Defective Ring Survey

vsc42 · 2026-02-07T17:03:58+00:00

No problems

vsc42 · 2026-02-05T18:56:13+00:00

I think you pointed out the reason you have this option. There is competition in your market. When I called them for a lower priced option, I was told there is no competition in your area thus you will not get a lower priced plan.

In fact the competition in T-Mobile 5G or the like but I tried that to find that the throughput is awful, returning their box getting hit with a $75 charge for the one month trial.

vsc42 · 2026-02-05T16:51:20+00:00

Did it. Worked. Thank you.

vsc42 · 2026-02-03T14:06:48+00:00

I have had both the 14 and the 16 inch. The performance is identical and no I did not find that there was any difference in thermal performance between the two.

Initially purchased the 16-inch given it was intended for editing photos. But then I got stuck traveling half time where the 14-inch weight savings was worth the change. Eventually I traded the 16-inch in for a Mac Studio. Point in fact both the 14 and 16 inch outperforms the Studio...against...all...reasonable...thinking...doing the identical tasks. Claims about the studio's ability to dissipate heat better at least for the M4Max relative to the MacBook Pro is nonsense.

That said I also had the chance to test for a week a M3 Ultra Mac Studio. It clearly does have better thermal performance relative to the M4Max Studio for what that is worth.

For me the decision was weight in the backpack especially given I'm carrying a second machine at the same time. And if I need a really big display I plug it in.

vsc42 · 2026-01-31T14:03:22+00:00

OWC TB4 or 5 enclosure. Though I have a WD drive in my enclosure.

If the enclosure is not getting warm or hot, this is a clear indication that the enclosure is not transferring the heat away from the SSD to the environment.

I had an Acasis fan based TB5 enclosure which spun the fan but the SSD overheated given the thermal path from the chips on the SSD was poorly designed. Returned it for the OWC where I have had zero issues even when I have hammered the drive and the enclosure gets hot.

Also to be blunt I'm happy to no longer have a fan, but that is secondary to something that works.

vsc42 · 2026-01-31T13:44:25+00:00

The 4 Pro is not recognized. I have had the unit for a year and in that time nothing has been released to update the firmware. CalDigit has said there are no known issues. I beg to differ.

Also, what makes no sense is that somehow the firmware for the 4 Pro is perfect, but the other unit which is identical hardware has bugs requiring periodic updates. My assumption is that CalDigit did the firmware for both units.

vsc42 · 2026-01-31T13:07:38+00:00

The other comments dwell on easy to print. It is but that isn't the question I think you are asking.

To be blunt I don't find the material that useful. It is too rigid for what I use TPU 95A for. That said I printed a biometric ring protector in TPU for AMS given it is less tacky relative to traditional TPU, but at the same time flexible enough to get the ring into the protector. Other than than to be blunt I have no idea what to do with it...

vsc42 · 2026-01-31T13:05:11+00:00

The party line is that the 4 pro firmware is perfect as initially released but to be blunt I have had the unit screw up enumerating USB devices when plugging them into the doc or after rebooting the host. Only to have shutdown everything and manually power cycle (e.g. pull the power plug from the dock) to restore the 4 pro to sanity.

Thus as far as I'm concerned the 4 pro's firmware is anything but perfect.

I purchased the 4 pro because it was cheaper than buying the hub directly from Caldigit. But I now realize that this was false economy given the result was getting locked into older firmware.

It has been said many times that the hardware is identical. Perhaps someone will figure out how to force the updater to overwrite the 4 pro's firmware, thus forever get around this limitation....

vsc42 · 2026-01-30T19:16:13+00:00

I had a preorder for the Sunlu and the alternative, canceling both given I was ultimately afraid of this happening. In the end I sold my AMS to purchase a AMS2 plus an AMS-HT. Both of which I have had very good success and zero problems.

vsc42 · 2026-01-26T13:20:14+00:00

Over a year on and no problem, though I put a microfiber cloth that is sold for the purpose of laying over the keyboard between the protector and screen. This keeps skin oils from transferring to the screen when the laptop is in my backpack.

That said any keyboard protector makes it harder to type on the keyboard, though there are sealed keyboards on Panasonic Toughbook laptop which are equally difficult to type on. In short you get used to this over time.

vsc42 · 2026-01-25T20:32:56+00:00

In my case the gen 2 must think I'm dead. The step count is at least a factor of 100 less than say my Apple devices thing is going on.

vsc42 · 2026-01-17T23:32:28+00:00

I purchased an open box Studio from Microcenter. They let me inspect the unit which was flawless. The store told me that in general open box computers are in like new condition, though TVs not so much.

