by crissly | Aug 22, 2023 | Uncategorized
Buying a new planner gives me an endorphin rush like no other, whether it’s for a new school semester, work year, or a much-needed fresh start. A good one should help you stay on track without overwhelming you. Some folks on WIRED’s Gear team prefer paper planners over digital tools. Plus, writing things down has the added benefit of improving retention.
Everyone has their own preferences, types of tasks, and degrees of willingness to scribble and organize, so we don’t have one best overall planner. I grilled WIRED staff for their favorites and have tested a ton on my own. Once you’ve found something that works for you, check out our Work From Home Gear, Best Smart Pens and Tablets, and Best Laptop Backpacks guides for more.
Updated August 2023: We’ve added planners from Ban.do, The Skinny Confidential, and Laurel Denise, plus updated prices throughout.
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by crissly | Aug 21, 2023 | Uncategorized
Not every webcam is an upgrade over the built-in one on your laptop. These are the models I tested that ranged from merely unimpressive to ones that made me look like the subject of a second-grade art project.
Microsoft LifeCam Studio for $120: It says it’s a 1080p webcam, but there’s a catch—that’s only for recording video. Using it for video calls restricts you to 720p. My coworkers commented on how out-of-focus I constantly was. The white balance was so off that I looked more orange than an Oompa Loompa. And the exposure was so blown out that I never stopped looking like I was living through the last scenes of The Lighthouse. There was also a lot of lag in my movements and bad motion blur.
Logitech Brio 500 for $100: I’m struggling to think of a reason why Logitech decided to make the Brio 500 mount via an adhesive patch on its bracket, which is not meant to be removed once placed onto a laptop or monitor. What if you want to use it on multiple computers, as many of us do, or if you swap the case on your laptop? The adjustment is wacky, too. The webcam is held onto the base via a magnet. Panning the cam downward often pulled it off the base instead of adjusting the angle, and swiveling it left or right caused it to loosen so much it wouldn’t stay put. That meant I kept having to pull it off the magnetic stand, screw the mount back down, and reposition it—and then not adjust it during the rest of the Zoom. That said, the image quality of its 1080p resolution, white balance, and color contrast was quite good, if not excellent, and it came with a USB-C connection and a physical privacy shutter. The autofocus could stand to be a touch quicker. Other positives are that you can get it in black, white, or pink, which is two more colors than most webcams offer you.
Logitech Brio 300 for $60: The image quality is lacking on this one. Even in a fairly well-lit room, my picture was grainy. It also did weird things with the white balance as it autofocused. The field of view is quite narrow at 70 degrees and non-adjustable, so the image onscreen is up in your face. You’ll want to scoot back quite a bit so everybody else isn’t looking up your nose. Like the Brio 500, it comes in black, white, and pink, connects via USB-C, and has a physical privacy shutter. There are better options for this price without these image quality oddities.
Razer Kiyo Pro for $100: Although it looks similar to its cheaper, non-pro sibling, the Pro ditches the light ring and instead relies on software to compensate for low-light conditions. I resented having to download the Razer Synapse app to get a decent image out of the Kiyo Pro. Yes, fine-tuning settings is a very WIRED thing to do, but most people just want to plug their webcam in. Once you fiddle with the app settings, the picture image is sharp and beautiful. However, it has the same overly obvious autofocusing as the regular Kiyo, and it’s also a little overpriced. It’s not a bad pick, but again, the Logitech Brio can do 4K/30 fps, as opposed to this camera, which tops out at 1080p/60 fps.
Creative Labs Live! Sync 4K for $60: I was skeptical about a 4K resolution webcam for this price, and my skepticism was validated in the wildly-strange white balance that turned me and everything faintly orange. It may be the only webcam that made my room look darker than it actually was. The Creative Labs app is available only for Windows, leaving Mac users out in the cold. The privacy shutter is a rubber cap you put on and take off. The bit that holds it to the webcam when it’s off is flimsy enough that if you’re rough or careless, you could rip it off, but it’s nice that it isn’t plastic, which would weaken over time. A minor issue is that the black cap blends in with the black webcam and lens, so that at quick glance it could be hard to tell whether the cap is on or off. The USB-A plug is also a downside. These days, a new webcam really ought to have a USB-C connection so as not to mandate using a hub.
Cisco Desk Camera 1080p for $125: Not to be confused with Cisco’s almost identically named Desk Camera 4K. I tried the 1080p, 8-megapixel version in a variety of natural and artificial lighting, but my fellow Gear Team members and I couldn’t help but notice that no matter how I used it, the video looked overly pixelated. Unless a webcam can make me look as good pixelated as Axel from Streets of Rage, then I want smooth video that actually looks like it’s 1080p. During Zooms, the Desk Camera 1080p had trouble with focusing and zooming, frequently and jarringly refocusing but never getting it quite right.
