This video will hopefully change your life, in a few very small ways,
we're not doing miracles here. I'm going to go over 10 actually practical gadgets or accessories,
whatever you want to call them, that are generally tech/computer related. You'll see what I mean. All
of them are under $50, but several of them are way cheaper, closer to 20 or even $10.
And of course, I'll put all the Amazon links in the description, that's where I got all
these. Starting out with number one, we have these Alex Tech wire sleeve covers,
like cable management. They basically unwrap and you put wires through them to combine them,
it'll make things look nice. I have these on the back of my desk where there's a lot of cables,
for example, coming from my monitor and also a couple coming from this Thunderbolt hub.
I really like these. You can get them in several different sizes and colors,
either black or white. And depending on the size you get and the length,
it's going to be probably between $7 to $15 for the 10 foot length and a little bit more
for longer lengths. You can see here there's the half inch, but I have several other sizes.
I'm not going to take them all out because they're kind of a pain to wrap up back into it,
but you get the idea. Next up number two, we have this cleaning putty for your phone or
earbuds, whatever. This is the Air Squares brand. It goes for about $16 for a pack,
though there's other generic brands as well.
And basically how it works is you take off a little bit of this and
then you use it to pick up, using the stickiness of the putty, any dirt,
debris or anything that are on your earbud mesh or in your phone grills, that sort of
thing. And I have found it works pretty well. Here's an example of me using it on my AirPods,
although I cleaned it before filming this just to spare you some of the nastiness.
Now, I would use some common sense on what you decide to use this on. There might be some
surfaces or very sensitive, delicate areas that might not be very conducive to using a putty. I
don't know if it would damage it, but just kind of use common sense. Now, kind of as a part two bonus
to that one are these precision foam cleaning tips, these cleaning swabs, that I have found
also are extremely useful for cleaning, light crevices in your phone or your AirPods, whatever.
These go for about $9 for a pack of 100 of these is what this is. So extremely cheap,
you can use this to get right in the little corners and clean stuff out that might be
hard to get to otherwise. All right on to number three, we have this ZTS brand pulse
load battery tester. Now, this is actually the big one, the MBT-1, which is $100.
However, they make a mini version that's around $45. Same idea, this one just does more,
but really the mini one is all you'd need, and I really recommend for most people. Basically how
this works is normally if you use a battery tester, it tests the voltage. However, the
actual capacity of the battery may be way [less], even if the voltage is what it's supposed to be.
If you actually put it under load, it might not work. And I've had this happen where I've
charged batteries, it shows they're supposed to be at the full voltage,
and then I put them in a device, they barely work. Whereas with this,
it actually puts a pulse load on the battery. You simply put the positive side down and then
use this probe on the bottom and it will measure the actual capacity of the battery.
So you can do this on a battery, whether it is rechargeable or not. So alkaline or
nickel metal hydride. So for example, in the non-rechargeable, it'll just tell you
how much is left. And on the rechargeable, if you charge it fully, or at least so it
says it's charged fully, you can then use this and it'll show you the actual capacity of it.
So for example, I used these Energizer rechargeables that are kind of old. And
fortunately, it still says that these are still 80% good. So I think that's acceptable
enough to keep around, whereas these other newer ones show 100% still. And like I said,
this big one is mostly if you're going to be using it with larger lithium batteries as well, whereas
the Mini is going to use all the common alkaline and nickel metal hydride common size batteries.
Also, one thing to note, there's actually two different versions of the Mini. The
one I would recommend is the Mini-MBT. The other one I believe is if you want to be
doing some rechargeable 9 volts, which are not as common. So the Mini MBT is probably
the one you want to get. All right next up we have this digital USB microscope.
It's about $30 and it's pretty dead simple. It's just kind of like a super
zoom macro camera in here. And you can plug it into a device and it basically
shows up to the computer as a webcam. So it does provide software you can download,
but I would probably just recommend using your own software on your computer.
For example, it works with OBS, it should work with the native Windows app. Anything that works
with a webcam, this will show up as that. And then you can use that software to capture or
record just like you would with a normal webcam. Anyway, it has a zoom range from 50 to 1000X,
whether that's the true magnification, I don't know, but it zooms in pretty far.
It also has this LED light that you can use to illuminate it. Obviously when you
get really small, it gets harder to light up. Now as for image quality,
it's nothing professional obviously for $30. However, it's decent enough. Just remember to take
the cover off. There's like a plastic cover and put it back on when you're done for protection.
So yeah, just overall a cool little gadget might come in handy at some point. All right, next up we
have this XPower corded air duster for about $50. And if you've ever had to dust something off using
something a little bit more powerful than canned air, this is the way to go. This is obviously
being powered way more than you're going to get from a battery powered air duster or canned air.
And it also comes with several attachments that will narrow the air stream to be even
faster. And I've used this to dust out my NAS and it works extremely
well. I was using canned air with it and it wasn't really helping,
whereas this really got everything out of there. It does have two settings,
both low and high, although both are pretty powerful and obviously high is just extreme.
