Latest news with #ChrisNull
WIRED
14-05-2025
- Business
- WIRED
Eargo 8 Hearing Aids Review: Too Expensive
It's been more than two years since Eargo last updated its hearing aid hardware, and that's not a slight: Eargo makes some fine products that have successfully stood the test of time. Upgrades for the sake of upgrades are never a good idea. But the hearing aid world of today is in flux, and it's beginning to diverge from the way it looked back in 2023. Not only is technology changing, but so is the business landscape. Namely, Eargo recently merged with hearX (maker of the Lexie brand hearing aids), forming a parent company called LXE. The premium Eargo brand remains unchanged, but consolidation like this is usually a sign that prices may come down as the manufacturer landscape shakes out a bit. Alas, don't hold your breath that Eargo, which has always had expensive hardware, will be cutting prices any time soon. In fact, with the Eargo 8, the company has released its priciest hearing aids to date, though the quality of the product is compelling enough to merit at least some level of consideration. Smarter Aids Photograph: Chris Null Like nearly all of Eargo's models, the Eargo 8 are fully in-the-ear hearing aids, designed explicitly to keep size at a minimum. At 0.94 grams each, the tiny, cylindrical Eargo 8 are functionally the same size as the Eargo 7 and Eargo 5 before them, though a bit more bulbous—almost bottle-shaped—rather than cylindrical. The real upgrades are under the hood. The biggest update involves the way the Eargo 8 handles noise. A new feature called Smart Sound Adjust 'analyzes your environment and automatically adjusts to the noise levels when entering a noisy restaurant or crowded place,' the idea being that the app will tweak its noise cancellation levels automatically in response to ambient sound. The other added feature is a device scanner, which Eargo describes as an on-demand 'wellness check' for your aids, ensuring they aren't clogged with earwax. (This feature wasn't available when I reviewed the product, so I couldn't test it.) In daily use, I found the Eargo 8 hearing aids to be top-notch, with no discernible difference in quality over the Eargo 7. I found my voice to be a bit over-amplified—a common complaint with hearing aids—with no good way to adjust it. Otherwise, hearing support was solid, with no hiss and any feedback limited to minor instances when removing or inserting the aids. Like most high-quality hearing aids, the units provided me with just a moderate boost where I needed it the most, and the auto-adjust noise cancellation seemed to work well, though there's no indication as to how much noise cancellation is being applied at any time. That's because, like all of Eargo's premium aids, communication between the aids and the Eargo app is a one-way street. You can use the app to change volume or environmental programs, but the aids don't report their status back to the app. All changes are confirmed when the aids beep a couple of times in your ear, only offering a voice response when volume hits 'min' or 'max' or when changing environmental modes.
WIRED
08-05-2025
- WIRED
Zero Breeze Mark 3 AC Review: Effective Portable Cooling
As the weather heats up, the trappings of summer arrive with it: swimsuits, mosquitoes, and, naturally, portable air conditioning. Go-anywhere AC is now a thing, and in fact, I've been writing about it since 2019, when Zero Breeze released its first luggable, battery-powered air conditioning unit. A (minor) update arrived in 2022, but now version three is here. Conceptually, the Zero Breeze Mark 3 (Roman numerals begone!) remains the same as its forebears, though the design has been tidied up a bit, giving it a cleaner and more polished look. Nevertheless, it's still a beast of a device that is hardly something that will live in your trunk just in case you take an impromptu trip to the beach. Portable Air Photograph: Chris Null Measuring 22 x 10 x 12 inches (without the battery pack installed), the Mark 3 is a little larger than the Mark II and quite a bit heavier, now weighing 22 pounds compared to the Mark II's 17 pounds. Clip on the enormous 1,022-Wh battery pack and you're adding another 14 pounds to the rig, though that frees you from having to be near a power outlet if you want to cool down. I complained in both of my earlier reviews that Zero Breeze's approach to charging was a bit silly, because although the battery pack physically clips onto the bottom of the air conditioner, it uses a separate cable to attach to the air conditioner's charging port. Incredibly, this is still the case, though you can at least now operate the Zero Breeze from battery power while it's simultaneously charging—something that wasn't possible on previous iterations. (You still can't run the Zero Breeze while charging if the battery is completely dead. It needs some juice, about a 50 percent charge, to get things going, after which it can run indefinitely.) A new feature is that batteries can now be stacked and charged in sequence (as many as you like), each daisy-chained to the next, though at a minimum of $600 per battery, this can quickly get exorbitantly expensive. Each Mark 3 battery also has extra outputs that can be used for other devices—one USB-C port, one USB-A port, and a 12-volt DC socket. This is a downgrade from the Mark II battery, which has all of the above plus a second USB-A port. Why it was removed is a mystery.
