Sleep Lavender Bath Salts

I have a bad back and after a couple of back surgeries I learned a number strategies that help my back feel better. One of them is a 10 minute hot bath every night - it really helps feel and sleep better.  Recently I included Sleep Lavender Bath Salts from San Francisco Bath Salt Company into my routine. I love it!  The Lavender salt bath smells really nice.  I don't like strong scents and this one was just right for me - not too strong yet noticeable.  It made my soak more luxurious and pleasant.



Note that if you don't like flowery scents, San Francisco Bath Salt Company offers other salts with different scents, for example this muscle soak salt which smells minty.

I am attaching a collage of three photos.  The first photo shows salt in my hand, you can see the size and texture of the salt grains. The second photo shows the bag the salts came in, the salt has a light purple color.  The third photo shows salt as it begins to melt in the tub.



I find that the hot soak reduces pain and relieve muscle cramps in my back. I also found that if I have a migraine a hot soak helps to ease the headache as well.



I usually use one or two hand fulls of salt per bath, so one 2 pound bag will last quite a long time.



I received an evaluation bag of Lavender Salt for evaluation and an honest review. I have been using salt soaks for a couple of weeks now. In addition to making my bath soaks more pleasant I noticed another other benefit.  I noticed that the calluses on my feet are easier to treat after the soak in the bath with salts (compared to the soak in plain hot water).  It takes fewer strokes with a pumice sponge to get my feet totally smooth.



In addition to the use in the tub, I also enjoyed using a bit of salt as skin exfoliator. It works nicely providing a gentle scrub and massage.



Overall, I am very pleased with Lavender Salt and will continue to use it.





You can find Lavendar salt on Amazon by following this link.





You can find Musle soak salts on Amazon by following this link.









AshopZones review ★★★★★

Hipe Waterproof Wireless Bluetooth Shower Speaker

This speaker looks like a toy, but don't let the looks fool you. It sounds really good. I am attaching a video which demonstrates the sound: first with the speaker on and then, for comparison, turning off the speaker so the sounds comes through the tablet speaker. I am also attaching a collage of three photos that I will be referencing in this review.

The speaker is 8 inches wide, 3.25 inches tall, and 1.75" thick. It weight 9.9 inches. It comes in two colors: black and white.



The front of the speaker (see photo #1 for reference) has controls that allow you to to turn the speaker on and off, change volume, skip forward and backwards, go to the end, and use the phone. The little port hole above the command dial is the microphone.



The back of the speaker (see photo #2 for reference) has a watertight seal covering the compartment that has a charging port (5V IN), on/off switch, and Power out DC 5V port. The difference between the front on/off switch and the back on/off switch is that the front switch leaves the unit in stand by mode. The switch in the back can be used when you don't want to drain the battery.



The speaker has built in handle that can be used to hang the speaker in the shower (see photo #3 for reference).

 

 

The speaker's sound is very good, it is very clear and crisp at all ranges. The volume can be made fairly loud (I put it to the max in the video). In a small room like the bathroom it sounded especially good. I was also glad that it had controls right on the speaker. When the reminder alarm went off on my tablet while I was in the shower and unable to turn it off, I was able to switch off the speaker so I did not have to listen to the ding of the reminder for 10 minutes until it would automatically shut off.



To pair the speaker with your device you need to turn the unit on and then hold the on button for a few seconds until the light on the front start flushing red and blue color. While it is flashing red and blue you can scan for bluetooth devices on your phone/tablet and it this speaker will appear as HIP400. Documentation says that if you are prompted for the password enter 1234. I was not prompted for the password.



I received this speaker from the manufacture for evaluation and an honest review. I hope the video will give you a good idea of what to expect in terms of the quality of the sound. I really like this speaker, I like it better than the bluetooth shower speaker I have been using previously. While both have good sound, Hipe speaker has controls right on the speaker and that makes it much more convenient.



You can find it on Amazon by following this link.







AshopZones review ★★★★★

Bolse® Dual Desktop Charger Cradle Dock with Spare Battery Charging Slot

The idea of having a dock which can charge the phone as well as an extra battery outside the phone at the same time was very appealing to me, as my husband uses the cell phone for business and it gets a lot of use. He uses Nexus Galaxy phone with Hyperion Verizon Samsung Galaxy Nexus 3800mAh Extended Battery which makes the phone extra thick.  I tested the dock with both regular slim battery and the extra thick extended battery.



I am attaching a collage of 4 photos that I will be referencing in this review.



The first photo shows that the dock did not fit the phone when it had the thick extended battery installed. Photo #2 shows the bottom of the phone and extra thickness this battery forms.  The phone with the regular battery fit without problems.



