For reference I purchased these on Amazon with my own money. I do have other earbuds I use such as the Anker Soundcore Liberty Neo and Galaxy buds. While these are working well, I always like to try some new brands and see how they compare. The model I am reviewing is the AUKEY “AUKEY-EP-T10(Upgraded)”

FEATURES:

Here are the features I liked when looking at the AUKEY True Wireless earbuds. Along with the really good price. (25 dollars on sale at the time of this writing).

• USB-C charging
• Wireless Charging
• IPX-5 Waterproof
• Touch control
• 7 Hour playtime

What’s in the box.

The Aukey earbuds came in a really nice little box. I was impressed with the packaging. It did not have a cheap feel at all and felt like opening a more expensive set of headphones. What you get in teh box are Spare eartips, Spare ear wings,  a USB C cable and the users manual.

Battery Longevity:

I used them all day at work on multiple conference calls and listening to music. This was constant use and I think they are about right with the 7 hours. I think for me it might have been around 6.5 – 7 hours before they needed to be recharged. For me this was not an issue as this is about the same as my Soundcore Neo’s. I am still in the habit of popping them back into the case for a few minutes between calls. So really these type of earbuds rated for 6 – 7 hours seem to last me all day and I have no issues with how long these last as it was what I expected.

Sound quality

I think these are right on par with my other buds. I feel like it may be a personal preference to choose between them as which one sounds best. The base was a little less pronounced than in my Liberty Neos, and seemed to sound more inline with the Galaxy buds to me. To me an over the ear headset always sounds the best, bit for earbuds I think these sounded pretty good.

Comfort

They feel a little larger than the Anker Liberty Neos and seem to be more shaped like the Galaxy Buds. See the picture below for the size comparison. The Aukey earbuds are comfortable to wear, I used the largest tips to block out the most surrounding noise. I think I am probably on the larger ear size I guess. I am around 5’11 and have a decent size head.

Here is a closeup of the size and shape  of the Aukey Earbuds in relation to Samsung and Ankers earbuds. Again you can see the Aukey Earbuds have a shape that more closely resembles Samsung galaxy buds.

Touch controls.

The Aukey really shined in this department. I really like the touch control and reminded me of the Galaxy buds. I thought this is much better than some earbuds like my Liberty Neo that have a push button.

Charging

USB-C is great! I wish my Anker earbuds had this, and it was a big reason I wanted these. I think this is a huge plus for earbuds in this price range. It also has wireless charging which I have not tried yet. But that’s another great feature you usually do not see in this price range.

Usability

Day in and day out they are working great for me, but I will nitpick a couple items. First is they only connect to one device at a time. This is not just a problem with Aukey, but also my Anker and Galaxy buds.  My over the ear Bluetooth headsets can connect to a couple devices which is nice when wanting to have connected to computer and phone at once. The other is they are a little harder to remove from the case than my Galaxy buds and Anker buds. I think I would have preferred a more traditional flip open case with more room to get my fingers around the buds. But I am able to get them out and they may be more secure in this type of case, so that is probably a personal preference.

PROS vs CONS

Pros:

• Price – Really good rice for these options.
• USB-C and Wireless charging
• Good sound

Cons:

• Only connects to one device at a time
• Could be a little easier to remove from the case.

SUMMARY

I give these earbuds two thumbs up. Mainly for the low price point and having both USB and Wireless charging. Plus they are a comfortable earbud to wear and have a quality feel and sound. I was able to walk a fair distance from my phone and they still maintained Bluetooth contact. I have been a big fan of Anker products, but I feel Aukey has really stepped up with these extra features.

The post AUKEY Earbuds AUKEY-EP-T10(Upgraded) appeared first on MyRandomTechBlog.com.

OLOy company

I did not know much about this new OLOy brand I was seeing lately, so decided to look them up. When looking up OLOy I found they are based out of Hong Kong and the company was established in 2018. Their company website listed that they started selling on Amazon and Newegg in March of 2019. They did have a way to contact them through the website and I saw an RMA form. (Hopefully I will never need to use it.)

Unboxing the OLOy Ram

The ram was well packaged and showed up with no issues. Here is a picture of the front and back of the box.

One of the reasons I ordered this model besides the price, was I wanted RAM that had a low profile. As you can see this ram does have a low profile that would hopefully allow any heat sink I use for my CPU to not be hindered.

The Ram heat spreaders look like they will do a decent job as well.

My system I am installing these into is equipped as follows.

