Ever been annoyed by the placement of light switches in your house? Is there never one around when you need it? The Avi-on Switch is a new light switch (with an associated iPhone app) that you can literally just stick onto your wall like a Post-It Note, no wiring required.
I typically try out a new product for review without reading any of the documentation or media relations stuff that the folks who send us such things want us to look at. I want to have as pristine an experience as possible. Sometimes that leads to little surprises.
I put these new Astro Gaming A38 Bluetooth headphones on my head last week, and paired them with my iPhone to play a little music. After a few songs of various genres, I stopped the tunes and took these off my noggin. I suddenly realized that my girlfriend had been blending up a protein shake in the nearby kitchen. It was surprising because I honestly could not hear it with the headphones on my head and playing music at a relatively low volume – and our blender is really loud.
While they’re great for music, these are also fantastic sounding headphones that help you immerse yourself into any game on your iPad or iPhone, cutting down on the auditory distractions from the outside world when they’re powered up.
A few years ago, Portland resident Sam Beck built a bike-powered speaker that wouldn’t cut off when he stopped pedaling at stoplights. He accomplished such a feat with an amazing new technology: supercapacitors.
Instead of stopping there, however, Beck decided to bring his vision to the portable bluetooth speaker market, and his company — Blueshift — was born. Crowd-funded and open sourced, these gorgeous bamboo speakers charge in minutes and sound amazing for hours. The original unit, called Helium, is a big, bold bamboo speaker that packs a ton of sound.
Beck is releasing a second generation speaker called Hydrogen on crowd-funding site Crowd Supply. This new boombox is smaller and a little less loud, but it’s the same quality and design as its larger sibling, and a little less pricey.
Part of the appeal, for Beck, of figuring out this entirely new way of powering a speaker was the inherent challenge of doing something that no one else had.
“It seemed like such a good idea,” he told Cult of Mac over the phone, “I wondered why no one else was doing it. I saw that there was another way to do things that no one else was doing.”
Check out the video below for more details on this gorgeous high-tech portable speaker cabinet.
Many of us use a Bluetooth keyboard with our Mac or our iPad, but using the same keyboard with multiple devices can be a real pain in the neck, since Bluetooth doesn’t elegantly let you pair one accessory with multiple devices.
For a little while now, Logitech has been trying to massage away that pain with a series of keyboards that can switch between being paired with a Mac and iOS device, but Logitech’s new Bluetooth Multi-Device Keyboard K480 makes it easier than ever. And it has a built-in stand for your iPad or iPhone to boot.
This post is brought to you by Creative Labs, creator of the Sound Blaster Roar.
The Sound Blaster Roar is the epitome of audio quality, features and great looks combined into one device.
Musicality, accurate timbre, tonality, with deep, tight bass within a portable Bluetooth wireless speaker shouldn’t be a pipe dream. Creative Labs boasts of defying these laws of acoustic engineering with their Sound Blaster Roar.
Their innovative acoustic chamber design allows the Roar to adopt an impressive five-driver speaker design, which includes two high-performance amplifiers and a built-in subwoofer. Beyond the audio quality prowess, this Red Dot design award-winning speaker also includes a whole host of nifty features, doubling up as a portable battery bank, MP3 player, voice recorder and a speakerphone.
The Tile is a tiny plastic widget that never gets lost. In theory anyway. It talks to your iPhone via low-power Bluetooth and lets you track the Tile itself, and anything the Tile is attached to.
I’ve been using one for the last couple of weeks, and it works just fine. But so far it doesn’t seem to be much more useful than one of those keychain finders that beeps when you whistle. Why? Because to be truly useful, the Tile needs to reach a critical mass of users.
Apple’s iBeacon technology has potentially massive implications across a range of areas — many of them having been demonstrated over the past year.
Up until now, however, Apple has handled only the software side of the equation with the aid of the microlocation technology found in iOS. That may be set to change with new first-party iBeacon hardware, for which FCC filings have just been uncovered by electronics company Securifi.
Registered as the “Apple iBeacon” and with a model number of A1573, the document describes how the technology was tested in collaboration with the Chinese company Audix Technology, between April 30 and May 13 this year. The beacon in question (at least in the case of the model tested) is USB-powered, has a diameter of 5.46″, and a working frequency of up to 2.4GHz, which is standard for Bluetooth.
Whether the weather is wet or dry, we've got you covered this week. Waterproof headphones and speakers, and some nonslip bike pedal covers, will let you carry on in the rain or in the lake. And a flash-booster, replacement keycaps and a big twisty knob will keep you entertained indoors. Don’t forget your umbrella (or sunglasses)!
Logitech’s updated Ultrathin Keyboard Cover for iPad Air replaced its predecessor mere months after the original’s launch. The most obvious difference between the two is the flip-out hinge that joins the keyboard to the iPad like a cover to a book, but in reality the two devices are completely different.
Is the new one better? In one way yes. In others? Nope.
The weekend is nearly upon us, so why not grab some great savings before it arrives from Cult of Mac Deals?
We’ve got the GripGo Universal Car Mount available for just $13.99 and the BACtrack Breathalyzer for iOS for only $99.99 in two very limited time offers!
Wood. It’s just better.
This portable bluetooth speaker uses sustainable bamboo to wrap a pretty great little speaker up in the warm resonance of wood. Kickstarted and made by the folks at Otis & Eleanor, the Bongo portable bluetooth is capable and beautiful at the same time.
