The "New Toys" Thread

Unless your screen is already taking up a huge portion of your view, ambient lighting illuminates too many distracting things around the TV. If a TV is big enough in your field of view, where the non-TV things in your peripheral are already a little out of focus, it human actually have a great effect on immersion. But I just think it looks cool, either way. Ha! Not sure I'd put it in my living room, but for sure in a "cave" or special home theater room.
 
Unless your screen is already taking up a huge portion of your view, ambient lighting illuminates too many distracting things around the TV.
Oh this is important for sure! It sorta requires you to keep the wall around your tv free from distractions, otherwise it won’t work.

Also the cave thing… I have some plans for the basement :woot:
 
Speaking of Hue, I've had automated lighting at home for a long time now. It's become a no-brainer just like having a robot vacuum. My bedstand light comes on with the alarm in the morning, along with most of the rest of the flat. When I get back to the bedroom 20 minutes later to put some clothes etc on, some more lights have come on so I can see.

I invested in the IKEA system and it works flawlessly except for the occasional light that needs to be rebooted. I don't use the IKEA app though, I run everything via HomeKit.
 
I'm doing the same thing in the new apartment, (almost) all lights are Ikea Tradfri, controlled with HomeAssistant and Zigbee2MQTT. Works nicely so far. I also use their switches (the Tradfri on/off switch, and the Styrbar) with 3D-printed wall mounts. Original switches are locked out in the "on" position, but can be used as a backup should something fail - all lights are set to turn on after power failure, so they can also be controlled with the "dumb" switches just fine.

HA allows to do some neat stuff, like shifting light color temperature at sunrise/sunset, controlling brightness depending on time of day, or using bedroom lights as "sunrise alarm" coupled with my phone alarm.
 
Got myself the new Selphy CP1500, finally. After Canon sent it out in a flimsy box that got damaged and it had a tour around the UPS sorting system before their 'fixer' bloke in a rental van showed up with it.

It's the latest in a long line of Canon's dye-sub printers that use an ink ribbon, I don't specifically know what this one does better than the previous ones but I wasn't going to buy the 4 year old machine at a similar price when the new one was about to be released. All the paper and ink sets are the same as before.

It prints very nice pictures, much better than an inkjet. It also prints sticky labels in far superior quality to what I've been buying through Redbubble.



I feel like I've really been making good use of its capabilities so far. 😐



For non-Brits that's Ainsley Harriott, Mr. Spicy and star of Can't Smeg, Won't Smeg.
 
It begins...



Both on deals, the Samsung SSD has an £80 cashback deal bringing the price down from £221 to £141 and the PSU was on special offer through Corsair's own website, £25 cheaper than everywhere else.

Waiting for the 13th gen. Intel processors to go on sale so I can see if I want one or if I can get a better deal on an i7-12700k and Z690 motherboard.
 
GF just left her job to try doing her job on her own.

With that departure, she had to turn in all of the tech she was using for her full time WFH job.

So...we had a bit of shopping to do.

Dell G3223D 32" IPS monitor, 4k. $399. Not the UltraFine she had from work, but that was twice as expensive as this one. Only 60hz, but it'll be used 99% of the time for CAD and Photoshop, so higher refresh rates aren't necessary.
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HP 970 wireless, backlit, low-profile keyboard. I would have prefered the dark gray and black 975, but it wasn't on a Black Friday sale so it was still over $100, while the silver 970 was on sale for $69.99. Supposed to be a very quiet typing experience, which would be great for when she's teaching her online classes. She was using the similarly-styled Apple keyboard, and really loved it...primarily how it was so flat she didn't need a palm rest. I wish I could have found something of similar quality without paying the wireless upcharge though, as it will stay plugged in 100% of the time.
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Logitech m620 "silent click" mouse, the small/med hand version. I have the Performance MX, and she *hates* it. She has small hands, and it's too loud for her when she's teaching online classes.
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Logitech c310 webcam. Effectively the same camera as the c270, but with about 10% better audio and still under $30. I tried to encourage her to go up to the c925e, but since she can't even tell the difference between 1080p and 4k TVs, she didn't care about the "supposed" higher video quality of the c935e. Also, she uses her phone earpods for audio, so she couldn't justify spending $50 more than the $30 c310. I was only able to convince her to go with the c310 over the c270 because sometimes her earphones don't work quite right so she knew she doesn't have to depend on the camera mic at some point,, and she could hear the difference between the two, as slight as it is, and thought it was worth $5 more.
Screenshot_20221125-024533_Amazon Shopping.jpg

The mouse delivers tomorrow, and the rest will filter in over the next 2 weeks.
 
