Gifts for the geek in your life

Dyson blade-less fans

$529 - $749, www.dyson.co.nz

UK inventor James Dyson is best known for his vacuum cleaners, and hand-driers that actually work. 

Now his company has turned its attention to fans.

As muggy summer heat descended on NBR Towers, I checked out two, the Dyson AM06 Desktop Fan ($529) and the AM08 Pedestal version ($749).

The most obvious advantage of the bladeless design is it's safe, easy to clean and the hey-wow design. People constantly stopped by desk to stick their hand through the AM06.

The Dyson blade-less fans are also pretty quiet (up to 70% quiet than the company's first-generation models), though by no means silent. The AM08's thrum was modest next to our usual Warehouse fan, but still had me reaching for my TV remote to jack up the volume.

The design also delivers a smooth, constant flow of air in comparison to the choppy effect you can get from a traditional bladed fan. It uses an impeller to suck in air through the grilles on the fan's base then blasts this air through a thin gap that runs round the inside of the big ring. This fast moving air creates an area of low pressure inside the ring which draws in further air from behind then as it flows out through the front it further draws more air in for a multiplying affect.

The flow of air is also very targetted, which gives it much longer reach than most bladed fans (and allows the party trick of releasing a balloon through the fan's ring, then watching it shoot in a straight line across the room). If you want to share your air, a Dyson can be set to auto-rotate.

Each fan comes with a remote, a choice of ten air speeds, a sleep mode, a oscillation mode and the ability to tilt (it's not obvious in the desktop model, whose whole base can pivot forward on a tiny stand; it looks a little precarious but works fine).

Cons? The price is pretty bracing, especially the shells of these fans are plastic. But overall, this is my kind of breeze. They're too pricey for Chez Keall, but NBR's publisher (bless his socks) is lining up some Dysons for our office once these review units go back.

ABOVE: AM06 300mm Desk Fan available in three colours - iron/blue, black/nickel and  white/silver - $529; AM07 Tower Fan available in two colours - Black/nickel and  white/silver $749; AM08 Pedestal Fan available in white/silver: $749.

Orbotix Sphero 2.0 app-controlled robot ball

$230; Apple Store NZ; store.gosphero.com/products/sphero-2-0

Sphero 2.0 is a motorised orb of plastic, about the size of a cricket ball. 

It's controlled by tablet or smartphone app

You can freestyle whiz it around the house, including jumps (two plastic ramps come in the box). Or you can programme it or play one of two dozen apps. The choice of apps includes table-top games, augmented reality titles where the real Sphero on your floor is super-imposed on a game on your smart device (thanks to your tablet or smartphone's camera) and multi-player titles.

The Sphero is available through Apple's online store for NZ, though at a reasonably robust exchange rate (if you decide to buy from a US retailer, note that it's charging cradle has a US plug, so you'll need to shell out for an adapter. Although Sphero is sold). And although it's on Apple's store, the Sphero also (whisper it) supports Android apps.

I actually bought a Sphero during a trip to the US shortly before the Colorado-based Orbotix contacted me out of the blue and offered to send a review unit (yes, timing).

My kids (8 and 9) have loved it but, like me, have been frustrated by the need to constantly re-calibrate Sphero (which, unlike say a remote-controlled car has no forward or back, so you constantly have to re-teach it which direction you're using for forward etc on the touch-controller on your iPad or smartphone. It only takes half a minute if it all goes well, but it is rather the bane of the Sphero owner's life. See the explainer video here). 

If you're familiar with Sphero 1.0, the second-generation model has more flashing LED light combinations, and is faster. It can zoom along at two metres per second. That seems pretty quick in an in-door environment and it's easy to bash this robotic ball into furniture, but it's a hardy little thing. You're cats will love it.

Orbotix Ollie app-controlled robot 

$180; Apple Store NZ; www.gosphero.com/ollie

Ollie is a cousin of Sphero 2.0 (above). It's cylindrical shape and grippy tires mean you take it outdoors and take advantage of it's greater speed (up to six metres per second or 21km/hr) and all-terrain abilities. 

You can freestyle, or choose from hundreds of pre-programmed manoeuvres.