There are Bongo designs for everyone, some with dark brown stain, some with black, and some with no stain at all. The speaker grilles come in a variety of ’60s and ’70s-inspired fabric with colors straight out of your mom’s old living room. The unit we got to spend time with comes with brown, copper, gold and red tweed covered speakers and fits in just about any decor we can throw at it around the house. It also looks stunning in a hotel room, what with its classic retro look.
Listening to your favorite music through a good pair of stereo headphones can make it sound like you’re hearing it for the first time. With the Bluetooth-enabled Air-Fi Matrix2, take that experience anywhere.
If you’re looking for a rich wireless audio experience with solid bass and treble so smooth it’ll make butter jealous, grab a pair of these bad boys. And Cult of Mac Deals has the Air-Fi Matrix2 headphones for 46% off the regular price during this limited time offer – only $79.99!
This week we get ready for springtime excursions with three portable speakers that shrug off splashes and are happy to be used in the shower. Which one will you take to the lake, pool or beach? Let’s take a look.
This combined Bluetooth attack alarm, flashlight and pepper spray is called the Peacekeeper. LOL.
The Peacekeeper keeps the peace by letting its user deliver a does of “military-grade” pepper spray into the face of another human being. Here’s what that means, according to a paper from the European Parliament Scientific and Technological Options Assessment (STOA).
The effects of pepper spray are far more severe, including temporary blindness which lasts from 15–30 minutes, a burning sensation of the skin which lasts from 45 to 60 minutes, upper body spasms which force a person to bend forward and uncontrollable coughing making it difficult to breathe or speak for between 3 to 15 minutes.
Macally’s BTKEYPRO looks like a nice do-everything keyboard, for all your devices. The main selling point is that it can pair with and switch between up to five devices, letting you use it with your iMac, MacBook, iPad, iPad Mini and iPhone, all at the touch of a key.
But it does more than just that.
In our multi-device, multi-user, multi-tasking world, you need a speaker that lets you control the music right from the palm of your hand, helping you discover, share and enjoy new sounds on the daily. Cult of Mac Deals a speaker that certainly fits the bill.
The Sound Step Lightning is Soundfreaq’s next-generation Bluetooth speaker. Featuring a dock for Apple’s Lightning 8-pin connector (on iPhone 5/5S), Bluetooth connectivity, USB audio and line-in playing – it gives you audio playback versatility. and it can be yours for only $99 – a savings of 23% – through Cult of Mac Deals.
Whether you’re presenting a slideshow, reading an ebook or catching up on Facebook, you can sit back and enjoy your content uninterrupted with The TOCCs Feather Mouse.
This wireless alternative to the traditional mouse is ergonomically designed to get rid of finger tension and seamlessly fits in the palm of your hand just like a pen does. It’s faster browsing that you can feel…and all for just $29.99!
Sound Freaq’s Sound Rise is an old-fashioned concept wedded to new-fangled function. It’s a clock radio (remember those?) that plugs into your iPhone and charges it while sucking the sound out of your music library or favorite streaming apps.
It can be hard to hold on to some of your smaller everyday items. With Hone you can breathe easy because you’re just a click away from finding your lost possessions.
You can attach Hone to your keys, wallet, remote control – anything. Then, the small Bluetooth dongle automatically pairs to your iPhone or iPad with Hone’s free iOS app. If you can’t find the object, simply tap the “Find” button and Hone starts to vibrate, alerting you to the location of your cherished object. And Cult of Mac Deals has it for 50% off during this limited time offer – just $29.95.
Your iPad is a trusted and essential tool for staying up to date on information, responding to emails, researching for work or school and much more. Now it’s time to take your iPad productivity to the next level – and Cult of Mac Deals can help.
The iPad Keyboard Case combo allows you to convert your iPad into a laptop-like position for faster, more comfortable typing. It also allows for tablet use by folding its hinge, hiding the Bluetooth keyboard out of sight. And Cult of Mac Deals has it for just $39!
This Cult of Mac Deals promotion is going to do its part to bring your speakers back to life.
The Griffin Twenty is a system that takes your existing speakers and allows you to do something new with them. You don’t need an iPhone speaker dock, or Bluetooth speakers, or cables. Connect your favorite speakers to Twenty, and it acts as your stereo receiver for pure digital sound. And right now you can get The Griffin Twenty for 30% off – just $69.99.
Pyle’s Rocket Torch is a combination Bluetooth speaker and flashlight. It also has an FM radio and a microSD-card slot, plus a carabiner to hang it from your bag, belt or shower head. Yes, shower head. This thing is water resistant too.
Imagine the chaos that could be achieved by connecting three iPhones to a single stereo using a three-way cable splitter, and letting everyone fight for the right to run the party.
Now imagine that you can do the same thing, only wirelessly. That’s the idea behind the 3Play, a Bluetooth receiver from Grace Digital that’ll let you and your friends all share the music you love simultaneously.” Simultaneously!
It’s time to take your iPad entertainment experience to new levels.
And you can do that with the SoundPad – a tablet stand with built-in stereo Bluetooth speakers. The SoundPad is a creative take on the Bluetooth speaker – this innovative combo folds into a compact unit when not in use, making it ultra-portable and perfect to take on the go. And Cult of Mac Deals has it for 34% off the regular price – just $45.99!
Let’s cut to the chase: these In-Ear Headphones from Grain Audio are earbuds redefined.
The In-Ear Headphones from Grain Audio deliver perfect sound and design. Owners of this product can maintain their style without sacrificing any audio quality. Cult of Mac Deals has got these sleek headphones for 15% off the regular price – just $84.99 – during this limited time offer.