GF just left her job to try doing her job on her own.

With that departure, she had to turn in all of the tech she was using for her full time WFH job.

So...we had a bit of shopping to do.

Dell G3223D 32" IPS monitor, 4k. $399. Not the UltraFine she had from work, but that was twice as expensive as this one. Only 60hz, but it'll be used 99% of the time for CAD and Photoshop, so higher refresh rates aren't necessary.
View attachment 3567820


HP 970 wireless, backlit, low-profile keyboard. I would have prefered the dark gray and black 975, but it wasn't on a Black Friday sale so it was still over $100, while the silver 970 was on sale for $69.99. Supposed to be a very quiet typing experience, which would be great for when she's teaching her online classes. She was using the similarly-styled Apple keyboard, and really loved it...primarily how it was so flat she didn't need a palm rest. I wish I could have found something of similar quality without paying the wireless upcharge though, as it will stay plugged in 100% of the time.
View attachment 3567821


Logitech m620 "silent click" mouse, the small/med hand version. I have the Performance MX, and she *hates* it. She has small hands, and it's too loud for her when she's teaching online classes.
View attachment 3567822


Logitech c310 webcam. Effectively the same camera as the c270, but with about 10% better audio and still under $30. I tried to encourage her to go up to the c925e, but since she can't even tell the difference between 1080p and 4k TVs, she didn't care about the "supposed" higher video quality of the c935e. Also, she uses her phone earpods for audio, so she couldn't justify spending $50 more than the $30 c310. I was only able to convince her to go with the c310 over the c270 because sometimes her earphones don't work quite right so she knew she doesn't have to depend on the camera mic at some point,, and she could hear the difference between the two, as slight as it is, and thought it was worth $5 more.
View attachment 3567823

The mouse delivers tomorrow, and the rest will filter in over the next 2 weeks.
It turns out that despite her small hands, the "small" version of the m620 mouse was too small. It was actually smaller than I expected, feeling more like a "travel" mouse than one just meant to be a bit smaller. But the "silent click" switches were desirable enough that she went with the "L" version of that same mouse. The previous logitech wireless mouse she had ate through two AA rechargeable batteries in a week (sometimes less). Looking forward to this one lasting at *least* a few months, though I do wish it had a USB port so it could be used as a wired mouse in a pinch... Oh well...
 
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I kinda got tired of how short my Logitech M705 was, so I bought an MX Master some 10 days ago. It's used (which I know isn't the best idea, but I'm broke), and it was as cheap as it gets (some €26). The scroll wheel is a bit loud, but hey, you can't have everything. Besides, that's not a fault of my particular unit.

Now I'm looking into getting some new keyboard as well, the IBM Model M is awesome to type on but in this new apartment I'd be waking my roommates up while catching up with uni work late at night. I'm currently using whatever Lenovo shipped with their desktops for at least a decade, and I find it too loud, too mushy and generally lackluster. But that's a question for another thread and another time.
 
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I kinda got tired of how short my Logitech M705 was, so I bought an MX Master some 10 days ago. It's used (which I know isn't the best idea, but I'm broke), and it was as cheap as it gets (some €26). The scroll wheel is a bit loud, but hey, you can't have everything. Besides, that's not a fault of my particular unit.

Now I'm looking into getting some new keyboard as well, the IBM Model M is awesome to type on but in this new apartment I'd be waking my roommates up while catching up with uni work late at night. I'm currently using whatever Lenovo shipped with their desktops for at least a decade, and I find it too loud, too mushy and generally lackluster. But that's a question for another thread and another time.

