Travelling with a powerbank, mid-range noise cancelling earbuds and more calls

The EFTM podcast. Talkback technology. Got a question about tech?

Trev's here to help. Not sure what to buy. Ask Trev.

Australia's number one talkback technology podcast.

I was gobsmacked. I spoke to you on the Tuesday.

Thursday afternoon there's this lovely courier man at me back door with a parcel for me.

All I know is we've been 24 hours mate. You had it sorted after five weeks of hell, raising hell.

Mate I can't thank you enough.

Join the conversation. Head to eftm.com and click Ask Trev.

Hoping Australians would take questions for over 15 years. The EFTM podcast would Trev along.

Real Australians. Real questions. Every week.

You can text Trev now. Thanks to Vodafone on 0477 657 657.

Alright and welcome. Great to have you company.

This week's episode of the EFTM podcast is brought to you by Jackery, the power solution providers.

And that's an ad libbed tagline. I know nothing about them other than they make big, big batteries.

Camping outdoors. They got you covered and they got you covered right here at the EFTM studio because we've had a blackout for the last hour and a bit.

My nose grid says it'll be back sometime.

So I went downstairs and grabbed a Jackery Explorer 1500 Ultra which is body heavy.

It has two normal power points. I'm looking at it right now. Hang on.

Two normal power points. A kind of AC output and multiple USB ports on the front.

As well as a little 12 volt connector as well.

And it's powering this podcast. It's powering my laptop, my phone and the roadcaster and happy days.

We can get through in darkness. No problem at all. Just what we all needed.

So there you go. I'm in the middle of the review of this thing and I've just proven how great it is.

Now do I need one? This big no. So this is overkill for the reason.

But it is a great example to me as to why these products are a great thing to have.

We have one at home, a different brand and it kind of sits at the front of the garage.

We have an area at the front of the garage where I charge all the batteries for the lawn mower, the whipper snipper or the security cameras.

They're all just kind of there. And we have one of these sitting there and I plug it in every now and then to make sure it's topped up.

So that if we have a power outage we can just go right. Let's put this on the table and plug in what we need.

It could be the air fryer, it could be the fridge, whatever we choose.

Of course we've also got the electric car in the driveway which can power a lot of things.

But broadly, one of these things is a great thing to have. Just a little bit of peace of mind.

You know, we just want some light or we just want to keep the food from going off.

Let's just plug the fridge in and put it on eco mode and don't open it still but keep the stuff going.

Especially if it's going to be a long outage.

But for me, I knew this, look we have power outages now and then, I knew this would be an hour or two.

So I thought I'm not going to wait and delay my day.

So what about that? I'm able to do my job effectively and the same.

You wouldn't notice if I didn't tell you just because of this battery here.

I've seen them at trade shows, CES and the like for years.

And they reached out for this review and they've got other products with huge batteries, smaller batteries.

They've got big solar panel style things. They've got it all happening.

So yeah, really cool products and they look and they feel really well made too and really robust.

I've seen some cheap ones. I've seen some good ones. I know EcoFlow makes some good ones.

But this thing just feels just another level of robustness to it, which I really enjoy.

So thank you to Jackery for being in my review pile at this very moment in time

so that I can make sure the EFTM podcast is happening and ready for you.

We've got a lot of calls to get through today.

So we'll chug on and get straight to them.

Whatever your question, whatever your issues, if you want to be on the show, I'd love to hear from you.

Get in touch 0477657657 or send me an email via the website EFTM.com

or click Ask Trev in the EFTM app and we'll get you on the show.

Let's get on with the show.

Helping Australians with tech questions for over 15 years.

The EFTM podcast will travel on.

Great company, happy to help wherever I can.

Whether you've got a tech question or you want to go buying something new

and you need some advice, happy to be your secret shopper anytime you want.

Just send me a text 0477657657 or go to the EFTM app and click Ask Trev or online.

EFTM.com, Andrew's on the line.

Good morning, Trev. How are you doing?

Yeah, really good. What can I do for you, mate?

I've got a question about the telco plans that are out at the moment.

Ubiquiti recently released a device that you can add to your network

that acts as a backup 5G connection to your home NBN.

And it uses the, it's a new 5G red cap technology.

And from what I understand red cap is reduced capability

so it doesn't use the full 5G bandwidth.

But are there any telcos offering plans that use this technology in an affordable way?

Because you don't want to pay full price, you just want it as a backup

so you don't want to pay a lot of money for this plan.

Yeah, because there's no point buying the hardware if there's no plan to go with it, I suppose.

Yeah, that's a funny one because I've definitely heard of it, briefly mentioned

but I've never heard anyone talk about plans for it.

Now, Optus, for example, were talking about this a couple of years ago

having a trialed red cap on their network.

So we know they're thinking about it and they're working on it.

But my problem is I bet you any money, and this is, you know, I could be completely wrong

but I bet you they're working on it for themselves.

So, for example, Telstra offer an NBN modem that has 5G backup

that's probably programmed with red cap and we don't even know it, right?

Because you don't pay the extra for the SIM, you're not paying for a plan, you don't care, it just works.

Optus, likewise, have probably done something similar for their own backup and redundant situations.

I'm not aware of any actual, shall we call them, red cap plans, if you want to put it that way.

So you are essentially left with the idea of literally just having a normal plan and paying for it.

So you're not getting any of the advantage of the red cap capable technology, which is a pain in the bum.

Yeah, because you're already paying for your NBN, we appreciate the NBN is going to have minor outages

and you just, especially if you work from home like I do, you just want that extra coverage.

So when there is an outage, it doesn't mess up your day for a couple of hours while you're trying to get everything back online.

And I think the problem is, any talk I would say, no, no, it's fine, our network is red cap compatible.

So if you put a SIM card in, it will work, right?

But you've got to pay a normal rate, you've got to buy a normal SIM, you've got to have that sitting there waiting to go.

