April 18, 2008
Lazyweb request: gadgets I would like to have
Last night I thought of a few gadgets which I’d like to have, and although I’m pretty sure you should be able to get hold of them, I had trouble finding anything that looked quite right:
- Alarm clock which makes coffee: I can’t be the only one who finds it hard to bootstrap my days because I have to get out of bed and make the first coffee of the day before I’ve had any coffee. My parents had a machine which was an alarm clock which made tea (very noisily) at the appropriate time in the morning. Surely there should be a similar device which can display the time and make (at least passable) coffee instead? Be it an alarm clock with a sideline in making coffee, or a coffee machine with a built in timer. I’ve noticed some of Gaggia’s bean-to-cup machines claim to have 24-hour clocks, but does that mean they have a timer function? We just don’t know.
- Decent watch with USB storage: I found some watches online last night which had USB storage built in, some with a little USB connector that folded out, some with a mini/micro USB connector on the side, with the idea I could store (maybe parts of) my GPG and SSH keys on it, and maybe a bootable Debian installer/rescue system. The thing is, I have a reasonably nice Timex Expedition watch at the moment which I quite like: it has an electro-luminescent analog display for the middle of the night, and a digital bit for the date, alarms and multiple time-zones. The USB-enabled watches I saw didn’t look that great as watches, but I might be wrong. Does anyone have a watch that features USB storage that doesn’t compromise too much on the watch functionality? Maybe I should just give up on this one and go for the rugged USB stick on the keyring approach.
- Video output over USB: I have a reasonably new HP 2510P laptop which I also use as my main machine at work with a docking station, TFT, keyboard, mouse, etc. However, as a machine for watching DVDs or other videos on at home, it’s a bit on the small side. I have an olde-worlde big flatscreen TV at home (which is not as good as Christian‘s flat-screen blueray surround sound movie set-up, but I think I retain the moral high ground on taste in films), but my laptop doesn’t have any video out. Is there a USB 2.0 widget which produces composite or S-Video output which I can feed to my TV, that will work with Linux, or should I just get a scan converter of some sort so I can use the VGA output?
So, answers on a postcard…
19 responses to “Lazyweb request: gadgets I would like to have”
Leave a Reply
Calendar
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |
| 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
| 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 |
| 28 | 29 | 30 | ||||
Links
Archives
- April 2024
- February 2024
- March 2023
- November 2022
- May 2022
- February 2022
- June 2021
- January 2021
- August 2019
- October 2018
- July 2017
- May 2010
- October 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- March 2009
- January 2009
- July 2008
- June 2008
- April 2008
- May 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- June 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
- November 2005
- October 2005
- September 2005
- August 2005
- July 2005
- May 2005
- April 2005
- March 2005
I have a Kenwood BrewMaster that does exactly what you want : integrated clock with the possibility to set an “autostart” time.
I got got it a few years ago in France, don’t know where you can gt it now.
Are you kidding about the programmable coffee machine?
Perhaps something like this for the video output: http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=35258&doy=18m4&C=SO&U=strat15
Kidding? No. I can genuinely now turn off a mobile phone alarm, or press snooze on my clock radio every 7 minutes for an hour or two, without really waking up or remembering it when I am actually awake. Something that ground coffee beans in my ear and gave me a mug of coffee would be far more effective I suspect.
for #1 in your wishlist: what about “alicia de longhi” ??? Here in Italy exists since 2000 ๐ here on amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Delonghi-Esclusivo-Alicia-Electric-Espresso/dp/B00009W5F0
For the other ones … I don’t know ๐
Cheers,
Rolls
Oh. So you have to have the grinder attached… I get it. I was confused because there are probably thousands of coffee machines that will brew a pot of preground coffee at a programmable time
Why don’t you use a VGA-to-S-video adapter like this one?
http://www.amazon.com/EFORCITY-VGA-S-Video-RCA-Adaptor/dp/B000P3UB24
Robert, have you considered using a grinder/etc you already have with a timer plug? Perhaps you’d need to tape down a switch to activate it with the plug.
I’ve found a timer plug on Amazon.co.uk for ยฃ5 which can be programmed for different times for each day of the week.
pretty simple #1, eBay โteasmaidโ ๐
Hi, I’ve a machine as in your dream. It’s a “moka” (the italian coffee machine).
It’s sold for a good price and it makes a real good coffee.
When I come back I’ll send you the name (if I’ll forget ping me by email)
You could put a normal grinder on a wall outlet timer in your bedroom, with the coffee machine right next to it. If your grinder is anything like ours it’ll wake up any dead people in the room, to say nothing about yourself.
For bonus points, remove the bottom of the grinder receiver box and grinder itself, mount right over the filter in the coffee machine, then have both on wall timers, with the grinder one minute ahead. With any luck it’ll actually brew fresh ground coffee for you – or get you wide awake trying to clean up the disaster.
Or, get a coffee maker with a grinder and put the whole thing on a wall timer. That’s cheating, though.
I just do the coffee alarm with a power outlet timer. Switch coffee machine on, set timer, machine turns on at set time, you are woken by a glorious smell. Simple.
Regarding watch/usb storage, if you’re looking for just enough storage to keep a gpg/pgp and ssh key’s on, you might check to see if one of the really old/small usb keys with a 64 meg capacity could be moulded into the clasp of the watch band. I know that within the clasp of the watch I’m wearing there would be sufficient space, though I’m not sure it would be the best place.
Alternatively you may be able to find a replacement watch band that fits your idea of style for that watch, that has usb storage built into it.
customusb.com does have a variety of flash drives, and you might talk to them about the storage options.
Worst case on the coffee system would be something like an X10 alarm clock and plug-n-power pair, with the alarm clock across the room, and the coffee machine setup in the kitchen. If you need it to grind the coffee as well, that’s a bit more work… I don’t know of anyone off hand.
Theory has it that you can stream video over Firewire, but I don’t know if your TV supports it. Also not sure if Linux will give that as an option.
-Rusty
How about a wristwatch that makes coffee? THAT would be nice.
1. A kind wife/girlfriend.
2. flash voyager ‘ruggerised’ on keyring. Cheap and seems pretty ok.
3. Treat yourself to a new modern TV with VGA in/HDMI etc- most seem to have nowadays. Better in the long run and less messing around.
this is my machine: http://www.ciao.it/De_Longhi_Alicia__273437
sorry for the link in italian but I didn’t find nothing in english.
Anyway it works very very well.
and I forgot to say that there is a very good option:
it can keep your coffee warm for 30 minutes.
http://sewelldirect.com/USB-to-DVI-External-Video-Card-High-Resolution.asp
(didn’t bother to read the other comments, so might be redundant)
Dude, please blog your coffee-machine decision. I so need the same gadget…