TOP GADGET FOR GENERAL PURPOSE
You are going to be shopping for a lot of stuff this holiday season. Make sure you buy the best. We’ve worked with our friends at sanjayadhikari to compile a list of the best products we’ve seen this year. Our list spans the 20 most important categories and includes picks for the best in personal technology, home entertainment devices, appliances for the home, and gear to use on the job. This isn’t one of those “best deals” lists, or a promotional gimmick. We’ve only listed products that our writers and editors have tested, and these are the things we’d recommend you buy if you’re shopping for something in the category. You can see all of Reviewed.com’s latest picks at their site: Best of Year 2015. For each product, you can read the full review at WIRED or at Backspace Innovation and judge for yourself. But it’s more fun to let us do the choosing for you.
Air2 floating Bluetooth speaker
Beleive it or not this is not a normal speaker we have ever seen, in fact Air2 Floating speaker (Bluetooth) looks more cooler , but both employ the magic of magnets. Ya we all know speakers are made from magnet. But in this case magnets are arranged in a way that upper magnet float over the ground magnet. Balanced correctly on top of the magnetized base you have a shiny chrome centerpiece that screams look at how much money I have. it costs $200 and we are talking about a 3w outpit. But it does float.
Google Glass
Google Glass, which cost $1,500 for those invited to a sort of public beta test, never took off. The relatively powerful head-mounted computer provided important signals for the future of wearable technology. Glass showed that designers working on computing devices that are worn face a different set of assumptions and challenges. Glass, for example, made it easy for users to surreptitiously record video, which led some restaurants, bars and movie theaters to ban the device. Glass also showed the potential pitfalls of easily identifiable wearables, perhaps best proven by the coining of the term “Glassholes” for its early adopters. While Glass was officially shelved in 2015, augmented reality—displaying computer-generated images over the real world—is a concept many companies are still trying to perfect. Google included.
Segway
Why is the Segway personal scooter such a potent cultural symbol? Maybe it has something to do with providing a metaphor for increasingly out-of-shape Americans. Perhaps it was seeing a U.S. president fall off one. Weird Al’s “White and Nerdy” video helped, too. The Segway—as hyped and as mocked as it has been—is a defining example of “last mile” transportation, an electric scooter designed to make walking obsolete. (Recently, the idea has been somewhat revived by the emergence of so-called hover boards, which are now also entering a kind of post-fad twilight.) The Segway’s symbolic impact greatly exceeded its commercial success. Unit sales never exceeded the six-figure mark before the firm was purchased by a Chinese interest in 2015 for an undisclosed sum.
Nokē Bluetooth Padlock
LOCK AND LOAD THIS APP ONTO YOUR PHONE
We think smartlocks are the solution to dumbhumans. We can't count the number of times we've been deep in a conversation on the phone and forgotten the combination to a lock or misplaced the key to something we use once a year. "But, see, that's proof that Picard is a superior.... oh, crud." Not only do you have to concede your position, but also you have to find somebody with boltcutters and then buy a new padlock.
Think how much happier you'd be if you'd bought this product. Because if you had installed the Nokē Bluetooth Padlock, your phone would be your key. The free app you install on your phone (iOS, Android, and Windows phone) uses Bluetooth® to talk to the Nokē padlock and convince it to let you in. Got some dude off of Freecycle who needs to get into your storage unit? Let him unlock it via the app, and it will log his access. Or let one of your friends get your homework out of your locker for you while you're out sick. You know, we probably wouldn't have dreaded high school gym so much if we had this cool gadget. No, wait. We can't claim that, because really nothing makes high school gym better.
Think how much happier you'd be if you'd bought this product. Because if you had installed the Nokē Bluetooth Padlock, your phone would be your key. The free app you install on your phone (iOS, Android, and Windows phone) uses Bluetooth® to talk to the Nokē padlock and convince it to let you in. Got some dude off of Freecycle who needs to get into your storage unit? Let him unlock it via the app, and it will log his access. Or let one of your friends get your homework out of your locker for you while you're out sick. You know, we probably wouldn't have dreaded high school gym so much if we had this cool gadget. No, wait. We can't claim that, because really nothing makes high school gym better.
Product Specifications
- Nokē Bluetooth Padlock
- A padlock you unlock with your smartphone
- Compatible with iOS, Android, and Windows Phone
- Requires Bluetooth® 4.0
- Share your lock with family and friends, plus track who's accessed it
- Customize how near your phone must be to unlock the lock
- Materials: Steel with a boron-hardened shackle
- Water and weather resistant (IP66 rated)
- Batteries: CR2032 watch battery (included & replaceable)
- Battery it ships with should last for the next year
- If the battery inside the lock dies with your stuff inside, you can "jump" it with another battery
- Plus, you can set a sort of morse code access, too, which is great when you don't want to look for your phone or it's out of juice
- Dimensions: 3 1/2" tall x 2 1/4" wide x 1 1/4" thick with 1/3" diameter shackle
- Weight: 14 oz.
- The app can manage multiple padlocks
Self-Balancing Hoverboards
The Self-Balancing Scooter is known by many names: the hoverboard, the Swagway, the airboard, etc. But given their sudden popularity, you can call them whatever you want and people will still know what you’re talking about. If you are new to this concept, please let me do you the favor of making it clear that these devices don’t actually hover. What these devices actually do is use dual hub motors and gyro sensor technology to offer a smooth and safe ride that is as close to hovering as you will get for under $1,000.
So you may wonder then, is it worth settling for this while I wait for real hoverboards? The answer: absolutely. These Segway-esque devices are simple, fun, and totally viable for commuting. And don’t worry, none of these top models will catch fire. Yes, Chinese knock-offs are out there, and at prices lower than the scooters on this list, but unlike these scooters, these knockoffs aren’t guaranteed to be manufactured in compliance with international safety requirements.
