Hasta La Gadget!

Long distance phone calls. They still happen. Why pay long distance fees on your land line when you have umpteen hundred minutes on your cell phone? Yet it sure is handy having handsets all over the house. People can talk wherever they are most comfortable. A company named liGo took all these ideas into consideration and developed a new phone/cell phone accessory, BlueWave.

With BlueWave you get the convenience of your cell phone plus the accessibility of your landline handsets. Which means you can use your mobile minutes to make calls from any corded or cordless home phone unit.  Simply plug the gadget into your home phone system via phone cord. Then connect up to three cell phones via Bluetooth. That’s it. When your cell phone rings downstairs you’ll be able to pick it up on the phone upstairs. If you want to make a call simply pick up any handset and the signal goes through your cell phone. The three connected phones are differentiated on the top of the BlueWave, so you can stay away from calls that aren’t going to your phone. Voice commands are possible too so you can do things like talk to Siri through your home phone. And you can always press buttons to get back to your home voicemail when you need to check messages.

BlueWave, £99.95 at Amazon.co.uk, is definitely a new product and currently only shipping in the UK. But for the household that loves their handsets but may not want the hassle of getting a landline or the household that just wants more handsets to talk on while using cellular minutes it is the perfect solution.

[ Use Mobile Minutes via Your Home Phone copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Forget about Post It notes and fridge magnets that you leave at home, nobody in the family seem to be as interested in them as you are. Perhaps if you were to introduce to the tablet generation something that jives with them, they might actually take the trouble and time to see just what you have jotted down. Enter the £39.99 Boogie Board Jot Paperless LCD Tablet, where it will continue where its predecessors left off by looking far more sleek and professional. Of course, since this is a revised version of older technology, do expect your fair share of additions into the mix.

The stylus on the Boogie Board Jot Paperless LCD Tablet has been integrated for easier storage, and not only that, it doubles up as a stand. The magnetized back-plate allows it to hang happily on the fridge, making it the ideal tool to write down your shopping list or a love message to the missus so that she is greeted by some tender words when she arrives home. With 8.5” of writing real estate, this battery operated device is simple to “reset”, where pressing a button will ensure whatever was written will disappear as the screen starts from a clean slate all over again.

[ Boogie Board Jot Paperless LCD Tablet copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

As daylight savings end and we plunge into earlier darkness you should check on the status of your flashlights. We certainly don’t let the dark prevent us from walking places. But dang, carrying a cylindrical flashlight sure is not comfortable. Face it, a standard flashlight may be good for holding in your mouth while you crawl in the attic. But for walking the dog or taking an evening stroll the shape is awkward. Not to mention the fact that the beam never seems to cover everything you want to see.

Let me introduce the Nightlighter, $19.95 on firstSTREET. First off the unit fits nicely in the hand and the weight is very well balanced as batteries are housed closer to the handle. It seems a natural in the hand. And there is not just one light. Four ultra bright LEDs face forward and two ultra bright LEDs point downward. Yes, two focuses for the light. No more flipping the flashlight up and down and up and down. See what is at your feet while not taking light off of where you are headed. And if you don’t need both beams simply flip the three-way switch move between both lights or one or the other. The thumb rest contains the on/off switch for easy access. Three AAA batteries are included too.  So whether for you or someone in your life, if you walk at night walk in comfort and light with the Nightlighter.

[ Comfortably Light Your Way copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

As we report on Coolest Gadgets, smartphones and tablets are doing everything these days. Aside from making calls and accessing the Internet they get us to our destinations, play our music, monitor our portfolios and even lock or unlock our houses. In fact more and more devices and apps that help us control our home seem to be springing onto the market. Let’s add another one to the list compliments of Philips.

Today (October 30, 2012) Philips will begin selling their Hue lighting system exclusively at Apple stores. Hue consists of 3 LED bulbs and a controller. Plug the bulbs – currently A shape, others are in development – into the light of your choice. Then plug the controller into your Ethernet connection. Using an app for a smartphone or tablet (iOS or Android) and the built in wi-fi receivers in the bulbs you control the color, brightness, off/on. Really the possibilities are numerous. Imagine reading in the living room. Set a nice mellow hue to create a comfortable environment. But say you want to prevent an all-nighter to finish your book. Program the system to blink or change colors (or go off!) at a certain time. Or maybe you have trouble motivating in the morning. Take your bedroom lamps from 2500K to 3500K and mellow blue to obnoxious red when you MUST leave for work. And obviously with the controller on the home network – yes, you could control lighting remotely. Have the house brightness and color as you desire when you arrive home. Or – mess with your spouse and change it while you are away!

Other specs to know. Three bulbs and the controller run $199 and additional bulbs are $59. Each of the 11 LED’s in each bulb can produce up to 16 million colors. So let’s just say that the color combinations are endless. Each bulb has a 90 foot range and create a network – so they can communicate with each other versus individually with the controller. A single controller can facilitate up to 50 bulbs. The bulbs return to their standard white light and 2700K when turned off at the source. Bulbs only use 8.5W at full brightness – yay LED. And the controller uses 350mW power. So don’t worry about sucking up electricity.

Do we need Hue? Perhaps not. Do we want Hue and see a need for it? Of course. See a full review of the product at geek.com. And drop into any Apple store to learn more or start remotely controlling your lighting.

Somehow, taking a look at the £24.95 Loud Mouth Telephone reminds me of the evergreen rockers, the Rolling Stones. How about you? You can say that retro designs tend to be in vogue from time to time, as though there was an unspoken rule that dictates it to be so. The Loud Mouth Telephone is pretty much self explanatory, and would make for a great living room ornament whenever you have guests over, especially when you do not have a fine bone china collection to show off unlike the Joneses. This will still be able to generate plenty of conversation around the room, I’m quite sure about that.

The Loud Mouth Telephone will feature a huge mouth that carries the key pad, while what looks like the tongue is actually the receiver itself. It does look rather strange at first glance, but use it for a week and you would be chatting away into this crazily designed, fully functioning telephone like before. If you want to gross things out this Halloween, just add some non-abrasive gooey liquid to it to fool folks into thinking that it is drool or saliva.

[ Loud Mouth Telephone copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]