DECEMBER 2020 T3 13Top 10
TECH-O-METER
TECH-O-METER
BEOLIT 20
£450, bang-olufsen.comIt’s the little things that matter. Bang & Olufsen
hasn’t reinvented the portable speaker with the
Beolit 20, but they’ve further refined the
already delectable Beolit 17 into a speaker you’ll
just want to have around. Styled by designer
Cecilie Manz to look like a posh lunchbox, in
either a picnic-friendly aluminium and tanned
leather or a somewhat more hip black
anthracite dressing, this doesn’t stray far from
the iconic looks of the original – but it sure
packs in a lot of features. Bassier and batterier
than before, with the same 360-degree sound
as its forebear, the Beolit 20 now includes a Qi
charger built into its conveniently large, lipped
upper edge, perfect for taking advantage of
the extra juice inside while you’re outdoors. If
you have two, you can pair them up – and the
20 is able to pair backwards with the 17, too.
T3 SAYS: Looks great, sure to sound great.
NANOLEAF ESSENTIALS
From £18, nanoleaf.comNanoleaf puts out a lighting product all of its
own, with its Shapes line giving us something
bright, colourful and unique with which to
illuminate our walls. So what is it doing entering
the more pedestrian end of the smart lighting
market? Saving us money, for one – the A
bulb costs just £18, and the lightstrip £45.
They’re full-colour devices, super-bright (the
bulb can manage a peak 1100 lumens), and
they’re the first smart bulbs to natively work
with Thread, the new low-power mesh protocol
which made its first appearance in the
HomePod Mini. Even if you’re not using Thread,
these can operate hublessly, saving a few more
pennies and a precious ethernet port that
might otherwise be taken over by a bridge, and
you can daisychain lightstrips if you need to go
beyond the default 2M length.T3 SAYS: Seems like a bright idea to us.IMAGE^SOURCE:^ BANG^&^OLUFSENIMAGE^SOURCE:^ NANOLEAF