Net Work
Alan Winstanley
This month, a warning that multiple global supply chain issues mean that readers should plan ahead
for Christmas. Plus, the unstoppable rise of apps and a handy gadget for visiting remote locations.
A
lthough the Christmas
festivities are still a little way
off, there are some warning
signs that this year’s holiday season
could be different from those
we’ve had before. Apart from the
disruption caused to families by
social distancing, for more than a
year many manufacturing industries
have been in turmoil, caused by the
global lack of semiconductor chips
and a semi-absent ghost workforce
operating on reduced hours, often
due to the need to self-isolate. Factory
layouts and production also had to be
re-configured to cater for a spartan,
socially distanced workforce.
In Britain, the term ‘pingdemic’ was
coined to highlight the disruption
caused when the NHS mobile phone
Pingdemic: the NHS app warns of Covid19 risks and caused chaos among Britain’s
workforce before being tweaked.
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app ‘pinged’ to say that the users must
go into self-isolation, which resulted
in terrible staff shortages that brought
many businesses grinding to a near
halt. The app has since been tweaked
to make it more forgiving.
The upheaval in industry caused
by Covid-19 lockdowns has filtered
through to the front lines and the laws
of unintended consequences have
taken hold. In both retail and industrial sectors, many supply lines have
been starved of essential stocks and
are living hand-to-mouth, with critical parts being in short supply. This
hits just-in-time manufacturing hard.
In early September, Automotive News
reported that Stellantis – the global
group behind car makers PSA (Peugeot Citroen), Vauxhall-Opel, Fiat,
Chrysler, Alfa-Romeo, Lancia, Maserati, Jeep and Dodge – reported that
some of its European factories were
on short-time or stopping altogether,
entirely because of semiconductor
chip shortages. It’s a knock-on effect
from the surge in demand for IT gear,
as more people went WFH (working
from home) during the pandemic that
broke out 18 months ago.
The shipping and freight-forwarding
sectors have also been hit; vessels and
containers are in the wrong place at
the wrong time, making it much harder
to ship goods from Asia to mainland
Europe. Since the vast majority of merchandise is made in China, problems
with stock shortages are storing up in
the supply line and this may affect the
Christmas rush drastically.
Lightweight but bulky items that
take up lots of shipping volume are
also proving more expensive to ship,
which impacts the price and suddenly
makes them uncompetitive. Even timber
is in short supply: garden sheds, once
a traditional haunt of many electronic hobbyists, have risen 50% in price.
Corrugated cartons are in short supply
too, with industry blaming consumers for stockpiling cardboard boxes in
their garages instead of recycling them.
Not to mention, of course, a European
shortage of truck drivers to deliver the
goods anyway, occasionally resulting
in empty shelves in some supermarkets. There will undoubtedly be more
to come before industry supply lines
stabilise again next year. With Christmas in mind, the motto is ‘buy early, or
go without’, or be ready to choose ‘old
stock’ rather than the latest 2022 models.
A dromedarian money saver
Many will be sourcing their needs on
Amazon, but it’s best to ‘tread carefully’ and keep an eye on price variations
rather than jumping in without hesitation. A smart buyer gets a feel for
prices and lead times beforehand: Amazon’s pricing varies substantially at
times, especially for more expensive
items. A Panasonic Hi-Fi sourced by
the author jumped from £229 to £299
and back again: I just checked and it’s
back up at £299 again (out of stock!), a
£70 premium. Fortunately, I’d waited
until it was £229. A Bosch electric
‘lawnraker’ cost anything from £80 to
£145 while another model was £221,
then £115 in the space of a few hours
before rising back to £200. Sometimes
the same product appears multiple
times online, but at different prices,
so it’s sensible to search around for
the best offer, and maybe revisit the
product page a day or two later.
As regular readers will know, I’m a
big fan of the Cameliser price tracker
plug-in which sends alerts when they
drop to a desired level. The Cameliser should be a critical part of any
Amazon shopper’s armoury, so head
over to https://camelcamelcamel.com/
and set up an account if you haven’t
already done so – the savings can be
substantial. Don’t be swayed by ‘recommended retail prices’ either, as
these are totally worthless; improbable
‘discounts off RRP’ feed the greed of
buyers and urge them into snapping
up a ‘bargain’. For example, the Oral B
Genius X twin toothbrush has an ‘RRP’
of £449.99 according to Amazon, but
is actually selling for £175. Seasoned
shoppers will get a feel for true ‘street
prices’ before committing.
