DECEMBER 2021 T3 25Gadget guru
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Guru has tried most major
third-party thing-locators- Tile, Chipolo, TrackR, to
name the three he can remember - so he does have an opinion: they
are a lovely idea, and they tend to
work pretty well. Tile’s app is best.
Chipolo is very loud. TrackR has a
weird module you can put on your
glasses, which Guru suspects would
be very handy if you were elderly
and unworried about attaching a
big black lump to your specs. You
could also go for an Apple AirTag,
which Guru is yet to play with but
presumes works in a similar way.
But unless you’re really clumsy
and don’t have a set place you put
your keys, trackers fade into the
background after a while. They only
reveal themselves when you
accidentally sit on your Tile and it
starts playing a stupid tune and
making your phone scream. That’s
a good thing, at least until you
forget to change the battery, the
kids hide your keys and the app
does nothing. Guru recommends
picking up a tracker, with the Tile
Mate his top choice – just don’t
forget the maintenance.
GADGET GURU’S MAGIC BOX
A
GaGu, being something of
a reclusive homebody,
ventures out into his
grounds as little as possible in the
darker months due to the
shambling locals infesting his lawn
in search of heat. Honestly, that’s
one option: wrap up, get in front of
the TV and stop worrying about it.
Presumably you’re lucky enough to
have a comfortable inside space if
you’re also blessed with a garden.
That is, Guru’s long-suffering
editor tells him, an absolute
cop-out answer. Guru should
instead, he is told, extol the virtues
of patio heaters. The problem is
that their virtues are few: a
traditional Giant Steel Garden
Mushroom (that’s the technical
term) does indeed throw out heat,
and it can warm the top of your
head if you’re stood near it. But as
every devoted GaGu reader knows,
earning your gadget license is
dependent on a rudimentary
understanding of physics. The vast
majority of that heat is spewing
upwards and that which isn’t is
heating the air, not you.
Infra-red patio heaters, at least
those with sufficient power, can
be slightly more effective. They
don’t heat the air at all, avoiding
wastage, and they can be more
effectively focused and directed- though they’re almost universally
industrial-ugly, and Guru won’t
allow them on his classy patio for
that reason.
So what. A good coat? Maybe,
but if you’re far enough away from
your neighbours, an open fire pit is
Guru’s favourite huddle-beacon.
One which double-burns, pulling
enough oxygen up through it to
ignite the smoke for as choke-free
an experience possible. The
stainless steel Solo Stove Yukon
(£740) is Guru’s top pick: it looks
like it’s been pulled straight out of a
tumble drier and is horrendously
expensive, but it’s built for a brilliant
burn and a fancy patina.
How can I keep using my
garden in winter?
JAMES GOODWIN, LANCASHIRE
Where are my
keys?
STEVE LACEY,
LONDONABOVE
We’ve not seen
a key this badly
mangled since
T3’s ill-fated
karaoke party...We begin with a rare
practical tip from
Guru, who is usually
more inclined towards
ridicule and rants. Did
you buy the cheapest
monitors possible
from a brand that will remain unnamed, and
then find one start to develop lines of dead
pixels right about the same time you
decided you could not be bothered with
the hassle of a warranty return? Funnily
enough, that happened to Guru, too. A £2
plastic clamp from Amazon, positioned to
squeeze the bit of the monitor where the
ribbon connector had started to detach
itself, will sort the problem right out, look
terrible, and make you question whether
ingenuity is really all it’s cracked up to be.
GaGu spent a good portion of his
supposed-to-be-working time this issue
resurrecting one of the several PlayStation
2s he found littering his loft. Its iffy laser
makes running game discs a slow and
painful experience, but a little upgrade
leaves Guru able to install his old games for
smoother experience. Or not: installation is
painfully slow at around two hours per
game, so Guru would not blame you if you,
like him, insisted on downloading rips of
games you legitimately own from those
darker corners of the internet.
Finally, Christmas is coming, Guru is
getting fat, so his semi-annual fitness drive
has begun again in earnest. This time he’s
going down the VR track, if only because
it’s slightly more engaging than running: an
Oculus Quest 2 (£299) is perfect for getting
sweaty, though GaGu recommends you
avoid subscription-based fitness apps and
go straight for high-energy rhythm games.
Just make sure you maximise space before
thrashing around, lest your TV become a
casualty – as good as Oculus’ Guardian
system is at alerting you
when you reach your
virtual boundary, the
heat of the
moment is a
funny thing.