Looking for a cheep wireless Bluetooth headset?

These look great to use for workouts or just working out in the yard. They have slight water resistance, “sweat resistance”, so that will help keep them from being damaged in during you grueling workouts. If you are on a marathon they have about an 8 hour battery life and has a built-in microphone so it can be used with your phone for phone calls as well. Listed at Amazon for around $22 this should be a no brainer.

• MPOW Brand Certified: Top-Brand Bluetooth Accessories for Smartphones
• Cheetah's Stylish Behind-Ear Streamline Outlook Design Guarantee 100% Stable and Comfortable User Wearing Experience for Running,Jogging,Biking,Driving,Fishing,Camping,Hiking and other Outdoor Sports.
• The Most Advanced Bluetooth 4.1 Chips Hardware Configuration Ensure Hi-Fi CD Quality Stereo Music Sound and Strong Signal. Leading apt-X Tech Can Provide No-lag Voice when Listening to Music or Calling with Mic.
  Simple To Use: Portable Function Control Buttons Are Designed for Easily Operation. Just Press it until Blue and Red LED Light Alternatively Flashing, find and connect with your phones,then you can enjoy music or calling wirelessly. If need reconnect automatically, please turn on Bluetooth of your phone first, then turn on the Cheetah, It can reconnect automatically.
• Universal Compatible for Apple iPhone 6 6 Plus 5 5S 4 4S iPad iPod Samsung Galaxy S6 S5 S4 S3 LG Motorola Sony and iOS/Android Mobile Phones. Almost all smartphones can work with this well.

LG has an interesting new keyboard design for your tablet

LG has announced that it is planning to release a new bluetooth keyboard rolls up into a nice tight package when traveling and rolls out to a full size keyboard that automatically switches on and connects to your nearest bluetooth capable device when it is rolled open.

The keys are made of solid plastic (not the flat, squishy kind), which LG hopes will offer a typing experience close to what you're used to on your PC. The keyboard is just the start: the company says it plans to offer even more "input devices" in the next few months. The Rolly will launch this September in the US first, rolling out to the rest of the world soon after. 

Logitech H800 Wireless Headset

I was looking for a simple wireless headset replacement for the headset I used on my home system. I thought would be nice to be able to work on projects while still being able to move around my office hands-free. My first test for sound quality was to get connected using Skype. I called home to my wife she reported to me that the sound quality was excellent and she didn't hear any background noise as well. This was very important because I use Skype quite often to call out when I am at home. Skype has great integration with our client management system and this makes it very easy for me to reach out and touch someone.

This is a Bluetooth headphone set so it can be paired not only with the tiny Bluetooth nano receiver that you plug into a USB port, but may also be connected to a smart phone or tablet by pairing it to those devices. I should be able to move up to 40 feet from the Bluetooth connection which is what I am testing right now. It appears that I don't have to have line of sight, but going through several sets of walls does attenuate enough to stop the connection.

There is a button on the side of the headset that allows you to switch between the Bluetooth circuit and the nano receiver so you can switch between devices using that type of function. By holding in the plus key on the right ear piece you begin the pairing process with any Bluetooth device. I paired it with my Microsoft Surface inside of two minutes. It was a very simple process.

The battery is rated to last six hours so there is plenty of talk and listening time between charges. If you are running low just plug the headset into a USB port and they recharge will begin and you can continue using the headset at the same time. The only issue that I'm going to have over time is that all batteries have a limited number of times that you can charge them and eventually I will have to dispose of the headset when it no longer can hold a charge. If you need replacement ear pads or a replacement battery you can get them on the Logitech website. Your pads and the battery are both five dollars apiece. If you loose your nano receiver you can get another one for $15. 

It does have a noise canceling microphone so it should work fairly well even in a noisy environment. It only took me seconds to get connected to my Dragon NaturallySpeaking software and I didn't have to train it at all begin dictating to it accurately.

The nano receiver is a 2.4 GHz wireless connection and allows you to move up to 40 feet away from your PC without losing the connection. 

The documentation states that it has a fold it go design but even though it does get smaller because of its heavy construction it does not fold as tight as my Plantronics unit did. But it does get a little bit smaller so it will fit into a backpack without a problem. The left ear piece opens up for access to the battery and also doubles as a storage compartment for the nano receiver so is available on your travels.

This unit retails for about $100. The warranty for the unit is two years. Sure to go to the Logitech website to register your unit after you have purchased it.

Amazon's Echo Speaker

I have been listening to one of my favorite podcasts for a while now and one of the hosts talks from time to time about how much she likes Amazon's Echo Speaker system and I finally saw an article in Engadget discussing the fact that Audible files now can be directly accessed through the speaker.

I am such a big Audible fan that having another source through which I can listen to the books I am reading, yes I understand that I'm listening to them but to me it's the way that I consume most of the books I read for enjoyment.

However, the Echo Speaker is available through invitation only through Amazon so I have to put my request for an invitation to purchase one through the Amazon service. As a Prime user you can an automatic discount of $50 of the price of the unit is $149.

Connectivity is one of the things that you always are looking for in today's new speaker devices and the Echo Speaker does a lot of the things that you would expect. First to connects through Wi-Fi back to the Internet so that as you are asking questions it will use that Internet connection to gather information to respond to you with an answer. It is also Bluetooth enabled allowing you to connect your tablet or phones back to the speaker so that you can play from applications that you are using on those devices. Also available for both Android and iOS devices is a companion application that allows you to connect to the speaker as well.

It also connects to your WeMo compatible devices using voice commands. A list of these controllers are available on the Amazon Echo's website. The Echo's brain is not built into the unit itself but is actually operating from Amazons Web Services. Over time, the Echo will continue to learn your speech patterns, vocabulary and personal preferences. All updates are done in the cloud so you don't have to worry about doing them locally on the device.

Echo is always ready, connected, and fast. Just say the wake word, "Alexa," for:

• New - Connected Home: Control compatible WeMo and Philips Hue devices with your voice.
• New - Pandora: Listen to and discover music from Pandora's library of over 1 million tracks.
• New - Traffic: Hear commuting time and the fastest route to your destination.
• New - Sports: Ask for sports scores and schedules from the NFL, NBA, MLS, MLB, and more.
• Music: Listen to your Amazon Music Library, Prime Music, TuneIn, and iHeartRadio.
• News, weather, and information: Hear up-to-the-minute weather and news from a variety of sources, including local radio stations, NPR, and ESPN from TuneIn.
• Questions and answers: Get information from Wikipedia, definitions, answers to common questions, and more.
• Alarms, timers, and lists: Stay on time and organized with voice-controlled alarms, timers, shopping, and to-do lists.
• More coming soon: Echo automatically updates through the cloud with new services and features.

With all of these features, how can you help not wanting to own one for yourself?