Category: Reviews

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Smart Doorbells? Sure.

Earlier this year, I stumbled on a brand called Qubo. I quite liked what they are trying to do in India. Even their messaging was on point and localized! Of course, I ordered one impulsively.

Honestly, it’s been a savior all through the pandemic. Esp. during the crazy phase of COVID second-wave in India when we stopped stepping out. The video doorbell’s iOS app helped us talk to those at the door (especially for the food delivery guys). And now, regardless of where I am, I know who’s at the door. No more anxieties about missing an important package!

But, it’s not as good as I thought it should be. There are lags, software is buggy, and I’ve not seen any software upgrades yet. While the advertised features are available on Android, the iOS app felt like an orphan child. Overall, a good idea but poor execution. That sounds familiar, isn’t it?

I had to reach out to them and get the device replaced as it was giving some serious trouble and at one point, it stopped working. While the customer support was lousy at best, the leadership team was open approachable and open to feedback. They stepped in and helped me me a quick replacement. (LinkedIn works!)

Though I wish these were more affordable. They’re priced a lot higher than they should be; esp. given that there are home WiFi cameras available for 20% of the cost. And these doorbells use the same technology and similar software. I hope more companies venture into this. Our hyper-connected lives would thank them!

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Reviews

Lightweight laptop backpack for those on the go – STM Impulse

I am a sucker for productivity apps and tools. As much as I love carrying over a dozen tools, cables, adapters and my 11K mAh (yes, you read it right!) battery pack with me, I try to make sure that I have the right laptop bag before I step out. Yeah, I have a fetish for bags – if there is one store than I’d stop by in a mall, it’s got to be the one which has bags on display!

For the past few months, I have been alternating between STM Revolution, STM Velo and a backpack from Samsonite. While STM Revolution is my all-time favorite backpack, I was looking at something which is smaller in size and lighter in weight – for days when I do not need to carry a lot of stuff. Something that is good enough to throw in the *must haves* and step out without much load on the back. I quite liked STM Impulse Backpack and thought of checking it out.

Fast forward a few weeks and I received a STM Impulse Backpack. I decided to go for the black, medium size bag. Packed in a shiny cellophane wrap, the tag & branding caught my attention, once again. The bag is lightweight – perfect to carry your Macbook Air, iPad, Kindle and a bunch of cables without hurting your back, while you’re on the road.

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Mobile Reviews

Mailbox for iPhone didn’t impress me much!

Today morning, I was lucky to get access to the MailBox app.

Mailbox is a nice email app, but there’s nothing revolutionary about it. After having used it for a day, I realise that it’s better marketed than built or conceived as a product. Early access to a few folks, brilliant idea of reserving the app in advance, and all that topped with the icing that allows you to download and keep looking at the ticker. This game looked very interesting.

However, while there was so much noise about this app ‘changing’ the way we’ll handle email, I realised that it is for a certain ‘kind’ of users. They’re definitely not the ones who have considerably high volume of emails coming in.

Not just that, it tries to mix the task app and the email app, which for me, serve very different purposes. I would instead wish for an excellent integration between the two. Not a replacement of either.

Reminds me of John Gruber, who rightly said that this app has a different target audience, those who are very gmail centric and have one email address.

I would agree with John on the fact that this won’t replace the Mail.app on iPhone for me. I love labels, folders and the ability to ‘manage’ email.

Bryan on Pandodaily correctly calls it a ‘feature’, not a product.

If you love giving away the control of your email and hide behind the curtain of procrastination fabricated within a good UI, you must try this app. 🙂

I had an chat with Tim Van Damme (@maxvoltar) of Instagram and Chris Herbert (@hrbrt) from MacWorld, on what they feel about Mailbox. Turns out that Tim is liking it for his personal email.