The Right Product: UPS

I have reasonably poor reliability at my house, in terms of how frequently the power cycles.  For my important electronics, I have a set (3) of full-sized CyberPower units that work well for my boys' computers upstairs, my computer downstairs and the LAN/AV equipment.  I have a Motorola Vonage box that sits in the garage so that it can be tied into the house's phone lines.  The problem comes when the power trips and the cable boxes go off-line.  What happens is that the Motorola box connects to the LAN first and disrupts (somehow, don't ask me) the ability for the FiOS cable boxes to get their proper IP addresses.  So the cable boxes just cycle until I unplug the Motorola box, reset the router, wait until all the cable boxes connect, then plug back in the Motorola box.  Annoying that this is an issue in the first place, but easily solved if the Vonage box never went offline to begin with (router stays online with my existing UPS setup).

Why is this the cheapest UPS that I can find - $39.95 on Amazon?

What I want is an inexpensive (~$20, half the above price) single outlet UPS that can support a small draw for a couple of hours or even less time.  Why doesn't this already exist?  I can't be the only one wanting something like this.

Perhaps this should be a Kickstarter campaign?

The Right Product: Motorcycle Bluetooth

I have recently been in the market for a bluetooth motorcycle intercom.  The first one I bought was a UClear HBC 100.  It was terrible.  We (my son and I) never got it to work for more than the left ear.  This was after he went to a CycleGear store and they went through about 4 pairs of ear buds (he doesn't have space to mount the helmet speakers).  The build quality of the gear seemed OK, but nothing special.  The instructions were confusing and it was difficult to get it to do what seemed like it should be easy.  Ultimately, we returned it and got our money back.

After waiting a while, and just using earbuds with my iPhone, I decided that I would spring for the Sena SMH10.  What a difference!

SMH10 - Just the Right Product

Everything about it was different.  The build quality seemed much better, which is tough to explain.  It wasn't heavier, but felt more substantial.  And the user experience was so much better.  I followed the instructions and was up and running within minutes.  It works fantastically and is exactly what I was looking for.

It is amazing how different the user experience is with a product that does exactly what you expect (and purports to do).