Many buyers also take time out to
pore over the glowing product reviews
left by supposedly happy customers.
Practical Electronics | November | 2021
Karcher’s K7 Smart Control app adds more control and monitoring to their top-of-the-range pressure washers.
Starting last year, Britain’s Competition
and Markets Authority (CMA) opened
an investigation into the use of fake
reviews appearing on both Amazon
and Google, being careful not to accuse
them directly of potentially breaching
UK consumer protection laws. There
are entire dark web sectors dedicated
to posting paid-for fake reviews into
product pages. Sometimes they stick
out like a sore thumb: odd linguistics,
a strange non-English choice of words
or near-identical wording paraphrased
under different account names give
us clues as to their authenticity. One
Chinese IP camera vendor had nothing but 5* reviews on its website, all
somehow re-quoted mysteriously from
Amazon, while other Chinese vendors
will offer buyers tempting discounts,
an Amazon voucher or free products
afterwards in return for leaving a
glowing review.
One honest British reviewer slashed
his rating of a Chinese vacuum to one
Bluetooth earbuds have built-in rechargeable
batteries and microphone, and cost around
£20-£30 (Image: Amazon).
Practical Electronics | November | 2021
star after claiming he got an email
from a seller directed to his personal
email address, asking him to remove
his review or change it to 5 stars in exchange for a £40 refund. It does pay to
groom the reviews, at least the more
recent ones, checking for similar ones
or positive ones all posted at around
the same time.
Some reviews are entertaining if not
plain nutty: a buyer of some Covid-19
masks gave a 5* review even though
the masks had not arrived: he’d received nothing but a future promise,
and was ‘happy with the outcome
once I receive my items many thanks
[sic]’. Another 5* review said, ‘Prompt
reply from the seller when item did
not arrive on time, with a detailed explanation and new delivery date. Also
offered discount/refund if not with
me by 30 August. Very satisfied.’ We
will never know if it actually arrived.
There’s a 5* review for spray paint:
‘Cannot review as not used yet, bought
as stocking filler for Xmas,’ while a
4* review of it opines, ‘Seems good,
but I have not used it yet’.
As many of you will know, it’s possible to ‘Ask a Question’ about a product,
which Amazon will then forward to existing customers. This can be a handy
way of gleaning more information, especially when the product description is
woolly or ambiguous. Not every existing customer realises that their answer
will be published online regardless,
though. Comically, one exasperated
buyer of a health monitor replied ‘I
am absolutely fed up with would-be
customers asking me questions about
this product. Do as l did and buy one
if you think you need one and give me
a break please, l cannot be the only
person ever to have purchased this
item. Thank you.’ I’ll leave it there!
More App-lications
Smartphones apps are here to stay
and have gradually become the focus
of many an Internet user’s concentration and lifestyle. As a sign of how
our culture is being further skewed
against civility, it was recently found
that younger users are now so absorbed
with their apps that the sound of a
mobile phone’s ringtone was considered rude, distracting and intrusive:
they use social media instead and pick
and choose what to say and when (and
to whom). Not for them, the intrusive
noise of a phone ringing, or actually
talking to someone in person.
Consumer product manufacturers
have been bitten by the app bug as well:
many Braun electric toothbrushes now
have Bluetooth and apps display your
brushing regimen on a mobile screen,
while the Braun iCheck 7 and some
Omron blood pressure monitors also
capture data onto a mobile phone.
Apps are becoming a common way
of tuning in to streaming radio broadcasts, available with a voice command
to a Google home hub or Amazon Echo:
just ask Alexa to play your favourite
channel. One wonders whether traditional radio-frequency broadcasts will
eventually come under threat. Some
portable radios have NFC (Near Field
Communication) built in to enable the
radio to act as a hands-free Bluetooth
speaker: simply set up an audio stream
on an app on your NFC-enabled phone,
tap the radio with it and audio plays
seamlessly on the radio speaker.
It’s not necessary to spend hundreds on Bluetooth earbuds; some
obscure Chinese-made earbuds offer
remarkable value for under £20 and
are worth a gamble. Their base holder
unit recharges its internal battery, powerbank-style, and allows the earbuds’
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The SPOT Gen4 is a portable messenger
/ SOS pager that summons help via the
Globalstar LEO satellite network. Flexible
tariffs are available for users.
own internal cells to be topped up when on the go. They
may also have an internal microphone for mobile phone
users. Many such earbuds are sold on Amazon or eBay
under obscure brands that come and go overnight.