• Motherboard – ASRock B560M Pro4/ac
• CPU – Intel Core i7 10700
• GPU – GTX 1060 6gb
• Power Supply – EVGA 850BQ

The OLOy Ram installed with no issues. And I turned on XMP in my BIOS and was able to get the advertised rate of speed (3200). For the BIOS I am using XMP Profile 1 which shows DDR-4 3200 16-20-20-38 1.35v. I have been using them for almost a month now with no issues at all.  I skipped my memtest as I was anxious to get the new PC up. Although I plan to go back and run it later and update the results here. No issues have popped up with this OLOy ram so I am not sure it is even needed.

Result

All in all, I would say this is a great product for the price. It does not have any fancy RGB’s and I think this model is rather plain looking. But it seems to be a decent RAM for the price so far. I will update this post if I run into any reliability issues. But so far so good. No complaints. My other RGB RAM I am using that has been great so far is T-Force Delta, here is a link to that post HERE.

The post OLOy Ram review ND4U1632161DB1DA appeared first on MyRandomTechBlog.com.

Anker Liberty Neo vs Galaxy Buds

Price

First I want to mention the price. The Upgraded Anker Liberty NEO which I am reviewing seem to run between $32.99 and $45 on Amazon and Newegg. This is much cheaper than the Samsung Galaxy buds which I paid $110 for at Costco.   So that’s a big plus for Anker, but they are missing some features of the Galaxy buds.

Size comparison

Here they are the Anker Liberty Neo vs Galaxy buds side by side in their case. As you can see the case for the Anker Liberty Neo’s are a little wider than the Galaxy Buds. Both cases have a charge indicator. Although I do prefer the 3 LEDs on the Anker Liberty Neo’s as opposed to the single LED on the Samsung Galaxy Buds.

That picture seems to make the Anker case look a lot larger and it doesn’t really feel that noticeable when switching from carrying one or the other for me. The biggest difference for me is the back of the case. Here you can see the charger. the Galaxy buds use a USB-C charger while the Anker Liberty Neo use the older Micro-USB.  For me the Galaxy buds win this as I prefer the USB-C charger, Plus the Galaxy Buds have wireless charging which the Anker does not.

When looking at the buds themselves, The Anker Liberty Neos seem to be a little longer. I found both of them very comfortable and had no issues wearing them all day. But I do think the Anker Liberty Neo stick out of the ear and may be a bit more noticeable.

Push button vs Touch Sensor

Here is a win for the Samsung Galaxy buds. They use a touch sensor for connecting to a call, playing and pausing tracks etc. The Anker Liberty use a push button. The small issue with the anker is you have to actually push the button and it does push the earbud into your ear a little each time. With the samsung you can be a little more gentle. The Samsung also wins for an extra feature in that you can turn the volume up and down from the earbud. With the Anker Liberty Neo you have to use the volume on your phone or device.

Sound Quality

This is a judgement call as they both sound good. My daughter, my son and myself all tried them out swapping back and forth and it ended up being 2 – 1. With the Anker Liberty Neo getting 2 votes and the Samsung the 1. I was one who liked the Anker a little better. They seemed to be very clear and I preferred the Bass on the Anker. This is not to say the Samsung sound bad. I should mention the Samsung does come with an app that give you some basic equalizer type setting changes. So you can play with the settings on the Samsung to adjust them a little.

Microphone

I used both of the Samsung Buds and Anker Liberty multiple times during conference calls with no issues. I had asked the far end how i sound and everyone said good and they both seemed fine. So basically this was a tie.

Bluetooth.

Both the Anker Liberty and Galaxy Buds use the newer Bluetooth 5.0 . They connected easily to both my iPhone 11 and Android phone. (Although with the Apple I did not install the Galaxy App which i did see was available). Take them out of the case and they just show up as available in your Bluetooth menu. They are super easy to set up.

As for Bluetooth distance they both die at the exact same spot when walking away from my phone. I was able to leave my phone upstairs and walk downstairs to the other end of the house when both started breaking up. This would be a tie for me.

Battery Life

The Samsung wins here as they advertise 6 hours of battery life and I was able to get about 7 hours out of them. The Anker advertises 5 hours of battery life and I was able to get a little over 6 hours.  This was not a very scientific method. I just timed using them each on separate days during my work. I pretty much listened to music or was on a conference call, and maybe just a little bit of silence time. The downside is neither gave me 8 hours which is what I really want. Both cases charge the earbuds so I could have popped them back into the case and charged them between calls or when taking a break from music. They both have a fast charge type feature.

Connect to two devices.

