Review: Sensoglove Golf Glove, A Golf Club’s New Best Friend

Price 79 Euros

I lose sleep at night just thinking about the horrible existence of golf clubs across the world.   These poor clubs spend their life being smashed into golf balls and held in a strangle grip by amateur golfers.   Luckily there may be help on the way in the form of the Sensoglove, a new golf glove that uses sensors and a small computer to help golfers develop a lighter grip and hit the ball further.  Clubs around the world can rejoice as golfers will now learn to hold the clubs with the gentleness of a newborn baby.  Of course, the poor clubs will still be smashed into golf balls all day…I am definitely not wishing for reincarnation as a golf club.

Can The Sensoglove  Really Teach You The Right Way to Hold Your Club?

Ask golf pros the best way to improve your drives and they will tell you to relax your grip on the club.  It may sound counter intuitive, but the lighter your grip on the club, the further and more accurately you will hit the ball.  The Sensoglove claims…

“SensoGlove is the first and only golf glove with built-in sensors that constantly read the pressure of your grip. Practicing with SensoGlove will teach you the correct grip pressure for a smooth, consistent swing that delivers greater distance, enhanced precision and lower scores!”

Some big claims, so Dad Does decided to test out the Sensoglove to see if it lives up to the hype, here is the video review…

Does a Lighter Grip Really Improve Your Golf Swing?

As the video shows, the Sensoglove does a nice job of alerting you with audio and visual signals when you are gripping the golf club too tightly.  However, before we can review the effectiveness of the Sensoglove, we first need to address the premise of the glove -- a tight grip on the golf club is bad for your golf game.

We are Dads, and experts on many things (like how to grill hot dogs while holding your daughter on your shoulders while singing Wiggles songs), but the correct golf grip is not one of our areas of strength.    It does appear from looking at the advice of golf pros that a lighter golf grip is the way to go.  Here is a graph that Sensoglove supplied -

Holding the club to tightly, in what is called a “death grip”, is a problem many amateurs face.  So, the premise of the Sensoglove, that if you learn to hold the golf club with a lighter grip you can improve your golf game, does seem very reasonable.

How Does the Sensoglove Teach You to Grip the Golf Club More Lightly?

As the video shows, the Sensoglove is a golf glove that has sensors built into the fingers and a small computer on the back side of the glove.   The Sensoglove is our favorite type of high tech product, one that uses a lot of technology but hides it all from the user.  To use the Sensoglove, put it on, select the sensitivity and then start playing golf.  If you grip the club too tightly while you swing you hear an immediate alarm and can then look at the small computer to see which fingers applied too much pressure on the club.

The Beeps, It is All About the Beeps

The Sensoglove is a piece of technology that you often forget you are wearing.  If you are swinging with the correct grip on the club, the Sensoglove is silent.  However, the moment you start gripping the club too tightly in your swing the Sensoglove beeps at you, letting you know you are using a death grip.  What is very helpful about the audio feedback is that you know exactly where in your swing you went to the strangle hold.

Without ever looking at the Sensoglove, you know your grip is too tight if you hear the beeps.  If you do hear a beep, once you finish your swing you can glance at the computer on the glove and see which fingers were pushing too hard on the club.  With this audio and visual feedback, you can learn about your grip and over time improve your grip.

Are You A 10?  Maybe a 16?  What…Only a 4?

The Sensoglove is easy to use, once you get past the initial grip sensitivity setting.  The Sensoglove let’s you pick the sensitivity of the glove on a scale of 1 (lowest sensitivity) to 18 (highest sensitivity).  Picking the correct sensitivity level was the most challenging part of using the Sensoglove.

Put the glove on a “1″ and you can squeeze the club hard and not set off the alarms.   On the other end, put it at 18 and the glove is beeping at you on almost every swing.  By following the instructions and doing a little experimenting, we were able to find a sensitivity level that worked for our grip, but it does take some patience.  Our advice is to go to a drive ranging and setup the Sensoglove there before hitting the links.

Conclusion:  Sensoglove -- You May Not Becomes A Pro Golfer, But It Can Make You a Better Golfer

The Sensoglove addresses a problem that many people have when playing golf -- getting the correct grip on the golf club.   There is some advanced technology in the golf glove, but it is well hidden to the end user, so non-techies can still easily use the glove.  Simply put the golf glove on, pick your sensitivity and start playing.

We like the fact that the computer pops out of the glove, so if you wear through the Sensoglove, you can buy a replacement glove and just pop the computer in the new glove.  Overall, the Sensoglove feels well made and very useful for improving your grip.  Will wearing the Sensoglove make you a pro?  Absolutely…as long as you were a pro before you put the Sensoglove on!  Seriously, the Sensoglove can not turn a terrible golfer into a great one, but it can help turn a good golfer into a much better golfer.

