10 NEW GADGETS

 HEY GUYS!! TODAY'S POST IS ABOUT 10 NEW GADGETS 2021. HOPE YOU LIKE IT... SO HERE IT IS...

Naim Mu-so for Bentley Special Edition Wireless Speaker System

Our favourite wireless speaker system just got a touch prettier. The Naim Mu-so 2nd Generation wowed us when it launched in 2019: it hits a rare sweet spot between form and function, with a timeless design that produces brilliant sound.

The onboard tech will handle almost every streaming platform and is fine-tuned for handling hi-res digital audio. But now thanks to Naim’s partnership with Bentley, the Mu-so mark 2 looks even better.

Inspired by their luxury cars, the speaker housing is now made out of Ayous (an African hardwood), features an anodised copper heat sink on the back and a copper-threaded speaker grille – how suave.

Apple AirPods Pro

True to form, it’s taken Apple a couple of iterations to deliver a pair of wireless earbuds that justify the hefty price tag. In fact, it’s our pick for the best wireless earbuds.

The AirPods are still all-white, but a smarter, stubbier design means that you don’t look like you’ve stuck a pair of electric toothbrush heads in your ears anymore.

Unsurprisingly, The AirPods play best with Apple hardware with a setup that’s mercifully painless thanks to the new chip tech. Pull them out of the case and if your device is nearby, it will pair them up, giving you a quick glance at the battery status of the buds too.

Sound quality has stepped up a notch as far as offering something that’s more balanced. It’s not heavy handed with the bass and there’s a nicer sense of detail here. The headline grabber is the addition of active noise cancellation that will help drown out the world. Apple uses outward microphones to detect the noise from outside and an inward-facing one to deal with sound that makes it through the seal.

There’s even room to squeeze on controls into the stem and a very pocket-friendly case will quickly give them a battery boost. More features are on the way too, including surround sound support and the welcome addition of a smart switching mode to pair to the device you’re currently using, giving you more reason to keep them in.

Arlo video doorbell

Offering a good balance between price, premium features, and usability, Arlo’s Video Doorbell is our top choice for the best video doorbell if you want a high-quality smart doorbell that works reliably without being annoying.

Its standout feature – telling the difference between people, animals, vehicles, and packages, and only sending you the notifications you want – means you don’t get an alert every time a strong breeze sends a plastic bag down the street.

Being able to create motion zones – so you get alerted only when someone (or the neighbour’s cat) is in them – and the option to turn off all alerts when you are home (using the location of your phone to figure this out) ensures a smart doorbell doesn’t become just another electronic annoyance but a useful security tool.

Along with some of the best quality video we tested and a nice square video shape that shows you more of your doorstep than most, we like that it has a built-in siren you can set off from the app if you spot someone suspicious.

Another thing that sets it on top of the pile is an answering machine option. While no one ever left us a message outside of testing – possibly because most people aren’t used to talking to a doorbell – we can see potential here as smart doorbells gain popularity.

Moto 360 smartwatch

The Apple Watch is a great, luxury bit of kit but it’s of no use whatsoever if you are one of the majority of the world’s smartphone users sporting an Android device. The Moto 360 smartwatch is a beauty that’ll look at home on even the most well-to-do wrists thanks to its classy stainless-steel body, rotating crown, leather strap and weighty feel.

This is the third generation Motorola watch, and it seems that this time they have nailed the balance right between form and functionality. It is powered by WearOS (that’s Android’s but you can use it with iPhones too), so the majority of what you can actually do on the smartwatch is dictated by this, but on the whole, the operating system is so much better now than it was a few years ago.

The watch itself not only looks cool, but it also has some pretty novel features that set it apart from other smartwatches. For a start, it is blazingly fast with silky-smooth transitions between screens and no lag, which is important as there is no point marketing yourself as a silk purse if it’s a sow’s ear to use. It also comes with GPS and NFC for contactless payments.

The always-on display is bright and sharp, adapting to the changing light conditions so you don’t need to flick the wrist or tap to see the time. After about a day and a half under normal use, it switches to time-only mode to eke out more battery life, which is great, but that said, an hour’s charge should be enough for it to see out a whole day.

