Category: Tech Electrical

As technology continues to develop, watches have too. Smart watches are the new gadget to get your hands on, well so it seems. But, what do they actually do?

Smart phones provide a discrete way to manage your phone simply at your wrist. Smart phones were created to help people manage their day easier and quicker than getting out your phone.

The main function of a smart watch is that they display any phone calls your phone is receiving. Meaning you can take a look at your watch and decide if the call is urgent enough to answer it or not, great for business meetings when you do not want to appear rude or cause distraction.

Another handy feature is syncing your phones Apps to the watch, allowing you to receive notifications directly to the screen of the watch. You are alerting in a discrete manor with a small vibration to the wrist.

Additional features such as quick calculator, camera control and calendar can all be synced from your smart phone to the smart watch. You can set alarms a set times which will come through to your watch as a notification.

Many contractors in the UK and overseas use wireless power tools, and it’s more frequent you’ll see contractors using wireless than wired, but why does it matter so much?

Well having no wires to get in your way makes the world of difference to a contractor who’s constantly moving, and though it’s cheaper to buy wired tools, most professional contractors will only opt for wireless. It’s also worth noting that the cost of these tools has come down considerable, especially over the last few years, and even DIY enthusiasts choose wireless over wired. It’s another sign that the technology is always evolving, and like we’ve mentioned in our most recent post, there are also wireless chargers for these devices now, so it’s incredible just how far we’ve come in such a short amount of time, especially in the UK construction/development industry where tools are used daily.

Wireless charging has been around for a number of years now, but it’s just come back into the limelight, and that’s because the next set of iPhones have been announced. The 8, 8 Plus and X (also referred to as iPhone 10) come with wireless charging. Many have expected this for some time, especially considering the fact that Many Android phones were ahead of the game, which is often the case. But this all leads to one big question:

What’s the big deal?

Well wireless charging prevents damage to your phone, it also ensures cables can’t be broken in the process of charging, as if often the case with wired chargers. Some charging speeds are also improved, but that’s really it. It doesn’t drastically change our lives, it’s just seen as a cool feature, and it will be interesting to see if all phone makers from now on follow the wireless charging movement.

Home automation is a term that’s used regularly by many home décor and furniture companies, and that because one single home automation system can control multiple fixtures, such as lamps, curtains, televisions, doors, windows and heaters.

Home automation is all about making life easier and controlling multiple devices with just one system. It’s still a relatively new concept right now, but more luxury brands are putting time and energy into marketing this concept. There are many devices to choose from, and some use a main console on a wall that can be used to control lots of devices, whilst they also come with a handy remote control, so you can simply be relaxing in your arm chair, whilst opening the curtains and turning off a lamp with the click of a button. Some will of course say this is lazy, but when you’ve had a long day and you want to relax, these devices are a must have!

It was interesting to hear that several months ago solar power in the UK broke records due to sunny skies and relatively low summer demand. What makes this record even more interesting is the fact that solar power was virtually unheard of 10 years ago and look where we are today.

Nearly every home will have at least one solar powered gadget, whilst you don’t have to look far these days to find a house or new development with solar panels mounted on top. So it does beg the question, will records continue to be broken going forward? The government has cut a great deal of funding in solar power, and this news puts pressure on the government to backtrack on these cuts, but there’s no denying the importance of solar power in modern society, and we’re sure we will see further developments and plenty of records broken in the near future!

Many of you reading this article have probably felt a small electric shock, often cuased by static electricity, and this goes to show that humans are really good conductors of electricity!

Of course a real electric shock is a lot more painful and it can actually kill instantly, so how does it work? Well electricity moves quickly through water and the human body is 70% water. There’s also the fact that electricity always tries to find the easiest path to the ground, so a heartbeat is interrupted and blood vessels tighten, whilst the burns occur where the electricity burns and leaves the body. Unfortunately, accidents happen and electricity is the cause of thousands of accidents each and every year, so we need to always remember these facts, and make sure our children know just how dangerous electricity is. With more reliance on electricity than ever before, it’s important to make sure your electrical appliances are as safe as they need to be.

Solar power isn’t exactly new but there has been a bit of a surge in new products over the last few years, especially for those everyday items.

You can now save a considerable amount of money on your electricity bills, especially if you are running and charging devices using the sun! Did you know there are now many solar powered phone chargers, radios, Bluetooth speakers and lights? These everyday items are not just great for backpackers looking to keep their gadgets running when they’re away from electricity, they are also great at home. Why not switch from a radio that uses electricity to one that uses the sun, or spend more time charging your devices with solar powered chargers rather than those that plug into your wall? There are lots of ways you can save more of your hard earned money and using solar powered gadgets is a pretty good place to start.

Over the years, phones have improved considerably. It’s a fact that they’re not even called phones now, they’re called smartphones, and they’re essentially small computers.

We use them to send email, browse the web, book in at restaurants, schedule meetings, play music, take photos, check Facebook, video call and monitor our fitness. But even with these many improvements, mobile phone chargers still take a considerable amount of time to fully charge a mobile phone.

That said, in 2018 we could have mobile phone chargers for smartphones that can fully charge the device in just 5 minutes! This would be a huge boost, and the technology was first shown off in 2015, when Israeli start-up StoreDot demonstrated its FlashBattery at the CES tech show in Las Vegas. At the moment it takes approximately 2 hours to charge from 0% to 100%, so how realistic is it that StoreDot can roll their product out by 2018? Well, Ben Wood, a technology analyst at CCS Insight, said he had doubts about the claims. He feels as though it would be a risk as phones can generate a great deal of heat when they’re charging so there may be problems whilst the battery performance could be impacted.

There’s no doubt that mobile phone chargers are improving through the years, and charging times will be reduced once more in 2018, but it may be a bit too ambitious to believe that most phones will fully charge in less than 5 minutes within the next couple of years. It will be interesting to see what happens in the near future, but perhaps being patient will be better for us and the mobile phone industry. It’s not too big a deal to have to wait an hour or two for your device to charge and there are many portable chargers that make life easier, so it’s not really a big issue right now.