Mi Air 2S

This is definitely a Xiaomi product, though not available from the Mi UK store. The earphones are very similar to the Xiaomi True Wireless Earphones 2(TWE2) that were previously reviews. The main difference is a larger battery in the case (440mW compared to 300mW), the case supports wireless charging and play time is longer (the ear buds last 5 hours compared to 4 hours and with the case 24 hours compared to 14 hours).

Both support Bluetooth 5.0 and LHDC/SBC/AAC coding and BLE/HFP/HSP/A2DP/AVRCP though some are LHDC may only supported with Xiaomi phones or using the Xiaomi  MUIU app.

In terms of looks, they are virtually identical, except on the Air 2S's the side stub doesn't extend beyond the top of the earbud while on the older model they do.

The Air 2S do support a new dual core chip which in conjunction with the dual mics (per ear bud) improves latency considerably when noise cancelling.

There is a USB-C socket in the base of the case, which also supports the Qi wireless charging standard (the case needs to lie on its back).

Pairing is easy, just press the button the side for about 5 seconds and the white LED on the front of the case will start blinking and is then connectable from a phone/PC/etc. Once paired, opening the case (or clicking the button) should allow a previously paired unit to connect again (you may need to press the side button, opening the case doesn't always connect the buds).

The earbuds sit just outside the ear canal and can fall out if your heads moves violently, but they generally are comfortable and the sound quality is pretty good.

Tapping the earbuds will do the normal pause music, answer a call etc.

They are nice ear buds though maybe not worth the additional price compared to the TWE2 unless paired with a Xiaomi phone using the MUIU app and getting the enhanced latency.

Including the silicon case, available for about £50 from your Chines import site (and cheaper than the TWE2 from the UK site).

Now that the Bluetooth SIG have released the LC3 codec, which is better quality than the SBC, maybe manufacturers will issue a firmware update to support it.

Xiaomi Air Quality Sensor

Today's Xiaomi review is of the Air Quality sensor, it's about 10 by 6 by 3 cm with a 10 cm capacitive colour touch screen with a resolution of 800 x 480.

There's a PM2.5 particulate laser reflective sensor and Sensiron TVOC/CO2a and Temp/Humidity sensors which are used to measure the air quality. TVOC is a measure of total volatile organic compounds which cover a range of substances from detergents through flammable liquids and gasses. The CO2 values aren't actually measured but approximated through various calculations on the sensor.

This is not a professional device, so the readings will be reasonably accurate, but don't base anything medical on the readings.

It's WiFi connected and connects back to the Mi back-end services and can be controlled by the Mi Home App. In the Mi App it's necessary to change the region to Mainland China of the device won't be found (or lost if configured in Mainland China and then say switch to Europe, but it will come back again if the region is changed back).

There are a variety of display modes which show average values of sensor readings and a clock of course which is set using Internet time sources so stays accurate. Even though the region in the app is set to Mainland China, a local timezone in the device can be set, so the correct time will be displayed (some other Xiaomi devices will show Chinese time).

An especially useful feature is the BLE gateway which can monitor other Xiaomi Home Bluetooth connected devices, collect their data and send it back to the Mi Home servers. So say there's a Xiaomi Home temperature/humidity sensor in another room that the Mi Home app would connect to, the BLE gateway can download its data, send it to Mi Home and then it's accessible via the Mia Home app from anywhere. This is actually pretty useful if there are other smart devices in the home and say the temperature is quite low, then turn the heating on so it'll be nice and cosy when you get home.

Xiaomi Bluetooth Speaker 2.0

Another day, another Xiaomi product. These are mini Bluetooth cylindrical speakers (they measure about 2 inches in height - well 48mm - and 2 inches across - 52mm) and the come in black or white.

Though small, the sound produced is remarkably good for the size, obviously they cant compete with bigger speakers with large bass speakers for the depth of sound, but just to have some background music, they work well.

If they can be placed apart the sound improves dramatically if you place yourself in the central zone.

The speakers are Bluetooth 5.0 and operate in stereo, however pairing can be slightly fiddly. The centre of the base is a switch surrounded by a "multifunctional switch" so when the speaker's pointing up, pressing the speaker actually presses the central switch.

• Turn on by long pressing the switch (for about 2 seconds) and the speaker should turn on (blue light will flash)
• Do the same for the other speaker
• On Both speakers double click the multifunction switch and they should go into wireless stereo pairing mode
• The "master" speaker will flash quickly and the "slave" slowly
• Pair with a phone, laptop, other BLE device

The speakers also have a microphone and can be used to receive a call (tap the speaker when a call comes in and it will change to mic mode, however this can be annoying as the speaker can go into this mode even when a call isn't there by accidentally tapping it.

The power output is only 3W and the speakers are charged through a microUSB port.

The speaker are available from any of the friendly Chinese import sites and are about £20 (inc shipping). They're never going to compete with the big bass boomboxes, but for something that will fit in a jacket pocket and provide some background music and last for a couple of hours, they're really not bad.

It's a badge of honour, that changes face

Another day, another Crowdfunded project, this time it's a Bluetooth connected connected badge (or Pin as those over the pond like to call them).

Pins Collective are the people behind the badge (which is round) is about 2 inches across and the colour display has a resolution of 300 x 300 pixels. Information is sent to the badge using an iOS of Android app (using BLE i.e. Bluetooth version 4+ so it's needs to be a reasonably recent phone). The battery lasts around 6-72h depending on what the badge has to do (animation, backlight, etc).