Now, what I personally would look at it and go, I would just buy, I'd look at whatever networks I have

and hopefully you've got Vodafone out, just in addition to Telstra.

But like if I, I think about my, like I'm paying for so many mobile plans.

Honestly, I've got them, you know, the whole family and then there's, I've got one on each dash cam.

I've got a portable broadband.

I've got the phone that I'm calling on now, like a lot and I can do with one less.

But I would, I'd be looking for like a 12 month plan with Kogan mobile to put in there because the problem is

if you go anything that's essentially pay as you go, you're going to pay huge.

Like if your power's out, like my power's out right now as we talk.

So essentially my NBN is down.

Now, if I had power to my Wi-Fi, let's say you had your ubiquity running on a backup power,

you, you'd be drawing on that, that pay as you go plan and you could be using huge amounts of data.

And that's a challenge with any lower end plan is they might not have enough data to cope with even a two hour outage of your system.

Yes.

So in the end, I think the answer to your question is no, we're not, we're not equipped yet for this level kind of telco backup.

Maybe because the telcos have got exclusivity over their own networks.

They don't need to sell red cap plans to anyone else because if you want a 5G backup, you go with Telstra is what they would think,

you know, get their modem.

It does it.

So yeah, whereas I'm assuming you've got a ubiquity network throughout the place.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And that gives you, what's the power of that for you?

Is it just the technical capabilities of it or is it its range?

What, why do you, why did you choose these very strong networks from what I've seen and you used?

Because it's the flexibility.

I'm in a rental house which had, which has ethernet throughout the house.

So rather than, rather than by a system where I'm, I sort of, I'm limited by the device, the devices.

I'm able to work out where exactly to put each access point to give all the right coverage through the house.

I work in the office and it gives me the ability then to put like, you know, a switch in the office for all the office computers so I can work comfortably.

So it's just that flexibility to make a tailored solution rather than just one off the shelf.

Yeah.

Well, sounds like a great solution, but there's no backup plan for you other than to say, if you wanted to put that 5G in,

I'd go and get like a boost mobile or a Kogan SIM for 12 months because how many times do you think you're going to use it?

Like how many times has your MBN gone down?

Probably once a month.

Really?

Two hours.

Yeah.

I'm at Mount Kohler.

So on what technology?

HFC?

Yeah.

HFC.

Yes.

Have you logged a fault?

Yes.

Yeah.

And you get, I'm with IINET and they give me the text message.

Yes.

We were aware.

NBN has told us there's an outage, blah, blah, blah.

So it's all fully tracked.

But yeah, I'll regularly lose it for a couple of hours once a month.

Dude, I don't think that's acceptable because I was going to say, you know, a couple of times a year.

I just accepted that was normal, but I don't think it is.

No, I genuinely don't think it is.

What I would like you to do, text producer Rob back and get my email address and send me an email with anything you can,

if you can document a couple of months worth of, you know, outages and your address.

I'll ask the NBN whether they can investigate because it could be that there's,

and we've had some issues with HFC.

We had another listener a while ago who actually got back in touch with him this week.

He'd taken it to the minister, which was fair.

It could be that there's an issue with one of the splitter boxes,

because, you know, HFC is a brilliant technology until it's either overcapacity

or there's noise on the network and things like that.

It's very simple little things that can put it out, as well as a tree coming down,

because your HFC is over the power lines, right?

So you forgive, like I live in a leafy area, you know, not too far from you.

And if a tree, if it's a windy day or big storms, we just expect this.

We expect something's going to go down, power and everything.

But on the regular, I don't think that's acceptable, mate.

So at the very least, I think we should find out from the NBN whether they think it's acceptable.

Okay.

So get me a little rundown of when it happens and what why and it is said,

and let's go from there.

Okay, we'll do.

All right, buddy, good luck.

All right, thanks, Trev.

Thanks, buddy, no worries.

Yeah, it's a strange one.

So, yeah, firstly, on Redcap, it's a fascinating, very nerdy technology,

but I don't think you're going to get any luck.

But if anyone knows any different, please let me know.

But yeah, I don't, I don't think an outage a month is acceptable.

So I don't know, am I wrong?

I just, yeah, I'd be, I'd be hearing from my kids if that was happening.

But maybe it's also more visible because he's at home and you notice those things

if they're happening during the day.

I don't know.

But certainly any scheduled outages shouldn't be that often.

And network outages should be looked into.

This is the EFTM podcast.

Great to have you company.

Get in touch anytime you want.

Laurie's on the line today, Laurie.

Hi, good morning.

We spoke a few weeks ago.

You're looking at laptop options.

I think your battery on your laptop was not great.

Where are you at?

What have you done?

Well, I have now managed to buy one.

The same brand that you recommended.

And I have now got it sitting in my bedroom.

I haven't opened it till now, but I am going to do so.

So tell me, what did you get?

I got the ASUS ZenBook A14.

Nice.

And it looked really lovely because they had a model on display looking at it.

And I really was taken up.

I thought, no, I'll get it.

It doesn't matter if it's quite good.

That's good.

An arm and a leg.

I'll just get it.

It lasts me probably till the time I pass away.

I'll stop it.

Stop it.

No, it's a great laptop.

I really, really think that's a great laptop.

You'll love it.

It's an investment, but you'll enjoy that a lot.

So you haven't set it up yet?

No, I haven't.

My nephew is a little bit of a tech.

What would you say?

A tech savvy person.

He said to me he was quite happy to come and help me set it up and

transform my data across.

Got to love the nerdy nephew.

That's what we want.

Yes, yes.

What's the exchange rate on that, Laurie?

What's your go-to scones, cakes?

What are you making?

No, no, no, no, no.

I give him cash.

I always give him cash.

Listen, I can speak on behalf of all the nerdy nephews.

A hot scone would be wonderful.

You know, just make a meal.

Well, he's a bit fussy with what people give him to eat.

