Product review: Hallomall Solar Powered Pink Mosaic Glass Ball Garden Light

This light is pretty during the day because of the color glass ball, and pretty during the night to rainbow glow of the LED light within the glass ball. It is an attractive lawn ornament, but don't count on it to provide any light it is purely decorative. I hope the video gives you a better idea what to expect.

The glass ball is quite heavy, weight 14 oz. The stake is metal with a plastic tip. The plastic tip was not sharp or strong enough to pierce the rocky New England soil and I used one of my garden tools to prep the hole for the light. The solar battery has a switch on the under side, which can turn off the light when it is in storage.

Installing the light took about 10 seconds. All I had to do is attach the ball to the stake with a butterfly spring, and assemble the two parts of the pole. The total height of the stake is 26" (from the ball's base to the tip) and the ball is 4".

The battery came pre-charged, so it was nice to be able to see how the lights look with the lights on right away. These garden lights are photo sensitive, they only come on when it is dark outside. The light runs on AA 600 NI-MH and recharged by a solar recharger.


You can find it on Amazon by following this link.


Ali Julia review ★★★★☆

Product review: GRDE LED Solar Security Motion Sensor Floodlight

The good news about this light is that the design is very flexible. The lights can be mounted quite a distance away from the solar panel, the angle of the lights can be adjusted many different ways, same goes for the motion sensor. The bad news about this light is that the light, the housing, and the adjustment knobs are made out of light duty plastic. The light does not feel solidly made, the screws that hold the lights do not tighten as snugly as I would have liked. I am worried about over-tightening them and breaking them so I did not tighten them as I normally would.

The lights are meant to be mounted on a vertical surface. You cannot mount on the horizontally surface casting the light down due to how the screw holes are oriented. The lights are reasonably bright (I would say equivalent to 40W incandescent bulb). They are spot lights and light up two distinct well defined areas. When mounted 5 feet high they light about an area about 4 feet across each. I am attaching a video as an illustration for this review.

In the configuration you see in the video the light is 7 inches tall (from the motion sensor to the top of the lights) and 9" wide (from outside of one light to the outside of the other light). The light weighs 10.15 oz. The solar panel is 6.5" x 5.5". The cord that connects the solar panel to the light is quite long, it is 193 inches.

The motion sensor works pretty reliably. The sensitivity can be adjusted from the minimum 6.5 feet to maximum of 16.5 feet. The duration of how long the light stays can be adjusted from 20 seconds to 60 seconds.

So what's the bottom line? It works, the design is very flexible, the knobs do not feel soldly made. I rate the design as 5 stars, I rate the materials as 3 stars, overall 4 stars. I will update this review on how it is holding up over time.

You can find it on Amazon by following this link.


Ali Julia review ★★★★☆

Product review: CHEERLINK full HD 5 input HDMI switch

One of my TVs has only one HDMI ports and I got this switcher to allow me to hook up additional devices. This package includes just the switcher, you will need to provide your own HDMI cable to hook the switcher to the TV, and then an HDMI cable for each of your devices.

The switcher has five HDMI ports to attach up to five HDMI devices. So far I am using two of the five ports. Once you switch your TV to the HDMI input, you need to select which one of HDMI device attached to the splitter you want.

There are three ways to do it
❶ The switcher automatically selects a port (the device that was turned on last)
❷ You can select a port manually by pushing a button on the HDMI switch
❸ You can use the remote control that comes with switcher and to select 1-2-3-4-5

The front of the switch lights up the selected device in blue, and the devices that are attached but not selected in red.

AC adapter is included with the switch and the switch has to be plugged in to function. The remote runs on CR2025 3V Lithium battery.

I did not see any deterioration in signal and overall I am quite pleased. Is it the same as using HDMI inputs on the TV? No. There is a noticable pause of several seconds between pressing a button and seeing something on the screen. On the TV that has multiple HDMI output the switch between inputs is instant.

Overall, I am pleased with the switch but I would have found the configuration more convinient of the power cord plugged in the back.

You can find it on Amazon by following this link.


Ali Julia review ★★★★☆

Product review: Vinsic Classic 5000mah Power Bank

This is a slick and thin battery it is 3" x 4.5" x 7/16" and only 4.95 oz. Some of its 5000 mAh capacity is lost to inefficiencies such as heat so it is safe to assume that it provide about 3800 mAh power. It has a single 1A charging port. 1A is below optimal for Apple devices, but fine for Android.

This charger worked with both my Nexus phone and iPad Mini but it is not a fast charger. To tell how various battery packs perform I measure their performance with a current monitor. I use Samsung Nexus phone and iPad Mini for testing to give me a Android and an Apple mobile devices. I test all my chargers using the same charging cables and starting all tests at same charge level of the phone to account for non-linear charging. This allows me to compare different batteries to each other so I can rate the battery keeping everything else constant.

Samsung Nexus phone:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
0.92/5.07V (close to optimal charging)
(for comparison the best charging monitor result for this phone is 1.00A/5V)

iPad Mini tablet:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
0.93/5.07V (below optimal)
(for comparison the best charging monitor result for this tablet is 1.70A/5V)

Its nice thin shape makes it convenient to carry in a purse or pocket. This charger is not a work horse, but its shape is convenient to take it anywhere I go as a backup power for my Android phone.