Photo #3 shows the extended battery in the dock, the contacts of the battery did not line up with the contacts of the charger due to the thickness of the battery.  The green light on the dock indicates that the dock is plugged in, not that the charging is happening.



Photo #4 shows a regular battery in the dock, and it the charging of the regular size battery worked without a problem.



I received this item for an honest review and shared both positives and negatives aspects of my experience with this dock.



Overall, if you have a phone with a regular size battery this device works without problems.  If you use extended battery in your phone this charging dock is not for you. 





You can find it on Amazon by following this link.







AshopZones review ★★★★☆

Bolse 3.1 Amp Dual USB Car Charger with Nexus 7 Tablet, Samsung Galaxy 7.7 Tablet, and Samsung Galaxy Nexus cell phone

Review of Bolse 3.1 Amp Car charger

I tested Bolse 3.1 Amp Dual USB Car Charger with Nexus 7 Tablet (JellyBean 4.2.2), Samsung Galaxy 7.7 Tablet (ICS 4.0.4), and Samsung Galaxy Nexus cell phone (JellyBean 4.2.2).



I own several car chargers and ran the same set on tests on each of them to provide unbiased results as the numbers speak for the performance of the unit.



To test Bolse car charger I ran my 10 minute test for each of my 3 devices on each of the 2 ports for a total of 6 tests. I repeated the same tests with a data cable and with a charging cable. The results of these 12 tests are included in the tables below.



I am attaching a collage of 4 photos labeled with numbers 1 through 4 under customer photos that I will be referencing in this review. You can locate this photo by following 'customer photos' link under the main photo.



Photo #1 shows the charger on a gridded mat next a pen for size reference. The car charger is 3.5" long. The charger's face is 1.25" by 1".



Photo #2 and #3 show how the charger fits into our two cars. It has a relatively log neck and fits very well in both car configurations. It goes in firmly, forms a good contact, and stays plugged in well even over rough roads. The charger has two outlets labelled 1.0 AMP and 2.1 AMP.



Photo #3 shows one of the tables during the testing. I use Battery App by Elvison to determine how each device recognized the charging source. 'AC' status means the charging is at full charging rate. 'USB' status indicates charging at a lower charging rate. 'Discharging' status means that the charging rate is below the power that the device is consuming so it slows down the discharge rate but does not re-charge.



My methodology is to charge each mobile device on each port of the unit for 10 minutes and measuring how much each unit was charge in that 10 minute period. Each line in the table below represents a separate 10 minute test



The key findings:

(1) Samsung Galaxy 7.7 cannot be charged with this car charger with either port

(2) Both Nexus phone and Nexus 7 tablet running Jelly Bean 4.21 charged at AC rate on both ports.



The table below summarizes my findings:



Nexus 7 Tablet

--------------

1 AMP port.......AC rate.....1% charge increase (data cable)

2.1 AMP port.....AC rate.....1% charge increase (data cable)



1 AMP port.......AC rate.....1% charge increase (charging cable)

2.1 AMP port.....AC rate.....2% charge increase (charging cable)



Samsung Galaxy Nexus Phone

--------------------------

1 AMP port.......AC rate.....2% charge increase (data cable)

2.1 AMP port.....AC rate.....3% charge increase (data cable)



1 AMP port.......AC rate.....4% charge increase (charging cable)

2.1 AMP port.....AC rate.....3% charge increase (charging cable)



Samsung Galaxy Tablet 7.7

--------------------------

1 AMP port.......AC rate.....discharging (data cable)

2.1 AMP port.....AC rate.....discharging (data cable)



1 AMP port.......AC rate.....discharging (charging cable)

2.1 AMP port.....AC rate.....discharging (charging cable)



I received this car charger from the manufacture for an honest review be it positive or negative. Running the same set of test on all the chargers I own allows me to provide an unbiased review. By comparing the results of the tests for chis charger to the other car chargers I tested, this car charger earned a 5 star rating. The only thing this charger did not do well is handle my Samsung tablet. However neither did other generic car chargers, Samsung tablet only works well with the car charger made by Samsung.

You can find it on Amazon by following this link.







AshopZones review ★★★★★

Sandisk 4GB MicroSDHC Memory Card with SD Adapter

I bought Sandsik 4G MicroSDHC card for LG 800G. The card worked well in the phone. I also tested the card and the SD adapter in my PC and the adapter worked well as well.



The card and adapter came in bulk packaging as mentioned in title of the listing, this means in came in the plastic case enclosed in a plastic zip lock baggy. No blister pack.



Overall, I am pleased with the memory card: good price and it works.



Inserting memory into LG 800G had a couple tricky spots, so for other LG 800G owners I am including steps for inserting the SD Memory card into the phone.



