Review: Logitech MX Anywhere 2 Mouse

Nowadays many of us are using tablets in their free time, but we still use our computers for work or gaming. And for this reason, we need the good old mouse.

I personally don’t like any cables around me and my laptop; it just looks clean and is easier to work without them. Few years ago I used one very good looking wireless mouse, the Roccat Pyra Wireless, but one day the mouse suddenly stopped working. After using one old fashion Logitech wired mouse for a while, I decided to go for the new Logitech MX Anywhere 2 wireless mouse. I will make a small review of it and share my impressions here.

First things first: the mouse is very well packaged, but still easy to take out of the box (if you ever took an GoPro camera out of its box, you know that fact is not self-evident).

IMG_0066

Personally I don’t buy myself stuff, that I don’t like how it looks. As well my old Roccat Pyra Wireless mouse, this one looks great. Furthermore it is quality made, not heavy weight (106g) and fits good in my hand (regular European size).

IMG_0070

Connecting the mouse took me about 15 seconds. Just plug the small Unifying-Pico-Receiver and you are ready to go. You can also connect the wireless mouse without the receiver, just over Bluetooth. I need to mention, that on my 6 years old HP2230s laptop with Bluetooth 2.1 it didn’t worked. On one newer Lenovo it worked just fine. Change the channel trough the small button on the bottom of the mouse and pair with the PC, that’s it. By pressing that button, you can easily change the device you want to control in a second.

Logitech.Anywhere.MX2.Win10


Using the mouse without the receiver was one of the main reasons to go for it. I am considering to replace my old laptop with the upcoming Microsoft Surface Pro 4. I suppose the new Microsoft tablet will come again only with one USB port. So it would be good to have it not constantly used for the mouse receiver.


The mouse use the “Darkfield Technology”, which allows using the mouse on almost every surface, so I don’t need my mousepad any more. I played StarCraft II a bit without having any problems (I am not a pro-gamer, so I don’t need the 2400dpi). It is precise and fast enough for normal gaming.

Functionality: I didn’t install the Logitech Software, but I still can use the side buttons for navigating in my browser. I also change photos forwards and backwards using the scroll wheel horizontal. Really cool feature of the scroll wheel: by pressing it, you can change the way it rotates – normal or super fast. On my old Logitech wired mouse I have used the scroll wheel for middle clicks. On the MX Anywhere 2 mouse this is done by the small button in the middle. At first it was uncomfortably, but after few hours of working, it is not a problem any more.

IMG_0073

Charging the battery of the mouse is easy with the supplied or any standard Micro-USB cable. Using the mouse while charging is not a problem too. I’m concerned if everyone would have the ability to change it by himself. It is described how to do that on the last page of the manual, but you need to open the entire mouse to take the battery out. Hopefully it will last more than 2 years. I can not tell much about the battery time for now, but I will play some more StarCraft II and then update this review.

Summary: the new Logitech MX Anywhere 2 mouse is here to stay. My personal reasons for keeping the Logitech MX Anywhere 2 as my mouse are the great design, the build quality and the usage just over Bluetooth.

Безжични слушалки Jabra Revo Wireless

Преди почти 4 години писах как благодарение на адаптера на Logitech за безжична музика вече не бях ограничен от така “обичаните” ми кабели. Bluetooth адаптера все още си работи без проблем, а Logitech дори са пуснали по-нова версия.

Но темата за този пост са безжичните ми слушалки Jabra Revo Wireless, благодарение на които “скъсах” и последния кабел свързващ ме с музиката ми. И дори сега когато пиша тези редове слушам музика безжично от тях.

Слушалките получих като подарък от любимия ми човек за миналата Коледа и от тогава са неизменно с мен, независимо в или извън дома. В следващите редове ще направя кратко ревю и ще споделя личните си впечетления от тях.

Слушалките пристигат в здрава пластмасова кутия, захванати с велкро, за да стабилни и в кутията. Аксесоарите бяха в малка картонена кутия.

IMG_9133

Слушалките правят много добро впечатление с добрата изработка във всяко едно отношение. Изтървал съм ги два или три пъти от около метър височина върху паркет без абсолютно никакви последствия. За изработката на корпуса е използван и метал, който прави външния вид още по грабващ. Комбинацията от черно и оранжево като цветове беше фаворитът за мен, въпреки че и моделът със зелено и бяло също изглежда много добре. Точно дизайна и качествената изработка бяха една от главните причина да се спра на Jabra, а не на прехвалените Beats на Dr. Dre.

IMG_9141

Първоначално не предполагах, че възможността за сгъване на слушалките е от значение, но в последствие осъзнах колко полезно е, особено когато помоля дамата до мен да ги прибере в малката си дамска чанта. Към аксесоарите има малка чантичка, за по-добрата им защите при пренасяне.