WIRED
08-05-2025
- WIRED
The Zero Breeze Mark 3 Is an Effective Portable Air Conditioner With a Chilling Price
As the weather heats up, the trappings of summer arrive with it: swimsuits, mosquitoes, and, naturally, portable air conditioning. Go-anywhere AC is now a thing, and in fact, I've been writing about it since 2019, when Zero Breeze released its first luggable, battery-powered air conditioning unit. A (minor) update arrived in 2022, but now version three is here. Conceptually, the Zero Breeze Mark 3 (Roman numerals begone!) remains the same as its forebears, though the design has been tidied up a bit, giving it a cleaner and more polished look. Nevertheless, it's still a beast of a device that is hardly something that will live in your trunk just in case you take an impromptu trip to the beach. Portable Air Photograph: Chris Null Measuring 22 x 10 x 12 inches (without the battery pack installed), the Mark 3 is a little larger than the Mark II and quite a bit heavier, now weighing 22 pounds compared to the Mark II's 17 pounds. Clip on the enormous 1,022-Wh battery pack and you're adding another 14 pounds to the rig, though that frees you from having to be near a power outlet if you want to cool down. I complained in both of my earlier reviews that Zero Breeze's approach to charging was a bit silly, because although the battery pack physically clips onto the bottom of the air conditioner, it uses a separate cable to attach to the air conditioner's charging port. Incredibly, this is still the case, though you can at least now operate the Zero Breeze from battery power while it's simultaneously charging—something that wasn't possible on previous iterations. (You still can't run the Zero Breeze while charging if the battery is completely dead. It needs some juice, about a 50 percent charge, to get things going, after which it can run indefinitely.) A new feature is that batteries can now be stacked and charged in sequence (as many as you like), each daisy-chained to the next, though at a minimum of $600 per battery, this can quickly get exorbitantly expensive. Each Mark 3 battery also has extra outputs that can be used for other devices—one USB-C port, one USB-A port, and a 12-volt DC socket. This is a downgrade from the Mark II battery, which has all of the above plus a second USB-A port. Why it was removed is a mystery.
WIRED
05-05-2025
- WIRED
The Nuance Audio Glasses Are Hearing Aids I Actually Want to Wear
Here's the dirty secret about hearing aids. Millions of people need them. Most don't wear them. Why? Because they hate having shit in their ears. Pardon my French. I often feel the same way. I have mild but measurable hearing loss, and I love the benefit that high-quality hearing aids provide me. But I don't often wear hearing aids in my daily life when I'm not testing products for the same reasons as everyone else. I hate putting them in, taking them out, having them in for hours at a time—the whole experience. As a result, I tend to wear hearing aids for short periods—only when I know I'll need them. Photograph: Chris Null The negative hearing aid experience is compounded because I wear glasses. In-the-ear hearing aids like Apple AirPods Pro are fine, but behind-the-ear (BTE) aids like the Jabra Enhance Select 300 aids don't play well with eyeglass arms that compete for the same space on top of and behind the ear. Unfortunately, BTE aids generally offer a higher quality listening experience, so glasses wearers may have to choose between improving their hearing or eyesight (or just suffering with discomfort). That's a long preface to introduce EssilorLuxottica (the owner of Ray-Ban, Oakley, and numerous other eyewear brands), which may have come up with a solution for all of this: prescription glasses with hearing aid features built in. Hearing Glasses Photograph: Chris Null The Nuance Audio builds on technology the company pioneered last year for its Ray-Ban Meta glasses, which pipe audio to the wearer via open-ear speakers built into each arm of the specs. There's no camera or intelligence (nor an Awkwafina voice option) on the Nuance Audio, as these speakers are meant to amplify ambient sounds captured by the directional microphones and send them to, or at least near , your ears. You can't even see the speakers on the glasses or pinpoint where the sound is coming from while you're wearing them. It's just … there.
WIRED
28-04-2025
- WIRED
HP's EliteBook Ultra G1i Windows Laptop Is High on Security, Low on Value
Specs are not bare-bones but are far from luxe; the 14-inch touchscreen has a 2,880 x 1,800-pixel resolution, and the system is powered by an Intel Core Ultra 7 268V CPU. That's a few steps up from the basic processor model, but still a step down from higher-end options you typically find at this price. The 32 GB of RAM is fair, but the 512-GB solid-state drive feels chintzy for the money, though perhaps that's an acknowledgement that most business users will be leaning heavily on cloud or server-based storage instead. Ports are acceptable: three USB-C with USB4 support and a single USB-A port (with a flip-down cover). You'll need one of those USB-C ports for charging. Given the above specs, I was surprised that performance was generally on the low side, more in keeping with a true entry-level configuration than what the G1i includes. None of the benchmarks I ran were any more impressive than I've seen on slower, cheaper machines running Intel Core Ultra 7 Series 2 processors, and many of the scores I saw were below even those uninspired levels, albeit only slightly. I suspect the overhead from the Wolf Security features is giving the unit a slight performance hit that, while not severe, may be more noticeable when putting the laptop under heavy loads. Battery life on a full-screen YouTube playback hit just over 14 hours, a decent score, and I was impressed by the completely silent operation of the laptop; I couldn't get the fan to kick in, no matter how heavy a load I put on the device. The speakers are fine, and the screen looks good enough, but neither blew my socks off. I did appreciate the keyboard on the device, which has just enough travel and responsiveness to make for easy data entry, while also being fairly quiet. The touchpad is spacious but just short of being too large. Photograph: Chris Null As with most laptops today, AI is a major focus for the EliteBook line, and HP's AI Companion, the company's own GPT-4o skin, is preinstalled on the unit. AI Companion purports to let you take fuller advantage of the onboard neural processing unit, though it requires an active internet connection to work and wasn't any faster than any online tools available. You're also getting double AI duty here, as pressing the Copilot button on the keyboard still brings up a standard Microsoft Copilot interface. The temporary sale price of $1,999 makes the EliteBook Ultra G1i a better deal, but it still doesn't measure up on a price-to-performance basis against competing systems. It does, however, provide a much stronger value proposition for its security and manageability benefits, though again, I doubt many of these features have much utility outside of large, corporate environments.
