Sunday, January 19, 2014

CATEYE front and rear safety lights - my first true hands free device

CATEYE has many great products primarily in the bicycle safety equipment market space. The 2 specific CATEYE models this blog is talking about are as follows:

Front Safety light
SL-LD210-F

Rear Safety light
SL-LD210-R





These two lights provide never ending safety in a fully automatic fashion for bicycles, wheelchairs, scooters etc.The CatEye Solar is a unique safety light that keeps you safe in all circumstances – automatically. One 5mm LED turns on automatically when darkness and motion are detected and the high-visibility flashing mode keeps you seen.


The built in solar cell charges in 2 hours under good weather conditions and will power the Solar for up to 5 hrs. Available in both white and red for front and rear applications and comes with a very versatile bracket. I attached mine with adhesive Velcro strips.

These lights get a 5 out of 5 score on my coveted "hands free" scale.
Why?
  1. No battery management is necessary - light battery charges automatically with the built in solar cell charger
  2. No need to turn it on or off - unit turns on automatically when it turns dark AND if you are in motion. It turns off automatically when in sunlight or under artificial lights AND also when you stop moving.

Fantastic product.

 

BlueAnt S4 - the true "handsfree speakerphone"?

I have been taking this device for a test drive for about a month. My overall impression is very positive but it still has some shortcomings. I can't quite give it my coveted "true hands free" 5 out of 5 designation.



S4 compared to the S1

The S4 replaced a BlueAnt S1 which has been a very good device for me for the last 4 years. The S1 could only answer calls by voice while the S4 can initiate calls by voice command as well. If your phone has a built in voice dialer you can make a call by simply saying the name in your address book or by saying the numbers. This capability worked perfectly with my Blackberry Pearl and with SIRI on my wife's Apple iPhone 4S. Check your phone to make sure it has voice dialing.

Voice recognition worked very well (much better than the S1) for the 4 different people that tried it. It usually understood commands the first time.The built in audio help feature is excellent.
A full Battery charge lasted approximately 48 hours contiguously in full hands free trigger mode. Full hands free trigger is when the S4 is on, paired with a phone and is constantly listening to every sound for the trigger phrase "BlueAnt listen to me". Of course any phone calls you make or answer would reduce the battery time according to use. I did not assess this for my first report.

By comparison the older S1 battery charge lasted a full 7 days (168 hours). That's because the older S1 only "listens" for a brief period when the phone rings.

The S4 charge time is 3 to 4 hours via micro USB cable.


Not quite fully hands free
  1. One cannot end a call by using a voice command. Once a call is initiated it has to complete and end with the called party hanging up. This is a big problem if you inadvertently called a wrong number or you reach an answering service. There is no voice way to hang up after you leave your message. One answering system waited for 2 to 3 minutes of my silence and then repeatedly asked me to enter some digits to end the call. Thankfully it timed out after 2 to 3 minutes to end the call.  Users who can use their hands may simply tap the end of the device to hang up.
  2. You cannot adjust volume using voice command, you must use your hands to tap the touch sensitive controls on the end of the unit.

Summary
In summary the S4 accepts voice commands to call or answer the phone very well. The visor clip system and the low profile are very nice. It feels solid and appears well built. Interpretation of speech is excellent but the inability to hang up and change volume by voice result in a 4 out of 5 star rating from me on the hands free scale.

CAUTION
A note of caution: there are 2 very powerful magnets on the back of the S4 which connect the unit to a metal visor clip in your car. These magnets can destroy a hard drive. I learned this the hard way! Keep the S4 well away from laptops or PC's.