IMG_9144

Освен дизайна, хората от Jabra не са забравили и функционалността. Регулирането силата на звука става лесно чрез докосване на дясната част на слушалките. От същото място с бързо двукратно докосване става и сменянето на песните. При натискане на бутона в центъра пък може да се паузира и стартира музиката, както и да се приемат обаждания, когато слушалките са свързани с телефона. Тук ще отбележа и вградения микрофон, който имат и възможността им за ползване за разговори. Свързването с телефона от своя страна става мигновенно ако той притежава NFC. Само с допирането на телефона до лявата част на слушалките и вече Bluetooth връзката е направена.

Безжичната връзка работи абсолютно безпроблемнно както с компютъра, така и с телефона ми. Още по хубавото е, че двете устройства могат да бъдат едновременно свързвани към слушалките. До седем метра разстояние от компютра ми нямам абсолютно никакви проблеми и накъсване.

Качеството на звука според мен като нормален потребител е идеално да си слушам mp3/ките и да гледам филми. Тук стигам и до пункта с батерията: Jabra дават до 12 часа постоянно слушане на музика. Бях леко притеснен дали това е достатъчно, но след толкова месеци ползване мога съвсем спокойна да кажа, че притесненията ми са били напразни. Зареждам ги един път седмично, ако не и по-рядко. И хубавато е, че може да се свържат с USB кабел към компютъра без да пречи на ползването им през това време. Освен това има втори порт за 3.5мм кабел, с който също могат да бъдат ползвани ако батерията падне а сте извън дома и слушате музика от телефона.

IMG_9145IMG_9149

Слушалките седят стабилно на главата и леко притискат ушите, но в никакъв случай не чувствам дискомфорт. При рязко навеждане имам чувството, че ще паднат, но явно e само субективно усещане, защото не ми се е случвало нито веднъж. Кожата на самите слушалките е мека, не е мръднала през месеците и няма напуквания по нея. В горната си част рамката, която седи върху главата, е направена мека, за да са удобни слушалките  при продължително носене.

Заключението ми: от Jabra са помислили за всеки един детайл и са направили страхотен продукт.  Мен тези безжични слушалки ме спечелиха със страхотния си дизайн, качествената изработка, добрия звук и голямата функционалност. Ако и на вас слушалките са ви харесали, споделете ги с приятелите си. Може и на вас да ви направят подарък 😉

How to repair broken USB connector on the GoPro Hero3

During my vacation in Greece last month I took my FPV Racer and my GoPro Hero3 camera with me. I mount the GoPro on the front and use it for filming as well for Live-Video-Out for my FatShark goggles (FPV or first person view). Everything was great until I gave the goggles to my young friend Eli, lost control of the quadcopter and got it stuck on one tree. In the process of getting it down I broke the USB connector of the GoPro because of the attached Live-Out cable.

Back at home, I decided to open the camera and repair the USB connector. Opening was pretty easy and done in a few minutes (there are a lot of videos on YouTube how do it). The USB connector was completely detached from the main board and it fell down. Here is how it looked like without it:

_SCF1662_SCF1662 (2)

As you can see on the second picture the signal traces are almost completely broken. So just soldering a new USB connector wont help. I didn’t have the time and the needed skill with the solder iron to repair it, so my father helped me. Thanks dad!

Here are some of his notes and pictures. First get one new USB Mini-B 10pin connector. It is not a normal one, as it has 10pins. You can find these also in some old mobile phones, as my dad have done it.

This is how it should look like and the drawing of the USB Mini connector. The Pins on the front side on above and below. On the back side of the connector these are only below.

GoPro.Hero3.Broken.USBGoPro.Hero3.Broken.USB.Pinout

What are the pins for? Here is the pinout schematics of what he thought:

1 GND (Ground)
2 Audio-Out
3 ID
4 Video-Out
5 DATA +
6 Video-GND
7 DATA –
8 MicIn
9 VCC +
10 MicIn

He achieved to recover some of the traces and replaces the the tiny component on Pin5 and Pin7, which I think is called choke. Please pay attention while soldering the USB connector, that its inner part have plastic, so do not overheat.

_SCF1686 (2)

After all my GoPro is working again (except for the Live-Video as this trace was not repaired). I have already ordered one cheaper camera (Xiaomi Yi) for mounting it on my Quadcopter, so I don’t need the Live-Video-Out anymore. So big big thanks to my dad again! Thank you!

HobbyWing XRotor 10A ESC

Some time ago I looked for small, quality and not expensive ESC for my SG Acro quadcopter and I found the HobbyWing XRotor 10A. Ordered four of these and approximately 2 weeks later they are by me. I don’t have a free acro frame now, to mount them on, so the flight test will be in a few weeks. But as I love to take pictures, here are some of the ESCs:

They came well packaged, but with manual in Chinese. This is actually normal as I ordered the Asia-Version, because it was cheaper. If I wish, I can always download the English manual.

