Review and tutorial of the PlayZoom kids smartwatch
This thing is surprisingly really loaded with features.
The PlayZoom smartwatch is a kids watch. Although this smartwatch is very inexpensive, I was interested to see how far along smartwatch tech has come on the low end of the price spectrum.
(If you want to skip my short review of this and just get to how to set this thing, see my video below.)
There are two things about this smartwatch I am absolutely certain will annoy many parents.
First, although it comes with the provided USB cable to charge it, it's a USB micro connector and not USB-C. One side is the bigger USB A type and the other USB micro. The thing should have just been USB-C end-to-end.
Second, when you plug this thing in to charge it, nothing happens on the screen until it's about halfway charged. This can lead somebody to believe the watch is totally dead when in fact it isn't. To get a full charge out of it, you have to leave it plugged in to USB for a solid 2 hours, and then you're good.
PlayZoom vs. PlayZoom2
You'll see some of these labeled as PlayZoom and others PlayZoom2. Is there a difference between the two? Yes. Big differences? No. There are some minor menu changes and not much else. However, as I note in the video below, I actually liked the PlayZoom better than the PlayZoom2, as the menus seemed faster and the screen easier to read.
Something I didn't mention in the video that I noticed afterward is that the PlayZoom2 has a quick-release style strap whereas they PlayZoom doesn't. Does that matter? Probably not, because I don't even know where you could get a replacement strap for one of these.
Surprisingly feature-packed
In addition to the PlayZoom and PlayZoom2, I also checked out the Minecraft Interactive Watch that I'll be posting another article on soon. The Minecraft watch is really basic and somewhat disappointing, whereas the PlayZoom/PlayZoom2 is absolutely stuffed with so much more.
In the PlayZoom you get lots of wallpapers, the ability to switch between digital and analog time, more games, more activities, more everything. The tiny pinhole camera even swivels, allowing to take more types of photos and videos.
Potato quality camera, but that's okay
The camera, as expected, is terrible. Photo resolution is 128x128 pixels. I'm not kidding. The frame rate you get from video is really low. I would guess 6fps if not lower.
But as I said, that's okay because at least it has a camera that can actually be used, and yes the photos and videos can be transferred from watch to computer using the provided cable.
Does NOT need an app just to use it
I was fearful that you needed some dumb app just to get the watch working, but was happy to learn that no app is required. The PlayZoom can operate completely out-of-the-box without ever connecting to anything other than its provided cord just to charge the battery. No account to set up, no wireless nonsense, none of that. Take it out of the box, set the time and date if you want, and that's all there is to it.
Some parts are still computery
The camera portion in particular is something I'm certain a kid would never truly figure out how to use because it's not exactly kid-friendly designed. But that doesn't really matter, because what matters more are the little games and activities which are kid-friendly designed.
For the price, you get a lot
I was expecting the PlayZoom to be total crap. It's not. The touchscreen actually works and is responsive, the menu is definitely good enough for little child hands and fingers, and it just works.
What's the biggest drawback? Absolutely not waterproof in the slightest. If the PlayZoom gets wet, I seriously doubt it would survive. If you have a kid who wants a watch really bad that, and you know the watch will get wet, just get a plain Casio F-91W wristwatch. It's not a smartwatch, but it never needs charging (the battery lasts about 7 years), tells the time and most importantly can survive a bath easily.
I made a video showing everything you need to know about setting up a PlayZoom smartwatch. It's long, but as I said, it does have a lot of genuinely good features to it.
Christmas lights laws (and how to stay legal)
Christmas light laws are weird, but they exist. You can stay legal with your outdoor lights as long as you use common sense.
Homeowners get upset when they find out there are actual laws that ban certain types of outdoor Christmas lights. Older folks particularly get mad at this for the reasoning of, "It wasn't a problem before, so why is it a problem now?!"
Good question. I have answers.
Two things that exist today that didn't before
Two very specific light technologies are the reason why certain Christmas lights are banned. Complex animations and LED.
Originally, Christmas lights just lit up and didn't do anything else. Then the blinking Christmas light was introduced. After that, the "chase" animation, either with fixed speed or variable that you could set. After that came everything else with the complex animations. Animations in different directions, color changing, fading, programmable animations and so on.