I had assumed that I might be able to have the earbuds connected to two devices at once. With both the Anker Liberty Neo and the Samsung galaxy Buds I had to connect to one device at a time. So if I wanted to use them on my laptop I would have to disconnect them on my phone. This is not a hard process, but is annoying. I could leave them paired to both, but not two active connections. With my Bluetooth Over the ear headset I can have it connected to both my Laptop and also my phone at the same time. For a work from home situation this is much more enjoyable then having to swap back and forth. Just something to think about if you are specifically looking for that feature.

Summary:

[Pro’s and Con’s Chart]

So who won the Anker Liberty Neo vs Galaxy Buds Shootout?  The Galaxy Buds sounded great and had some great features, I like the touch sensor on the end of them better than the Anker push button.  I also like that I can use the earbuds to turn the volume up and down on the Galaxy buds. They also have a feature to let in more ambient noise if you use the App. Plus they use USB-C and the case has wireless charging. The Galaxy Buds are a great earbud and I think fairly priced for the extra features.

But the Anker Liberty Neo were also great. They are rated at IPX7 for water which I did not test yet. (I saw the Galaxy listed as IPX2⁴ .) They also appear to be able to get a total of 20 hours of playtime if you include the case charging, while the Galaxy Buds is 6 hours +7hours for the case.  They are also comfortable and had great sound.

The winner? Overall I would say if you factor in the price and do not need the extra features of the Galaxy Buds, then its hard to beat the Anker Liberty Neo and they would win. At $32.99 if you find them on sale they are a great deal. I still like my Galaxy buds and do enjoy some of their features. So you really cant go wrong either way. It just depends how deep your pockets are. If you need the USB-C and the wireless charging I would go with the Galaxy Buds. (I did not test the Wireless charging on the Galaxy buds yet, and will update this once I do. ) 

But If you want to see more on these Anker Liberty Neo earbuds, here is a LINK to a full review I did on them. You can find them on Amazon or Newegg. The ones I reviewed said Upgraded Model in the description. It looks like the previous version had less battery life but the “Upgraded Version” was an improved model with the same name.

The post Anker Liberty Neo vs Galaxy Buds appeared first on MyRandomTechBlog.com.

Anker Soundcore Liberty Neo Unboxing.

Here is what’s included in the box as I unpackaged it.

Basically inside the box you get the instructions, earbuds, charging case, mico-usb cable, earwings and some different sized  earbud tips. It was all packaged well and they came with what appeared to be a full charge.

Anker Soundcore Liberty Neo (upgraded) listed features:

• Graphene drivers
• IPX7 Sweat-resistant Protection
• Ultra compact and lightweight
• 20 hour playtime (5 hours on a single charge)
• Bluetooth 5
• One step pairing

My thoughts on the specs is that they are great for this price point. Particularly the addition of Bluetooth 5 and IPX7 seat resistant. Basically my understanding of IPX7 is that they can actually be submerged in a couple feet of water for up to 30 minutes. (I did not do a dunk test yet but plan to and will update this once done.)  And the fact they use Bluetooth 5 is nice as it should allow longer range and use less power than the previous Bluetooth version, not to mention greater bandwidth.

How they look.

Here they are in the charging case. I really like the fact that the charging case has 3 LEDs on the front to tell you how much of a charge it has.  They light up when you pop open the case. The case also has a nice feeling when you open it. I think they did an amazing job here for the price.

The earbuds themselves look good as well. They have a push button on the end of each where their symbol is that you can press for your typical items like play, pause, answer call, end call reject call, next track and previous track. I do want to mention that I did not see a way to adjust the volume from the buds. The volume needed to be adjusted from the device playing the music.

Sound quality

Sounds can always be subjective so it is a little hard to relay to someone else. But I can say I was really impressed with these earbuds on sound quality. They sounded really clear and not muddled, they also had what I considered to be surprisingly good bass quality. I compared them to a decent set of wired earbuds I usually use and they were really comparable in low and mids, but I felt the base sounded better on these Anker.  When comparing them to a set of Galaxy buds and if I was going on sound alone I probably say the Anker’s sounds a little better for the music I was listening to. This had me really impressed, and that they are available on sale for under 35 bucks seems like a pretty good deal.

Battery Life

Starting with a fresh charge first thing in my workday. I listened to music and attended conf calls and was able to get a little over 6 hours out of them. There were a few pauses with no music or call so I think i should probably deduct a little time, but they seem to definatly hit above that 5 hour mark and closer to 6 for me. Going into this I knew the specs mentioned 5 hours of playtime so I am happy with that. Although it was a little annoying to hear that battery low warning and have to grab a different headset once they died. But they do give you what they advertise with over five hours playtime.

