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View keep me hangin’ on
The 466x466 screen can hit 600 nits and the 486mAh battery will last up to 15 days between charges. Plugging it in for just 5 mins will add another 2 days to the tally.
I second flappy motion
No feeling touchy? You can use arm gestures to answer or reject calls, bring up the weather forecast, activate NFC for payments or tell your phone to take apicture.
Black on my arms again
The watch comes with a fluororubber strap, but the others are all made of leather. They’re £10 each, so it’s not too costly to add options to your wristy wardrobe.
HOT FIVE #1
SWAP IN THE NAME OF GLOVE
Xiaomi Watch S3
Some people own a whole forearm’s worth of watches and will choose which one to put on based on whether they’re wearing a dinner suit, a diving suit or their birthday suit… but Xiaomi’s Watch S3 saves you the hassle.
When you buy one you have to choose from ablack or silver aluminium alloy case, but the bezel that surrounds the 1.43in AMOLED display is interchangeable, as is the strap, so you can buy extras (prices start at atenner) and pick one to suit your threads. Like the bezel you get in the box, the blue one is made of stainless steel, but the rainbow one is infused with carbon fibre, and the yellow and green ones are both ceramic. Changing it also triggers an exclusive watch face to be displayed, so the whole look changes.
It runs Xiaomi’s HyperOS operating system, which works with both iPhones and Androids; and there’s no shortage of sensors underneath, including dual-band GPS and a 12-channel heart-rate monitor with SpO2. Over 150 sports are supported, including skiing and snowboarding, although it’s probably best not to do those in your birthday suit.
Ashotas…eatingchilliconcarneinawetsuit £130 /mi.com
Clock it, man
Adesign collab with Lupine Lighting, the two red lights at the back sit within the contours of the seat stays, so they remain visible even when you’ve got panniers on.
Tiny glancer
The stem has anew mounting system that holds your phone or bike computer further away from the bars and makes it easier to keep your eyes on the road.
Circle of light
Canyon has mounted a Lupine Nano SL headlight up front, with areworked housing that keeps the cables neat and tidy. There are also controls to change the beam setting.
HOT FIVE #2
CANYON: FEEL THE SHOVE TONIGHT Canyon Grizl:ON CF Trail
While the good people of the Netherlands ride serenely to work down purpose-built, tulip-lined cycle lanes, commuting by bike in the UK is more of an extreme sport. Whether it’s dodging phone-hypnotised pedestrians, running the gauntlet of Deliveroo scooters or going off-road to avoid any altercations with enraged Uber drivers, you’re going to need amachine that’s up to the task.
Canyon’s latest e-bike looks like exactly that: adependable daily rider that’s just as happy when the Tarmac turns to dirt. Housed within the carbon frame is aBosch SX motor that produces 55Nm of torque, so whether you need help getting off the line at the lights or making it up amuddy hill in the rain, there’s plenty of power behind the pedals. Rock Shox Rudy Ultimate XPLR suspension also means it’ll cope with holes of both pot and rabbit varieties.
The 400Wh battery has arange of up to 100km, although you can add a 250Wh extender if you’ve got aparticularly epic commute, and the built-in lights will stay on for 2hrs after you’ve used up all the pedal-assisting power in the tank. It’s pretty much ready for anything.
As hot as… 15.5kg of takeaway vindaloo £7649 / canyon.com
HOT FIVE #3
STRAWBERRY FEELS FOREVER
Fujifilm Instax Mini 99
Most cameras are very careful about letting light in. Except for the moment when you hit the shutter button it’s like an exclusive club inside that chassis, and light’s name is very much not on the guestlist –unless the snapper in question is Fujifilm’s Instax Mini 99.
This compact instant cam has LEDs inside that can tint your shots with Faded Green, Warm Tone, Light Blue, Soft Magenta or Sepia hues, plus arandomised Light Leak mode to mimic the look of those cheapo ’70s cameras that hipsters love (see p23 for areal one, hipsters).
Twisting the lens barrel turns it on and off, and allows you to choose between three focal lengths: 3m and above, 3m-0.6m, and 0.6-0.3m. There are multiple shooting modes, including Sports for freezing fast-moving subjects, Bulb for night scenes and light trails, and Double Exposure for, well, that. Adial on top also allows you to control the brightness, so there’s some scope for tweakery without going into full manual camera geek territory. Because that’s not aclub that everybody wants to join.
As hot as… a close-up of the sun with an added Warm Tone tint £175 /instax.com
Glass sunny’un
With its 500 nits of peak brightness, 402x256 resolution and a 60Hz refresh rate, the 1.57in screen isn’t going to worry an Apple Watch, but it’s good for the price.
A hard day’s light
The Band 9 weighs just 16.3g and is waterproof down to 50m, so you can easily wear it all day. It comes in purple, blue or black, with plenty of faces to choose from.
I want to hold your handset
The band is compatible with both Android and iOS, but find-your-phone and music playback will only work with the former, and the remote shutter is just for Honor phones.
HOT FIVE #4
SGT PEPPER’S MULTI-SMARTS CLUB BAND
Honor Band 9
It wasn’t all that long ago that a £50 fitness tracker would do nothing more sophisticated than count your steps. You could probably teach adog to do that if you tried hard enough, but you’ll need more than a four-legged furry genius to do what the Honor Band 9 can.
Despite its titchy price it can measure pretty much everything you’d want from a daily wellness bangle, including heart rate, blood oxygen saturation, menstrual cycles and how well you slept. It can also tell you how stressed you are, which may or may not be helped by the brutal truths of its Fitness Age feature.
If that inspires you to get in shape it can track 96 activities (not all at once), though there’s no GPS so you’ll have to train the dog to measure distance for you (or just use your phone like everyone else). The battery lasts up to 14 days, or less with the AMOLED screen’s always-on mode active, and it’ll also show notifications from your phone so Albert Houndstein can text you when it’s time for walkies.
As hot as… a freshly laid dog-egg on a winter’s day £50 /hihonor.com
Sprout of control
You can control the Evo 150 with the big dial on the front or using the StreamMagic app. It works with all the usual wireless sources, and can send hi-res audio to Bluetooth cans.
HOT FIVE #5
DOC ROCKIN’ BEATS Cambridge Audio Evo 150 DeLorean Edition
In Back to the Future II, when Doc Brown picks up Marty McFly in aflying DeLorean and transports him from 1985 to 2015, the world they arrive in is awash with futuristic technology: holographic billboards, auto-adjusting jackets, dog-walking drones and, most famously, the Mattel hoverboard.
This just-add-speakers streaming system might not be as mind-melting as any of those, but listening to Van Halen on one would still blow Marty’s self-lacing shoes off –especially if it happened to be this DeLorean version. Limited to just 1000 units, it comes with two interchangeable pairs of side panels: ablack grille bearing the classic DMC logo, and asilver one with the branding from the upcoming DeLorean Alpha5, for which Cambridge will supply the sound system.
Behind the 6.8in LCD screen you get Wi-Fi and Bluetooth aptX HD, plus aphono stage in case you want to stick to 1985 technology and hook up aturntable. It has 150W per channel to play with, which falls some way short of the 1.21GW needed to get back to the future but is more than enough to drive two sets of speakers.
As hot as… Marty’s flaming tyre tracks £2099 /cambridgeaudio.com