So he likes his own cooking.

His mother makes him.

So I leave it at that.

But no, look, I'm sure he'll do pretty well on getting the data transferred.

You know, Trevor, he worked for Microsoft.

Oh, well.

Yeah.

And to be quite honest with you, he went into TAFE to do some course

which Microsoft had sent him there to sort of acquaint himself with different,

I don't know, matters that they were wanting him to learn.

And when he was there, the lecturer said to him,

who asked you to come and do this course?

He said, Microsoft.

And he said to him, you shouldn't be in this course.

So my nephew said to him, what do you think I should be doing then?

He said, you should be doing electronics.

Because look at the marks you have scored at your HSC.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

So he had to change over.

But, you know, he was quite upset.

He had to change over.

His mom said to him, why don't you do what the lecturer is advising you?

You didn't take my advice when I advised you at HSC.

You did what you wanted.

You were better off listening to your lecturer.

So he's now gone into electronics.

Oh, good on you.

He's doing very well.

Very well.

That's lovely.

Well, hopefully he gets that all set up for you nice.

It's a beautiful laptop.

It'll give you many happy years of service.

I'm sure it will, Trevor.

Thank you.

And Trevor, the other thing is about the 365.

The windows, I know it is a bit expensive.

I was going to buy the personal product, which is for use on one laptop by one person, I

guess.

It's a bit expensive.

It's about 300 and something plus dollars.

Is that a one-off?

Yes, it's a one-off.

I was quite sort of staggered when he told me the price.

Anyway, he said there is a 12-month fee of, if you buy the other product, it's for 12

months, and it's about a hundred and something dollars.

So he says you can use that.

I didn't know you could still do Microsoft as a one-off.

Honestly, if you can, I would do that because why would you pay $100 a year when you could

be using that for five years?

Yeah, that's what I told him.

He said it'll last you for 10 years, but then every year you will get a reminder and you

don't have to renew.

I said, what do you mean I don't have to renew?

I'm not going to get all my updates if I don't renew.

And I said cost-wise it is going to work out more in the long term.

I would rather buy the one-off.

He says yes, you can buy the one-off.

Just shop around and look for the best deal as to who is giving you a better price for

that product.

I honestly had no idea you could still just buy Office outright.

I thought it was an entirely subscription product.

So there you go.

It is a subscription, but you can buy the one-off if you wanted to.

I'm looking online now on the Australian website, Office Home 2024, one-time purchase for one

PC, classic 2024 versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, $219 from Microsoft themselves.

Oh, really?

Okay.

So just get your nerdy nephew to install that for you.

He'll just download it online.

You don't need to go anywhere.

Can I buy it online from Microsoft?

Yes, you can just go to the Microsoft website.

I just searched for, I searched on Google for, can you buy Office outright?

And I scrolled down past all of the other results and I found a link to Microsoft which says buy

Office Home 2024.

Buy Office Home 2024.

Make sure you're on the Microsoft website.

Yeah.

And then yeah, it'll tell you there what it is.

Click buy now and you're good to go.

Okay, excellent.

So maybe I'll, because I was, I bought the product from, what's its place, Officeworks.

And the only reason I went there was because I have fly buy points.

So I used some of my fly buy points.

So it didn't cost me all that much.

It just cost me a little over $1,100.

So yeah, so I thought I'll use my points.

And that's when the guy said to me over there that, you know, you can buy it from us, but they were pretty

expensive.

$300 and something plus dollars at Officeworks.

Buy it direct from Microsoft.

$290.

Okay.

You can buy it online once that computer's set up.

All right.

Excellent.

All right.

Thanks.

Thanks for having me chatting with you.

Cheers.

Thanks for all your help.

Good luck.

My pleasure.

Thank you.

There you go.

She's got a new laptop.

It's a beautiful laptop.

The Asus ZenBook A14.

I didn't want to dampen her spirits by telling her it's, I think it's an unbelievably good

discount right now.

Fanned a financial year.

So I hope she got a great deal.

But there you go.

That's Laurie with a follow-up from her laptop battery problem a few weeks ago.

Join the conversation.

Head to eftm.com and click Ask Trev.

Great to have you company.

Rosemary's on the line.

Can I have a Rosemary?

Hello, Trevor.

What can I do for you?

I took my phone to a phone shop in Coimbion just to get Google Maps working.

It was already on the phone, but I just couldn't get it to work.

And I didn't realize I looked at the phone and that was working.

But when I got home, all my messages had been deleted.

So I went back to her in the next day because I don't live in town.

Went back to the next day.

And he did work on it for a while, but he didn't get messages back.

He deleted.

There was no pin needed then to get in.

The cover photos removed.

It was just a mess.

You know what he's done?

On the second time, he's done basically a factory reset.

He's wiped the phone.

And yeah, so that's what you've got the second time.

And so you're looking for your lucky text messages and things like that, are you?

Yeah, that's right.

Stuff from family and all that.

I had saved some photos, but I hadn't saved.

Unfortunately, Rosemary, I don't think the news is good.

I know.

I don't suspect there's any backups of it.

Messages are not something that's kept easily in the cloud.

Photos are often stored somewhere, emails sometimes.

But text messages and things like that are rarely stored in backup processes.

And especially if it's been through a format.

Because the format is basically wipe a clean and start again.

And when you put in your, let's say your email address,

did you give me your email address and password to set the phone up?

Yes.

The other thing I want to say to you is, I want you to change your password.

Yep.

Not that I don't trust the lovely person that did try and help after they

clearly stuffed it up, but I want you to change your password

because you should never let your password out of your own site.

He was very unpleasant at the end, unfortunately.

Well, even more reason to please change your password.

And look, I don't want to go full freak out on you,

but as good life admin and a good security update,

now's a good time to change as many passwords as you can.

So first and foremost, your email, because you probably gave him any

password you gave him, change it, right?

Secondly, change your bank password.