I also saw it advertised that they give you 1 hour playtime for a 10 minute charge. I did not get a chance to test this, but will update once I do.

Real world use.

Comfort

So i have been using these for a couple weeks now. While i do really like them overall, here are a couple issues I have found with them that i wanteed to mention. The fit was great. I had no issues wearing these for the 6 hours until they died on me and needed a recharge. They were very comfortable to wear. The only issue I could find with comfort is when I go to pause my music or answer a call its an actual button you push on the earbud. So in a sense you are pushing the bud further into your ear as you push it. It wasn’t horrible or anything, but just be aware its not a touch sensor like the galaxy buds use.

Dual Device connectivity

The other issue i had with them was using in a work environment. It would not allow me to be connected to both my laptop and my desktop at the same time. Basically I had to chose connectivity to one or the other. For me i like to be able to use my laptop for sounds and i also want to be connected to my phone for incoming calls. So I was stuck toggling back and forth between them. They did stay paired to both devices, but would only connect to one at the time. So I would disconnect from my phone if I wanted to connect to my PC for sound and vice-versa. My over the ear headset does allow two connections at once. That along with the only ~6 hours of battery has me using the over the ear headset most of the time.

But again, that being said, I am VERY happy with these and will be keeping them for working out, running around the house etc. They are super lightweight and feel very good while wearing the long term. But for work I am resorting back to a headset that can pair with two devices at once.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Price
• Sounds Quality
• Fit comfort
• IPX7 rating

Cons

• Case charges with Micro-USB ( I would have preferred USB-C)
• Push button to pause and answer etc.. pushes the earbud into your ear each time you press. Not very comfortable.
• Could not connect to two devices at the same time (Laptop and phone)
• no volume control on earbuds

Summary

I love them. They are comfortable and have great sounds quality. And best of all they will not hurt my pocketbook if I lose one or they break. For the price I am not sure how Anker was able to do it. They also have an 18 month warranty on their Anker and Soundcore headphones per this link here on their website.   Do they have a couple things that could be improved upon? Sure, they could add USB-C charging and make it connect to two devices at once. Once that is available they will pretty much be the bee’s knees as far as I am concerned. But really for the price I have no complaints. As a matter of fact, I have been listening to them as I write this blog entry. I am sure I will get my moneys worth from them and then some.

While your here, you may like this post I did for some cool LED lighting for you room HERE.

The post Anker Soundcore Liberty Neo review appeared first on MyRandomTechBlog.com.

Before I start the NOCTUA NF-S12B review i want to mention this fan is designed for low impedance (Low pressure).  Basically this means they are designed for areas that do not have much pressure resistance. Pressure resistance can come from Dust filters, mesh and cooling a radiator for a water cooled PC, or a heatsink. If you are using a fan to cool a radiator or heatsink, you may want to use a High Static pressure fan and Noctua also makes these and an example would be the NF-P12. They have a different blade design for pushing more air with the increased pressure.

So that being said, I plan to remove my internal dust mesh filter and will use the NOCTUA NF-S12B as a case cooling fan. This should give me low pressure for moving air into the case.

The reason I am trying these out is I want to make my PC as silent as possible. NOCTUA is known for making very silent fans so I decided to give them a shot. Also they now have options besides the old Brown and beige colors that was the standard for Noctua.

NOCTUA NF-S12B review

Here is a closeup of the NOCTURA NF-S12B 120mm fan. I love the new grey color and do not mind having no LED’s. But initially I do see something that will go into my CON list for these fans.

No Bumpers included 🙁

The first downside for me is that they did not include Bumpers / Vibration pads. They now sell these separately (NA-SAVP1) in multiple colors to match your case design. While having the option to pick your color is nice, to me not including them makes the fan seem a little cheap. Otherwise I would have no complaints. I ended up buying a box of 16 Vibration pads and it cost me $6.95 which seems a little spendy for some plastic. Because of this I ended up only using the pads on the side of the fan that touches the case. I think a better option would be for them to include a basic standard color bumper/vibration pad and just charge a buck more.

The test

The version of the FAN I bought was the PWM model. I wanted this so I could have the speed auto adjust by the signal from my Motherboard FAN header. These operate between 400 and 1200rpm which should be very quiet. They are rated at 18.1 dB

I also decided to do a very unscientific test. I am not sure how good this sound meter app is, but thought I would try it out. With the existing fans in my case I was bouncing around what seemed to be an average of ~33-35 dB

So I pulled off the cover to my case and replaced my existing RBG fans with the new NOCTUA NF-S12B fans

Overall I don’t mind the look of them as they will be behind the front cover. I do like this new Grey look better then the old brown colors. It still bugs me a little they do not include the vibration pads.