Currently the app is pretty basic (in iOS) allowing selection of an image and sending it to the badge (and of course pairing the badge in the first place).

The badge will display GIFs (including animated GIFs, so you can get some spiffy moving images). The app will I,port and convert various image file formats to the correct version for the badge. Images bigger than 300x300 will be cropped.

Wearing pictures of your colleagues can be quite annoying to them.

Currently they're available to pre-order through Indiegogo at $69.

Intel Genuino 101

Well there seems to be a bit of a battle going on in Arduino land, so some of the boards are now known as Genuino (outside of the USA). This board, the 101, is produced by Intel and has a Curie processor (Quark architecture) and a 32bit ARC CPU (not ARM, this is a CPU based on the Argonaut Risc Core - remember Argonaut Software and Jez San), they're both clocked at 32MHz and are 32bit.

Though the board will act like a 'standard' Arduino and can be completely driven through the Arduino IDE, it actually runs an Intel Real Time Operating System (RTOS) that Intel has open sourced and is available through their download centre. When the IDE compiles the code it will do the right things and put the right bits on the correct core.

The 101 should support most UNO and Zero shields, though it's a 3.3V board (though Intel say it will tolerate 5V boards). It's powered either through a dedicated 5V socket or through the USB port. It's NOT microUSB but the older chunky USB B socket.

As well as the 2 cores, there's also a 3 axis accelerometer and 3 axis gyroscope so the board can sense it's spacial direction and movement and it also supports Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) meaning it can do things like become a beacon or talk to your phone.

The tech specs are

Operating Voltage	3.3V (5V tolerant I/O)
Digital I/O Pins	14 (of which 4 provide PWM output)
PWM Digital I/O Pins	4
Analog Input Pins	6
DC Current per I/O Pin	20 mA
Flash Memory	196 kB (though on-board 384KB rest for RTOS)
SRAM	24 kB (80KB on-board again rest for RTOS)
Clock Speed	32MHz
LED_BUILTIN	pin 13
Features	Bluetooth LE, 6-axis accelerometer/gyroscope

So altogether a nice little Arduino (sorry Genduino) which is pretty fast and pretty compatible.

Pricing varies considerably on-line and it's available from around £16 all the way up to £35, and its available in a variety of kits.

There's a new smartwatch on the BLOCKs

After a 2 year wait, the BLOCKS smartwatch is now live on Kickstarter. It has a round face and comes in 3 colours (Onyx Black, Marble White, Sunrise Red) with a 360 x 360 colour display with haptic feedback.

Inside it's got quite a lot of technology inside the core itself: -

• Snapdragon 400 CPU
• WiFi supporting 802.11b/g/n
• Bluetooth 4.1 (Bluetooth Low Energy/Bluetooth SMART)
• 512MB RAM
• 4GB Flash (ePOP
• 1.35" fully round display
• Accelerometer / Gyroscope
• Power button
• Microphone
• Vibration (motor)

It runs a (full) version of Android Lollipop (not Android Wear) which gives the core module much more functionality than standard Android based smartwatches. It doesn't stop there as the watch can be upgraded with modules (blocks) which can be thought of as strap links. A large wrist will support 4 blocks, while a more petite wrist should support 3.

Though designed to support extra modules, the watch core (i.e. the main round watch bit) will function by itself and the lowest cost option is just the core and a strap.

The BLOCKS smartwatch is fully compatible with both iOS (v8+) and Android.

The exciting bit is the additional modules, the following are available via the Kickstarter campaign: -

• Extra battery (the main battery lasts about a day and a half, this extends the period by at least 20%)
• Heart Rate module - uses and optical sensor
• GPS module
• NFC Module - may support contactless payment
• Adventure module - it measures altitude, pressure and temperature

Next year the following modules are planned (Phase 2): -

• GSM module - insert a SIM and leave your phone at home
• Fingerprint module - authenticate things, maybe NFC payments
• LED module - a torch?
• Button module - use for emergency alerts or anything else you can think of using a button for

Then at a later date the following modules might come into being: -

• Air Quality module
• Camera module
• Flash Memory module
• Stress Levels module

The smartphone app allows further modules to be purchased (BLOCKstore), customise watch faces and buy watch apps (BLOCKSware?).

The basic BLOCKS core (and strap) starts at $195. The Super Early Bird (sold out) was at $250, the Early Bird (one left at time of publishing) was $260 and the Late Early Bird is $275 which goes up to $285 when all the early birds have gone. All of the later pricing includes for modules and further modules can be purchased for $30. There are also options to purchase multiple units.

BLOCKS has now been fully funded (the campaign launched at 5pm UK time) and has raised over $300,000 of a $250,000 target, that's $300,000 in under 2 hours!!!

New low power Bluetooth standard

A new Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) standard is due soon,it was initially based on the Wibree system developed by Nokia.

BLE wil allow devices using the new specification to operate for potentially years off standard coin batteries. This will allow BLE chips to be incorporated into many everyday devices, though handset manufacturers will be early adopters, though initially they'll use dual-mode system (i.e. standard Bluetooth and BLE).

Chips vendors such as TI and CSR and Broadcom have adopted BLE and well on their way to producing silicon so devices may be available in 2010.

As BLE uses such low power it could change the way people think about device communication as it could be incorporated into a multitude of household components.