You know, change the obvious things that could cause you harm.

Yes.

And I, because I don't want another phone call from you at some point saying

I've lost everything and been scanned at $20,000.

So for your own safety and protection, I think that's the smart thing to do.

And unfortunately, the only learning here is not to go to that guy again

over something as simple as, you know, Google.

Google Maps not working was probably something to do with the GPS

not being configured correctly or turned off or goodness only knows, right?

It probably didn't have location permission, something very, very simple.

It's a simple thing, just a simple thing like that.

And it's caused me a lot of grief.

I can imagine, Rosemary, I can, because it's weird when I saw your message

that, you know, a repair had caused you to lose messages.

Often people go to say an Apple store with an iPhone.

And Apple say, no matter whether you're handing over a broken screen

or a problem with the phone, they say, have you backed it up?

Because you never know what they're going to do to the phone.

Or if they say it's not fixable, we'll give you another one.

You know, who knows, right?

So that's why they say that.

And it's disappointing that you weren't given that advice as well.

But you've learned a lesson, Rosemary, unfortunately.

Have you got all your contacts still though,

like people's phone numbers and things?

My contacts were still there, but there's all the messages gone.

Well, the only hope you've got is if there's little things that you want to

remember or photos or just addresses or whatever.

It's another, let's try and find the upside.

Do you remember the movie, Polyanna?

Oh, gosh, that's a long time ago.

So my beautiful aunt, my wife's auntie, Shell,

who has an intellectual disability.

And she's turned 63 last weekend or the weekend before.

Love's Sound of Music and Polyanna.

We watch it pretty much every three weeks.

And little Polyanna comes to town and, you know,

she's just innocent and all that.

But she has this game called the glad game.

What can we be glad about?

And what I want to do is I want to go,

what can we be glad about here?

Well, you know what?

Well, let's be glad about the fact that you can reach out to people

in your contacts and say, hi, it's Rosemary.

Remember that thing you sent me?

I lost it.

Can you send it to me again?

And do you know what?

A lovely reconnection with people.

Because it's weird when I get a message from a relative

like a cousin or an aunt or someone who I wouldn't

normally talk to regularly, you know,

just rekindles that thing.

And you might send them a little photo of your kids

or something.

So a nice way to reconnect and rekindle a conversation

with someone anyway.

OK, thanks very much.

All right, Rosemary, good luck.

I really appreciate you ring me yet.

Anyway, thank you.

My pleasure, my pleasure.

Good on you.

Thank you.

Poor Rosemary.

I feel bad.

But there's not even anything I can do for her now.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, it's one and done.

It's gone.

Yeah, so very hard to...

Yeah, very hard to fix that one.

Anyway, hopefully she does reconnect with some people.

And maybe there's some joy in that.

Something to be glad about, as Polyanna would say.

You're listening to the EFTM podcast.

You can text Trev now.

Thanks to Vodafone on 0457 657 657.

Great, happy company.

And would love to hear from you.

Whatever your tech question.

If you want to buy something new and you need my advice,

I'm happy to help our secret shop for you.

I'll spend your money for you, no dramas at all.

Or if you've got a problem with something technical

in your world, send me a text 0457 657 657

or click Ask Trev on the EFTM website

or the EFTM app.

Barry's on the line. Good day, Barry.

Good day, Trevor.

Sir, how can I help you?

Well, I'm interested in buying a power bank for my phone,

which I'm going to take overseas with me.

And there is just such a plethora of devices online.

And I'm wondering what you're saying about what size

and what's best.

Do you only need to power your phone

or are you worried about tablets and laptops

and things like that as well?

Try not to take the laptop overseas.

You don't get much for holiday, do you?

But probably that would be useful for use in Australia as well.

So probably a bit of both.

But it's either a laptop or a mobile phone.

Mobile phone's with me all the time.

Laptop, I try and avoid.

Are you planning to or do you think you will travel to China

with a portable battery?

And it's a very important question.

We're talking Europe.

OK, perfect.

Because China has very weird extra regulations on planes

because you would have heard all the rules about planes.

You know, you got to certainly can't put them in your baggage.

You have to carry them with you

and you can't actually use them while you're on the plane.

Very weird set of rules and based in, I don't know what fact.

But anyway, in China, the battery has to have

an extra level of certification on it,

which not a lot of batteries do.

So I literally had to buy special batteries just for that purpose.

Look, it's much easier just to say

a battery for your phone and tablet is pretty easy to buy.

If you do want the laptop down the track,

you need a big bulky one,

not something I would recommend you to get for travel.

So I'd park the laptop thing and worry about that

when you come back if you need portability.

But the thing I would say is,

I think it comes down to how often you think you're going to carry it around

because a big battery can be heavy.

So my mind, 10,000 milliamp hours.

Some of them will just say 10K, but 10,000.

That is going to charge your phone twice.

That's a no-brainer, right?

So that's basically something you could have with you during a day.

And if you felt like things weren't going well on the phone battery,

plug it in and by the end of the couple of hours,

you'll have full battery again.

And you probably won't need to charge that battery every night.

You'll just take it with you where you go.

10,000 milliamp hours is the number.

Very nice, 10K and super portable, very lightweight.

I would carry a 20,000 because I'm the kind of person that's going to go,

oh, I'm nervous. I'm at 50%.

I'm going to plug it in now.

And will I charge this battery tonight and those kind of things?

So the other thing is I would recommend you buy in a major retail,

you know, JB's or Harvey's and go with a reputable brand.

So, you know, you've got safety built in because a little random start-up brand.

I don't know anything about their safety and their fire safety.

So I'd be looking at a Belkin or a Signet.

Aussie company is Signet.

Belkin's a global company.

Very, very reliable, trusty and huge, huge range of designs.

So you can see which one you really want to carry around.

But 10,000 milliamp hours is where I'd want you to be.