For the fitness inclined, it comes with a silicone strap, is waterproof to 3ATM and in testing measured generally sedentary lifestyle and my (limited) attempts of exercise throughout the day, taunting me with my apparent lack of ‘heart points’. I should get out more I think is the takeaway here.

Finally, as if perfectly timed to launch during a coronavirus crisis, it also comes with a hand-washing timer so you can make sure you’re perfectly scrubbed up. -AM

EZVIZ C3N Outdoor Smart Wi-Fi Camera

The tennis ball size EZVIZ C3N security camera is a solid bit of kit. It has to be. Within the first week of it being up, and in typical British style, it was battered by hail, rain and storms, before being roasted on the hottest day of the year.

Installation is easy enough, so long as you have a drill to fix it to your wall, and the EZVIZ app is refreshingly straightforward. You can toggle a full-screen live stream and hitting record will save the footage neatly to your camera roll, as well as in the app itself.

This live view feature is ideal if you want to use the camera for other reasons, like keeping an eye on the kids while you work from home, or even as a nature-cam, and usefully, you can also hook up multiple cameras on the one system and share devices among users.

But what we know you’re really here for is to find out whether this is really a good security camera. Well, it doesn’t disappoint. As for the video quality, daylight vision is exceptionally sharp, and the colours are true to life thanks to the full HD 1080p resolution.

But it’s the colour night vision where this camera really comes into its own. It has an embedded algorithm that allows intelligent sensing, so it knows the difference between humans and the neighbourhood cat out for a prowl.

And it’s surprisingly sensitive too. The smart night-vision mode uses two infrared LEDs that can see as far as 30 metres automatically and switches to colour monitoring when it detects human movement. That, along with powerful spotlights, any would-be thief is almost guaranteed to show their face on camera. You’ll get a real-time alert, without needing to be glued to your feed.

Video history storage is via CloudPlay, for which you get a 30-day free trial, or via Micro SD card for local storage. – HS

NowLight self-powered lamp

However good your camping gadgets are, it’s a simple fact of life that at some point (probably the worst point) they’re going to run out of juice. Rather than filling your backpack with a plethora of spare batteries, the NowLight is a hand-cranked instant charger that with a minute of tugging the attached chord can power your phone for 15 minutes.

But what really sets this apart from other chargers is the fact that it also doubles up as a 160-lumen lamp, which is more than bright enough to light up any jamborees once the campfire has died out. You can also attach up to six satellite lamps to light up the inside of even the most cavernous of tents.

The device itself is about the size and weight of a small bag of sugar, and set up is easy – basically, just attach the chord and crank – but if all that tugging isn’t your thing, it comes with a solar charger to soak up some of the Sun’s eco-friendly energy. – AM

HELM Audio BOLT DAC/AMP

If you’re looking for a simple way to upgrade your audio experience, a DAC (Digital to Analogue Converter) might be it. A DAC is one of the most important steps in digital audio processing. If you’re not familiar with the tech, it’s where the stored digital representation of your music – a series of 1s and 0s – is translated into an analogue wave that can physically power a speaker driver in your headphones.

Just as downloading or streaming a high-quality audio file ensures an accurate representation of your music, a DAC will make sure you’re getting the most out of your audio files.

This new DAC upgrade from HELM Audio is the smallest we’ve seen – perfect for travel or just keeping your desk uncluttered. It’s compatible with laptops and smartphones with a USB-C slot (and iPhones with a convertor), and it plays best with Tidal’s chosen digital format for its recordings (MQA), though it will happily work across all streaming services.

NuraLoop headphones

What if your earphones could give you a hearing test and tune your equaliser to reflect the frequencies you are most, or least, sensitive to? That’s the idea behind the Nuraphone, which we first tested a few years back in headphone format.

During setup, the original Nuraphones would fire out a range of frequencies and then measure your ear’s response to each of them, building a sound profile that perfectly equalises the output to your hearing. The company has now shrunk their clever tech and shaped it into a set of Bluetooth earphones called the NuraLoop.