IMG_0049IMG_0050

The ESC is really small: 36.5mm x 16.4mm x 4.1mm. The weight is 6.5g with 2mm connectors already soldered. So it is really easy to connect to my T-Motor MN2206 or MN1804 motors. It is important to know, that the ESC does not have any BEC, so you cant power the flight controller directly from the ESC.

IMG_0045

I decided to remove the heat shrink on one of the ESCs, to check what is inside and as expected, these ESCs are exactly the same as the T-Motor Air 10A. I have already tested one T-Motor Air 10A (compared with one HK BlueSeries 12A flashed with the newest SimonK and comp_pwm enabled) and it performed great. I am not absolutely 100% sure if the XRotor 10A have the same firmware as the T-Motor Air 10A, but it is probably the case.

HobbyWing XRotor 10A:

IMG_0047IMG_0048

IMG_0058

T-Motor Air 10A:

IMG_9854IMG_9855

IMG_0057

Both ESCs are labeled as 2-3S, but I will give it a try on a 4S configuration and see if it will burn. If you already tested these ESCs on your multicopter, I would love to know about your flight experience with them.

Флашка за Андроид и PC/Mac

Наскоро видях една интересна флашка, която мога да използвам с Андроид смартфона ми без нужда от OTG кабел. Не бях чувал фирмата производител, EAGET. Цената за 16GB и възможността да копирам/чета от и към Андроид смартфона ми се стори привлекателна и купих една от Aliexpress. Флашката пристигна за около 2 седмици, което е изненадващо бързо за доставка от Китай.

Флашката е много симпатична и вече замени моята стара 16GB Transcend флашка. Флашката е със стандарт USB 3.0. Успях да я тествам само на моя стар лаптоп, който не поддържа USB 3.0. Поради тази причина не мога да дам данни за скоростта на четене/писане през USB 3.0.

Флашката работи и перфектно с моя HTC One X. Единственото, което трябва да направи е да активирате OTG функционалстта в смартфона. Ето и няколко снимки на опаковката и самата флашка.

 

 

Може да я купите и от тук.

USB flash drive for Android and PC/Mac

Recently I saw one very nice USB flash drive, that I could use with my Android smartphone without using an OTG cable. I have never heard the manufacture, named EAGET. The price for 16GB and the ability to copy/read files to/from any Android smartphone was attractive and I bought one from Aliexpress. The flash drive arrived in about 2 weeks, which is pretty fast for packages from China.

The stick is very nice and already replaced my 16GB Transcend USB flash drive. It is an USB 3.0 flash drive. I only tested it on my old laptop, which does not support USB 3.0. So I cant give you data about reading/writing on USB 3.0.

EAGET 16GB

The flash drive works perfect with my HTC One X too. You just need to enable the OTG functionality on your smartphone. Here are some more photos of the package and the flash drive itself.

IMG_9954IMG_9956IMG_9957IMG_9958

Flash CC3D with Cleanflight using OpenPilot GCS

In one of my previous post, I described how to flash the Cleanflight firmware on the CC3D flight controller and why I prefer the CC3D over Naze32 at the moment. I used my Arduino Nano as FTDI adapter to do this, but Bill posted a video in the comments, how the board can be flashed only through the USB-Port. I have tried it yesterday and will show you, how to do this if you don’t want to watch the video.

First download the OpenPilot GCS 15.02.02 (the newest 15.05 does not support the CC3D board) and install it on your computer. Here is a manual how to install it, if you have some problems with that.

We also need the STM32 Virtual Com Port driver. Download it from the official ST-webpage and install it.

Install the Cleanflight Configurator from the Chrome Web Store and download the latest Cleanflight firmware for the CC3D board. Download the “cleanflight_CC3D.bin” from GitHub.

Open the OpenPilot GCS software, connect the CC3D board through the USB-Port, go to the “Firmware”-Tab and click the “Halt” button.

OpenPilot.GCS.Pic1

Now you can open the downloaded cleanflight_CC3D.bin. Check the “I know what I’m doing!” box and then “Flash” button. That’s it, now you have the Cleanflight firmware on your CC3D board.

Important: To use the board through the UBS-Port, you need to power it with external battery. Then you can connect it to the Cleanflight Configurator.

OpenPilot.GCS.Pic2

If for some reason you want to go back to the OpenPilot firmware, go to this page and follow the exact instructions “How to Upgrade the Bootloader and Erase Settings”.

Thanks to Bill, who told me about the video and to FranzArians for sharing his way to install the firmware!