Now to be honest my PC was not that noisy, But I could here some faint fan noise. When I turned on the PC after installing these I could still here some faint fan noise, but it not from the front of the case anymore. That area was almost completely silent. I could also still feel air movement into the case so they are working great. Now my noise appears to be the back case fan and the stock RYZEN CPU cooler. Here is how it looked on the sound meter. It seemed to stay mainly under 30dB, I would say the average was around 29dB. Again not the best sound meter and a very un-scientific measurement as surrounding noise may have changed slightly.

Conclusion.

PRO’s:

• VERY QUIET!
• The new Grey color is better than the Brown (my opinion)
• Noctua Quality
• Price was reasonable in my opinion (I paid 13.95 each)

CON’s

• Vibration dampers need to be bought separately.
• Vibration dampers cost to much (6.95 for 16)

I am very happy with the outcome of these. But now this did create an issue where I now need to quiet down the CPU cooler,  back case fan and power supply Fan. So I will be buying some more fans and supplies and see if I can get my PC to be almost completely quiet for the majority of my tasks. (Then work on the Video card which only really spools up when gaming). Here is NOCTUAs website if you want to check out there other fans Noctua.at

If you are looking for a RGB fan, here is a link to some that I reviewed that I was really happy with.

The post NOCTUA NF-S12B review appeared first on MyRandomTechBlog.com.

The Miwat LED floodlight size I am reviewing is the 100W model. These are ultra thin LED floodlights that are IP68 rated. I decided to mount mine outside as 100 Watts is a LOT of light output.

Disclaimer: This product was sent to me for free to review. But I did not let that influence my opinion. Also this post is for entertainment purposes only. I am not responsible if you injure yourself or damage your property if you try to install a light yourself. Please hire a professional if you do not know what you are doing. 

Miwat LED Floodlight packaging.

Here is what the packaging looks like. Its shows the dimensions and light color. As you can see in the pictures at the bottom, I thought it was a nice blend of being a natural light and not to white.

Here it is the Miwat LED Floodlight after I unboxed it.  As you can see the 100W model has a LOT of LEDs! Another thing is the one i was sent did not have a plug on the wires and was made to be direct wired. I see them selling them with plugs now as well and for me that would have been a little easier for me to test.

Here is a nice closeup of the front. You can see it has 12 rows of 9 LEDs for a total of 108 LEDs.

Here is a closeup of the back of the light. You can see it has some heatsink type of fins for cooling. You can also see the bracket on the back for mounting. It has the side screws to adjust the bracket and it seemed pretty sturdy.

Testing the light

Now how bright is it. I turned it on in the house and it was crazy bright. Way to bright for me to really use it for anything inside without blinding us. But I guess that’s what a flood light is for (Outside). So I put it outside on our second story deck and aimed it at the ground.  Here you can see it from above temporarily mounted on the deck.

The angle of lighting was also really good. The box said 120 degrees and I would agree with that. Here you can see the side lighting was still very good.

Its really hard to show how bright this thing is in the pictures. But i want to say it is really bright. I would hesitate to get a 100W like this if I had a neighbor directly on the side of my house as it would probably really irritate them when it came on. But for me this is perfect.

Warranty

The Packaging also contained a card that mentioned a 1 Year warranty and 24 hour / 365 day customer support which is really nice. Mine worked right out of the box with no issues so i did not need to contact them.

Summary

I really like the brightness and form factor of this light. I will be adding more lighting now and do my whole backyard. It was amazing to see how much it lit things up at night and will be really useful for when our dogs are in the back, or when it just gets dark early in the winter.  I give this light a big two thumbs up. The only negative I see is that I would have prefered to have a long cord and plug already installed on it, and I see they are selling them that way as well now.

The post Miwat LED Floodlight 100W appeared first on MyRandomTechBlog.com.

What is TV LED Bias lighting you may be wondering? Basically its placing a light behind your TV screen that will glow but not shine directly into your eyes. I find it really nice to have on while watching TV in a dark room.

Disclaimer: This post is for entertainment purposes only. I am not responsible if you damage your equipment or injure yourself. Also this site uses affiliate links. This means I may make a small amount of money at no cost to you if you buy something after clicking a link on this site. 

70 inch TV LED bias lighting

The reason I went with this brand was due to the fact I already had a set of them above my kitchen cabinets. I have had great luck with them as they have been working trouble free with no issues. Plus this had an RF remote, so I do not need to point the remote at a sensor to turn on or off.  They also had a good sticky backing that I could use to attach to the TV easily.

