The holidays, if not already submerging us, will be drowning us soon. Prepare for lights and decorations, no office Christmas parties, and lots of food, cookies, songs and sales.
And gifts. Really cool ones.
This year, the 2022 Pasadena Now Holiday Gift Guide is highlighting a small handful of gifts that we’ve been impressed by over the past year. Most of them can definitely be found within the confines of Pasadena, while all are available online.
We’ve tried and tested each of these products ourselves and found them all to be innovative and unique. Let’s have a quick look before they go under the tree, shall we?
Bring the Power
We’ve written a lot about portable power stations in the past year, and we’re beginning to see a lot of them in the wild, and in their natural habitats. These are a far cry from the noisy gas-powered generators of old, and are surprisingly powerful and long-lasting.
The EBL Portable Power Station pumps out 1000W of power with 2 AC power outlets, three QC 3.0 USB and PD 60W ports for outdoor or backyard camping, home emergencies, or powering items in your RV or van.
It also supports different charging modes, and can be charged with the additional compatible 100W solar panels, or from an AC wall outlet before your favorite person heads out on great adventures, or from the car outlet.
Plug it in overnight, and they can head for the outdoors with confidence. With the latest fast charging technology, the device can be fully charged in 8-12 hours, but we found that with a standard home wall outlet, the charging took less time than that.
The 2022 upgraded EBL Station 1000W features two standard 110V AC outlets, one USB-C PD Quick 60W port, and three Quick charge 3.0 ports. It can power multiple devices at the same time with all popular ports on the market.
At high capacity, the EBL Voyager 1000 can rock an electric grill, a coffee maker, a small fridge, a microwave, a guitar amplifier, or an electric stove. At just under twenty pounds, it can be carried with one hand easily
It also supports solar charging and is designed to replace gasoline generators. No fuel or gasoline, no noise, no smoke, no pollution.
It’s quiet. It’s powerful. It runs everything. Any other questions? Www.eblofficial.com.
A Grapefruit Full of Music
Let’s see, how do we describe this thing? The Orba 2 by Arbitron is a musical instrument that fits in the palm of your hand, but it’s much more than that. Plugged into a pair of headphones or an amplifier, it produces surprisingly powerful full keyboard chords, drum beats, which you can also create yourself, piano notes, bass lines and your own sampled sounds, in any musical key.
Your favorite person can create beats, leads, or even whole songs, as you record and layer the various parts, using the recording function.
The Orba 2 fits in your backpack or briefcase. Plug in some headphones, and knock out some serious beats, or even construct a song, on your lunch hour.
It’s a little music maker, but it can play serious and grown up, if you’re looking to explore further. It’s MIDI compatible with GarageBand, Ableton Live, Logic Pro, Pro Tools, Cubase, FL Studio and more.
Orba is also compliant with the new standard for MIDI Polyphonic Expression (MPE), making it capable of multiple independent Orba gestures. Rotate it in your hand, twist it around, smack it, shake it, and it responds musically.
The Orba 2 packs a lot of fun and music into something the size of half a grapefruit. Let’s rock. www.artiphon.com.
No More Paper. Ever.
Finally a product that actually lives up to its name. Imagine every page of every legal pad and notebook and paper tablet you’ve ever filled, and every napkin scribble you’ve ever created, all digitally filed away in one place. All that paper. Gone.
In fact, should you feel so motivated, you could eliminate every sheet of paper in your filing cabinets by converting them to PDFs, and downloading them to your Remarkable 2 digital notepad.
The Remarkable 2 is a digital tablet that works with a stylus to allow you to write down every thought in a host of formats, from notebook to legal pad, to checklist, to grids, to blank canvases.
You can use a variety of “pens” from markers to mechanical pencils to calligraphy nibs.
Then, when done, simply digitally close the page and the page is forever stored in whatever notebook “folder” you’ve created.
The Remarkable 2 will take handwritten notes, and allow you to read and review documents, as well as take notes, directly on PDFs.
The device and stylus are remarkably (!) paper-like in writing and reading.
The Remarkable can also integrate with Google Drive, Dropbox, or Microsoft OneDrive. Charged, it will provide two weeks (!) of battery life.
Got documents you need to sign or approve or make notes on? Import them using the Connect software and they live in your Remarkable 2 forever, or until tomorrow afternoon, as you wish.
We received our Remarkable 2 a few weeks ago, and it hasn’t left our side yet. It’s filled with meeting notes, dumb ideas, manifestos, and a host of sketches of things we can’t quite put in to words yet.
But we can draw them on our Remarkable 2 tablet. And so will your favorite person this year. www.remarkable.com
You Spinn me Right Round
Your favorite pronoun is lying in bed, the alarm goes off, and all they want is coffee. They fumble for the phone, groggily open the Spinn Coffee app, and push “mug.”
In a moment, they can hear the soothingly irritating sound of beans being ground. Maybe two minutes later their freshly brewed coffee is waiting in the kitchen. Once set up, which is easy, they’re ready to rock their coffee every morning.
Now this is a holiday gift.
Spinn works with a patented centrifugal force technology by combining sensors, unique engineering, and Wi-Fi connectivity.
And, according to their official description, “Centrifugal brewing employs centrifugal force to brew your coffee. The technology allows a more flexible approach to at-home brewing as it is possible to alter water, coffee ground and rotation speed levels to serve a wide assortment of coffee recipes. Users can therefore customize parameters to their liking and the centrifugal force in our brewing chamber results in optimal extraction.”
That means, whichever type of coffee you “order” from the app, the machine will automatically grind the beans to the drink you’ve requested, and automatically pour the exact serving, from espresso to carafe.
We are as hooked on this machine as we are on coffee. www.spinn.com
You Like it Hot
California doesn’t have bone-chilling winters like the midwest or east coast, but try telling that to a shivering Californian when the temperature has dropped below 60 (stop laughing), and the crib feels like the walk-in freezer at Buddy’s Chop House, and not in a good way.
Enter the Dreo Solaris Slim H2 Space Heater. Hit the remote control in a cold room, and you are warm right now. Or at least it feels that way.
It’s a 1500W Oscillating ceramic space heater, and it’s quiet. Dreo’s proprietary ObliqueAirlow Technology reduces the noise of the airflow traveling through the fan wheel, delivering its warmth 11% quieter than traditional space heaters.
With the remote control that provides all the functions and 26-feet control range, you can call the shots on the heater without leaving your sofa or bed. The adjustable timer automatically turns off the heater at the desired time, helping you enjoy a good night’s sleep while saving on your energy bills.
But your favorite person will be asleep, dreaming of beaches, and they won’t even notice.
More hot info is available here.
Let’s Get Purified
The air in your crib could be ice-cold on a hot day, or warm and soothing in the winter time, such as it is, but how pure is that air being pushed around your favorite person’s room?
The Dreo Macro Pro Smart Air Purifier sees to all that business. It features a 3-Stage Deep True HEPA Filtration system with an Ultra Fine Pre-Filter that traps larger particles such as dust, lint, fibers, pollen and pet hairs.
Its H13 True HEPA Filter Captures fine particles down to 0.3 microns,such as mites, certain bacteria and viruses, while the High-Efficiency Pelletized Activated Carbon absorbs bad odors, formaldehyde, and other volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
All of this is to say that your favorite person will be breathing the best air in their ecosystem right in their own home. Aren’t they worth that?
Find out more right here.
