Hands on

Hands-On: Ozmo Smart Water Bottle

Mike Hudson

A water bottle with smarts

As a big fan of the Apple Ecosystem, I am very much used to entering my vitals into the Apple Health App. One area which I am not very good at is maintaining my levels of hydration. I have a busy schedule, a stressful job and a whole host of other excuses I can use…

As an Apple Watch and smart scales owner most of my vitals are already automatically pushed to the health app, and although I’ve tried using many hydration tracking apps I often forget to update them. Which is when I decided a ‘smart bottle’ was the way to go. After a little bit of research, I settled on the Ozmo Smart Water Bottle.

Hands-On: Ozmo Smart Water Bottle

I’ve owned the water bottle since July 2018, so I think it’s fair that I make note of my thoughts on the bottle. Overall I am impressed with it, there are some pitfalls and some annoyances, but they don’t bother me enough to dump it and find a replacement.

Design

The overall design of the bottle I think is good, it’s ergonomic and fits well in your hand, it also has a handy carry handle on the top, which unlike some others is fixed in place. I actually like this. The lid on the top of the bottle does a good job of filling the spout to prevent any leakage once full. Which I’ve proved to work perfectly, as I’ve hopped around the house on crutches whilst holding the bottle.

Smarts

The Ozmo iPhone app looks like it was designed for the iPhone 5, and doesn’t scale well at all on newer iPhone models. Definitely not well on my iPhone X. However, I am happy to dismiss this, as that’s not so important to me. What does get tricky sometimes is the keyboard often lays over and doesn’t collapse correctly on some of the screens, which renders the application next to useless at times. It does also seem to have a tendency to crash frequently. Although the Ozmo brand and company look well established with a range of smart hydration tracking products for sale, the iOS app is definitely an afterthought.

Although the Ozmo app leaves a lot to be desired, the measuring of the fluids, your intake and the reminders given by the bottle work well. Inside the bottle is a channel which contains sensors to measure how much fluid you’ve consumed. This is transferred via Bluetooth to the Ozmo app and then from there is synced to the Apple Health app without issue. The bottle is also smart enough to know if you’re drinking a cold or hot drink!

Function

As I am trying to improve my levels of hydration, I generally (more often than not) use the bottle for cold drinks (mainly water), for which the bottle functions perfectly fine delivering everything you’d expect (no leaks). I have on occasion used the bottle to carry hot coffee, and each time I have I’ve been impressed with the length of time the bottle keeps the drink piping hot. So much so that almost the first thing I do when I sit down without is remove the lid to allow it to cool a bit quicker. All in all, I can’t argue with the function at all – it really does what it says on the tin… (or website at least)

Price

When I purchased the Ozmo bottle it was much cheaper then it is now (by at least £10) so I think I’d be reluctant to pay the £45.65 price quoted on amazon currently. Perhaps if/when the bottle is on offer again, I’d be tempted.

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Hands On: Fitbit Charge HR

Mike Hudson

fitbitI have always been a big believer in tech driving fitness.. As I work in the IT industry, gadgets play a very large part in my life. I believe having daily targets and goals to achieve is perhaps on of the best methods of improving health and fitness. So what better enabler could there be then a fitness tracker!?

The market is flooded with wearable tech at the minute, and a large percentage of that tech is aimed at the fitness fanatics. There’s some big players in this area of the market, each bringing their very own USP.

I’ve decided to invest in the FitBit Charge HR, not only because I was an early adopter in the FitBit on near day of release (which I lost whilst out one evening) but because I knew and felt comfortable with its software and dashboards. So I headed out to my local Argos store and picked one up, and heres what I think of it… (more…)

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Hands on: xScope

Mike Hudson Leave a comment

Back in October this year a StackSocial bundle offer landed in my mailbox. Since I started receiving these bundle mails they have never ceased to amaze me with some of the software they contain.. Most of the bundles include a piece of popular ‘flag ship’ software, and all of them contain smaller pieces.. Generally pieces I have never heard of before, and often on first glance I look at them and think – “I’m not sure I could make use of that” however I generally install them anyway, because … Hey – you should never judge a book by its cover!