Logitech StreamCam for $101: The StreamCam did weird things with its white balance, constantly auto-adjusting from one extreme to the other. It was a very nouveau art house vibe having everything on the screen to go from blinding, brilliant blue to toasty, volcanic orange and back. And back, and back again. It swivels left and right, but the swivel is unstable, so the StreamCam wobbles around a lot, especially if it’s mounted on a laptop. On one of our many Zoom meetings, a coworker asked if I was on the deck of a boat. The only great thing about it is that it uses a USB-C cable, while most other webcams use USB-A.
Anker PowerConf C300 for $100: It’s not a bad webcam, but when I checked the price my eyes bugged out a little, Daffy Duck-style. The picture image on the Anker just didn’t look as sharp. While its white balance and autofocusing were … fine, it just isn’t worth the triple-digit price, not when the sharper Logitech C920 and Razer Kiyo exist.
by crissly | Aug 20, 2023 | Uncategorized
Pulling the hefty speakers from their packaging, you’ll find a pair of port bungs, microfiber speaker grilles, and rubber feet. At the back of each speaker is a pair of rugged terminals allowing for discretely bi-amping the bass and upper drivers. I asked KEF about the need for bi-amping, as I only planned to connect to the lower terminals, and was told there’s no real company “voice” on the subject but the implication is that there’s minimal sonic benefit in doing so.
The speakers’ 4-ohm nominal impedance means they’ll likely be harder to drive than 6-ohm or 8-ohm speakers, but impedance is a complex subject and it varies by frequency. KEF claims the speakers can be powered by as little as 15 watts per side, but for best results, I still suggest a relatively brawny amp with good clarity, like the Naim Uniti Atom I employed.
Let It Glow
As gleeful as these speakers are to play, it’s no easy task to tell a story as rich and expressive as what the R3 Meta tell your ears minute by minute, beat by beat. You’ve just gotta hear these things. They’re incredibly nuanced, dynamic, and transparent, offering power and lyrical musicality on a level that few speakers their size can accomplish. Every song you play is a new chapter, as their chameleonic sound signature sets the stage for each new mix.
That’s not to say the speakers don’t offer their own distinctive sonic flavor; they certainly do. But what the R3 bring to the table is so clean, so sweet, and so effortlessly expressive—especially when powered by a transparent amplifier like the Uniti Atom—they lend themselves to every subject with sympathetic delivery. This means they’ll find all the flaws in your music, of course, but more often than not, it’s presented more as a stylistic choice. That lets your ears separate the production wheat from the chaff in everything you play, while still enjoying lo-fi recordings.
Older Beach Boys songs can sound a little thin and even tinny on many speakers, but songs like “In My Room” and “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” soar with the R3 Meta, with well-struck percussion that pops out from the immersive soundstage, satiny harmonies, and smooth guitar tones that seem to pull you to the warm Pacific beaches. Flipping to topflight modern production like The Weeknd’s “Starboy” resets the stage completely. The R3’s magnified clarity provided the best performance of the song I’ve heard yet, with laser synths, columns of bass, and swelling effects echoing out the sides and skimming past my face for an almost surreal experience.
The word “luminous” kept coming up again and again as I moved through dozens of compressed and hi-res tracks over several days. Every string and horn player, every synth effect, vocal, or guitar tone seems to bloom with its own intrinsic light when passed through the R3, for chill-inducing performances. When cymbals sparkle, the speakers light that sparkle with an extra shot of vivid shimmer. When reverb trails hang, the speakers extend and draw them out, letting them fade only just in time for the next musical entrance. And when bass bumps, it hits with marble-hard authority and musical energy.
by crissly | Aug 19, 2023 | Uncategorized
While mass production of the HyperSport will happen at a dedicated factory near Damon’s headquarters outside Vancouver, British Columbia, initial production will begin at Damon’s San Rafael, California, engineering facility. The recently acquired space is currently full of placards and carts to visualize the various stages of the assembly process; polished concrete floors and pristine work surfaces wait for parts.
The assembly portion of the shop is on the other side of the wall from where Damon’s engineers churn out 3D-printed prototypes, machine the alloy components going through final development, and crimp together early wiring harnesses.
Industrial-scale stamping, machining, and casting will ultimately replace the hand-built nature of the preproduction bike you see pictured here, but it’ll still carry the bespoke components designed by and for Damon. “Every part on this [bike] is ours. We’ve developed it from scratch,” Dorresteyn claims. That’s not strictly true—industry-standard components such as wheels, brakes, and suspension are the exceptions.