They’re packed full of all the other tech you’d expect – like active noise-cancelling and touch controls – but there are a few extra smart touches, like the magnetic analogue jack that lets you connect to your earphones with wires, or the smart on/off feature that automatically switches them on when you put them around your head.

But most importantly it’s the sound that really sets these apart. Like the Nuraphones before them, what you hear is nothing short of exceptional, especially for a pair of headphones under £200, with everything wonderfully balanced, letting sounds you didn’t know even existed drift into the mix. Dare I say it, but I think I might even have heard the bass track on Metallica’s …And Justice for All (maybe).

The only EQ option you have (or really need) is an Immersion setting, which is basically a bass boost. Of course, all this goes to pot as soon as you listen to someone else’s sound profile, but then that’s sort of the point. We all have different ears and respond to different frequencies, so the fact that my partner’s profile sounds like a swampy mess to me suggests that yes, maybe I did spend far too much of my youth turning it up to 11. – AM

Samsung Odyssey G9 gaming monitor

If you’re the sort of person who is going to spend thousands of pounds on a seriously high-spec gaming PC, you might as well spend a small fortune on a monitor to go with it. The Samsung Odyssey G9 is one suitably spenny gaming monitor, but a quick glance at the specs suggest it’ll be worth every penny.

For a start, it’s huge; it has a curved 49-inch screen with a frankly ludicrous 5120×1440 resolution (that’s a 32:9 ratio!), so not only will it completely fill your field of view, it’ll also fill your desk.

The QLED display should be pin-sharp and colourful, HDR 1000 promises the blackest of blacks and whitest of whites, and a 250Hz refresh rate means motion should appear buttery smooth.

Flare Calmer

What are the most annoying sounds you can think of? Nails scratching down a chalkboard? Car alarms? It could be that our ears, through thousands of years of evolution, are sort of designed to find these sounds particularly unpleasant to act as a warning that danger is imminent.

That’s great for our ancient ancestors, listening out for prowling sabre-tooth tigers, but for us modern humans it’s just plain annoying. In fact, according to audio specialists Flare, the shape of the eardrum itself acts as a bell, adding 20db of distortion-causing resonance.

This irritating distortion could impact on our mental and physical wellbeing, so the idea behind the Flare Calmer earplugs is that they change the shape of the eardrum to cut out the particularly annoying distorted frequencies between 2,000-8,000 Hz. By doing this, they claim to reduce ear fatigue, noise-induced headaches and overall stress levels.

So does it work? Well, it’s hard to tell how much earplugs can reduce your overall stress in the midst of a global pandemic, protests in the streets and the ever-present threat of a toddler walking into your Zoom meetings, but what is certain is that after using them almost constantly for a few weeks now, there are definitely benefits to having them in.

For a start, it is noticeable that the very worst day-to-day frequencies are reduced, and this has the knock-on effect that they are ultimately less annoying. The same can be said when you have them underneath headphones, and although they change the sounds slightly, it makes music a little warmer and notches down the intensity.

Another side effect that has been noted by other users, not that I can verify and was entirely unexpected by Flare, is that it reduces the constant ringing experienced by those suffering from tinnitus. – AM

HyperX wireless gaming setup

HyperX are big names in gaming peripherals (they even have their own esports arena in Las Vegas), so it’s no wonder their kit maxes out on quality and features. Their suite of wireless gear doesn’t disappoint.

First up you’ll need 7.1 headphones, and the HyperX Cloud Fight S ­­headset has some seriously good surround sound. You can control chat/audio balance from the headset itself, ideal for those vital mission strategy briefings without interrupting play, and the swivelling ear cups on the headset allows them to sit comfortably around your neck for when you need a breather (or snack).

The butter-like softness of the leatherette and memory foam innards makes them plush and extremely easy to wear, even for all-day and night gaming marathons, and is weighted enough so that it’s stable when sitting on the charging pad, but not too heavy that it becomes uncomfortable after a few hours of continuous wear.

BYEE EVERYONE. I MEET YOU AT 1:00 P.M. IN ANOTHER POST.