Like Sphero, battery life is around an hour — excellent as remote controlled gadgets go.

The main con is that you can only control Ollie up to about 30m away (the limit of the Bluetooth LE wireless used to wrangle it from a virtual joystick app on your tablet or smartphone). And although basic zooming around is easy, fine control can be tricky.

Like Sphero, there's a bunch of apps. And it also comes with little plastic ramp which, with a good run-up, allows Ollie to leap up to 1.5m into the air. Great fun. Your cats will fear it.

Parrot mini drones

Rolling Spider $149, Jumping Sumo $239, AR.Drone 2.0 Powered Edition ($599), www.parrot.com

French company Parrot is one of the biggest players in the so-called "civilian drone" market, or relatively low-cost drones that can be used as toys (but which can cause some grown-up problems; to wit, Airways NZ has just launched www.airshare.co.nz, a site designed to educate people who got a UAV or unmanned aerial vehicle for Christmas).

I test-flew the Parrot AR.Drone 2.0 quadcopter earlier this year. Like the AR.Drone 1.0 (which NBR also reviewed), it's flown via a tablet and smartphone app, but the AR.Drone 2.0 is much easier to control thanks to better pre-programmed options. If you lose control or panic in the air as it lurches toward your neighbour's swimming pool, for example, you just have to press a button on the app and the Drone 2.0 will automatically fly back to its take-off point. 

Battery life is also much better. I found the AR.Drone 1.0 lastest a frustrating 10 to 15 minutes. The newer model lasts up to an okay 25 to 30 minutes (it's officially rated at up to 36 minutes).

There's also an HD camera for streaming 720p video back to your smartphone or tablet, and recording images to an SD card (and speaking of video, the folks at GoPro are apparently planning a drone).

Control is via your smart device's wi-fi, which restricts you to about 20m to 30m reach, although you can go three times that with pre-programmed flights (under Civil Aviation rules — as listed on Airshare — you're not allowed to lose visual line-of-sight contact with a drone, although of seen people do this with a drone wrangled by a regular radio controler linked to smartphone or tablet. Such a setup can be used to remote control a quadcopter from half a kilometre away or more).

A good drone for beginners.

ABOVE: Parrot AR.Drone 2.0

In September, Scott Bartley looked at two new smart device-controlled toys from Parrot — one that flies and rolls and another that rolls and flies. Here's his take:

The mostly ground based Jumping Sumo spends its life rolling around your home on a couple of large, soft rubber wheel, however, thanks to a spring loaded jumping mechanism, it can launch itself 80cm into the air to negotiate stairs, couches, dogs and other common household obstacles. It connects to your smartphone or tablet (Android, iOS or Windows Phone) via wifi and streams live video back to wherever you happen to be (plug in an SD card to record movies or stills).

ABOVE: Parrot Jumping Sumo

The Rolling Spider, on the other hand, is smaller and has four high-speed rotors that let it fly around. 

The “rolling” factor comes by virtue of a couple of detachable wheels that allow you to fly the thing around your home with some confidence that you’ll not hit a ceiling or wall every five seconds and send the drone plummeting to the floor. With the wheels attached, you can “roll” around the ceiling and up walls with barely a care in the world.

ABOVE: Parrot Rolling Spider.

Being considerably smaller than the Sumo, the Spider forgoes the wifi circuitry and instead connects via Bluetooth. It doesn’t stream live video back to the smartphone, but it does shoot some low-res stills as it flies around.

These things are great fun and both passed the demanding “fun and easy to control” test my two young kids put them through. Battery life is the only downer as 90 minutes of charge time yields about 10 minutes of play.

Trackers

$7.99, ricm.ac

In 2011, Wellington's Richard MacManus sold his blog ReadWriteWeb to San Francisco's Say Media for $US5 million. He left the site the following year. What's he been doing since? In part, travelling and writing. 

January 1 will see the release of his book Trackers, in which MacManus uses hands-on reviews with gadgets and new services to examine the "self-tracking" —  the practice of measuring and monitoring your health, activities or diet through technologies such as smartphones, apps, pedometers and personal genomics, empowering you to take control of your day to day health. 

All the analysis is written in his usual style. That is, thorough and accessible.