1. SD memory card slot is located under the battery. This means that you first need to remove the cover by sliding it down. The first time I had to remove the cover it was a bit difficult, as the cover is very slippery and has no groves to hang on to. I finally was able to do it by using the grippy material used to open cans. The grippy material generated enough friction that the cover finally slid off. After removing the cover, you need to remove the battery.



2. The memory card slot is on the left side of the white SIM card. The gold bars on the card should face down towards the gold bars on the phone. The memory card goes under a metal holder. You need to lift the metal holder, place the memory card, and then lower the card holder, and push it down until it snaps in place. Note that lifting the holder for the first time requires some force. I used a tiny screwdriver to give me leverage to push it up. I am attaching a photo  which shows the holder in the up position, so you can see what you need to do to insert the memory card.



3. After the memory card is in place, you need to replace the battery and the phone cover, and power up the phone.



4. Now, you need to set your default memory to external, and tell the camera, the video recorder, and the voice recorder to use the external memory rather than the internal memory like before.



5. To set the default memory:

- Tap the following sequence MENU - Settings - Phone - Memory Info - Primary storage settings

- Tap on External memory (red check will appear)

- There will be a FORMAT button at the bottom of the screen, tap on it

- The phone will ask for a security code, enter 0000. Once you enter the security code, OK button will appear on the bottom of the screen. Click ok. Format takes about 1 second.



6. To set the camera:

- Tap Camera icon on the main screen holding the phone vertically, turn the phone to horizontal position, as you turn you will see camera control setting appear on the screen.

- Tap the gear icon which is on the lower left side of the screen.

- The memory setting is on the second screen of camera settings, so you need to tap the slider on the right hand side (it will say 1/3, first page out of three) once you tap it will change to 2/3.

- On the top row you will see a square called 'select storage'. By default it will look like a cell phone, once you tap it will look like a memory card.

- Hit OK to save your change



7. To change the video camera:

- Tap Camera icon on the main screen holding the phone vertically, turn the phone to horizon position, as you turn the camera controls will appear

- Tap the gear looking icon on the bottom left

- Now you need to switch from camera to video, which is done by sliding your finger from camera to video camera icon on the right hand side slider

- If you do it correctly, you will see a red button appear where the video camera is. If you do it incorrectly, you will take a photo. It took me a few tries to get the pressure and location of where my finger slides correctly.

- The storage setting is on the second page of the video camera, so you need to page down on the slider by tapping on 1/2.

- Tap on 'Select storage' icon, and make sure you see a memory card, rather than the cell phone icon.

- Click OK to save your change



8. To change the voice recorder

- Voice recorder is on the second page of Settings. To get there select Menu - slide you finger right to left to page - tap on Voice recorder.

- The top option is 'Storage', tap on it to change cell phone icon to memory card icon.

- Click ok to save your change



You can find it on Amazon by following this link.







AshopZones review ★★★★★

Satechi 4 Port Portable USB 3.0 Hub

The Satechi USB hub 5.5" x 1.25" x 1". Its 4 USB slots are well spaced out  and are located on the top of the strip. I found that this configuration makes it easier to plug and plug USB memory sticks. I like it better than the ports that have slots on the sides. Its power cord cord is 10" long. The unit weights 3 oz.



The documentation states that this hub USB 3.0 is backwards compatible with USB 2.0. I tested with USB 2.0 and USB 1.1, and it is backwards compatible with both. I included the speed results for both below.



I tested he hub on Windows XP, Windows 7, and Linux. Each operating system I tested saw the memory stick plugged into the hub without problems.



I tested each port by copying a directory with mp3 files totalling 638916 Megabytes. I measured CPU time and clock time. I wanted to test that all ports worked, I wanted to test if there was a significant difference in performance between ports, and I wanted to see if copying to multiple memory sticks at the same time would slow down the copying.



✔ First, I tested each port using 2.0 USB memory stick. I ran each test two times on each of the 4 ports. All ports worked with a normal small variations in performances.



✔ Second, I tested copying files onto two 2.0 USB memory sticks at the same time, to see of the copying slows down compared to working with one stick at a time. The performance remained similar to to test 1.



