
We looked at some of the coolest Lifestyle products for the Holiday Season. Like mood and speciality lighting? Look at two products, the GE Synch Dynamic Effects Light Strip, and GE LED Plus Synch Light bulb with speaker plus color. We looked at some great USB cables such as the INIU Leopard Cable 100 watts Cat Proof Type-C cable. Rolling Square distributes the popular InCharge cable, Rolling Square Air Card, and Tau 2 charger that fits on your keychain. Finally, looking for some swell and tough boots? Earwax videos are all the rage, The Bebird EarSight Plus allows you to safely look inside your ears, so gross it’s fun!
GE Cync Lighting
We love fun lighting, and GE, one of the leading innovators of lighting solutions on a global scale, started introducing a line of fun, easy to use customizable lighting solutions several years ago. They offer a wide variety of products, but with the holidays coming up, we thought we’d test a couple of them. The long silicon rubber GE Cync Dynamic Effects Smart LED Light Strip is rated for indoor and outdoor use. It works with Wifi, so controllable via your home network. We had a problem initially connecting, when we had it outside, but found that if you brought it indoors near your router that it worked fine. Once connected we were able to update the Firmware, program it and all was well. The app lets you program colors, patterns and more for holiday fun.
With Halloween coming up, we wondered what could we do for the wee Trick or Treaters who show up each year. In the past, we’d set up a Bluetooth speaker, with spooky sounds, and some colored light bulbs. This year however we tried the GE LED Plus Cync Light bulb with speaker plus color. This is a very cool unit, about the size of a normal 60 watt lightbulb, but it contains a small Bluetooth speaker, as well as color controllable LEDs. So, we programmed it for Orange, played spooky Halloween sounds from our phone, and all was scary in the word. We think it’s great for any holiday, just choose the music and color for the mood you desire. Best of all, it has it’s own Bluetooth controller, so no need to depend on Wifi for a connection for setup. We wish all teach was this easy and fun to use!
For more information on the GE Cync Dynamic Effects Smart LED Light Strip visit: https://www.gelighting.com/smart-home/full-color-strip-lights/outdoor
For more information on the GE LED Plus Synch Light bulb with speaker plus color visit: https://www.gelighting.com/led-plus-bulbs/speaker-bulbs
INIU
USB cables pretty much come and go, but all of them are susceptible to the most magnificent hunters on the planet, Cats. When our boys Sandy and Grayson were little, I remember sitting at our new Mac Pro Cheese Grater, happily typing away and suddenly the keyboard stopped working. We panicked, I mean it was a very expensive computer, and we just spent hours transferring data. Every possible scenario went through our heads. Bad RAM, fried hard drive, bad keyboard, damaged mouse. Then we peeked under the desk, and there with an adorable look in his eyes, was Grayson, with those needle sharp kitten killer teeth, and the USB cable from our new keyboard in his little mouth, neatly pierced in half.
Since then, we have lost brand new, as in just having unwrapped and yet to use USB cables, headphones, earphones, and even MacBook Pro chargers to those adorable little feline demons. So, imagine our surprise when the fine folks from INIU asked us if we were interested in testing their new INIU Leopard Cable 100 watts Cat Proof Type-C cable. This is a dual Type-C cable, 6.6 feet in length, two to a package. The jacket is a tough and durable Flyweave Nylon Cable, it’s rated to 100 Watts so should be able to safely power and charge just about any equipment you can throw at it. According to the company, it’s passed 45,000 bend ttests, a 15-layer protection system, a 3-year warranty, and they boast an incredible 38+ million “Happy Users”, but most importantly, it’s guaranteed “Cat Proof”, for computer users with pets with teeth, you need a solid cable, and we recommend the INIU Leopard Cable 100 watts Cat Proof Type-C cable.
For more information on the INIU Leopard Cable 100 watts Cat Proof Type-C cable visit: https://iniushop.com/products/iniu-leopard-magnetic-cable-100w
Rolling Square
Rolling Square makes some unique cables and accessories. A few that caught our holiday fancy were the popular InCharge cable, Rolling Square Air Card, and the Tau 2 Emergency keyring powerbank that is so small that fits on your keychain. The InCharge cable is one of their best known products, on one hand it’s a normal Type C cable with a twist.
The Tau 2 Emergency keyring powerbank is so small that fits on your keychain and won’t interfere with your car or house keys. It has both a USB Type-C connector and a Lighting / Micro USB connector. So, it’s very versatile, no matte if you need an older iPhone, Android, or any device that require the Micro USB plug. They’ve thoughtfully included an NFC tag to ID the unit, QR Code stickers to help find it via Digital ID, and more. It’s one of those products that seems simple till you realize what’s incorporated into it. It’s not designed to fully charge your phone, but if your phone is dying, and you need enough charge for a ride sharing driver to show up, the Tau 2 Emergency keyring powerbank might save your ass.