So I see that some of them actually have a plug-in device

that's actually attached to the power bank.

But I assume the problem there is that like everywhere else,

depending on where you're travelling,

you may have to use an adapter.

True. So why bother?

So why just don't charge it the normal way?

Correct, correct.

So when I travel, I always have some sort of power brick

that's going to plug into the wall so that at night time,

I'm always just charging on the wall in the hotel.

But I'm the kind of person that's still going to carry a battery with me

in case I use the phone crazy during the day.

But if you don't think you've got a problem during the day in your phone use,

which you're probably not going to have given you on holidays, let's be honest,

then I actually think you're better off just finding a really good power brick solution

that has all the plugs.

So you've got European plugs, British plugs, Australian plugs, US plugs,

if you go there, and then you don't have to worry.

Because don't rely on a hotel having a USB port on the side table.

They're often very, very slow, not great.

So if you get a, again, same brands actually.

There's another brand called 12 South, which is really good.

Has a nice portable charger, portable power brick if you like.

Belkin, Signet, they're all going to have them.

One that's a travel pack that'll get you going in the hotel room.

And then you don't need the battery if you feel like you can get through a day without the battery.

And Trevor, on that point, I think these days, given what phones offer people,

video, photographs, the whole thing, I think we do use it more than simply phone calls.

And so it's those things that I think train the phone

and that I'm trying to avoid being stuck somewhere, seeing a great site,

and not being able to use the phone.

Another tip is going to airplane mode whenever you're not needing,

if you're at, let's say you're in some beautiful European town

and you're going to be out all day, so it's like 6am

and you're probably not going to be back till after dinner.

It's going to be big day. That's going to really challenge your battery.

But if you are on the bus or on a train walking tour

and the phone's in your pocket, put it in airplane mode.

It doesn't need to be connected to the internet.

And because it's on, it's still easy to open it and grab you, take a photo.

Yeah, so you don't need to be connected to the internet to take a photo,

but not being connected to the internet or mobile network connected on Wi-Fi,

being in airplane mode is the best thing your battery can do

because it's not searching for networks.

So if you're on airplane mode for 40% of the day

and the rest of the day you just snap in photos

and then you turn off airplane mode to find out what's happening in the world,

quick scan of the news, text some emails, whatever,

go back on to airplane mode because while the phone's in your pocket,

what does it need to be connecting to the mobile network for at all?

It's great advice and of course you forget it from time to time.

Have you thought about your connectivity?

Do you have a travel, like are you roaming with your travel?

That's the next one.

I actually, I know this is very boring.

I actually think Telstra does a pretty good job.

They do a great job.

It's just a little expensive on the daily rate, that's all.

It's five to ten bucks a day depending on how much data you use.

But you'll be fine because it's, see, I'm the kind of person

that wants to just act like I'm at home when I'm away.

So I'm just using my phone.

I actually use more data when I'm overseas when I'm home.

That's why I'm happy because Vodafone has a,

you basically get your normal limit.

Whereas Telstra gives you a certain amount of data per day.

You won't need to use more than that data

because you're doing your basic things,

sending some photos, sharing some photos, all that stuff.

You'll be totally fine and you'll just get charged by the day for Telstra.

Easy done.

And you're saying Vodafone's got a better deal?

I think Vodafone's a better deal because it's $5 a day to use your local data.

So if I get, let's say I get 40 gigabytes of data per month here in Australia.

When I'm in America or London, I also get 40 gigabytes of data a day.

Whereas Telstra is like a few hundred megabytes.

But you're not going to change telcos just for one or two.

I'm not that insane.

But the next time I'll use my phone, I know what to do.

Where are you going to Europe?

How long are you away for?

About a month.

I might see you in London.

I'll be there in four weeks.

I think it is.

I'm not terrific.

All right.

Buy your beer if I see you in the pub.

All right, Barry.

Good to hear from you, mate.

Thanks, Trevor.

Bye.

Thank you.

There you go.

Look, I didn't want to say it while he was on the line because that would be rude.

But anyone with a good ear would recognize that Barry.

So if you recognize that Barry, you know who I was talking to.

And he's an absolute champion, legend bloke.

And I appreciate him reaching out to me for tech advice.

Tech, cars, lifestyle.

This is the EFTM podcast with Trevor Long.

Thanks for listening, Barry.

That was...

Barry was the previous caller.

Brad's on the line today, Brad.

Hey, man.

How are you doing?

Not really good.

What can I do for you?

Well, probably about four to five years ago, I purchased a NICU Orbi Wi-Fi.

Nice.

I think it was the old RBR850 on your advice.

Yeah.

And it's been working perfectly for the last four or five years, but I can't no longer

get into the interface through the app or through the IP address directly into it.

I have a lot of devices on the network and I actually specify the MAC addresses to a

specific IP address and I can't catch that anymore.

That's very nerdy.

Is that a security thing or why do you like to do that?

I find it actually...

I have less conflicts.

Everything works perfectly when it's got its own dedicated IP.

Yeah, right.

I just have...

Sometimes I just have things that just spool for agents if I don't do that.

I've got about 60...

How many...

I was going to say, how many devices have you got?

About 65, 70, something like that.

How do you do...

How do you set an IP for something like, I don't know, a light bulb or something smart

home-ish?

Is that hard?

No, because I haven't been into it in a while because this has been going on for a while.

Can it connect on its own and then you assign it its own fixed address?

Yeah, so when you see it pop up in the Orbi system, you say that MAC address, I want that

IP address, and whenever it reconnects...

So to be clear, your Wi-Fi is working great, loving life.

It was.

But the thing...

No, no, but you can...

So forget the admin side of things.

Actually, using the internet is still going fine, but you now no longer can access the

backend.

Well, it was until I took some advice on doing a full reset on it, and since I've done that,

all the settings have cleared, and I can't get back into reconfiguring it.

I've got a direct ethernet connection to my other modem.