Trackers will be available in print, and through Amazon Kindle and Apple iBooks from New Year's Day — just in time to help you burn off that Christmas lard.

Fitbit Charge

$180; www.fitbit.com/nz

Speaking of staying in shape, Scott Bartley recently looked at the Charge, the latest band from Fitbit, regarded by many as the market leader in fitness "wearables". He's his take:

Plenty of companies have jumped on the wearable fitness tracking bandwagon in recent times and Fitbit has been there since before it was fashionable. However, pioneers in the field or not, the company has since realised it’s fighting a fierce battle for the “consumer wrist” with some of the biggest names in the tech business. This is a good thing for us as increased competition means lower prices and more features. For Fitbit, it’s releasing a range of new models, the first of which is the basic Fitbit Charge under review here.

The Charge relies on a three-axis accelerometer to measure how many steps you’ve taken throughout the day allowing it to measure your levels of activity with a fair degree of accuracy. Indeed, thanks to a tiny USB dongle (supplied) it reports all this data wirelessly to your Fitbit account whenever you get near your PC. This means you don’t have to proactively sync the device and at any time you can log on to see your progress in 15 minute chunks.

There are no secrets to be kept from your Fitbit, it knows if you’ve been leisurely strolling around or going for a run. It even managed to successfully pick when I was asleep most of the time. Although I did manage to trick it into thinking I was asleep when I was, in fact, watching a movie late one night. Perhaps I should have jiggled about more.

You don’t need a PC to see your progress thanks to a small, battery-friendly display. At the touch of a button it will show you how many steps you’ve taken since waking up (assuming you wore it to bed), distance travelled, calories burned, flights of stairs climbed and, helpfully, the current time and date.

As a piece of wearable technology, the Fitbit Charge performed flawlessly. Batteries lasted for days on end and it is light enough so as to be barely noticeable on the wrist.

Where the Fitbit really excels, however, is in the software backend where there is just the right mix of nerdy exercise data to sift through coupled with interesting, goal orientated tasks to strive for. Convince a few friends to buy a Fitbit and the competitive spirit really kicks in with daily leader boards providing all the motivation one could hope for.

If you’re after more advanced features such as heart rate monitoring and GPS tracking, Fitbit will be releasing more advanced models in the New Year. However, if the basics of fitness tracking will suffice, the Charge is an excellent choice. 

Navman MiVue drive GPS/dashcam

$349; www.navman.co.nz

These days, all smartphones come with free mapping apps, complete with frills like voice directions and basic slow traffic alerts.

What's a sat-nav maker to do? In Navman's case, keep innovating.

Along with all the usual GPS modcon's the company's new MiVue Drive LM features a dashboard cam — making it the first GPS/dashcam combo gadget to be released in NZ.

A wide angle lens captures everything in front of your car in 720p HD video. You can toggle between live footage and Navman's usual GPS view. The footage can also be downloaded and viewed on your computer. 

The dash cam is a useful way of recording a holiday drive, back up your story in crash or road-rage incident or, like that Russian driver, capture a falling meteor.

The camera lens has a wide 120 degree angle to ensure every detail from the road is captured. It also has a glass lens designed to maximise the amount of light that is let in to deliver a sharp image.

The MiVue Drive also includes Navman’s trademark Rapid Map Refresh Lifetime Maps meaning drivers will always have current and validated maps.

And it comes with Premium Driver Alerts including advanced warning about merging lanes, steep inclines, hairpin bends, narrow roads, and more.

Sony attachable lens for your smartphone

$399; www.sony.co.nz

Smartphone cameras are pretty clever these days. They pack in the megapixels, and are increasingly capable with auto-focus, image stabilisation and handling low light.

But simple physics mean your ultraslim iPhone or Android can't handle one key aspect of photography: optical zoom (as opposed to the rubbishy pixelation of "digital zoom").

Enter Sony's 18-megapixel Cybershot Lens-style Camera (aka the DSCQX10), which clips onto your smartphone and gives it 10x optical zoom, a whole lot of DSLR-level smarts, plus extras like NFC and wi-fi.

ckeall@nbr.co.nz

Follow @ChrisKeall