Here is the kit I purchased at Amazon along with some corner connecting clips.

LED BIAS Lighting KIT
LED BIAS Lighting Corner Clips

The price was really good and this came with 2 qty 16 foot LED strips. I knew I would be able to get by with just using a single strip, and I plan to buy another controller in the future for the other strip. ( You can buy the controller and remote separately here )

Now these are really easy to install. Basically the strips plug into the controller (The controller plugs into an AC outlet) and the remote will turn the lights on and off and change the color. One of the things I liked about this kit was it has an RF remote.

Design and layout

Lol, this is my “Design and layout” phase. Just kidding all I did was take a few measurements of the TV and draw it on the box so I knew how long to cut my 3 strips. I wanted to have the lights on the sides and top, not the bottom.

[TIP] I placed mine about 1.5 inches in from the side of the TV. If I was to do it again I would move them in a little further maybe 3 inches.

Now that I had the needed length, I just had to cut them to fit. This is really easy. I just used a pair of scissors and cut along the printed cut lines. You can make a cut about every 4 inches on the marked area like in the pic below.  So you need to plan your fitment around those cutting constraints. I just cut it in the middle of those copper pads.

With my 3 strips cut to the length I needed I came across a little stumbling block. These are coated with a rubber type protective coating. I needed to slice the top of the coating to get to the pads to connect my angle connectors. It was not to hard, but you may save some time by buying some without the rubber coating if you prefer.

It fit right into the connector just fine after removing the rubber type clear coating.

Once I got all of the needed ends stripped and angle connectors installed I plugged them in to make sure they worked.

Now here is an optional step. While it worked fine with just plugging them into the connector, I did not want to risk one of them coming lose from the connector after being stuck on the TV with the sticky tape backing. So I soldered the connections. (I am the type of person who likes an excuse to solder something. I love to justify all my tools 🙂 )

Ok, not my best work, but you get the picture.

Putting them onto the TV was a piece of cake. Just peel the backing off and they stuck right on.  Then plug in the controller and plug it into the power supply. Here is what it looks like.

70 inch tv led bias lighting Summary:

This worked out really well, and I am totally happy with the lights and final result. How could it have been better? I suppose I could have purchased lights that were rated indoor only and did not have the clear coating on it. That would have made connecting the strips to the connector a little easier. Also after sticking them up, I think it would have been a little better to have the strips moved in towards the center of the tv a little more. Maybe 3 – 4 inches from the edge.

But I am just being picky as I am still really happy with the setup. I even have a separate strip leftover to use for my computer or bedroom once I buy another controller. For the price this was much cheaper then buying a kit when I was shopping. Plus most were made for smaller TV’s. The colors you can chose with this RGB lighting is also great. So many choices of color and you can adjust the brightness up and down as well.

If you would like to see how they look in my kitchen on the cabinets you can see that post HERE.

These are the products used in this cheap 70 inch TV bias lighting review.
LED BIAS Lighting KIT
LED BIAS Lighting Corner Clips

The post Cheap 70 inch TV LED BIAS Lighting appeared first on MyRandomTechBlog.com.

DISCLAIMER: This site may earn affiliate commissions from links on this page. 

I just picked up a new LG 70UK 65 70″ UHD TV from Costco the other day. While I am really pleased with the picture when I was watching one of my favorite shows on Netflix (Like The Office) I noticed it made it look like I was watching a soap opera. It was hard to put my finger on what the settings were doing to the picture. The best way to describe it is that it made it look like a Soap Opera. I have had this issue in the past when I bought a Samsung so I started drilling through the LG menu to find the setting to change.

LG 70UK65 Soap Opera fix –

Here is the setting that I needed to turn off to fix it  “TruMotion”

The for reference full model number for my TV is 70UK6570AUB

To turn off the TruMotion setting:

Go into Settings (Gear Icon on Remote)

Then go to the bottom and choose “More settings”

Now your menu is on the left side of your screen. Chose “Picture” then highlight “Picture Mode Settings” and click it. (NOTE: You would need to do this for each picture setting, as it does not appear to be a global change. So do it on the setting you are going to be using. For me this was the standard setting.)

Now scroll down towards the bottom and chose “Picture Options”

Once in the picture options menu you will find lots of features. The one I turned off to fix the Soap Opera issue was TruMotion. Just click on it and chose OFF, then you can back out of the menu.

Here you can see I had it turned off now.

With the TruMotion effect turned off I am finding the LG 70UK65 TV to be a real pleasure to watch. One other setting that in my opinion needed changed on the 70UK65 is “LED Local Dimming”.  This setting change helped to fix the vertical light banding when watching at night or in a dark room that I was seeing. Here is the post I did for more info on that issue here.