Complex animations in Christmas lights started appearing like crazy once LED lighting became cheap to manufacture. LED strips are very easy to attach to a programming module, so of course you can go completely nuts with custom animations...
...but LED introduced a new problem. They are much brighter. Combine strings of LED lights together, and the overall light produced by them can actually be a safety hazard when used close to a public street.
Light Trespass
Okay, now we get into the legal stuff.
If you get busted for illegal Christmas lights, the law used will state you committed a light trespass. What that basically means if that if the lights you're using cross beyond the border of your property - especially if they shine on to the street and/or a neighbor's property - that's where the trespass occurs.
Before continuing, keep in mind older outdoor incandescent Christmas lights never had this problem. The lights had a dim but pleasant glow and never shined beyond a few feet of where they were. As for the LED, you can see even the smallest one at night from a significantly greater distance.
Yes, it's true that even tiny LEDs on a lighting strip can cause distracting reflections on the car windshield of somebody driving by your house. That's how bright LEDs are, even in tiny form.
How to stay legal with your outdoor Christmas lights
I'll present this question/answer style to make this as easy as possible.
Do your lights shine beyond the border of your property?
If the answer is yes, you can get busted for light trespass if your neighbor(s) or somebody driving by decides to report you. This is true whether there's a law written for light trespass where you live or not. Should somebody get a bug up their butt and call the cops, you will receive a visit and told to take your lights down.
Do your lights animate in any way?
If your outdoor lights "move" or even just blink, that can serve as a distraction to people driving by your property.
As crazy as this sounds, if for example you have red and blue lights that animate, some people are in fact stupid enough to mistake that as an emergency vehicle, even though your lights are in a tree.
Are your lights any color other than white?
Non-animated white outdoor lights that do not shine beyond your property border are permitted in all 50 US states as far as I know. Using this type of outdoor light (again, provided there are no light trespass issues) is truly the only way to stay 100% legal with your outdoor lighting.
Workarounds?
Again, using some common sense can save you from legal troubles with your outdoor Christmas lights.
Option 1. Don't use LED
Yes, incandescent does use more electricity than LED and there's no denying that. But it goes without saying that the slight extra you pay for the electric bill will be far cheaper than paying a fine for breaking a light trespass law.
Option 2. Use nature to dim the lights (if available)
What this means is that if you have trees and/or shrubs, they can act as natural barriers for light dimming. If for example you place LED string lights into a shrub, the leaves absorb most of the light. When installed that way, you can still see the lights at night easily without any light trespass issues.
Option 3. Install lights low to the ground
This basically means "not at car windshield height" (to be clear: car and not truck). The likelihood of someone reporting you for light trespass decreases if your lights are installed lower to the ground.
Option 4. Redirect the lights
Use fences, gutters, gates, awnings, posts or whatever you have for this lighting strategy. Placing lights so that the light is directed back towards your house instead of outward to the street or a neighbor's property always helps here. You'll still be able to see the lights from the road, but not so much that it would be a light trespass issue.
Option 5. Dimmable LED lights
White dimmable LED outdoor Christmas lights do exist. If you get string lights like this, set them to solid (meaning no animations and no blinking), then set to the lowest illumination setting and you're good to go.
Believe me when I say that even at the lowest illumination setting, you'll still be able to see these things at night very easily.
The easiest option is #1 noted above
Use non-animated incandescent plain white Christmas lights - which by the way do look nice because they look like little stars at night - and you're legal and good.
Casio AW80 and AW81 (with instructions on how to set)
I bought this, sold it, then bought it again - this time for keeps.
The first thing I'll say is that the Casio AW80 watch comes in several flavors. White dial, black dial, resin strap, metal bracelet, nylon strap, different case colors and so on. But no matter how it looks, they all function the same.
The AW81 is functionally the same watch as the AW80. They all use Casio module 2747.
This is the second time I've bought this watch. I sold it originally a while back, but then re-bought it because it's the only ana-digi that has all the functions I want on a cloth strap. Okay, actually that's not true. There is the Timex Expedition T45181 that also has a nylon strap, but I prefer the Casio.