Now kind of as a bonus add-on to that one, I do have this battery
powered air duster that is a little bit more than $50, it's $70. However,
there are plenty of other kind-of generic brands you'll see on Amazon that might be
cheaper than that. This is the Opolar brand, which I believe they might have rebranded as Sunpollo,
it's the same listing that I bought it on. And I like this model because it does have an air
filter on there. And you can also apparently use it as a vacuum, which it sucks in this way,
but I've never really used it for that, I just care to use it as a duster, and it's pretty
powerful. And I actually used this air speed tester to compare the devices and canned air.
This one's really cheap, so I don't know how absolutely accurate it is,
but it's good enough for comparison. The canned air maxed out at around 19 meters per second,
though it might have gone a bit higher if I got a different angle on it, I don't know.
I didn't want to waste the whole can trying to perfect it. For the battery powered air duster,
I got it maxed out at just under 23 meters per second.
So definitely at least as good as canned air, if not better. And for the corded duster,
it was way stronger. On the highest setting, it maxed out at just under 39 meters per
second. So way stronger, but also way louder too. So I've been happy with this thing,
I haven't really used canned air since I've got it. Like I said,
there's plenty of other models, but I've been happy with this one. All right,
next up on to number six, we have this Kingsdun brand tweezer set, eight pieces
for about $9. Very cheap for a pretty useful tool to have around. I only have seven here,
so I might have lost one at one point, but a lot of these seem redundant anyway,
but a couple are unique. So I like having this plastic one. If I'm working with
something that I don't want to scratch or whatever. There is also this curved one,
might come in handy getting around corners or something.
Several of these seem very similar like I said. I don't know how one
shape would be more useful in one situation or another, but this one seems very thin,
maybe that would be useful. And then this other one is kind of neat. It's got not a needle tip,
but a sort of rounded tip. If you definitely don't want to poke something that might also come handy.
So just different shapes might come in handy and they're reasonable quality. There might
be other generic brands out there, but this is the one that I got and it seems decent enough.
All right next up we have anti static bags. These might come in handy if you have to store
electronics or transport them like a graphics card or anything else really, that might be delicate.
And while the exact listing I bought these from doesn't exist anymore apparently,
you can find plenty of listings for these. It's usually around $10 for a pack depending on the
size. I believe this is 12 by 16 inches. It'll probably fit anything you want to
put into it. But if you need some smaller ones or a variety of sizes, you can find those too.
So pretty simple, but good to have around I think. All right onto number eight,
I'd recommend a keyboard wrist rest. Now there's plenty of brands out there. The
exact one I have is the glorious gaming full-size, slim version,
which goes for about $25. But I've had this for over five years and it seems to hold up fine.
It is a bit dirty at this point, so I'll spare you the close-up. But I've been happy with this one,
though you might find cheaper versions if you don't have a full-size keyboard for example,
if you want a smaller one, maybe a thicker one. It's a generic
enough item where you can search for yourself and find whatever you want
I'm sure. All right for number nine, I'd recommend a desk foot rest. Now if you've ever looked up the
proper posture that you're supposed to sit in while at a desk, you probably realize that is
not how you're sitting. I know it was not how I was before. Basically, you're supposed to be
able to have your arms at a 90-degree angle to reach your desk when you're typing and stuff.
But depending on the height of your desk, if you were to raise your chair up that high,
then your feet might not reach the ground or might not fully plant on the ground,
and that's just uncomfortable. Now, there's a whole bunch of options for
these going usually between $20 to $40 depending on the model.
The one I have is quite a bit more expensive, it's the 3M version, which is all metal,
that's why I liked it, but this one is $90. I don't think you really have to spend that much
unless you want like the most durable one that I got. And this one is adjustable, it goes up pretty
high. So this might be one to look at if the other ones you're looking at don't go tall enough.
But like I said, there's plenty of other options that are significantly cheaper.
I've been using mine for the past year and I found it to be really awesome. I
now actually feel like I'm sitting how I'm supposed to at the desk. So I would
definitely recommend one if you sit at a desk all day. Alright, finally, number 10,
we have another office related improvement if you have a roller chair specifically. And
that is the Stealtho roller caster wheels. If you have a hard floor,
that's definitely where I would recommend these like I do. Basically,
they are so smooth, they don't make a loud noise when rolling across the floor.
I think my downstairs neighbors probably hated me before I got these, but now they
roll really smoothly, really easily. They do have locks on them if you want to keep it still,
but they're pretty much completely silent on the floor. I don't know how well these would work on
a carpet. They'd probably be pretty similar on a low pile carpet in terms of smoothness.
Although you probably wouldn't need them for noise at all. But as far as for hardwood,
definitely recommend it. The Stealtho is a bit more expensive though. It's $46,
but in my opinion, it's well worth it. So hopefully at least for a couple of these,
you'll find them useful. And again, I'll put all the links in the description.
Let me know down in the comments if you have any suggestions for cool gadgets that not too many
people think of. I'll definitely be looking down there. If you want to keep watching,
I'll put other videos I've made in the past of even more gadgets under $50, I think you'll
like those as well. So thanks so much for watching and I'll see you in the next one.