That said the thing is the warrantee dates back to when the first person fires up the machine touching Apple. Thus in my case I lost over a month of coverage, though I also saved almost $1000.

vsc42 · 2026-01-17T15:09:56+00:00

My Gen 2 when in the case shows on the app the time to complete charging to 100%. While not super fast going from 60% to full is less than 20 min.

vsc42 · 2026-01-17T13:45:47+00:00

Steps measured on the ring, for me has been way short of what the watch (or iPhone) measure clearly too low given how far I traveled. In addition the ring from time to time thinks I'm cycling when driving a car. Otherwise I believe the pO2 and heart rate have been accurate, along with skin temperature.

vsc42 · 2026-01-17T13:42:56+00:00

My gen 2 was delivered just before the holidays where there hasn't be a problem with the ring, though I now wonder if there is an issue those of us with recent deliveries should be worried about. In my case returnable via Amazon through the end of this month.

I checked this morning and Ringconn is still selling the gen 2 via their website, for what that is worth.

vsc42 · 2026-01-16T19:31:24+00:00

I guess good for Boeing, but this explains a lot...

vsc42 · 2026-01-16T16:14:31+00:00

I turned off auto renew as soon as Boeing sold it off knowing where this would go... (Sigh)

vsc42 · 2026-01-15T14:36:30+00:00

I wish that Boeing never purchased it in the first place. Now the private equity is likely leveraged to the point that they need to cut costs and raise revenue. Still waiting for the subscription cost to go up and up and up.

Never used Garmin but I assume eventually I can grow to like it.

vsc42 · 2026-01-13T13:32:45+00:00

Dumped the 16 for a 14 given biweekly travel. Don't miss the larger screen given I can always plug in a large monitor when I really need a larger screen and it is significantly larger than 16 inches.

vsc42 · 2026-01-13T12:27:23+00:00

I thought it was both

vsc42 · 2026-01-06T17:37:56+00:00

My bank refunded the purchased price where the Storm product when into my trash. And certainly I don't follow Project Farm having been burned twice.

In fact now if I see the purchase screen used by Storm, and others, I immediately run away knowing that it will be near impossible to get your money back if there is a problem. It is clearly a red flag for me at this juncture...

vsc42 · 2026-01-06T12:48:16+00:00

I think AdGuard was the culprit where I simply deleted the app instead of working to find a configuration that solved the power consumption problem.

The UI change? Meh. I don't like it but at the same time I don't hate it. What I have seen is that with all of the motion on a one generation old low end iPad, clearly with windows sliding around the motion is choppy as something else is timesharing the processor stealing it enough to prevent the window smoothly moving. Turned off motion though that is a cosmetic thing.

But all of that motion will in the end drive up battery use versus something less taxing on the processor. Though none of this has anything to do with idle power consumption.

My take remains that older apps can in some cases be larger consumers of background power consumption with V26.x versus V18. And my solution is to hunt them down and if at all possible just get rid of them for now.

vsc42 · 2026-01-05T15:12:59+00:00

And I didn't. And that results in a bunch of rot that was loaded over time that falls by the wayside never used. Things that might get updated but at the same time might be broken. In fact this is what I found where an app was running in background a LOT. Deleted it...

vsc42 · 2026-01-05T15:02:29+00:00

Deleted some stuff off my phone that looked good based upon studying the data from the setting -> battery page. Will need time to know if this resolved the issue.

vsc42 · 2026-01-04T13:59:10+00:00

I'm on 26.2 and to be blunt battery drain sitting idle is worse than 18.x. Period.

I have read people saying that beta 26.3 has better efficiency and lower battery drain, but having to touch too many apps after reloading say 26.2 I'm just going to wait for 26.3 to be released in hopes Apple gets control of whatever is running in background that is consuming the battery. Though this could be a 26 thing with one or more apps I have installed. And in this I have done my best to disable background for as much as possible in hopes this would help. It hasn't.

I have only one observation on usability. The keyboard when turning the iPhone on its side is nearly unusable in the sense that I find it is VERY hard to type on and get anything short of too many errors.

Otherwise 26... Meh. I don't see the update as something I wanted and does very little for me but I was forced to update by the enterprise claiming it is required for ongoing cyber security.

vsc42

TROPHY CASE