One such item was xScope by Iconfactory .. xScope is a collection of 8 tools in one easy to use utility, primarily aimed at developers – the tool makes it unbelievably easily to achieve the perfect design and layout of pretty much anything on-screen. It’s ideal for aligning and measuring images, divs, tables, forms, controls and much much more.

The tool floats on top of all other applications and uses a simple “grab and drag” control on the ruler to make measuring as easy as possible.

xScope

But it doesn’t stop there.. You can also use xScope to check out what your design/application/site will look like on screens of various sizes with a simple click of a button!

xScope Screen Size

When I first downloaded the tool, I didn’t think I’d ever really use it.. How wrong was I, it soon became an important part of any design and development tasks! It even sports pride of place on my super clean minimalistic dock!

So to recap:

The good:

I am a big fan of anything that makes tasks around design and development easier and more streamlined, this certainly goes a long way to help with this. I think the price for such a powerful little utility is just right, even more so if you manage to bag it in a bundle.

The bad:

This is a tough one, as the tool doesn’t really have any downsides.. When I first started using it, reading the ruler correctly was a bit of a challenge – but once I got used to over stretching it slightly I quickly worked out that quirk.

The bottom line:

I am really please StackSocial decided to include this in their bundle, and I am pretty positive I will be upgrading to later versions as and when they arrive. This tool easily bags a 5 star rating from me.

Rating:

5.0 star big Hands on: xScope

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Hands on: AfterShokz Sportz 2

Mike Hudson Leave a comment
Bone Conduction Sport Headphones
AfterShokz Sportz 2 – Bone Conduction Sport Headphones

AfterShokz Sportz 2 Review

AfterShokz Sportz 2 are a pretty impressive set of bone conducting sport headphones, which differ from normal in ear headphones as they actually sit in front of the ear, and deliver sound via your cheek bones.

These headphones have been designed with the open air sports fanatic in mind, leaving the ear canal unobstructed the user is not at risk of not hearing on coming traffic etc. The build quality is good, and the headphones claim to be sweat resistant which is important when using during exercise.

However, I do feel the sound quality suffers from not being a complete in ear solution. They are certainly not a patch on my Sennheiser PMX 685i Sports In-Ear Neckband Headphones.  As one of my colleagues Philip Gardham pointed out they do sound a little like holding a normal in-ear earbud to your cheek and turning the volume up. On more base intense tracks the headset actually vibrates on your cheek bone, this headset is actually better with a medium volume track. They do also seem to suffer from quite a bit of sound leak too, which is another reason not to have them too loud.

The headphones use a lithium ion battery to power their bone conduction technology, and boast a massive 12 hours of constant use between charges. Headset charging is via the included micro USB cable, and takes approximately 2 hours before fully charged.

The headphones also have an ‘inline’ volume/play/pause/power functionality, which you can see below, the black box with the orange power button.

AfterShokz Sportz 2

The box also contains a ‘tough’ storage case for keeping your headset and charge cable neat and tidy. However, the case is quite bulky in size – so would take up a considerable amount of space in your gym bag.

So to recap:

The good:

I am a big fan of up and coming technology, and think bone conduction is quite frankly amazing, although the sound quality wouldn’t satisfy the most savvy audiophile, I’m sure day to day users would be more then happy. They are also reasonably priced at £59.95.

The bad:

I am not a big fan of standing out from the crowd, and think that the look of these on your head will turn heads in the wrong way.. They look a little like either I’ve missed my ears trying to put on normal headphones, or I should be wearing a star trek outfit.

The sound quality leaves a lot to be desired, and they are not as comfy as you might think.

The bottom line:

Although I certainly wouldn’t rush out and buy a set (I won my set) I do like the concept, and hope they pave the way for many more advancements around bone conduction. Until then, I’ll stick with my Sennheiser’s

Rating:

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