✔ Third, I tested copying files to 1.0 USB memory stick. The hub is backwards compatible to USB 1.0



✔ Fourth, For comparison I plugged the same memory stick directly into the computer without the USB hub.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TEST#1 (one USB 2.0 stick)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here are clock times (two columns represet each of two tests):

-------------------------------

Port1:_______2:09:54, 2:12:02

Port2:_______2:09:71, 2:04:81

Port3:_______2:16:36, 2:19:16

Port4:_______2:10:60, 2:07:77



Here are the CPU times:

-------------------------------

Port1:_______1.256s, 2.083s

Port2:_______1.524s, 1.692s

Port3:_______1.538s, 1.562s

Port4:_______1.465s, 1.869s



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TEST#2 (two USB 2.0 sticks at the same time)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Clock times for two devices at the same time:

-------------------------------

Memory stick #1: 2:10:29, 2:22:41

Memory stick #2: 2:10:40, 2:27:58



CPU times for two devices at the same time:

-------------------------------

Memory stick #1: 1.718s, 1.127s

Memory stick #2: 1.781s, 1.459s



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TEST#3 (one USB 1.0 stick)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Clock time:_______5:08:30, 5:06:75

CPU time:_________1.191s, 1.433s



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TEST#4 (one USB 2.0 stick plugged directly into the computer)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Built in Port CPU:____2.873s, 3.325s

Clock time:___________4:03:30, 3:55:16



I was provided a sample for evaluation and I ran it through 32 tests in order to provide unbiased and honest review. The unit performed well and met my expectations for a 5 star rating. If there was anything I wanted to change about this unit, I would have made its cord just a little longer.



I am attaching a photo of this unit during the two memory stick test. The photo gives you a good idea of the relative size of this unit.



You can find it on Amazon by following this link.







AshopZones review ★★★★★

Intocircuit Power Castle Series PC11200 11200mAh Heavy Duty 5V 2A/1A Dual USB Ports External Battery Pack with Nexus 7 Tablet, Samsung Galaxy 7.7 Tablet , and Samsung Galaxy Nexus cell phone

I tested Intocircuit Power Castle Series PC11200 11200mAh Heavy Duty 5V 2A/1A Dual USB Ports External Battery Pack with Nexus 7 Tablet (JellyBean 4.2.2), Samsung Galaxy 7.7 Tablet (ICS 4.0.4), and Samsung Galaxy Nexus cell phone (JellyBean 4.2.2).



I own several external battery packs.  To test their performance I run the same set on tests on each of them in order to provide unbiased results as the numbers speak for the performance of each unit.



To test Intocircuit power pack I ran my 10 minute test for each of my 3 devices on each of the 2 ports for a total of 6 tests. In addition I charged both Nexus phone and Nexus Tablet at the same time, one in each port. The results of these 7 tests are included in the tables below.



I am attaching a collage of 2 photos. You can locate this photo by following 'customer photos' link under the main photo.



Photo #1 shows the power brick on the digital scale, its weight is 9.9 oz. The size of the power pack is 2.625" by 4.375" by 0.875".



Photo #2 shows the top of the unit which has an LED screen showing the level of charge.  Next to the screen there is a small lack button which turns on the LED light. The light is pretty dim. Some other power bricks I have have a much brighter light, however this is not a key feature of the battery pack and the underpowered light did not effect my rating of this unit.



This power pack has two outlets, they are not labelled.



I use Battery App by Elvison to determine how each device recognized the charging source. 'AC' status means the charging is at full charging rate. 'USB' status indicates charging at a lower charging rate. 'Discharging' status means that the charging rate is below the power that the device is consuming so it slows down the discharge rate but does not re-charge.



My methodology is to charge each mobile device on each port of the unit for 10 minutes and measuring how much each unit was charge in that 10 minute period. Each line in the table below represents a separate 10 minute test.



The key findings:

(1) Both Nexus phone and Nexus 7 tablet (both running Jelly Bean 4.21) charged at AC rate on both ports.

(2) Samsung Galaxy 7.7 works, but show different behaviors on the two ports



The table below summarizes my findings:



Nexus 7 Tablet

--------------

right port.......AC rate.....1% charge increase

left port........AC rate.....2% charge increase





Samsung Galaxy Nexus Phone

--------------------------

right port.......AC rate.....5% charge increase (among the best rates in my tests)

left port........AC rate.....5% charge increase (among the best rates in my tests)





Nexus 7 Tablet and Samsung Galaxy Nexus Phone at the same time

--------------------------------------------------------------

Tablet...........AC rate.....1% charge increase

Phone............AC rate.....5% charge increase (among the best rates in my tests)





Samsung Galaxy Tablet 7.7

--------------------------

right port.......AC rate..... 1% charge increase

left port........AC rate..... discharging if screen is on, 1% charge increase if screen is off



In addition to the tests above we used Nexus 7 Tablet to navigate during a several hour trip while plugged into Intocircuit Power Castle Series PC11200 11200mAh external battery (rather than the car charger).  Nexus 7 remained charged at 100% at the end of the trip.



I received this battery pack from the manufacture for an honest review be it positive or negative. Running the same set of test on all my external batteries allows me to provide an unbiased review. By comparing the results of the tests for this battery to the other external batteries I tested, this power pack earned a 5 star rating.





You can find it on Amazon by following this link.







AshopZones review ★★★★★