The prototype Damon HyperSport we visited in the workshop isn’t yet road-legal, lacking niceties such as turn signals and functional headlights. With early production scheduled to ramp up in 2024, much of the team at Damon Motors is focused on finalizing all the various hardware prototypes so that proper manufacturing can begin on the HyperSport, which is still set to hit those initial targets of 200 horsepower, 200 mph, and 200 miles of range.
New Bike, New Bikers
The targets for the executive team are a little different during WIRED’s visit. Giraud says the company is in the middle of yet another funding round, this time a $50 million raise to carry Damon through to production.
That’s a significant hurdle to overcome before the company can finally start appeasing the thousands of preorders, many of which came from interested parties who don’t fit into usual motorcycle demographics.
Indeed, some 75 percent of all Damon preorders have come via the company’s Instagram, with an average age of 37. Of the 3,700 paid deposits, a quarter are from people who don’t even own a motorcycle—expanding the market, certainly, but potentially to inexperienced riders that could well require CoPilot’s intervention sooner than they’d like.
Giraud is aiming high with the HyperSport, but he has plans to produce future models (some via partnerships) that are affordable for riders everywhere, including Indonesia, where most bikes cost around $2,000.
“Motorcycling is the largest form of motorized transportation in the world: 1.5 billion people daily. If we’re going to make motorcycling safer, a million a year sounds like maybe putting a dent in it,” Giraud says. “And, from an electrification point of view, it’s not even a drop in the bucket.”
Giraud admits it will take Damon at least a decade to hit that level of production, a timeline that seems optimistic for a company that has yet to deliver a single motorcycle to consumers. But, when you’ve faced death and lived to tell the tale, maybe everything else seems easy.
Finally, the Ride
As Damon’s prototype HyperSport isn’t legal, WIRED’s test ride can’t take place on the road. Instead, Damon loaded up the bike and trucked it out to Thunderhill Raceway Park, another two hours north of San Francisco.
Before heading out onto the track on the only functional Damon prototype motorcycle in the world, I did a few warm-up laps on something a bit more familiar. More familiar, but no less crazy: a BMW S 1000 RR. This is among the fastest sportbikes on the planet, making a tick over 200 horsepower and weighing just 440 pounds. That it’ll do over 100 mph in first gear and sprint to 60 in fewer than three seconds means that this “warm-up” was pretty hot despite a cold track on a chilly, Northern California spring day.
by crissly | Aug 17, 2023 | Uncategorized
There are a few mattresses we tested that don’t stand out as much but are worth mentioning, in case you’re thinking about them.
DreamCloud Luxury Hybrid Mattress for $1332: This is another luxury mattress with a thick pillow top that’s very comfortable like the Helix Midnight Luxe and Allswell Supreme.
Awara Hybrid Mattress ($1,399): This is another solid organic pick, also made from organic latex, organic wool, and individually-wrapped springs. WIRED reviewer Louryn Strampe found it springy and comfortable, especially for a single sleeper, though it’s a floppier mattress that would benefit from a little more support.
Keetsa All-Foam Tea Leaf Supreme for $1,890: WIRED reviewer Matt Jancer tested the Keetsa for several months. He’s a side sleeper, and though he was never blown away by the mattress’s comfort, he slept fine from start to finish. He didn’t think he would since the mattress is on the soft side. It has three layers of foam and a thin top layer that’s made from recycled materials.
The Purple Mattress for $1,399: Van Camp had many good nights of sleep on the airy, Jell-O-ey, cool feel of Purple’s square grid (it’s like lying on a bunch of waffles made of soft, stretchy silicone). But it just isn’t quite as comfortable as hybrid (coil-and-foam) mattresses. There is a hybrid Purple, but it’s pricey. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but just know that Purple mattresses are also kind of heavy.
Casper Standard Foam Mattress for $1,295: The original Casper mattress popularized the idea of a bed in a box years ago, and it’s still a comfortable all-foam choice at a good price. But the hybrid version with coils is better.
Molecule Hybrid Mattress for $1,899: WIRED reviewer Medea Giordano likes this comfy mattress and has had no problems sleeping on it for months. However, while edge support is fine on three sides, it’s nearly “non-existent” at the bottom of the bed. She nearly fell off while putting on her shoes. You can also feel the coils at the edges of the mattress, though this isn’t a huge issue because it’s undetectable when actually sleeping.
Leesa Original Mattress for $1,299: The standard Leesa is a lot like the Casper, but it feels a dash comfier.