You can find it on Amazon by following this link.



Ali Julia review ★★★★☆

Product review: Eco Touch TSH16 Tire Shine

Attached video contains "before" and "after" photos of my tires. This job did not take a lot of elbow grease, each tire took one to two minutes. I used Eco Touch applicator which is a very nicely designed sponge with an indentation for your fingers (keeps your fingers away while giving you a lot of control). I also liked that the solution was totally unscented. Eco Touch tire shine is a white creamy solution. I only needed a small dab of it per each tire to get a low-gloss shine on it.

Note that the bottle comes with a foil seal under the cap. It took me a few squeezes that produced nothing to look under the cap to see the reason for my problem.

Ingredients:
filtered water
cetyl esters (plant-based conditioning agent)
xantham gum
fragrance oil blend
preservative

You can find it on Amazon by following this link.


Ali Julia review ★★★★★

Product review: Lomui 5200mAh External Battery Power Pack

The Lomui 5200mAh charger is one of the smallest batteries of this capacity I have seen. It is easily fits in my purse or funny pack. With capacity 5200mAh it is not intended for a real heavy use, but it is good for portable emergency power. The battery is only 3.5"x1.75"x0.75" and its weight is only 4.10 ounces. It has one charging port (1A).

I noticed that the Amazon description has a couple of errors:
(1) this power pack has no built-in flashlight mentioned in the title
(2) this package came without a small bag mentioned in the description

Neither thing is a big deal for me but for completeness of the review I wanted to include this information.

The charging status is indicated by a tiny LED indicator. It is blue when a mobile device is being, and red when the battery is being charged. There is no indication of how much charge is left in the battery.

This charger worked with both my Android Nexus phone and iPad Mini tablet. iPad Mini needs more than 1A for optimal charging speed so with 1A port below optimal speed of charging is an expected outcome.

To tell how various battery packs perform I measure their performance with a current monitor. I use Samsung Nexus phone and iPad Mini for testing to give me a Android and an Apple mobile devices. I test all my chargers using the same charging cables and starting all tests at same charge level of the phone to account for non-linear charging. This allows me to compare different batteries to each other so I can rate the battery keeping everything else constant.

Samsung Nexus phone:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lomui: ___ 0.90/5.03V (somewhat below optimal)
(for comparison the best charging monitor result for this phone is 1.00A/5V)

iPad Mini tablet:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lomui:___ 0.93/5.02V (below optimal)
(for comparison the best charging monitor result for this tablet is 1.70A/5V)

I like the shape and size of this battery. It comes in very attractive colors. It is good for emergency power on the go.

You can find it on Amazon by following this link.


Ali Julia review ★★★★☆

Product review: OnlyTM Innovative Car Cover all weather car cover S-Series for Sedan

There are two things about OnlyTM covers that make them easier to put on the car than other covers we have used. First, the cover has two stiff poles at the front and at the back of the cover, which increases the leverage one has when putting the cover on. Second, the cover has straps that Veclro to the carpet inside the car's trunk. This means the cover does not slip off the car as you put it on. If you ever tried putting a regular car cover on a car, you probably familiar with need to make several passes over the car as it slips off of one end while you are working on covering other. This cover locks in, so it works as if you have a second pair of hands helping you.

This our second OnlyTM cover. The first cover was for my SUV. My SUV was a little harder to cover than my husband's sedan. My SUV is tall and has a 12" antenna, so it what worked well for SUV is to work front to back so I could use the leverage the poles gave to swing the cover over the the antenna is same direction the antenna is leaning. This means I do not use the straps.

My husbands car has a knob antenna, so he found that locking the straps in the trunk and working back to front works best on his car, because he can take advantage of both unique features of this cover. He can cover the car in about 2 minutes, much faster than his old cover.

Some other notes from my experience with both cars covers:

1. This cover is designed to hang on the bumper when not in use. Neither one of us are using this feature. Both of our cars have backup sensors on the car bumper (I circled them in the video). On both cars we were not able to find a position in which the cover would avoid covering the backup sensors. Therefore carrying the cover hanging off the bumper as designed is not an option for either of our cars.

2. Neither one of us was able to fit the cover back into its original bag, we just could not make the bundle small enough in a reasonable amount of time. We are using plastic tubs to store the covers, this ways we don't need to worry about being neat when the cover is put way.

3. Both my husband and I rate putting the cover on and removing it as "easy" (a huge improvement over my feelings about regular car covers).

My video includes a number of images of the cover and my husband's sedan. His car is using S-52 cover. For reference the dimensions of his car are:
Body Length.......196.80 " (16.4 fee)
Body width........74.10 " (6.175 feet)
Body height.......58.40 " (4.8 feet)

The quality of the fabric looks good. It is silver on one side, white on the other side. The thickness is heavier than I imaged from the photo and it feels fairly sturdy. However only time will tell how it will hold up in New England winter. We am planning to use both covers in the snow and will post an update after I know how they handle the winter.


You can find it on Amazon by following this link.



Ali Julia review ★★★★★