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Epson MegaPlex MG-850HD Iphone Projector

Money can buy happiness

Since the dawn of time, humans have never faltered from their ambitions to climb the tallest mountains, read the longest books, and buy the largest televisions. These things dictated what it meant to be human—but no longer. With the release of Epson’s new MegaPlex MG-850HD we may never buy another television again. It’s that good.

The MG-850HD is a 2,800-lumen projector with more bells and whistles than a marching band. Chief among them is a hideable iOS dock, which allows you to display iOS media in glorious 720p while charging your device. But if you don’t have an iOS device, there’s still dozens of ways to display your favorite media—the MegaPlex also has component inputs, an HDMI port, USB ports, and a PC input. This thing can play just about anything, and with loud, crisp, internal speakers you almost definitely won’t need to plug in any additional ones. But make no mistake, awesome as it is, a projector isn’t for everyone and the MegaPlex has some issues.

The iOS dock is on the back of the projector, which means if your projector is against a wall you’ll likely struggle with plugging in your iOS device (iPads especially: if you hang your projector from the ceiling, you’ll need to take extra precautions to ensure your iPad will even fit). We were fortunate enough to have a huge blank wall to project on, but many people will need to buy a screen and at $800, the MegaPlex is already nearly as expensive as a TV (granted, not one that is over 100 inches diagonal). Add to that the fact that over time your lamps will burn out and you’ll need to buy new ones, which are unsurprisingly expensive (we found them for about $225).

The bottom line. The MegaPlex is as much a lifestyle commitment as it is a brag-worthy cinema setup. You’re not just buying into a projector, but a screen to project onto, a seating arrangement that won’t block the display, and blackout curtains if you plan to watch anything during daylight. If you’ve got the necessary cash and setup, the MegaPlex MG-850HD might just replace your TV forever.—Nic Vargus

Product 

MegaPlex MG-850HD

Company 

Epson

Contact 

epson.com

Price 

$799

Requirements 

Large wall or other blank surface; iOS device recommended

Positives 

Hideable dock. Sounds great even at ultra-loud volumes. Crystal-clear image. HDMI port.

Negatives 

Expensive. Between air filters and lamp replacements it takes more maintenance than a TV. Position of iOS device on the back of the projector can be impractical.

Scor

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Desk iPhone Dock review

With every passing day, more people are ditching their landlines in favor of using their cellular phones as a combination device. Smartphones are no doubt excellent means of contacting other humans and managing our lives, but some of us miss the simpler days -- when a phone was just a phone. If you're a proud owner of an iPhone but looking to head down the retro road, Kee Utility would like to point you in the right direction. When we first saw the Desk Phone Dock, we were pretty intrigued by its looks but had questions about its practicality. What you see here is the $150 answer. Keep reading to see how well we got on with it.

Kee Desk Phone Dock Review

Design / overall look

When we first saw the Desk Phone Dock, we thought it looked like something out of Cupertino, in terms of its color and minimalist design. The upper half of the unit is finished in white matte, while the bottom half is an aluminum shell that acts as a stand and is angled to give you ergonomically friendly access to your phone when docked. The hollow shell of a landline has a candy-bar receiver that rests magnetically on the base, a dial for volume control with a flush mute button, and a recessed bay to rest your iPhone 3G, 3GS or 4. There's another dial, hidden under the phone's resting place, that lets you adjust your iPhone's tilting angle. We were really diggint the super-sleek look and design of the unit, but having to plug in a 3.5mm audio cable left us feeling a bit bummed out -- like most people, we prefer fewer cables whenever possible.

Setup

Although setting up this unit doesn't require more than one human, we figured a quick walk-through would be worth your while. In the packaging you'll find a USB cable that connects the dock to your computer for syncing, a power cord that inserts into the wall, and of course, the phone dock itself. All that's left is plugging the 3.5mm audio jack into your Apple smartphone. Once your cables are in order, you'll be all set to relive the olden days.

Functionality

If you recall, the desktop Phone Dock does more than just charge your device when it's cradled. Like we mentioned above, the device has a USB port for syncing your iPhone with your computer, and of course, using the dock will give you the feeling of using an old school home phone. There's also a speakerphone that can naturally double up as a music speaker, but more on that in a sec. With everything set up, you then have the ability to take calls with a handheld receiver while your iPhone is charging. There's a catch, though: you'd think that with the iPhone docked, lifting the receiver off the base would pick up the call. Sadly, you still have to answer calls by dragging the iPhone's virtual unlock bar like you normally would. Ending calls is a bit unwieldy, too. Put the receiver back on the base and you'll be routed to speakerphone rather than it disconnecting your calls, which makes slamming the phone down in anger rather less satisfying.

