8 of My Favorite Things from 2018
They say you should spend money on experiences rather than things. There’s even scientific evidence for this. So I guess I have agree.
But I love things. I love to make things. I like to give things. I like to use and play with things. This might explain why I can’t seem to get away from hardware startups no matter what I do. To put a wrap on 2018, I thought I’d share a list of my favorite things I’ve gotten from 2018 in no particular order:
Oros Men’s Orion Parka Jacket
I probably have had nearly 20 different technical jackets over the years including the Baubax (both v1 and v2), SCOTTeVEST (favorite for years), Ravean heated jacket, Ministry of Supply heated jacket, and the Klymit Kinetic Insulated Vest (my one and only inflatable jacket) to name a few of the innovative / weird ones. This is not counting the name brand ones (North Face, EMS, Spyder, Burton, L.L. Bean, etc.) which I usually try to avoid these days since there’s not much special about them and I feel like I’m mostly buying the badge vs. actually getting amazing value/technology.
Then I ran across Oros’ Youtube video where they spray a guy wearing their jacket with liquid nitrogen (spoiler: he ends up fine) and got suckered into buying one. I really needed something warm because I was going to be sitting in -15 C (5 F) weather for over four hours for the Opening Ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Pyongcheong.
So I put myself in the hands of materials science and wore the jacket with just a long sleeve T-shirt and a short sleeve T-shirt on. And boy did it deliver! Toasty warm the entire time. For. Four. Hours. Now my knees nearly froze off but that’s no the jacket’s fault. Totally the warmest jacket I’ve ever had and it’s unbelievably thin and light. Their secret / undair advantage is a new material, called Solarcore. They developed it by combining aerogel, known as the lightest solid on earth, which would otherwise be quite brittle and unusable in an apparel context, into a flexible, stretchable polymer matrix which is then embedded in their insulation layers.
The latest version of the Oros Orion Parka is over a pound lighter, is now rated for -40 C (-40 F), and extends a little lower to keep the important stuff warm.
Super well made — waterproof, breathable, pockets in all the right places, fits great, etc. At $350, they are charging way way too little for it — get one before they become a big brand and start charging more.
Get it here on their website.
My second favorite piece from them is the Oros Men’s Explorer Quarter Zip. Rated to 2 C (35 F), it’s probably one of the warmest quarter zips you’ll have. I wore it recently (late december) with a t-shirt underneath in St. Louis where is was nearly freezing and I was totally fine.
Sensibo Sky HVAC Controller
I’m big into HVAC tech partially because it’s so friggin hot here in Vietnam where we live, but mostly because HVAC is one of the largest consumers of power in the world. In cities like Mumbai, AC eats up nearly 40% of the city’s power consumption. This is becoming such a problem that there’s actually a $3m bounty out for breakthrough solutions in cooling. We’re all waiting for cleaner, more efficient cooling, but while we wait, we have Sensibo who has probably the only product out there that can control nearly every split air conditioning / heat pump device on the market (they claim to be compatible with 98.5% of all models in existence). Nest and Ecobee are great if you have central air. But I’m told that’s only about 13% of households in the world. The rest of us (China, India, SE Asia, EMEA, etc.) have split AC units in each room that up until now have no way to be connected to the cloud or automated in any intelligent way.
The product is super easy to use: you plug it into a wall outlet, connect it to your wifi, pair with the app by snapping a picture of the QR code on the device, and voilà! you can now control your AC from anywhere. No calibration needed. No annoying bluetooth disconnects. No complicated app UX. It just works — part of why I think they’re rated so high on Amazon (4.3 stars). It has sensors built in to help you know the temperature and humidity of the room it’s in. At $120, they’re kind of pricey but you get some serious discounts if you buy several units at once since you need one for each room anyway. We have four in our place and it’s pretty awesome to be able to monitor our house and control our AC units from anywhere — one main use case is just to make sure the AC is off when no one’s there.
Get it here on their website.
