wireless

Recently I recorded an entire video for my YouTube channel using only a Rode Wireless GO II lavaliere mic.

I typically spend the time to set up a second mic source—usually my shotgun mic into a separate recorder—but this time I was feeling lazy. I had never had an issue with the wireless lavs in my basement, and the Rode system includes a built-in recorder in the bodypack transmitter so I have backup audio that has saved my bacon a few times when interference did cause cutouts to the camera input.

But because of that overconfidence, I had to reshoot the entire video (I tried removing the RFI using iZotope RX 10, but there were parts where the interference was still too prominent). Lesson learned: always have the backup audio.

During the reshoot, I still relied on the lav for my primary mic, but it still had the interference, even though I set my phone and iPad into airplane mode, and made sure all WiFi devices within about 20' were powered off!

I made the mistake of putting my Wireless Go II mic transmitter in the same pocket as my iPhone for a recent video recording, and as a result, I had a lot of RF interference in the recorded track.

Thinking I could just use the nice feature of the Wireless Go II's built-in recording, I grabbed the track off the body pack itself—but found that it, too, had the RFI sound, meaning the iPhone's interference made it into the mic circuit itself, not just the wireless mic signal to my camera!

I tried Final Cut Pro's built-in voice isolation, and that helped mute the noise between speech, but during speech it was omnipresent.

I also tried accusonus' denoise plugin (RIP after accusonus was bought out by Meta), and it did better, but left the sound feeling 'watery'.

During my most recent hospitalization, besides making a video about the IV pump, I was messing around with a Raspberry Pi 4G LTE router project I could stash in my hospital go-bag (I am hospitalized about 2.5x per year, on average).

After holding onto a dying iPhone 7 for as long as I could, I finally decided to trade it in and upgrade to the now-current iPhone XS early this summer. When I upgraded, I was mainly hoping for a better screen, camera, and battery life. Outside of those three features, I don't care much, as the iPhone 7 met my needs very well.

The XS does well on all three counts, but one new feature (I think in the iPhone 8/X generation) I didn't even remember existed was wireless charging. Qi wireless charging allows devices to be charged inductively, placed on top of a charging mat or pad. The standard has been around for a while, and other devices had it before Apple's iPhones, but I never thought much of it.

Well, a few months ago, someone at Choetech emailed me and asked me if I'd like to try out their T535-S Dual Wireless Qi Charger in exchange for an honest review (which you're now reading). I was about to respond I don't have any devices I could test it with, but then realized my new iPhone would actually do it!

tl;dr: My left AirPod had some hardware issue. I got a new one. Now the AirPods work great.

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The morning Apple's AirPods went up for sale, I was boarding a plane, and had just gotten to my seat on the plane. I knew they'd be in short supply (though I didn't know just how short—my local Apple Store only gets a small batch every week, and they're sold out in hours!), so I quickly ordered a pair, then set my iPhone in airplane mode for takeoff.

These things are awesome... though a little pricey.