Out of the blue question: what are the odds that Apple gets rid of the USB port altogether on one of their next iPhones? You can do wireless charging, wireless headsets, and I can imagine wireless data transfer has been their standard for years. I don't think you could do it on an ipad, or any of the larger devices, but on a phone...why not?
I don't think they will... wireless charging is really pretty slow and inefficient, and wifi is pretty slow. I see them adopting the usb-c port (like they have on my new iPad), but not getting rid of it altogether. But hey... what do I know?
@downndirty Agreed with Nett. Essentially no chance at all. Bluetooth just isn't a great model for all the various connectivity requirements that phone accessories have. It requires wireless radios and power, and pairing, so the simpler and cheaper the accessory is, the more of a burden that becomes. Battery life is finite as well, so there's no real equivalent for plugging a cheap, small pair of headphones in and listening to music forever. Bluetooth in general doesn't support fast enough transfer speeds for a lot of tasks. Wi-Fi can often do this, but it's not always the right technology (e.g. if you have a point-to-point connection, you can use Wi-Fi Direct, but now your Wi-Fi connection is dedicated to that). Wireless charging is (as noted) extremely slow compared to the modern USB-PD protocols which can do 100w under the right circumstances. It's likely that wireless charging can't even keep up with a fully utilized phone. Also, wireless charging is actually really limiting - you actually can't use your phone effectively while doing it. And it's a lot more expensive; your little battery packs and stuff are going to go up in price if they have to support wireless charging. Plus they'd kill off their entire accessory ecosystem.
Seriously, how hard would it be to make an app based off of Google maps that presented a "swipe right/swipe left" interface for restaurants? I think it would save so many relationships....
Faulty premise, the man doesn't actually have any input on where the couple will eat. Might cut down on the guessing time before he wears her down to where she actually wants to eat. Overall not a game changer idea for these types of relationships.
When I was traveling for a year, one of the biggest pain in the necks was charging things. If it charged over USB, then it was no problem; I have a multi-port USB charger. If it charged over anything else, it was a pain - carrying various wall-warts, needing multiple outlets and plug adapters... Just obnoxious. Sure, you can carry extra adapters and a power strip or whatever, but we were traveling light. Plus, USB devices can easily be charged in a car or by a battery pack. I recently found that they make USB-PD triggers. These are little boards that will engage in the USB Power Delivery protocol to negotiate a voltage on behalf of a downstream device. Well these little things are fucking amazing. I can now convert basically anything small to run off a USB-C power supply. They aren't particularly cheap but the convenience factor when traveling is off the charts. I have a "whole home" cellular access point and I just wired one of these things in so now I can run it either off my car's USB-C jack, or off my battery pack. I bought a stack of barrel connectors and pigtails and am going to be snipping the ends off my various charging cables.
Yep, bit of a game changer. AliExpress is your friend. I bought 6 of those a while ago for what Amazon wanted for 1. Between that and a bunch of POE stuff I got for my Rasp Pi array, I, too, upped my power game a bit.
I figured Wish or AliExpress would have them much cheaper, just wanted to start out with a known quantity since someone recommended it to me. Are you doing anything to protect the bare board? I kind of wish someone made one that was a little more packaged because it'll be great to have these when traveling, but I was thinking about just wiring in a barrel connector to all of my stuff, and using just one or two of them and swapping. Unfortunately, it's hard to protect the board and still retain access to the LED/button, and you have to remember the LED colors. edit: what I need is a 3d printer to print some boxes for these.
Exactly my plan... so between that, soldering the connections, and some simple shrink wrap on the cables, it'll be much more durable.
I actually spent a night going through AliExpress and bought a bunch of different power connectors for usb, raw pigtails, nano power hats, etc, so that I now have a wide assortment of easy power options for some electronics projects (arduinos, nanos), as well as let me make some easy quick-connects in a daisy chain for the usb-powered fans in my seedling setup, etc. With more and more power going over usb-b/c it just seemed like a good idea to get stocked up on the different options so I'd have them on hand rather than try to cobble something together.
Anyone have experience with Garmin fitness watches? Thinking about the Fenix Solar 6 since I do a decent amount of hiking/mountain biking. The Apple Watch just isn't my jam.