Since nobody has ever documented this properly, I'll instruct how to set time/date and how to use the telememo feature.
How to set the time and date on the Casio AW80
I'm going to describe this so you can set the clock and date in the fastest possible way.
Setting the digital clock
Do this first before anything else.
Long press of top left button activates time setting, starting with seconds.
Short press bottom right button to reset seconds to zero.
Press bottom left button to go to DST (Daylight Savings Time) setting, which will either be ON or OFF.
Press bottom right button to switch DST to ON or OFF, your choice.
Press bottom left button to switch to hour setting.
Use top right button to decrease hour, or bottom right button to increase hour.
Press bottom left to switch to minutes setting.
Use top right button to decrease minute, or bottom right button to increase minute.
Press bottom left button to switch to year setting.
Set year using top/bottom right side buttons.
Press bottom left button to switch to month.
Set month using top/bottom right side buttons.
Press bottom left button to switch to date.
Set date using top/bottom right side buttons.
Press bottom left to return to seconds.
Press top left to exit settings.
Setting the analog clock
Repeatedly press the bottom left button until you see H-S on the digital display, then stop.
Long press the top left button until the digital display starts flashing.
At this point, the analog clock can be set using the bottom right button and ONLY that button. A short press increases the minute hand by 20 seconds. Pressing and holding the bottom right fast-scrolls the time forward.
The easiest way to set the analog clock is by following this example:
If the digital time reads 10:09, you know the next minute is 10:10. Adjust the analog clock to about 10:08 (it will make sense why you do this in a moment). When the digital clock shows the next minute, 10:10 and 0 seconds, you have 20 seconds to set your analog clock exactly to that minute. Adjust your analog clock to 10:10 before 20 seconds have elapsed, and both the digital and analog clocks will be perfectly synchronized.
You will notice that the AW80 doesn't have a seconds hand. You will also notice the AW80 moves the minute hand every 20 seconds (at 0 seconds, 20 seconds, 40 seconds) that follows the digital clock. This is why you have a 20 second window to synchronize both clocks to-the-second.
"Home" screen a.k.a. main timekeeping screen:
Short single press of top left button switches between digital clock and day-month-date display. If your AW80 doesn't do this, you're on the H-S screen and not the home screen. Press the bottom left button and then you're back to the home screen, and your top left button will toggle between clock and day-month-date.
Short single press of bottom right button switches between 12-hour and 24-hour digital clock.
Single press of top right button is the night light, which illuminates for 1.5 seconds.
Creating, editing and deleting telememo records
This is a feature that lets you store up to 30 records and is notoriously difficult when you don't know how to manage records. It is easy once you actually know how to do it.
Each record can contain a name of letters and/or numbers, and a phone number of just numbers.
The first thing you usually see on this screen is TEL F:30. That means Telememo with 30 records available to be written to.
Each record can have a name of 8 letter/number/symbol characters, and a number of 16 number/symbol characters.
Entering a telememo record
The way this works is that you enter the name first, then the number - but you have to use all 8 spaces before getting to the number. This will make sense in a moment.
Press both right side buttons to start a new record so the top of the LCD displays three hyphens (---), then long press the top left button until you see a flashing line. Use the right side buttons to enter the first letter or number, then press the bottom left button to move the cursor right. Use the right side buttons to enter the next letter or number, then press the bottom left button to move the cursor right.
When finished with the name, press the bottom left button repeatedly until the cursor jumps from the right to the left. When this happens, you have reached the end of the name field and are now in the number field. The cursor will be slightly skinnier. Enter the number the same way you did the name.
When finished with the number, press the top left button to save the telememo record.
On the telememo screen, each record can be scrolled through using the bottom right button. You will only see the name of each record and its record index number below that. To view the number (as in the number you entered) for any record, view the record first, then press the top left button to view the number you entered for that record.
Editing a telememo record
View the record you want to edit. Long press the top left button. When the display starts flashing, you can start editing the same way you entered the record originally. When finished, press the top left to save/exit.