What comes up on the screen?

Nothing.

It literally just says that site is unavailable.

The app says it won't connect.

I've tried to do a full new reinstall, a new setup, and it just will not connect to it.

And so now you've got no internet, so this is not working at all now?

I've gone back since the last four or five weeks.

I've gone back to the Ionet-provided modem.

Oh, dear Lord.

Yeah, I don't have my mesh.

So is it your thought that the all-be-sensor factory reset is now, like, balked?

Like, it's clearly...

Because if it's...

Like, it's not working at all.

You're not getting any internet, and you can't get into the backend.

No, right.

I'm just...

Because one of the things I see, I assume this might have been it, but it's not,

is I see with all be it's like, you know, it's an unsecure website or something.

I get to get past that and then go in and it'll let you in and that kind of stuff.

Or, mate, I threw away...

Not threw away, but I turned upside down our home internet about three weeks ago

because I was trying to set up a static IP for my son on a computer

to create a Minecraft server, long story short.

And I couldn't get into the backend because I forgot the password.

And so, like, it was a full reset required.

So you've done a full reset and it no longer shows...

Like, are you getting lights on the modem?

Like, is it technically IP like it's working?

It stays with the solid wide light.

I can connect to the Wi-Fi network, but I can't do anything with it.

It's just...

I've got it connected directly from my own provider modem.

So it's emitting a Wi-Fi signal?

Yes.

Under the original Orbi 82 kind of name, one of those things?

Yes.

And the original Wi-Fi password like Ravens123 is working?

Yes.

It connects to it, but I just can't...

I can't...

It's literally bricked itself.

And obviously, with the greatest respect, I'm just going to ask this and make sure,

but you sound already definitely savvy enough.

You're 100% you're trying to IP through to the...

Definitely to your gateway.

Absolutely.

Because the computer or phone I connect to, it tells me my gateway.

So, yeah, just ping the back and say it's signed unavailable or...

All right.

Well, look, I think me trying to coach you is like you trying to coach me, mate,

where you're probably on a higher level of me with that router anyway.

So why don't you text producer Rob back and ask for my email address and then email me

as little as you can, but as much as you can if this makes sense.

So maybe a screenshot of what you do see when you put in the...

When you put in the gateway IP address, screenshot of your computer showing that is the gateway

and showing that it's connecting.

And then just a quick three or four dot points of what happened.

And then let me set it up the chain to Netgear and see if we can get a higher level support

to talk you through it and see whether there's something that can be done to bring that baby back.

I'm sorry.

Yeah, I'd really appreciate that.

No worries, mate.

It's fantastic.

Let's get on it and we'll make that happen this week, all right?

Great.

All right, buddy.

Cheers.

Thanks, Dave.

No worries.

Look, can't guarantee assistance.

It sounds like it's a potentially faulty device now.

Beg's another whole question of warranty and is it covered?

I would argue for the age of it, I think Australian Consumer Law would cover a Wi-Fi router.

I think under seven years, I think a Wi-Fi router should have a good life.

So, yeah, let's see if we can hook him up with some Netgear contact and get him sorted.

Happy to help wherever I can.

Send me a text and we'll get you on the show to try and help with your questions.

Jackie's on the line today, Jackie.

Hi, Trevor.

Now, listen, this is crazy, even family on the podcast.

This is my wife's auntie, Jackie, and here's the funny thing, Jackie.

I'll tell you this about this episode of this podcast.

Only, I don't know, 15 minutes ago, we were talking about your sister.

Oh, yeah.

Because I had the lovely Rosemary from Queen Bionon and she'd basically not been scammed,

but something had happened to a mobile phone from some dodgy mobile phone repair store.

And I said to her, I said, listen, we're going to play the GLAAD game.

She goes, what's the GLAAD game?

I said, listen, my wife's auntie, Shell, loves Pollyanna.

And in Pollyanna.

Oh, God.

And you wouldn't believe.

How do I weave the Pollyanna into this show?

Anyway, Jackie, what can I do for you?

Well, basically, I lost my ear pods.

Oh, what?

Yeah.

And I mean, it was ridiculous.

And as my daughter said to me, well, if you hadn't had Apple, you wouldn't have lost them.

And I thought, well, that's fair enough.

But anyway, basically, I looked for an hour and a half,

and that's when I was so frustrated.

I thought, well, you know, I wanted to Google or figure out what I wanted

because I want noise cancelling.

Yep.

I don't.

Some of the things I didn't say on the text, which I should have,

was that I don't listen to music with some.

I listen to podcasts and books.

And it's while I'm walking around the streets.

So you want little in-ear ones, not ovary?

Yeah, I don't like ovary.

I mean, I know my sister has ovary, but that's another story.

But no.

Have you got a budget in mind?

Well, I didn't want to go hugely.

I mean, some of them.

I mean, God, you're going up to five, 600 bucks.

Yeah.

And I didn't want to go that far.

So I was thinking probably, I'm prepared to go probably up to 300 or whatever.

But I want.

You still rocking a Samsung phone?

No.

I've got an Apple.

Oh, back on iPhone.

Okay.

Yeah, I've had my iPhone for, yeah, well, not this one,

but I've had, I've gone, oh, about 234 years ago.

I mean, wow.

It is hard to argue with AirPods.

Yeah.

We have to be completely frank.

They are simple.

They are easy to use.

Now, let's be clear.

You know, guarantee you're going to find them if you lose them.

That's really critical.

There's no guarantee you're going to find them.

When you have any ones, do you like the ones that have a little silicon tip

that kind of push into your ear or are you okay with ones that really sit

and rest in your ear and you don't find them falling out?

No.

Well, that's the problem.

And I went along to JB.

And the people were fantastic.

They were really good.

There was a girl there.

It was fantastic.

But I said to them, can I have a look at them?

Can I see them?

No.

I can't see them.

So I'm spending this money.