If the keycaps are removable, a cheap mod could be rubber o-rings which dull the "thunk" at the bottom of the key travel if you bottom-out. I bottom out with every key stroke, and the o-rings helped a little bit.
 
It's kinda technology.

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Chatting about dual-voltage MIG welders in the other thread reminded me to check Cyber Monday deals for a cheap one. 400 Canadian pesos, just need to grab another gas cylinder.
Let me know how you like it. I'm tempted to get one, but I think I want a dummy-proof one that helps with settings.
 
I kinda got tired of how short my Logitech M705 was, so I bought an MX Master some 10 days ago. It's used (which I know isn't the best idea, but I'm broke), and it was as cheap as it gets (some €26). The scroll wheel is a bit loud, but hey, you can't have everything. Besides, that's not a fault of my particular unit.

Now I'm looking into getting some new keyboard as well, the IBM Model M is awesome to type on but in this new apartment I'd be waking my roommates up while catching up with uni work late at night. I'm currently using whatever Lenovo shipped with their desktops for at least a decade, and I find it too loud, too mushy and generally lackluster. But that's a question for another thread and another time.
When Covid came I had to get a new keyboard and mouse to have a decent home office when they gave us laptops for that, so I went for an MX Master 3 and MX Keys bundle. They are really nice, except for the kind of sensitive backlight in the keyboard that makes it light up (and unnecessarily drain its battery faster than it needs to). Then they decided to give us a mouse at work, which was the MX Master 2s, which is nice to use, but yes, the scroll wheel is loud (however, you can make it go silent and scroll smoothly by pushing the button behind the scroll wheel) Then it's the fact it charges through Micro-USB which is not acceptable in this USB-C day and age.
 
I like it so far, Micro-USB aside, which I didn't need to use yet. It's not perfect, obviously, I see the reason why they moved the side buttons for the 3 series, but it fits so well in the hand, and the side wheel is such a nice thing to have in those couple of apps where you can make good use of it. So far, so good.
 
I'll call this a new toy because I got to play with it a little...

My wife's christmas present is going to be, very unromantically, a new work PC for her, now that she has her own office again. Since she likes things to be small and inconspicuous, I went with an Asrock X300 barebones mini thing - and took the chance to upgrade my own PC from the AMD 4650 that her PC will inherit to a 5800X3D. In this little case there is now: AMD 4650 APU, 2x8GB DDR4-3200, 1 TB Mushkin Tempest SSD (maybe good, maybe not.... will see) cooled by an alpfenföhn silvretta (because I'm a cheapskate and don't want to spend noctua money). There's room for two SATA drives as well, if there's any need for more storage down the line. I decided to skip adding a Wifi Module (although only 20€ or so), because there's an ethernet connection 1m from the future location. I'm actually surprised by how fiddly the cooler install ended up being, but all in all, it went very well.
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GF just left her job to try doing her job on her own.

With that departure, she had to turn in all of the tech she was using for her full time WFH job.

So...we had a bit of shopping to do.

Dell G3223D 32" IPS monitor, 4k. $399. Not the UltraFine she had from work, but that was twice as expensive as this one. Only 60hz, but it'll be used 99% of the time for CAD and Photoshop, so higher refresh rates aren't necessary.
View attachment 3567820


HP 970 wireless, backlit, low-profile keyboard. I would have prefered the dark gray and black 975, but it wasn't on a Black Friday sale so it was still over $100, while the silver 970 was on sale for $69.99. Supposed to be a very quiet typing experience, which would be great for when she's teaching her online classes. She was using the similarly-styled Apple keyboard, and really loved it...primarily how it was so flat she didn't need a palm rest. I wish I could have found something of similar quality without paying the wireless upcharge though, as it will stay plugged in 100% of the time.
View attachment 3567821


Logitech m620 "silent click" mouse, the small/med hand version. I have the Performance MX, and she *hates* it. She has small hands, and it's too loud for her when she's teaching online classes.
View attachment 3567822