For more information on the Tau 2 Emergency keyring powerbank visit: https://rollingsquare.com/products/tau-2-a-new-kind-of-power-bank
There have been so many times in our lives on the road as journalists that we have had the right cable, but wrong charger. Sometimes all we had was a cable, but it didn’t fit other chargers. The inCharge XL 6.6 ft cable to the rescue. First off, it’s long, and we love long cables. Wether you need to charge your phone in bed, or don’t have power nearby, longer is better, believe us! The cable has a cool adaptable set of ports on each end, allowing a USB-A to a USB-Cconnection, or both USB-C, or an Apple Lighting and Micro USB, the name of game is flexibility. It’s all metal housing protects the plugs, the tough nylon braided cable should stand up to abuse. If we needed one single cable on the road, it’d be the inCharge XL 6.6 ft cable. It handles for up to 100 Watts for fast charging, and for the color coordinated hipster, it’s available in four colors, with a 2 year world wide warranty.
For more information on the inCharge XL 6.6 ft cable visit: https://rollingsquare.com/products/xlm
Don’t need a 6.6 foot cable, but need to be adaptable on the road? We can attest to functionality of their Keyring Cables. These seem like mini-gadgets, with silicon rubber that protects and keeps the plugs clean, but once again, so tiny you can just zip into you backpack, purse, camera case, keyring, or rolling case, just for the one time you have an emergency. When we were covering an political campaign event, I needed to charge my trusty Sony AZ IV, which has Type C connector, but I didn’t have a charger with me, but a colleague had an old fashioned Type-A charger. I started to panic, then remembered I’d stuffed a InCharge XL Pocket into my bag. A minute later, I was topping off my battery! Me, if I were stuffing holiday stockings, along with some small bottles of Rum, I’d include a InCharge Xl or XS Keyring Cable. These are very cool, they fold into themselves, neat and tidy, and almost invisible until you need it, and when you do it will be a lifesaver!
For more information on the InCharge XL Pocket visit: https://rollingsquare.com/collections/keyring-cables
The AirCard – Card-sized wallet tracker is a very small, thin, and capable tracker for your wallet, or phone. The Apple AirTag has made a huge impact on travelers, or just forgetful people world wide. But AirTags aren’t for everybody or every use scenario. This is where the AirTag steps up. At only 2.2mm thin, you can leave in your wallet. It works with the Apple Find My Device Network, and includes your digital business card. It has a battery life of 2.5 years, and a small speaker so you can locate it audibly. It’s tough, Solid CNC Aluminum, and an RFID locker. Like all Rolling Square products, it’s designed in Switzerland, in conjunction with Apple. For safety it has Anti-Stalking built in. We think more folks should have an Rolling Square AirCard in their wallets, purse, briefcase, or camera bag!
For more information on the Rolling Square AirCard visit: https://rollingsquare.com/products/aircard
The Bebird EarSight Plus
Two video genres have taken over the internet, pimple popping and ear wax removals. Gross yes. Educational, yes. Guilty pleasure for millions, yes. Gross, again, yes. Ear care is a hot button topic. When I was growing up our ENT told us the “nothing larger than your elbow should enter your ears” and it’s still not bad advice. The Bebird EarSight Plus system allows you and your family to see inside your ear canals.
The Bebird EarSight Plus is a portable, rechargeable kit, designed to be used on the go or at home. It comes complete with a full set of accessories, so it’s safe to use with children, and even has a full complement of cleaning tools for the ear and nose. The unit is small, size of a large marker, has a tiny built-in video camera and light that can be viewed on your Apple, iOS or Android tablet or phone.
The case is the size of a cigar case, and fits all the pieces. It’s quite astonishing to check out your ears, and see tiny bits of wax. We take good care of our ears, so both of us were clean, but still seeing your ear canal was quite instructive. I tried it in my throat and nose, just for fun, fortunately, there wasn’t much to write home about.
Our favorite tool was a small, silicon rubber tip, that you can maneuver easily and pluck little bits of wax out with. The have a nice tool, a tweezers that let you grasp and pull out larger pieces of wax. It’s more difficult than you might imagine, and takes a bit of getting used to. But it’s also fiendishly fun. While your kids will probably love seeing their ears on their phones, you might want to make sure it’s hidden away from too curious hands. Their advertising says it’s also useful for lovers due to the intimacy, which we thought was pretty funny. It’s essentially a self-powered endoscope with a high-definition camera and tiny LED light system.
As strange as it might sound, the The Bebird EarSight Plus is a fun, useful tool for keeping your ears clean, and letting you know that you have a wax build-up that requires a trip to the doctors office. We think it’s kooky fun, and will make a great holiday gift.
For more information on the The Bebird EarSight Plus visit: https://bebird.com/products/bebird-earsight-plus
Harris Fogel and Nancy Burlan, posted 12/14/2024