Deleting a telememo record
View the record you want to delete. Press the top left button until the digital display starts flashing. Press and hold both right side buttons. CLR will momentarily appear on the display. When the display is blank, release the buttons and the record is deleted. Press top left button to exit. Press bottom right button to examine if there are any other records you want to delete and repeat deletion process if desired.
Where can a telememo feature actually be useful?
This feature is most useful for real-world (meaning not online) things.
A few examples of memos you could use:
The combination to your padlock. If you name the memo PAD or just PL, you know what lock that number combination goes to.
A door with a keypad that requires a PIN for entry. You could name that one DR.
Using it for its intended purpose, storing phone numbers. If you use multiple phones and can't synchronize the contact list between phones for whatever reason, you can use the AW80 instead to retrieve phone numbers.
True, there isn't any way to protect the data in the AW80, however that's only a problem if a) somebody else has your watch, b) they actually know how to use the telememo feature (highly unlikely), and c) also know from your entries what they apply to (also highly unlikely).
In other words, safety of the data within the Casio AW80 is "security through obscurity".
The music store is not as good as you remember it
Some people pine for the days when then were record stores everywhere. They shouldn't, because I remember how it truly used to be.
A documentary that I recommend watching is All Things Must Pass: The Rise and Fall of Tower Records.
Here's what's going to happen when you watch that movie. For the first third of it, you're going to see a whole bunch of Americana, feel happy and might even wish you were there during those early days. The middle third is all about business. All that Americana you saw? Gone. Now it's all about cashing in. Then comes the final third when it all ended. And this is the part of music store history that I remember.
Buying a music CD for any album in the '90s was usually $14.99 + tax unless it was some bargain bin thing. Assuming a 5% sales tax, you spent $15.74 on the low end. If it was a new release, the price jumped to $18.99 ($19.94 with tax included) or even as high as $21.99 ($23.09 with tax included) for a single disc.
If you think that's expensive, the equivalent of that in 2022 dollars is spending between $35.89 and $52.65!
True, you could still buy the cheaper tapes (as in compact cassettes) for a while, but then all the record stores pulled the tapes entirely. In the end, if you wanted to buy that music, you had to spend full whack on that plastic disc.
When MP3 file sharing happened on the internet, yeah it's no wonder everybody flocked to it. Every song you downloaded saved you about $2.25 ($5.13 in 2022 dollars). It didn't even matter if the compressed audio quality of the MP3 was worse than the CD because hey, it was free.
Strawberries was the New England version of Tower Records
Tower Records never had a presence in New England as far as I know. There were a handful of music stores in New England where I grew up, and the one closest to me was Strawberries. That was the place you went to locally in town to buy music.
I remember the last very last CD I bought from Strawberries. Megadeth: Rust In Peace. I don't remember the exact price, but it was a lot just to get the stupid thing. I was mad having to spend as much as I did. In fact, before I went in the store to make my purchase, I sat in the car for a moment and debated whether it was worth even buying. Yeah, I bought it. I could have bought 4 t-shirts instead, and I'm not kidding.
The high price wasn't just a Strawberries thing because any store that sold CDs was jacking up the prices back then.
The '90s music store experience wasn't great
A music store in the '90s was no different than a computer software store. The only difference was the product. And in reality, the software store was better because at least they had bigger boxes with great artwork on a lot of what was sold.
The best way to describe a '90s music store aesthetic is "industrial standard". Take a commercial space, put down some commercial grade carpeting, install a bunch of shelving units and stuff those with CDs, put up a few posters, maybe have some neon signage on the wall, done. Absolutely nothing special or magical about it. A ton of '90s stores all followed this same formula. Zero character.
Anywhere to sit in the store? No, and that means it wasn't a hangout because there was literally nowhere in the store to hang out in.
Any "listening stations"? Yes. You could walk up to a little station, pick up some crappy headphones and listen to what the store gave you to listen to. And half the time the station didn't even work or the headphones were broken.
It's a good thing music stores died
For anybody that wants the music stores to come back, just remember how it ended before. It wasn't pretty. All the music was ridiculously overpriced and the stores were nothing more than examples of '90s soulless corporate retail crap. The few that carried into the 2000s didn't change at all from what they were in the '90s.