I have no idea where it sits in my ear, whether it's going to be good,

whether it's going to be comfortable.

And this is, it's so frustrating.

But no, I don't know.

I want ones that aren't obtrusive, put it that way, that don't, you know.

Yeah.

And sometimes like when I travel or when I go to people's places

or something like that, I like to listen to them through the radio at night.

So I want them in bed, but that's okay.

I can live with ones because my last ones were very uncomfortable in bed.

But yeah, I don't mind.

I don't, it doesn't worry me.

I would like them to go into my ear though.

I reckon, I reckon then your best bet are JBL.

They have a product called the Live Beam 4.

Now the great thing is that Apple doesn't do, they come in a range of colours.

Oh, how exciting.

But you know what?

Sometimes everyone wearing white earpods, everyone just looks like

they're all wearing Apple earpods.

Whereas these are black, blue, green and beige.

So do your best.

The beige ones might look good because they're not, they don't stand out.

You know, they don't look like they're an earpod poking out of your ear.

But the Live Beam, so that's the critical word Live Beam 4.

Now these are $270.

Yeah, okay.

So I would put them at the kind of top end of your budget.

And are they noise-canceling?

Yes, oh yeah, very much so.

They come with a case that has a screen on it

that you can actually plug into the aeroplane

and so that you can listen to the in-flight video or movie on your existing headphones.

Oh wow.

Very, very cool.

Very cool picture.

Oh yeah, that's the other thing.

It's because, I mean, the ones I had were Pixel Pro,

which was supposed to be noise-canceling, but word.

And I got really frustrated, you know, going on the plane,

and you can't hear anything above the plane, the noise of the plane.

But, and also the other thing was that when I'm walking on the streets,

a big truck goes past and you can't hear anything.

So that's the thing.

I think those ones I've just recommended to you might be like a coming soon.

They're on a pre-order.

Oh right, they're not available yet.

Because it's end of financial year,

JBL's $400 headphones are reduced to $250.

So they're called the JBL Tour Pro 3.

JBL Tour.

Tour as in tour is going on tour.

Tour Pro 3.

And there again, they're push into the ear.

They've got the little silicon tip.

And that's another thing about noise-canceling.

Remember this, noise-canceling isn't all in the technology.

Some of it is just in how snug it fits in your ear.

So make sure that you try the different silicon tips.

So it'll come with like three or four different sizes.

Some people have got bigger ear holes.

Yeah, fair enough.

We're not all made the same.

Correct.

And so find the one that fits you correctly.

Sometimes the app, I think the JBL app does actually do a fit check.

They're very good.

There's a brand also worth looking at called Nothing.

And I legitimately mean that.

Little Harry loves them.

He's got the nothing phone.

He's got the nothing headphones.

Never heard of them.

Yeah, they've got, and they're kind of funky.

Look, they're a nice look.

200 bucks for a set of noise-canceling headphones.

So I think the JBLs will offer you the best noise-canceling for your budget though.

Yeah.

Because they're normally $400 headphones reduced to 250.

Wow.

Pretty good.

Right.

And so you don't recommend the Apple ones at all.

So the reason I asked you about the style is the AirPods 4 with noise-canceling,

which are only $300, they don't have the silicon tip on the end.

Oh, right.

Right.

And so in my ear, yeah, they're fine when I'm sitting here.

But if I go wandering, I can't guarantee that I'm going to fall out.

And if I wear them on a plane, they're definitely,

they've gone by the time I wake up before I've fallen asleep.

Oh, right.

I need something that's stuck in the ear.

So the AirPods, the AirPods that are like that are the AirPods Pro.

And the AirPods Pro, last time I looked, are $429.

Right.

Yeah.

I think Amazon had them on special for $350 or something,

or $359 or something like that.

But still, which I was surprised.

Honestly, for $250, you can do just as good noise-canceling and sound quality-wise with the JBLs.

Okay.

So that's JBL to a Pro 3.

That's it.

Okay, great.

So they've got them at JBL.

Have they?

JBL, you've done it again.

Yep.

Okay.

Right.

Okay, then.

Right here.

Okay.

Well, I hope I've helped some other people as well.

Well, I hope so too.

I'll see you soon.

Okay.

Thanks so much, Trevor.

Bye-bye.

There you go.

That is my wife's Aunt Jackie.

See, I don't even...

You know how sometimes I say,

listen, I get emails all the time and I don't respond to them,

because what would be the point in that, right?

The whole point is, this is how I...

This is my work.

I make this podcast.

Even family have to come on this show.

Even high-profile politicians.

It's been a day, okay?

It's been a day.

The EFTM podcast.

Tech Cars.

Lifestyle.

This is the EFTM podcast with Trevor Long.

Great to have you company.

Frank's on the line today, Frank.

Hello, Trevor.

What can I do for you, mate?

Roborock issue connecting.

To the app.

Oh, no.

What's happened?

Well, well, firstly, it's the Roborock edge

that I got as one of your prizes.

Oh, wow.

It was March.

Awesome.

But it's given me a bit of stress, actually.

Right.

So they taught me through the process.

You've followed the instructions.

You've unboxed it.

You take all the little packaging bits off and everything like that.

You power it up and then you've downloaded the app.

Yeah?

So you've got the app on your phone.

You've got the thing sitting plugged into the wall.

And normally, it's been a while since I've done a Roborock,

but normally it's, you know, you've got to add a device.

You've got to pair a new thing on the app.

And then you press a button on the Roborock

and it kind of starts communicating

and it finds each other and then you set up the process.

Are you stuck there?

That's pretty much it.

Did all that?

Did all that.

So did it find the robot?

Did it see it?

In the app, did it say,

I've found your robot.

Now I need to connect it to Wi-Fi?

Yeah.

It did all that.

Fairly comfortable with it all.

Went through all the process of the 2.4 gigahertz.

And when you press the button on the Roborock,

it flashes blue, which is correct.