Other handy gadgets recently sourced online include
a thermocouple with LCD readout and Bluetooth, which
tells me when my oven has reached the desired temperature, ready to put the roast in, or I could measure how
well a roast joint was cooking: search eBay for ‘BBQ thermometer’ – just the thing for a Christmas turkey. Some
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apps are optimised for phones rather than tablets or may
not work with some versions of Bluetooth, and the old
problem still exists of apps becoming incompatible in
the future and rendering the gadget unusable/pointless.
There are plenty of bizarre apps too: Germany’s Karcher pressure washer manufacturer has – you guessed – a
mobile app to accompany its K7 Smart Control pressure
washer. Fine if you don’t mind the risk of getting your
phone drenched or dropped on the concrete while you
wash the car. An unlikely looking YouTube video of the
app in action is at: https://youtu.be/s3l0Ip36qmI
Phone home
The new iPhone 13 is out. One interesting pre-launch
rumour – that ultimately proved to be unfounded – was
that it could incorporate satellite communication technology. The idea was that it could be used where 4G or 5G
telecoms was unavailable, perhaps in emergency situations, sources suggested. It didn’t happen this time – but
maybe the satellite link-up will arrive with iPhone 14!
On a similar theme, but much closer to home (the author’s
anyway), it was reported in July that the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust is supplying SPOT Gen4 satellite GPS messenger
devices to its teams of surveyors carrying out conservation
work on Yorkshire’s beautiful but remote peaty moorlands.
In the event of an emergency in a remote area, the SPOT
Gen4 can transmit an SOS message up to Globalstar’s LEO
satellites with just one button press. This alerts SPOT’s
24/7 worldwide search and rescue service and sends GPS
coordinates to summon help from local emergency services. More details at: https://bit.ly/pe-nov21-sg4
Other news
Hard on the heels of the early UK trials of hydrogen as
a fuel source for heating homes in Spadeadam, Cumbria
(see last month) comes news of a larger trial at the village of Winlaton near Newcastle in northern England. The
village’s 668 homes, church, primary school and several
small businesses are in the first community to receive via
the public network a mix of natural (methane) gas blended with up to 20% hydrogen. The trial started in August
2021 and will last around 10 months.
Project managers HyDeploy reminds us that hydrogen
used to be a major component in ‘town gas’, gas created from coal and used widely throughout Britain before
Practical Electronics | November | 2021
www.poscope.com/epe
Cooking on gas: the town of Winlaton is trialling the use of natural gas blended with up
to 20% hydrogen. (Image: YouTube/HyDeploy)
‘cleaner’ North Sea natural gas was
adopted in the 1960s (see: https://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_gas). Up
to 60% of the gas (by volume) being
used by consumers was hydrogen.
More details available at: https://hydeploy.co.uk/winlaton/
Britain’s Lotus sports car maker
has started work on building a new
research facility for producing new
electric vehicles. Four new models,
including a sports car are promised in
the next five years. As British petrolheads know, Lotus cars are renowned
for going like a ‘bat out of hell’, so it
was with a seemingly straight face
that the location of the new site was
announced as Wuhan, China.
Microsoft has announced the official
launch date for Windows 11. Upgrades
will be released gradually in a rolling
programme, starting on 5 October. In
the September issue I highlighted that
Windows PCs would need a TPM 2.0
(Trusted Platform Module) fitted at
motherboard level before Windows
11 could be installed. Many systems
are already suitable, but it’s best to
consult your motherboard maker’s
website for news about compatibility. More news from Microsoft is at:
https://bit.ly/pe-nov21-w11
Last month, I highlighted the new
UKCA mark that is starting to appear
on goods alongside the CE mark. The
original deadline for implementing
it was 1 January 2022 (see page 13,
October issue) but this deadline has
now been extended to 2023. A lack
of testing capacity has been cited as
the reason. All goods that require
such a conformity mark before going
on sale in the UK will now have an
extra year to meet this requirement,
but the UKCA mark is already starting to appear on equipment alongside
other compliance logos.
See you next month for more news
and updates from Net Work!
The author can be reached at:
alan<at>epemag.net
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microsteps
microsteps
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- Isolated
PoScope Mega1+
PoScope Mega50
Windows 11 – coming soon to a PC near you – but do check for motherboard compatibility.
Practical Electronics | November | 2021
- up to 50MS/s
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Recorder, Logic Analyzer, Protocol
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