I've got an Epix Pro and my partner has a Fenix 6S. The Epix is a little more general purpose - the OLED screen is brighter and higher resolution, and touch-enabled, so it's much better for maps. I love it for hiking for that purpose - it has been a game changer for easy map access during hikes, way nicer than pulling out my cell phone. The battery life is worse than the Fenix, but it lasts so long that I don't actually notice or care. I took it camping for 4 days where we spent 6-10 hours hiking every day and never charged it. Under normal usage it lasts a couple weeks. I really like the flashlight on it, and FWIW it does ECG (not sure if that matters to you). My partner likes her Fenix because she literally does not use it for anything except creating a GPS & fitness log of a hike or a run. She doesn't want to touch it or interact with it, doesn't want to use a map, and doesn't put it unless she's running or hiking. The simplicity is great and she charges it very infrequently. The Fenix is an easy choice if you value battery life above all else - but I wouldn't change my Epix purchase, either, as I feel it's a better general purpose watch. We hike ~600-800 miles/year, of which 90% is long (15-25 mile) day hikes, just so you know what our usage context is.
I have the Fenix 7 Sapphire and like it a lot. Kind of wish it had the OLED screen but can't remember I didn't get that one. Guessing cost? I highly recommend the Sapphire glass. I've banged it several times against things and still not a scratch. The charger can be finnicky. If I don't set it just so when I plug it in, it doesn't charge. One issue I've had is that any courses that I personally make on the Garmin Connect website will sync to my watch but any courses that are already on their site won't synch. Let's say you want to head to Palm Springs and hike the Cactus to the Clouds trail. Many many people have uploaded that trail to the Garmin website but those won't sync to my watch. But, if I plot the same course myself, then it will sync. One other issue I've had is that when following the Diamond trail in HI, it kept telling me that I was losing the trail even though I was dead in the middle of the trail. Keep walking and it'd say I was back on the trail. Keep going, off the trail. Repeat. Since then I haven't synced a trail to it. I use it my like Binary's partner uses hers. I'm sure the issues I've had are probably due to the fact electronics hate me and it's extremely rare that any electronic device works properly for me.
Have you tried again recently? It used to be when I wanted to import a course that was on the Garmin website, I'd navigate to the course > Send to Device > it would open my Garmin Connect desktop app and I could plug in my watch and sync it. Now you don't have to install the desktop app - you can do the same steps, but don't select the "desktop app" option, then force a sync on your phone app, and the course will appear on your watch. I'm not sure when they added this functionality because I never use the Garmin shared courses, but it's there now. In RE: the on-trail/off-trail thing, I disabled most of those notifications because I found them annoying (especially when doing peak scrambles), but they do happen more often under heavy tree cover, next to large mountains, or in canyons - anywhere that the GPS signal might bounce you around a little more than normal. I use the trail sync almost every single time I hike. I find it amazingly useful to just do a quick check on my wrist when there are trail intersections, or rocky terrain where the trail marks disappear. But I usually do it with more curated GPS tracks than whatever people are uploading to Garmin (usually things like Alltrails GPX tracks, or tracks uploaded from trusted hikers).
Thanks for the feedback. I'm trying to ramp up my progress on the AT again this Spring/Summer, and it's not as well marked in some segments, so the maps will definitely be useful. I'll check out the Epix as well.
I have not tried it recently but have noticed some other features are new with the latest update so I'll have to try it. I guess being in the "bowl" of Diamondhead could cause some GPS issues. Thanks!
The Fenix will do maps, they're just a little less detailed and harder to read because of the screen. https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2022/01/garmin-epix-vs-fenix-7-detailed-comparison-review.html The Fenix 7X Solar has crazy battery life for doing something like the AT, and if I was regularly off the grid for a week at a stretch (or preparing for an epic hike), that's what I'd grab. But for me, I'm just not doing much extended camping, except perhaps as a one-off where it'd be okay to pack some extra power. So the great map clarity/detail on the Epix is an upside with essentially no downside (for me).
Wow. I was expecting a little improvement, but that is a crazy difference in clarity/brightness. The level of trail detail on second one might be the deciding factor. I don't really details on sun strength, etc., but I'm going to research the Epix a bit more. Not sure how long my hike stretches are going to be yet, maybe a week at a time, depending on what shape my dad is in when we set out (and my wife's/kid's tolerance for me being away for extended periods of time.
The Epix is an OLED panel (i.e. backlit), the Fenix is a reflective panel so its brightness and clarity depends on the ambient light. Detail is down to resolution, so the additional detail will appear on the Fenix but you have to zoom in one more level. I did some testing when I bought the Epix. If you set the screen to turn off when idle (the gesture of raising your wrist to look at the watch will turn the screen on, and generally works pretty well), my usage suggests it consumes ~2.8% of battery per hour during a hike. You can do the math on whether that would last long enough for your hikes; on a 7 day hike, it'd probably be cutting it close.
If you're that worried about the watch lasting that long and you know you're going to be out a week at a time, it might be worth also picking up one of these for charging along the way.