As mentioned above, there's a big, friendly volume dial on the front with a mute button in the middle that, curiously, silences both ends of the conversation. And because this is a review of a phone (if you will), we should discuss call quality, right? Suffice to say talking on here sounds more or less like talking on an iPhone, with no noticeable increase or decrease in quality. Calls on speakerphone sounded loud and crisp, and neither end of the conversation experienced echo. As a music speaker, though, it disappoints -- music sounded totally washed out and got worse as we increased volume. For 150 bucks, you'd expect the loudspeaker to be of decent quality, but alas, we suggest sticking to using it just for concalls.

If you'll notice in the top image, there's a 3.5mm audio jack in the middle of the speaker grill. We're told that we could use this to record calls, and we did just that. Problem is, this only captures the audio from the other end of the call. The recording port simply routes the incoming audio into your computer, and you're left with a recording of one end of the conversation which essentially renders this feature useless.

Wrap up

Sure, it's 2011 and landlines are becoming a thing of the past, but hey, if you've already set your phone up to rest in a dock on your desk, this device might just be for you. The Desk Phone Dock is a bit bulky and adds more than one extra line to your land, but we'll admit: talking into a receiver like the olden days feels rewarding -- in a nostalgic sort of manner -- and it can turn your iPhone into a first-class speakerphone. At $150 it's certainly not a cheap toy, but if you're looking for a way to make your calls feel a bit more luxurious, this could be it.

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FOLDED LEAF PHONE BY CLAESSON KOIVISTO RUNE

Inspired by photosynthesis, the Leaf is a wearable bracelet phone that incorporates solar cells on its front panel for juicing it up. If that’s not good enough, the cradle into which it docks also hosts the cells on the back. Alternatively, on a dark dingy day you can use the trusty electricity to recharge the phone. A pretty basic phone with calls and messages functions only, it’s main objective is to “remind people that they can contribute to energy efficiency.”

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Wysips wants to turn your phone's display into a solar cell (hands-on with video)

We chatted with a fascinating French startup by the name of Wysips here at CTIA today that's showing off transparent photovoltaic film -- in other words, it generates power from light... and you can see right through it. It's the only such film in the world, apparently -- and though you can probably imagine a host of possible applications for something like that, turning the entire surface of a touchscreen smartphone into a self-sufficient, solar-powered beast is clearly high on the list. Read all about it after the break!

Wysips hands-on

In a nutshell, the technology involves alternating strips of solar cells overlaid with a lenticular surface; it's not unlike what you find on some glasses-free 3D displays to beam different images to the left and right eyes, except you're beaming sunlight to solar cells and routing the human eye through to the display below. Because the film is applied directly to the screen -- which would lie below the capacitive layer -- there's no effect on touch performance. Clearly, there's some magic involved in making that happen without being optically annoying, and Wysips says they've perfected it over three generations of prototypes.

But is it really perfected? Wysips doesn't have any fully functional phones on hand, but it's got a couple compelling demos: first up is a partially-disassembled device with the top half of the display covered by its patented film, which generated between roughly 1.2 and 2.5 volts under harsh trade show lighting (we thought it might be able to eke some regenerative power from the backlight -- sort of like a hybrid car recharging the battery from the brakes -- but we're told that it soaks up rays strictly from the front, not the back). There was minimal impact to the brightness or clarity of the display, though it was definitely still noticeable -- and it was considerably better than Wysips' other demo, an iPhone 3G with an unconnected solar film placed underneath the glass to demonstrate how it might look in a production device. As you change the angle of the phone, bands of darkness move across the film, which is a pretty common effect in lenticular displays. Fortunately, the company says this is an older-generation prototype -- production devices shouldn't suffer from from that.

Though it's not generating enough power to keep a modern smartphone perpetually charged, it's easy to see how this could extend the battery -- and considering that many of us just barely make it through a weekday before our phones give up the ghost, we'll take whatever help we can get. The company claims 9 percent solar efficiency; that's well under the 40-plus percent of the world's most efficient cells, but not far below the Samsung Blue Earth's efficiency in the low teens (and unlike the Blue Earth, you don't need to set a Wysips-equipped phone face-down to start charging).

The firm's currently in the process of locking up deals with suppliers, phone manufacturers, and carriers, all of whom are apparently excited to get this integrated -- which is a positive sign for retail availability. The first commercial devices are expected to hit next year.