I am still fine tuning my settings on the 70UK65 and plan to post them when I am done in case anyone finds them helpful. I realize settings are subjective but still just wanted to share. Some people may like the “TruMotion” settings. But for those that do not I hope you enjoyed my LG 70UK65 Soap Opera fix post.

Also if you are looking for some indirect lighting for your home while watching TV, I just recently reviewed these LED light strips which I am using in my Kitchen. They have turned out to be great for movie night. Here is a link to them if you want to check them out Miheal LED light strings. You can see the review here for them.

Thanks for visiting!

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I am pretty sure this setting change will also fix the LG vertical light banding problem for other models.

I just picked up a new LG 70UK 65 70″ UHD TV from Costco the other day. While I am really pleased with the picture during the daytime, when I turn the TV on at night to watch a movie I had some disappointment with the LG vertical light banding moving around in dark scenes.

This is not a full review of the LG 70UK6570AUB, which I will try to do soon after I have more time with the TV, but I want to quickly share the settings to remove that annoying light banding when watching at night or in a dark room. I am pretty sure this light banding problem is annoying others as well, in the reviews I saw someone mentioned that it can not be fixed. But there are some settings you can use that really help even it out and look better and less distracting.

Keep in mind this is not an OLED TV so you will not get the same black picture quality of an OLED, but I find removing this vertical banding really helped me to more enjoy movies with dark scenes.

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LG Vertical Light banding FIX

Here is what I am going to fix. Its this vertical light banding (Sorry if my terminology is wrong here) you can see in this picture. As you have a bright object on the screen with a black background, the backlit LEDs seem to light up in a vertical pattern up the whole height of the tv. Even if your image is at the very bottom you see the vertical backlight just lighting up for that section from the bottom to the top. As your bright image moves across the screen this vertical lighting also moves back and forth with it.

This is super annoying if you have a lot of movement of a small image on a large black background. I am not sure if this is due to the backlit LEDs not being lit on the edge only, but here is the fix to turn this feature off.

Setting Changes

First open your menu by clicking the ear icon on your remote and scroll to the very bottom on the right and click on “All Settings”

This will open the settings on your left side of your screen.

Go to Picture  -> Picture Mode settings on the menu.  In the example below I am going to change the settings for Standard picture. You can change this for each picture mode individually. ( I think I might fine tune my set up and have one mode for Daytime viewing and one for Night time, but for now I am happy after making the changes below. )

Click on the standard Picture mode setting above to drill down into the “Picture mode Settings” menu. Then scroll down to “Picture Options” which will be towards the every bottom and probably off your screen initially.

Click into “Picture Options” and this will bring you into the picture options menu.

To turn off the LG Vertical light banding I described above scroll down to the “LED Local Dimming” option and turn it OFF.

Once I turned off this feature I no longer saw the LG Vertical light banding. The backlighting is even and stays on. My camera is making the blacks look worse then they really are in this picture, but you can see the back lighting is now even. At this point I did go and adjust the backlight and brightness to make the black a bit blacker. but did not snap a picture after those changes. I have the backlight at 87% right now, and the brightness scaled down to around 80% but still doing some fine tuning for my likes.

SUMMARY

I hope this helped you if you were also looking for a LG vertical light band fix to improve your LG TV image quality. I was not having luck searching the net so decided to do this post after figuring it out.  I am still making adjustments to other settings as well and will post my final settings I end up with in case anyone finds it helpful.

Here is a link to the LG website for the specs and more info on this model. : LINK

This concludes my post for the 70UK65 LG Vertical Light banding fix. If you are looking for some great background lighting for your room for watching TV at night, I just recently reviewed these LED strips and really liked them. You can see my review here if your interested. They put off a nice indirect light in the room for us.

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MIHEAL Led Light strips review.

Here is my review of the Miheal LED Light strips. Just so you are aware, before I received these I was new to LED light strip craze. Spoiler alert : Now I am hooked.

Disclaimer: This post is for entertainment purposes only. This product was supplied to me free of charge. That did not influence the opinion in the review. Also this site uses affiliate links. This means I may make a small amount of money at no cost to you if you buy something after clicking a link on this site.

The Review!

Ok, back to the review of the Miheal LED light strip! I had not heard of this brand of light strips before and was curious when I was doing the unboxing. I have to say I am kinda a RGB nerd with my computers lately and really like having RGB fans and such. So I figured these would be right up my alley.

The unboxing.