Omnicharge 20 USB C Powerbank
Another category of products that I just love: powerbanks. And I have way too many around the house. Until this year. After I ran across the Omnicharge product, I pretty much don’t use any other one any more. It’s pretty pricey at $199 but it’s quite multi-function since it’s a battery not just for your mobile devices (phones and tablets) but also for your laptop, in this case USB-C-powered laptops like the latest MacBook Pro and Air. Finally, you can also use it as a power hub because you can charge it while you use it to charge your laptop and other devices. So you have a powerbank, power hub, and a power adapter all in one. Has a beautiful, easy to use OLED display that I have yet to find in any other high-end powerbank. Excellent build quality — you definitely don’t feel like you’re getting the usual $20 battery pack that everyone has. So I think it’s totally worth it and will be the last battery pack / hub / power adapter you buy. I don’t travel without this.
Get it here on their website.
Uncle Goose Hebrew Blocks
These blocks have given us endless hours of fun in the family. Mary learned the Hebrew alphabet (including all the end-word variants) with joy while making various structures. Now she’s teaching Manny and he’s loving them. They’ve lasted all year and now just look more vintage than anything. Love them. All of Uncle Goose’s stuff is really high quality (though how much craftsmanship do you really need to make a bunch of wooden blocks?) so they don’t disappoint!
Get it here on their website.
Olight S1R II Flashlight
I have A LOT of flashlights (another product obsession) but at two and a half inches long and nearly exactly the diameter of a nickel (US $0.05 coin) and putting out up to 1000 lumen with a throw distance of nearly 500 feet, it’s probably the most powerful everyday carry flashlight on the market. The quality of the products that OLight delivers has always been phenomenal and with this, they just made the last hit flashlight, the S1R even better. Not sure how you can pack more luminous flux into a smaller flashlight and still get the kind of battery life they have (up to 20 hours on the moonlight / 0.5 lumen output mode). Oh and it’s rechargeable via USB.
Get it here on their website.
Totalpac Backpack
After having tried five or six different brands/sizes/styles, I think this is the best fold up back pack there is. Why would you need a fold up backpack? Well if you’re traveling with a carry on (stroller) and a small personal bag but you also need a day bag you can carry around but your personal bag is too big, then a fold-out backpack does the job. Pack one of these puppies in your suitcase and spring it open for use as a day bag during the day. Isn’t a great replacement for say a leather briefcase or something more business formal, but this gets reasonably close, at least for business casual.
Of all the fold-out backpacks I’ve tried, this is the most full-featured with all the relevant pockets and sleeves + a port and wire for keeping your powerbank (say an Omnicharge) on the inside while being able to charge your phone on the outside. Another thing I don’t travel without.
Get it here on Amazon.
Innergie 60C USB-C Adapter
Okay it’s kind of weird to get excited about a power adapter but I have a thing for power electronics. Meet the Innergie 60C USB-C adapter, claimed to be the world’s smallest 60W charger (enough to power your MacBook) occupying a volume of 55 cc’s or slightly larger than a shot glass. Way smaller than the stock Apple charger and more usable because it doesn’t hog up the electrical plug.
Multiple well-funded startups have tried to make something similar but these guys have succeeded where others have failed.
So there’s some serious engineering that went into this. There’s an international version with different plug tips as well but the US version is the most elegant with the plugs folding in when not in use. At $109, it’s not the cheapest 60W USB-C adapter out there but if size and weight are important (say if you travel a ton), then I think it’s totally worth it.
Get it here on Amazon.
Zelos Mako 2 Diver Watch
Can’t have a favorite things list without a watch on it. I’ve always been a fan of Zelos and their founder Elshan Tang. They are a watch microbrand out of Singapore that consistently puts out excellent quality diving watches at a fraction the price of equivalent quality watches.
The Mako 2 has got to be one of my favorites though. It’s a beautiful 40mm diver watch that is rated 500m water resistance. So you get nearly Seamaster Planet Ocean toughness without such a massive chunk on your wrist (or hole in your wallet). Tons of C3 and BGW9 lume to make it super bright at night, all with a Swiss Sellita SW200 movement. A proper 500m Swiss Diver Automatic for a little over $500? Yeah, Elshan doesn’t charge nearly enough for this. Very wearable; my go-to daily wear watch that goes with just about anything.
Get it here on his website.
Okay this will be the last post for a while. Enough 2018 reflection, need to get back to life.
