Category Archives: gadgets

it’s here!

05 Thursday Jan 2023

Posted by in casa azahar, gadgets, sevilla

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soundbar (1)

So THE SOUNDBAR arrived much sooner than I thought it would and at first I thought this was a good thing. Ha. What it meant was I lost an entire afternoon setting the fucker up. Initially I thought I’d take a quick glance at it, then looked over the instructions, realised I had NO IDEA how this worked. First instruction was “plug the soundbar into an HDMI ARC port”. Like, with what? It didn’t come with an HDMI cord. And yeah, I could have put it aside for another moment but I’d already unboxed the thing and somehow couldn’t leave it uninstalled. I get like that.
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soundbar coming up

04 Wednesday Jan 2023

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soundbar

Last spring I was in El Corte Inglés taking the escalator up to the top floor (gourmet food shop) and by chance noticed a Telefónica Movistar desk on the fourth floor. And there was no queue! So I thought I’d just check in to see if I could get a better deal on my internet-tv contract. Well imagine my surprise (horror!) when I discovered that for the past four years I’d been paying an extra 20 euros a month for a fucking sports channel that I didn’t even know I’d signed up for (!!!). So got that cancelled. Phew. And then it turned out that with my renewed contract I could choose a device from their online catalogue, which mostly included tablets, smart watches, smart tvs… none of which I needed. Especially as I was only looking at the ones that wouldn’t cost me anything and they weren’t especially interesting brands. Meanwhile for the past almost year Movistar has kept sending me reminder emails that I still haven’t chosen my device.

So the other day I had another look and saw that they had added some new 0€ options: a robot vacuum cleaner and a couple of soundbars. And I thought… soundbar? I mean, the robot vacuum might have been fun with the cats for a while, but then again, maybe not. I also wondered if there was a time limit on claiming my free device. Anyhoodle, this baby is now coming my way. I usually have the “hard of hearing” subtitles on for Peter since he is, well, hard of hearing. But this might make everything sound a bit nicer? What the heck, it’s free. And I was thinking that I might be able to play my music streaming using this, which would actually be very cool.

Anybody out there have one of these? Any advice?

UPDATE: It arrived! Took about 3 (very stress filled) hours to set up tho, mostly moving shelving and the tv stand around and then trying to find 2 more places to plug shit in. So far I’ve mostly noticed that the Netflix Da-Dum has way more bass.

earpods!

21 Tuesday Sep 2021

Posted by in gadgets, internet, music

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earpods (1)

I have been thinking about earpods since my old iPod finally died a few months ago. Or rather, suddenly all the music disappeared and I have no idea why. Because after that my only option for listening to music outside my home was to use my iPhone and this adaptor that has an input for an earphone jack and an usb (see below). I’d originally bought this a couple of years ago for travelling and it’s great for that, so I can listen to music/watch a film on a train/plane and keep the phone or iPad charging. But it’s not so great while walking, having another extension thing sticking out along with the already tangly earphone cords… and of course all of this gets even more complicated and clumsy when you add masks to the equation.

earpods (2)

But there was no way I was going to drop 200€ (that I don’t even have) on a pair of Apple Airpods, especially as I felt sure I’d end up losing at least one of them before long. Then I came across an article about the Anker Soundcore ones (pictured above) that cost 50€ and seemed to do everything I was looking for. Which was mostly getting rid of all the cords but it had some other cool features and also got great reviews. So I went for it.

And well, it’s been interesting. I mean, not having any cords getting caught in my mask, hair and the shoulder strap of my bag is the main bonus, but I can also hear the music better as these are quite (but not totally) noise cancelling. That’s the “interesting” part, because it’s a bit like wearing ear plugs so that I hear my breathing, heartbeats, footsteps way more than I’d like to. Guess I’ll get used to that? Anyhow, it’s good to have these. And they totally stay in my ears!