This is the link for the Miheal LED light strip I am reviewing.  Here is what is included in the box.

It came with 2 spools of 10M 505o RGB SMD LED light strips (About 16′ 4″ each for us Americans) , A wifi dongle, IR remote, Power supply, Instruction card, 4 pin connector, and some 3M double stick tape.

The strips themselves looked pretty heavy duty, with a nice clear thick coating and a 4 pin connector on the end.

It also had a position marked every so often for cutting the strips in case you need it to shorten the strip.  You can see the cutting marks in this picture and it directs you to cut across the copper pads. Its hard to see in this picture, but there is a really nice thick coating across the strips for protection.

Miheal LED Strip Instructions:

They included a card that had a QR code for the App and for the installation instructions. Personally I like to see stuff like this rather then a booklet everyone will throw away. I used the card to download the instructions via a QR code reader. The card can also be used for downloading the APP, I tested the Android version, but there is also an IOS version.

The initial test

Following the instructions it was really easy to get set up to the wifi and get the light strips plugged in. First thing I did was start using my phone to play around with the colors. You can use the app to have preset colors to come back to and just use your thumb on the color wheel to change the colors.

The app also has this really cool timer feature. You can set it to turn on at a certain time and then turn off at a certain time. This would be great to have it wake you up every morning.

It also has a neat function for setting the color tone to natural colors. My wife really liked this feature. What was funny was at first when I starting talking to her about these I could tell she wasn’t interested at all. But as soon as I pulled them out and started playing with the colors all of a sudden she was interested and started asking where I was going to put them. I could tell she was thinking about putting them in the kitchen. (Spoiler alert). Anyways you can use this to adjust the warmth of the light to make it more natural.

You can also use the included remote to change the colors, which I played around with as well, It had some cool color changing affects also. I wont post all my color changing pictures, but they had some really nice options. Also you can adjust the brightness up or down which was really nice to soften the light.

Rolling out the Miheal LED strips.

I decided to lay these out on the floor to see if any LEDs were not working. (They all were fine, no issues.)  Plus I wanted to actually measure the strips. They were ~ 16 foot 4 inches each.

Basically the way they work is both strips plug into the power/wifi dongle. This means you would want this somewhat in the center. The strips also have a connector on the other end. I decided to daisy chain the strips together to see if they still worked. They do work, but the voltage drop does cause the LEDs to dim as they get to the end if you have the second chain plugged into the end of the first chain.

So I recommend doing it per the instructions and they will look like the picture above. The picture below is the daisy chain in case you were wondering.

It was daisy chained at the far end and one long continuous string this way. You can see they get dimmer toward the end on the left as it gets near you.

Installing the strips.

The back of the strips have a 3M tape applied, but in my case I wanted to move them around a bit until I am sure I know where I want them. But once I am ready to permanently install them, it should be pretty easy to just peel the backing off and stick them where I want. I also see they make little led light strip holders like these that might be helpful if you want something a little heavier duty then tape.

The first place I put them was above some cabinets across from our kitchen. Here is what they looked like. Yes my wife likes Roosters.

After trying that I moved them to the cabinets above the stove in the kitchen. This was really nice as I could plug them into the same outlet as the microwave and the cord was hidden. Here is how they look with a few separate colors.

Summary

These Miheal LED Light strips are a blast. I did end up trying them in the bedroom above our wardrobe and while I really liked it, my wife wanted them in the kitchen. So that’s were they ended up. We use them pretty much every night as it creates a great background light for the room when we are watching TV at night and we don’t get the bad reflection from the normal kitchen lights in the TV.

These are also Alexa enabled, but I did not do any testing of that. But it seems to be a nice plus for those who use Alexa smart home devices.

As for ease of installation it was super easy to just plug them in and get them running. I have not permanently mounted them yet. They are just draped above the cabinets for now. But I plan to go back and do the permanent mount soon. I also see so many adaptors for LED light strips like these to make 90 degree corners.  I am sure it will be easy to mount. But for now I am just happy with how they are laid up on top and are working great.

My wife likes these Miheal LED Light strips so much she just hit me up to buy a set for my brother in law. I guess I mention that because it was kind of nice to see that these were something she enjoys as much as me. Usually with the tech stuff its just all me or my son. (He also wanted to use these in his room 🙂 ) So there may be another set coming soon.

Here is the youtube link if you want to see the video of them : YouTube Video

Here is the Amazon link for them. Miheal LED RGB wifi light strip (Sorry had to remove direct links, but you can still search and find them)

Anyways I hope you enjoyed the post, If you liked these you may want to check out these LED RGB fans that I just reviewed for your PC.

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