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GM Makes Your Entire Windshield a Head-Up Display

General Motors has been fiddling around with head-up displays for 22 years now, and there was a time when you could get Buicks with speedometers that projected your speed right there on the windshield. Cool, if limited in its usefulness. But the General is back at it with a system it says will make driving safer and easier.

Rather than project info onto a portion of the windshield, GM’s latest experiment uses the entire windshield as a display. Small ultraviolet lasers project data gleaned from sensors and cameras onto the glass. General Motors geeks are working alongside researchers from several universities to develop a system that integrates night vision, navigation and on-board cameras to improve our ability to see — and avoid — problems, particularly in adverse conditions like fog.

“We’re looking to create enhanced vision systems,” says Thomas Seder, a lab manager at GM’s big R&D center in Warren, Michigan.

Trying to make a workable head-up display is a laudable goal. Drivers are inundated by ever-more information from navigation systems and the like, and they need to be able to see and process it easily while keeping their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel. A practical head-up display allows that.

GM’s experimental system goes beyond the night-vision system found in cars like the BMW 7-Seriesand the HUDs you find in, say, the Chevrolet Corvette or Buick LaCrosse. While those systems will tell you how fast you’re going or whether you’ve left the turn signal on again, Version 2.0 could make you a safer driver.

“Let’s say you’re driving in fog, we could use the vehicle’s infrared cameras to identify where the edge of the road is and the lasers could ‘paint’ the edge of the road onto the windshield so the driver knows where the edge of the road is,” Seder says. Take a look at the pic below to see what he means.

The windshield is coated with transparent phosphors that emit light when excited by a compact laser, turning the entire windshield into a monitor of sorts. GM says that approach allows the system to alert drivers to things that might be outside their immediate field of vision.

“This design is superior to traditional head-down display-based night vision systems, which require a user to read information from a traditional display, create a mental model and imagine the threat’s precise location in space,” Seder says.

GM has no immediate plans to offer the technology in production models, but Seder says some of features could appear in vehicles at some point.

Main photo of cars in fog: Jeff Kubina/Flickr. HUD system photos and video: General Motors

See Also:

• Jakks Pacific EyeClops Night Vision Goggles 2.0
• Go to the Dark Side With BMW Night Vision
• Night Vision Comes to Motorcycling
• A Head-Up Map Display for iPhone-Using Bicyclists
• All-Seeing Car Reads Road Signs For You

GM says its “next generation” head-up display can use lasers and lane detection sensors to project a “virtual” road edge onto the windshield to help drivers stay on the road during bad weather.

Add in the sign-recognition system GM’s Opel division has developed and the head-up display can tell you when you’re exceeding the speed limit, lead foot.

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Bamboo Stylus Review

Over the weekend I posted about Bamboo Paper, an Inking and doodling App for the iPad, that Wacom is marketing along side its Bamboo Stylus for the iPad. I had recently ordered a Bamboo Stylus and it came in this morning. I like what I see and feel.

I’ve used and tested quite a few styli for the iPad and the Bamboo Stylus has the best feel of any that I’ve experimented with. The stylus I’ve been using most often was the BoxWave stylus (which you can find under any number of names or brands). What I like about the Bamboo Stylus is that it is a longer and feels more natural in the hand than the shorter BoxWave. It also feels easier to manipulate than two other styli I’ve used alot, theHardCandy Stylus or the PogoSketch.

I’ve done some Inking this morning in Penultimate, Noteshelf, and of course Bamboo Paper and the Bamboo stylus works very well in each. In fact it exposes the same flaws that other styli expose in each of those Apps. That said, it also lays down Ink very smoothly.

In the days of paper, pen, and ink I know that many folks searched until the found the perfect writing implement measuring both the fell of the implement in their hand and how it felt laying ink down on a page. It’s really no different in the age of Digital Inking. How a stylus feels in the hand is a key factor in the Inking experience, and I’ll say after just a morning of Inking with the Bamboo Stylus, that Wacom got that aspect just right. There’s been some thinking about how the Bamboo Stylus is weighted and the materials chosen, and that is apparent. It doesn’t feel cheap or plastic. It feels like, well a writing implement that might be used for serious work or play.

The Bamboo Stylus like most of the others on the market (except the PogoSketch and some other special styli aimed at the artist market) have the same rubbery feeling capacitive tip. Perhaps its the size but the tip on the Bamboo Stylus doesn’t seem to give in the way that they do on other styli. That’s a good thing. Keep in mind though that how a pen or stylus fits in your hand is a very personal thing. Your hands, mits, paws, whatever might give you a different experience.

You can pick up the Bamboo Stylus from Amazon for $32.96 from another vendor. Amazon itself lists it as being $29.95 but not being available for a month or two. Of course you can also order from Wacom directly for $29.95.

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