Believe me, you do not want to go back to CDs and tapes. Stuff your phone full of tunes or just use a cheap portable MP3 player.
What do those who pine for record stores truly want?
The complete music buying experience from discovery to purchase, which involves more than just the music store. A lot more.
From the '50s to the '70s, the way new music was heard was either on the radio or television. A song was released and promoted through one or both of those platforms. You heard it, wanted a copy, and ran on down to your local record store to buy it. That's how it worked.
From the '80s all the way until the bitter end in the 2000s, music videos (MTV, specifically) was the main way music was sold. Radio was still in there as a promo tool along with television and some movies, but the music video was front and center. You saw the video on television, wanted a copy of that music, went to the music store and bought it.
The music store, in reality, was the final step of the whole experience.
Was it possible to discover music only in the store so you could have the whole discovery-to-purchase experience in just one place? For some years, yes, but not by the time the '90s rolled around.
The old school experience is in discovery
Music stores how they were are gone, but new music discovery is still doable, and easy. All it takes is a few deep dive YouTube searches for original song and/or original song [insert genre here].
While true this isn't the same as going to the music store and thumbing through CDs, you can still feel the magic of finding new music you haven't heard before. Ultimately, it's that which people are chasing after and not the store itself.
...and I returned it
The guitar I bought didn't work out, so it has been returned. And I'll now reveal what it was.
The guitar was a Mitchell MD200. Mitchell is a house brand for Guitar Center and Musician's Friend.
Now before continuing, I read the horror stories some people had with the MD200 upon receiving it.
Mine was no horror story. In fact, there was absolutely nothing wrong with the guitar other than a few design quirks that I'll get into in a moment. "Design quirk" doesn't mean "broken". Again, nothing was wrong with the guitar at all. I just didn't connect with it.
There are 3 design quirks with the MD200.
The neck side pickup height is difficult to adjust. In the way the pickup is mounted, you have to have a long and thin Phillips head screwdriver to get to the two side screws to avoid hitting the pickup or the body cavity.
The pickup select switch has a little weirdness in the middle position. First and third position act as they normally would on most guitars. The middle position is the weird one as it cuts off the neck side volume control, and at that point the bridge side controls the volume for both pickups at once. Whether coil tap is on or not, the middle position always acts that way. When I first discovered this, I thought something in the electronics was broken. Nope. With the middle selected and volume up, I tapped both pickups with a screwdriver as a test, and yes, both pickups were on - but volume was exclusively controlled by the bridge side volume only.
The string length behind the bridge rings a bit when certain chords are played, similar to how a Jazzmaster would.
As for the rest of the guitar, 100% A-OK. I mean that sincerely because I was looking for problems and couldn't find any. Paint was good, tuners smooth, no sharp fret ends, great feeling neck, comfortable player, it was all there...
...except I just couldn't connect with the guitar. The magic just wasn't happening.
I actually do recommend this guitar
For a lot of people, this would work well. I'm not kidding. It's inexpensive, it's totally loaded with genuinely good features, it's light in weight, setup is easy and the thing just works.
I couldn't connect with the MD200 personally, but you might like it.
Remember, I was purposely looking to find problems with this guitar. All I could find was what I detailed above. Just a few quirks and nothing more.
However, I strongly recommend that if you buy this, order it. Most of the horror stores I've read concerning this guitar is from people who bought floor models. You are far better off buying this guitar new-in-box fresh to ensure 50 different kids didn't get their grubby mitts all over it before you touched it.
I am 100% certain the reason my MD200 had no problems (again, just quirks) is because it was box fresh. The likelihood of you getting a good one increases dramatically if you buy it that way.
Alternatives
Said honestly, there is nothing that can match the Mitchell MD200 at its price point considering the features it has.
However, if you want alternatives, there is the Ibanez GRX20 as I said in my last article. There is also the Jackson Dinky JS11, Jackson Dinky JS12 and not much else.
There is the Ibanez GRX70QA if you're willing to spend a little bit more. I tried this guitar. It played very well and it's one of the lowest cost (if not the lowest cost) HSH pickup layout guitars you can get.