Logitech c310 webcam. Effectively the same camera as the c270, but with about 10% better audio and still under $30. I tried to encourage her to go up to the c925e, but since she can't even tell the difference between 1080p and 4k TVs, she didn't care about the "supposed" higher video quality of the c935e. Also, she uses her phone earpods for audio, so she couldn't justify spending $50 more than the $30 c310. I was only able to convince her to go with the c310 over the c270 because sometimes her earphones don't work quite right so she knew she doesn't have to depend on the camera mic at some point,, and she could hear the difference between the two, as slight as it is, and thought it was worth $5 more.
View attachment 3567823

The mouse delivers tomorrow, and the rest will filter in over the next 2 weeks.

Monitor is...decent. Kind of a bummer that the rear LED lighting, which I didn't even realize it had, is blue and not RGB. So..."off" it goes. But using the monitor just reminded me that I don't like 32" monitors...I'd rather have two 27s". Although her desk is only 24" deep...maybe if it were 30", or if the desk had a pull-out keyboard tray...

The keyboard is really nice, if you're into the Apple keyboard. It is a little thicker, but not a whole lot. I'm not sure it'd be worth the full price, but at the $70 black friday price, it was a great price for the keyboard. Though I will need to see if there's a way to increase the timing before the keyboard lights auto-turn-off. I think it's only about 5 seconds now, maybe 10. While you can just hover your hand over it to turn the lighting back on, there's about a one-second delay. My only gripe is that the wired connection is power only. No matter what, your connection is always wireless (either with the included dongle, or bluetooth. I considered the Logitech MX Keys, but didn't like that there wasn't "just" a Windows version. There is an Apple version, and an Apple/Windows combo version...but no Windows only version, and those combo keys bugged me. Ha!

It turns out that despite her small hands, the "small" version of the m620 mouse was too small. It was actually smaller than I expected, feeling more like a "travel" mouse than one just meant to be a bit smaller. But the "silent click" switches were desirable enough that she went with the "L" version of that same mouse. The previous logitech wireless mouse she had ate through two AA rechargeable batteries in a week (sometimes less). Looking forward to this one lasting at *least* a few months, though I do wish it had a USB port so it could be used as a wired mouse in a pinch... Oh well...

Annoyingly we're not getting very good battery life from this mouse. The literature says "up to 2 years". I didn't look up what that actually meant, but I assume 8 hours of use per day, so I thought we'd get at least 5-6 months out of it if we just left it on. Nope...like 4 days. Here's to hoping the battery it came with was just low on juice. Batteries have super long expiration dates, but these were dated this year. Here's to hoping we get at least 2-3 months out of a single rechargeable battery. I'll need to get her into the habbit of turning off the mouse between uses. Annoyingly there's no USB port, so it can't be charged while you use it.
 
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Annoyingly we're not getting very good battery life from this mouse. The literature says "up to 2 years". I didn't look up what that actually meant, but I assume 8 hours of use per day, so I thought we'd get at least 5-6 months out of it if we just left it on. Nope...like 4 days. Here's to hoping the battery it came with was just low on juice. Batteries have super long expiration dates, but these were dated this year. Here's to hoping we get at least 2-3 months out of a single rechargeable battery. I'll need to get her into the habbit of turning off the mouse between uses. Annoyingly there's no USB port, so it can't be charged while you use it.
If you continue to get battery life that short there is either something wrong with the battery or something wrong with the mouse. They really will go that long with several hours of use every day.
 
A 2TB Kingston NV2 M.2 NVMe SSD - by contrast to the KIOXIA EXCERIA 2TB M.2 NVMe SSD this one works in my AMD B450 mainboard so now I can transfer the data from the old HDD to the SSD and shortly I won't have any spinning disks in my PC anymore, only for backup purposes.
 
My €20 or so wireless Logitech, the one that seems to be standard in offices these days, has a battery life of ♾️. I've managed to wear out one alkaline so far over the many years I've had these mice. I would probably have worn out another one but the entire mouse had to be replaced after a particularly bad customer phone call when it accidentally slipped through my fingers and made a dent in the drywall. The new one came with a new battery.
 
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