, I like to see when companies make that process as easy as possible.
The Lincoln Nautilus is hitting dealerships now and starts at $64,395 CDN with your choice of a gas 2L turbo engine or a 2L turbo hybrid engine. While I haven’t driven it, the tech that the Nautilus alone makes it stand out from the competition. Thus it’s very much worth a look if you’re in the market for a five passenger luxury crossover.
Posted in Products with tags Shell on December 18, 2023 by itnerd
Because of recent issues with the Esso/Mobil app during its rollout that resolved themselves, that drove me to trying the Shell App to see if it was any better. And based on my testing, it is and it isn’t. Let me explain.
Registration is very easy. After you install the app you’re prompted to enter you email address to set up the app. And you are able to add your CAA membership number and your AirMiles membership numbers to earn rewards. In my case, I entered my CAA membership number as I can save 3 cents a litre on every fill up. One big plus is that you can create an AirMiles account on the fly if you want one.
In terms of being able to drive up and fill my car with gas, that part is stupid simple:
You drive up to the pump
You open the app
Pick the pump number
Authorize the pump using a stored credit card or Apple Pay. I selected Apple Pay as that is more secure.
Wait for the authorization to go through and then wait for the pump to tell you to select the grade of gas that you want to fill up with. Choose the grade and start pumping.
All of this was smooth and easy. I had no issues whatsoever filling up every time I used the app. So that part of the user experience was good. However, paying in store was not as good. The way it is supposed to work is that you choose to pay inside and a barcode appears to allow you to pay inside. If you’ve used the Starbucks app, it’s kind of like that. But for me, it has a fatal flaw:
Apparently you cannot pay using Apple Pay. Why I don’t know. But what it means for me is that I will not be using the app to pay inside a Shell gas station. After Petro Canada got pwned, there is zero chance I will be storing my credit card details in this or any other app. If Shell were smart, they would add Apple Pay support to the part of the app that runs in store payments because I am sure that I am not the only one who feels this way.
To conclude, if I had to rank this app relative to the Petro Canada app and the old Esso app, it’s able the Petro Canada app but below the Esso app. If Shell would allow you to pay using Apple Pay in store, it would be above the Esso app. But to be fair, I need to review the new Esso/Mobil app. I’ll be doing that in the coming days and we’ll revisit this.
Posted in Products with tags Ooma on November 21, 2023 by itnerd
Back in January I wrote a review about the Ooma Telo VoIP phone system. At the time I promised that I would follow up. And that took longer than I expected because to be frank, nothing much has gone wrong except for one thing that I will cover in a moment. The call quality remains excellent and she’s has had no problems. In short it’s been rock solid and she’s had no complaints.
The only thing that has gone wrong was that the client forgot to update her credit card with Ooma and that broke her phone service for a few days. On top of that Ooma’s emails warning her of this went to her spam folder. But one phone call to Ooma’s support on a Saturday afternoon sorted all of that out. I will also note that the wait time was under a minute and the problem was resolved in under 30 minutes as resolving the issue required a power cycle of the Telo device which takes 15 to 20 minutes to do.
The bottom line is that the Ooma Telo is a reliable product that I would recommend without hesitation. Their support is great, and I honestly can’t find anything negative to say. If you are looking to use a VoIP phone system to give you an affordable home phone line, the Ooma Telo is worth your time to take a look at.
This access point is pretty low key and doesn’t occupy a lot of space. In fact, it’s on the thin side It may even go unnoticed by most people. The only thing that you see on the outside are a set of LEDs along the top.The first is power, while the second indicates whether you’re connected to your router. The third and fourth lights indicate the status of the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands respectively. You should also note that on the bottom right side of the picture is a Kensington lock slot for making sure that the access point doesn’t grow legs and walk away.
Underneath is a recessed area where there is your power connection if you’re not using POE (Please note that the power adapter is not included), and a gigabit Ethernet jack that supports POE, both on the right. And on the left is a hole to reset the access point via a paperclip. I should also note that all the brackets and screws that you need to mount this are in the box.
The access point supports the following speeds:
5Ghz: 1,200Mbps
2Ghz: 574Mbps
And it support up to WiFi6 as well. Plus it supports 2×2 Mu-MiMo. Which means that if you have a lot of devices, you should not notice any slowdowns.
Setup in typical EnGenius fashion is simple. Download and install the EnGenius smartphone app available in Android and iOS versions, scan a QR on the back of the housing and spend a few minutes getting settings that work for you configured. You might also want to check for a firmware update to make sure that you’re good to go. And I should also mention that there’s web management available as well if managing your access points from a smartphone isn’t your thing. But I will say that there does not appear to be any offline management available which might bother some people.
The best way to test this is to use POE. So using this EnGenius POE switch, I set it up and did some performance and range testing. I should note that besides getting the power adapter from EnGenius, you can also use a POE adapter like this one that EnGenius sent me to power the access point.
I used a WiFi 6 enabled device to do my testing of this access point and got these results:
375Mbps from 4.5 meters away
241Mbps at 10 meters and a pair of concrete walls to deal with
These are all respectable speeds and is in line with the best WiFi hardware that I have tested. I also tried to get this access point to trip up by throwing 10 WiFi 6 devices playing videos from YouTube at it. None seemed to have an issue in doing so. Thus I am certain that whatever your use case is, this access point will be able to handle it.
