Sweden does the London sound

Urbanista is a Swedish audio company making a range of wired and wireless headphones, earphones and Bluetooth speakers. They are named after cities (though only one for Stockholm in Sweden itself the Stockholm Plus true wireless fruity clone).

The in-ear unit reviewed is the Urbanista London, more like the fruity Pros, they have silicon tips and fit into the ear canal with short stubs that hang diagonally down and forward. The model reviewed is black (midnight), though it's available in pink (rose gold), blue (dark sapphire) and white (pearl). There's a definite hint of the brand being "fashionista" and targeting a millennial market.

There's 2 tips on the earphones and another 3 different sizes in the box.

The case supports wireless charging (Qi compatible) and USB-C (cable supplied).

The LEDs indicate the charge level when on a charging mat or plugged in.

Opening the case and the LEDs will light showing the amount of charge (a full charge will allow 25 hours of play, but the earphones only actually play 5 hours at a time, so they'll need to be placed back into the case and allowed to charge again if the batteries run out, which isn't instantaneous).

The earphones are held in magnetically which places the stems against the charging points.

There's also a button at the front of the case, between the stems which needs to be held down to put the system into Bluetooth pairing mode. Once paired opening the case and putting the earphones in your ear should just work. Long pressing the button will reset the case/earphones and loose their pairings. The earphones are Bluetooth 5, so battery life with a compatible phone should be maximised.

The earphones themselves are touch sensitive with the sensitive part under the logo and also detect when they are in the ear.

Using the smallest silicon tips, the earphones remained in the ear while moving around and were pretty comfortable. They are IPX4 water resistant so can be used in say a gym environment or playing sports, though sweat is likely to reduce the grip of the silicon and they could slip out. It's a shame Urbanista don't supply memory foam tips which when squeezed then securely fit to any shaped ear canal.

Pairing really is simple, just push the button in the case and Urbanista London will appear as a connectable device and just click on it and they are paired. Then put the earphones in your ears and sound will be heard.

There is a quirk, if the earphones are removed from the case prior to pairing and then the paring button pressed, the earphones will appear as two independent Bluetooth devices and each can be connected to individually, but not together. If that happens just forget them, and start the pairing again. Bluetooth audio codecs supported are HSP, HFP, A2DP, AVRCP. The quoted frequency response is 20Hz to 20KHz but that's pretty unrealistic as Bluetooth compresses things a lot.

Everything is controlled by tapping the logo on the earbuds (both left and right earbuds are used). A sturdy tap is required and it needs to be on the logo area and not on the side.

There are six microphones, which are used for noise cancellation and picking up speech for calls.

To play tap the left earbud twice, tapping twice again will pause.

Volume Up, tap right once.

Volume Down, tap left once.

Answer call, touch left or right twice.

End call, touch left or right twice.

Reject call, touch and hold left or right.

Siri, touch right twice.

Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) ON/OFF, touch and hold right for 2 seconds.

Ambient Voice Mode (AVM) ON/OFF, touch and hold left for 2 seconds.

Turning ANC on, turns the volume up and it does block outside noise or speech. It's not perfect but does work, the music is definitely fuller and when off, hi hat drums sounded very fizzy (or is that hissy?). There are other earphones which have better noice cancellation, but they tend to be a lot more expensive.

Turning AWM on makes (banging) music sound washed out, even just listening to a vocal podcast seemed toned down.

When moving away from the Bluetooth source (computer or phone), the audio works, until it doesn't and then starts cutting out randomly.

These probably aren't the earphones for the discerning audiophiles (or just audio snobs), but they look nice and audio quality is pretty decent for the price and with ANC on playing music is a pretty nice experience with warm tones. Also wearing for extended periods is very comfortable.

Definitely worth a look and though not quite as refined in things like ANC, they make a good (much cheaper) alternative to the fruity Pros.

They are available directly from Urbanista or from Amazon for £129.00

Burglars around? You can now Blink outside too.

Blink for Home is a nice wireless home security system. It uses a sync module and the wireless camera modules (that record in HD). The cameras are battery powered and should last for around 2 years of normal use (it's not quite clear what 'normal' is, but assume you're not going to be burgled every day).

The cameras are only for indoor use, which might be an issue as if someone's already in your home, it's probably too late.

Welcome to the Blink XT. It's bigger than it's indoor version and it's black (though other cases are available), it's also battery powered, so no need to wire power externally and again it has a long battery life.

The biggest issue installing the camera was getting the screw into the door frame (actually positioning it to get a good signal is imperative too, initially it was installed outside where the boiler was inside - which seemed to block the signals). Once installed it just works.

Various parameters can be tuned sensitivity, how quickly it should re-check, length of clip, should audio be included etc. They are all controlled from the app.

Under the casing there's also a switch which will turn the recording LED on or off (so select that before you install the camera, as the case is watertight it can be a bit of a struggle removing it). You also need to know the serial number of the device to add it to the app, but there's also a QR code printed where the serial number is and the app can scan that rather than having to type it.

The XT also comes with a sticker saying your protected with Blink that you can attach to a window, which might be a legal requirement to let someone know they might be being filmed.

All in all it was pretty simple to install and just works. It's been up for a few days now and not detected anything, which is a good thing.

The Blink XT is available online for around £119.

It can also be purchased as part of a complete system or multipacks.

Ring your bell, ring your Oi

Another day, another Kickstarter project. This time it's a bicycle bell made by Australian firm Knog who seems to make a variety of bike accessories (lights, locks, computers, toolsets) and now bells.

The Oi bell is different from other bells, it's circular and fits around the handlebars (it's easier just to look at the picture).

The bell materials available are aluminium, brass, copper, and black (though only copper and brass seem to be available at the moment) and it was also available in Titanium via Kickstarter.

It comes in two sizes, small and large - fitting 22.2mm and 23.8 to 31.8mm handlebars respectively.

The chime is quite pleasant and the design is definitely different.

It's available to buy on-line for €19.99 through the Knog site

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!!!