But then on the phone, it just continually waits.

Went through that process many, many, many times.

So do you think it's stuck at the point of the Roborock

connecting to your Wi-Fi?

Or is it the process after that?

Well, I'll just take you through a bit further

because I tried on multiple phones

and ended up going to Roborock support by phone.

And they took me through the process

that I'd already done.

And in doing it, I sent them the serial number

to make sure I was connecting to the right device

because it didn't read the QR code on the robot itself.

So I had to do it manually.

Now manually, I thought the unit was the Edge C,

which was what was advertised in the prize.

But on inquiring, they told me it's the Edge.

So I then thought, well, that might be the issue.

I'm connecting to the wrong robot.

Right.

I still had that problem.

Then I contacted Roborock by email,

and that's where they said to me,

I needed proof of purchase, receipt, store name

to get further support.

Yeah, story of my life.

Anyway, I was a bit frustrated after all that.

And I don't know what popped into my head,

but I thought, you know what?

So I tried several phones.

My daughter even came over.

She's very good with solving problems.

She couldn't nut it out.

I had an old Pixel 2 lying in my drawer, eight years old.

Don't know why I thought I'll give that a go.

And lo and behold, it connected.

So I thought, oh, great.

At least I know there's an issue with the later, the newer phones.

I'm using a Pixel 10,

which I thought was going to work anyhow.

So great.

At least that's one step.

So send it off.

It's great from the app,

because you can use all the functions.

Send it off.

Did a vacuum.

Fantastic.

Then I tried doing a mop.

Went off again.

It vacuumed.

It didn't mop.

What's going on here?

I thought I made an error.

So I've gone back.

Tried it all.

Checked it.

I looked down on the phone,

and it says the robot.

There's a connection issue between the robot

and the base station.

So it's not connecting to the base station.

So that's sort of where I'm at at the moment.

So I don't know where to go from there,

because Roborock need further proof.

Well, the good thing is that we've got that proof,

so we can broadcast it.

Yeah, yeah.

Good.

The good news is,

we thought it was an Edge C, did we?

Yeah, it was an Edge C,

which I think the Edge is actually a better model.

I'm going to say, the one you've got is better, right?

It's better, yeah.

Okay, I just want to,

because I was going to blow up a treat there

if they sent you a lesser model, right?

So I mean, I just want to resolve that for a moment.

You ended up getting what is basically there,

top of the line, $3,000 model,

as opposed to the $2,000 model.

Not big differences, just, I don't know,

you know, it's ability to lift off the ground

and things like that are slightly different.

It has a voice system.

There's a few primary things that are better about it,

but bottom line, I've never heard of so many dramas

trying to get a robot vacuum working.

It's normally such a simple process.

So...

But with that connection issue,

it just tells you to clean the sensors on both the robot

and in the base station,

which first of all, that's a bit odd.

It's brand new.

It's spotless clean.

I still wipe them and clean them,

but I still get that error.

Yeah, no, totally.

Look, I think what we do here is we go,

right, let's acknowledge that, you know,

products have problems and people use check and support,

but always the problem with prize you

is you can't prove your purchase.

So let's just bypass that by getting you to email me

at quick dot points, really simple, you know,

what the problem is,

and I don't know that you've got any reference

or record of the previous contact with Roborock,

but if you do have anything, send it,

because what we'll do is we'll go to Roborock and say,

can you escalate this to the top of the pile

and don't ask for proof of purchase,

because he won it and we'll go from there.

So let me get producer Rob to send you my email address

so you can shoot me a note

and we'll get Roborock to reach out to you

and hopefully solve that problem.

Excellent, that's fantastic.

Just one other thing I'd like to say too,

from several years ago,

when I was looking for a phone for my wife

and went by your recommendation,

saved me a lot of time and the phone's been fantastic for her.

It was, I think, a Motorola G84 from memory,

a few years ago now.

Nice phone.

God, your recommendations are great.

Mate, I appreciate that.

It means a lot.

So hopefully we can make you happy with that robot vacuum real soon.

Thanks a lot, Roborock.

All right, buddy, we'll be in touch.

Thank you.

Thank you, Bobo.

No worries at all.

Yeah, never fun when you've got a technical problem,

but it's even worse when it's a freebie.

I had this once with,

I think it was a Samsung fridge,

and this is like a decade ago.

The guy comes to the house and he goes,

you got proof of purchase or what, mate?

No, I don't even know how to begin to tell you this,

but Samsung sent it to me.

OK, it's free.

And people, they just don't believe you,

because why would they?

That's a crazy thing to say.

So yeah, we'll intervene on Frank's behalf

and get him sorted.

Well, that was one for the ages.

My wife's Auntie Jackie.

We talk Pollyanna,

and we had an absolute legend on the show.

Barry.

Now tell me about Barry.

If you haven't worked out how it is,

I feel like I'm going to try and not tell you,

but going back to,

my God, I don't know when it would be,

but it's in the late 2000s.

So would it be 2008 or 2009?

Chris Bowen and I, Chris was still at 2GB.

I would have been an SPS.

We were like, we should do a demo of like a talk show.

So we did.

We sat in the studio and we did a demo.

And Barry at the time had a very important job

and he and I followed each other on Twitter.

So we'd had engagements.

So I reached out and said,

mate, can you be on this fake talk show as a guest

so that we can prove how we interview people?

And we did.

We interviewed him.

And we sent that demo to John Brennan,

who was the program director and he listened to it

and Trevi Borey, Chrissy Borey.

And we ended up doing some shifts over summer

and different things.

So Barry was an integral part of me doing more

than just tech in talk.

And isn't it weird that the full circle moment is,

here he is on my podcast, which is talk and not radio.

So there you go.

Anyway, thank you for listening.

Thank you for downloading.

And we'll do it all again next week here on the EFTM podcast.

Talk to you then, folks.

Lancia Trevi

About this episode

Original notes