Gadgets

DIY Perks shares his favorite project yet: a handmade Bluetooth speaker. He says its shell is made of concrete, but the only aggregate he used is sand. Nevertheless, his video, templates and list of materials will save makers a lot of time and headaches.

The Fumpa pump is a tiny air compressor for bicycle tires. It can produce up to 120psi and is recharged through its microUSB port. The Fumpa is compatible with Schrader and Presta valves. If your tires only have Presta valves, you can save space and money with the miniFumpa.

Amazon updates its family of Alexa-enabled devices. The 2017 Echo speaker has a more compact design, with better speakers and voice recognition. The new Echo Plus is also a speaker but with a built-in smart home hub. The Echo Spot is a smaller version of the Echo Show.

Learn to play the guitar like a pro with this nifty gadget. It slides beneath the strings onto the fret board of any 6-string guitar, and uses LEDs to show you where to place your fingers as you build your skills. A companion smartphone app provides lessons and tracks your progress.

The Quark is the world’s smallest waterproof and dustproof GoPro stabilizer, trading off size for single-axis stabilization only. It has a both male and female mount points, so you can connect between any GoPro camera and all GoPro-compatible accessories.

Jaybird is known for having great-sounding and well-priced workout earphones. Its first fully wireless product is no different. The Run offers easy but powerful sound customization. It’s water-resistant, lasts 4h per charge and comes with a charging case that adds 8h of runtime.

The Zen Mount is a stable and highly adjustable mount for cameras, tablets, laptops and more. It has a telescoping arm with pan-and-tilt joints on both ends. It also has a clever lock that holds both the length and position of the arm.

The X-Bows has most of the features of a modern mechanical keyboard: customizable keycaps, Gateron switches, individual key backlighting, anti-ghosting, etc. Plus, it has an ergonomic key layout that’s designed to be beginner-friendly too.

The Moon camera has a base that allows for magnetic levitation and wireless charging. But it’s more than a floating eye. It can rotate itself towards a source of sound, and act as a home automation controller. It even has an IR blaster to control older appliances.

Massdrop worked with AU Optronics to create its own curved gaming monitor, the Vast. The 35″ monitor uses a VA panel that has a 3440 x 1440p resolution, 2ms response time and 100Hz refresh rate. It also supports AMD FreeSync and is VESA compatible.

A motorcycle helmet with a heads-up display. Together with an app, it lets you see navigation data, the view from its rear camera and more. It also isolates sounds and has a walkie talkie function. Its front is elongated to provide more space and make it easier to breathe.

Bezel-less phone pioneer Xiaomi stops pushing the boundaries in favor of an actually usable phone. Unlike its gigantic predecessor, the Mi Mix 2 has a more practical 6″ 1080 x 2160 LCD screen, a rounded frame and a good old earpiece. It lost the headphone jack though.

The definitive version of BlackBerry’s 2017 flagship smartphone doesn’t just have an all-black exterior. Its RAM has been upgraded from 3GB in the standard version to 4GB, and its storage from 32GB to 64GB. The upgrade makes for a snappier and more reliable device.

The new MX Ergo trackball comes with a magnetic plate that lets you choose between a flat or a 20º tilted position to suit your mouse usage. It also supports Logitech’s Flow software, which lets you transfer the cursor or files between two computers.

Sony’s first completely wireless earphones are as tiny as they come, but they also have active noise cancellation. The WF-1000X even have sensors that can detect when you’re walking to automatically let ambient noise in. They can also let voices in but cancel other sounds out.

They didn’t mention it in their pitch, but DC Creatives’ Eta Clock is clearly a rip-off of the Weasley’s magical place-telling clock. Not that it’s a bad thing, what with the original device being nonexistent and all. The only downer here is the price.

Joby’s revolutionary tripods are getting a couple of upgrades. Coming 10/2017, the new GorillaPods have stronger joints than their predecessors and have a new ballhead that can tilt up to 90º. There will also be separate ballheads for large cameras.

The da Vinci Color can print objects with fully colored surfaces. It can print 16 million colors, thanks to its proprietary process that uses CMYK ink along with PLA or PETG filament. While not good enough to make finished products, it’s great for creating prototypes.

Sony’s Xperia XZ1 and XZ1 Compact phones come with a 3D scanning app, which can capture images of faces, heads, food, or other objects along with a 3D depth map, resulting in impressively detailed 3D models which can be used in other apps, or even output to a 3D print.

Lomography makes Fujifilm’s Instax square film even more of a nostalgia bomb with the Lomo’Instant Square Camera. The analog shooter has a compact bellows mechanism, a 95mm glass lens, long and unlimited exposure modes and much more.

Specdrums are electronic rings that let you map notes or sounds to any color around you. You can wear them, put them on sticks, and more. Their app lets you map colors to a variety of instruments as well as your own sounds. You can also use Specdrums with other MIDI apps.

A versatile and affordable gaming laptop. The Nitro 5 Spin has a 15″ 1080p touchscreen and a 360º hinge so you can set it up in various ways, including as a simple tablet. But unlike most hybrids it can run most modern games thanks to its GTX 1050 GPU. Drops 10/2017 for $999.

MOVI lets you convert standard desks into standing desks. Its electronic lift can be adjusted in 0.5″ increments and go up to 18″ high. You can save your preferred height on the control panel, which also has a USB charging port. Its 45″ wide surface is made of bamboo.

LG joins the war against bezels with its latest flagship smartphone. The V30 has a 6″ QHD OLED display that looks a lot like the Galaxy S8’s screen. But it also has 16MP standard and 13MP wide angle rear cameras, a Bang & Olufsen quad DAC, and cinematic video filters.

Remember when home entertainment systems were gigantic showpieces? Ruark remembers. That’s why it keeps cranking out its R7 Radiogram. The latest version not only plays CDs and radio. It also has Wi-Fi, Ethernet, Bluetooth, USB, RCA and optical inputs.