February 14th is looming once again, and if you’re not going full sexy or romantic, give the gift of high-tech gadgets — it’s the key to any robot’s heart. And if you are leaning toward a candle-lit dinner and a “discreetly packaged” present, you can always bookmark our latest gift guide for the next major holiday.
Katalyst
The most shocking workout in the world. Literally. Katalyst uses electro muscle stimulation EMS to stimulate your muscles while you are working out. Using EMS to increase muscle growth, flexibility and recovery is the next level of fitness.
Katalyst uses EMS to help you build more strength in less time, without any external weights or wear-and-tear on your body.
EMS isn’t a new technology; physical therapists and athletes have been using it for recovery and to help with coming back from an injury to prevent atrophy.
This isn’t a belt that vibrates your core while you watch Netfilx. Katalyst will leave you tired, satisfied and eager to get to the next day’s work out.
On-screen trainers take you through workouts that generally last about 20 minutes. You don’t need weights, but as you are going through a motion, the EMS kicks in for the duration of the movement and stimulates your muscles.
Don’t be fooled by the no weight thing. Each 20-minute workout is the equivalent of a two-hour work out with weights. You WILL be sore as heck the day after your first workout.
Katalyst activates up to 90% of muscle fibers in each workout — more than 2 times than the conventional methods. It engages every major muscle group simultaneously — even dormant and hard-to-reach areas.
Does it hurt? No. At first, it’s an odd feeling, kind of like, well, being electrocuted. But in a good way. That being said, you are able to control the intensity of the stimulation and the location, so you may want more on your chest and less on your arms.
You also have to put on a special base layer and a vest and shorts that are lined with the electrodes, which have to be wet down before you exercise. There is a learning curve involved in getting it all down, but after a while, it takes about 5 minutes, and you are ready to shock that bod into shape.
At about $2500, Katalyst will take your fitness to the next level all year long.
Courant Mag 2 Magnetic Charging Stand
It’s good looking and works great. How’s that for a 6-word review? Courant has taken the idea of a desktop or bedside charger and added style to the equation. Instead of a bunch of cables or the traditional “hockey puck” charger, Courant mixed design with innovation to create the Mag 2 Charging Stand, a great accessory for iPhone and AirPods users. Magnetically snap on your iPhone 12/13/14 on the charging stand, place your wireless charging AirPods on the base, and you’re all set.
More than a charger, the magnet is so strong you can spin your phone to horizon view to watch a movie or use it as a stand to FaceTime, Zoom etc.
Some of the Features
- MagSafe Compatible
- Dual Wireless Charging Ability (Charge 2 Devices)
- High-Performance Belgian Linen
- Soft Touch Frame
- Color Matched Cable
- Weighted
- Non-Slip Construction
This unique, sleek design works best on your desk or bedside and comes in several colors to work with your décor.
The stand comes in at $80 as is or $90 if you want to add a monogram. Courant will charge up the heart of your favorite Valentine and keep things less cluttered.
Teddy Stratford Shirts
If you were playing two lies and a truth with the founder of Teddy Stratford, Bryan Davis, his two truths that sound like lies would be, he started his company after bribing a crooked but well-dressed cop in Thailand and his shirts hold not one but two patents.
Besides looking great, Teddy Stratford shirts are wearable innovation. They are athletic cut shirts that look like they are button down, but actually have a hidden zipper to prevent gapping! I know, why did we have to live this long without this?
Fitted shirts are the current trend in men’s fashion but present an entirely new problem: because they fit closer to the body, they tend to pull open around the buttons, making you look like an overstuffed sausage, a phenomenon known as “The Bratwurst Effect.” The patented Zip Fit shirt solves this problem by placing a zipper behind the placket — a fancy way of saying the strip of fabric on a button-front shirt where the buttonholes meet the buttons.
So, it looks like a button-down shirt, but it’s not. There are buttons at the bottom and the top, but in the middle it’s all zipper, which makes for a great fit. The interlocking Stay Up Collar adds another level of style and a clean look.
Innovation aside, these are handmade shirts made of premium material, with lots of great choices for your style and taste. Prices range from $48-$150. These shirts will keep you looking great on the big day and the 364 after.
SpotOn GPS Dog Fence
We have a new 8 month old puppy named BlueBell who is an amazing addition to our lives, and also has non-stop energy. While she is smart and curious, there is no way we can leave her in the yard without her taking off after a squirrel, the neighbor dog, a leaf, or a random shiny object.
So, rain, sun, or snow, we are out there with BlueBell working on “potty, stay, leave it,” and all that fun stuff.
Yes, being outside is great, but now, having the ability to train her to learn her yard without investing in a fence or shock collar isn’t as daunting as it used to be in the past.
Spot On GPS Dog Fence is an invisible fence that utilizes GPS tracking to teach your dog how to stay in its surroundings in a humane and low impact way, meaning no electric shock. SpotOn GPS Dog Fence swaps buried wires with True Location, a technology that builds on conventional GPS and makes it better, giving you the most reliable fence boundary that never requires calibration so your dog can have a great adventure without risking a great escape.
And it’s easy to use. Download the app, connect it to the SpotOn collar, and walk the perimeter of the boundary you want your dog to stay inside (minimum of a ½ acre) — the app “draws” the boundary during this process. Then, simply put the collar on the dog and you’re done.
You do have to work with your dog to teach them the boundary warnings — a high pitched beep and then a vibration — if they get close to breaching the boundary.
It’s truly that user friendly and dog friendly. What makes SpotOn even more exciting for dog owners is you can travel with it and once your dog is trained to understand the signals, you can make a boundary at the dog park, beach, on vacation, or anywhere you want.
The app also alerts you if your dog does breach the boundary and begins to track them so you can locate your best friend quickly.
You do need cellular data to make SpotOn work and it takes training to learn, but heck, you’re already outside in the yard anyway.
The worlds most innovative dog fence costs $1500.
Lomi
It’s a home composter. Yes, like as an indoor composter. No, were not kidding. Lomi transforms household food waste into an asset that helps rebuild the world’s soil…which turns back into food!
You can load your kitchen waste into Lomi instead of the garbage and it will transform it into clean reusable soil that you can use in plants, your garden etc.
Lomi turns your scraps into soil at the push of a button. It may not seem like the most romantic Valentines Day gift, but the love of the planet and the air that we breathe is all a part of the nexus that is Lomi, and that is pretty sweet.
Fourty three percent of food waste in the U.S. happens at the household level. That’s the equivalent of $165 billion, or around $2000 per family every year. That’s a lot of methane. When a household runs all their food waste through Lomi, the methane that would have been produced in a landfill can decrease to zero.
Compared to throwing your waste in the landfill, using Lomi reduces your carbon footprint by up to 127%.
Lomi dirt is rich in organic matter and organic carbon. Typically, food waste breaks down in landfills anaerobically and releases methane, a greenhouse gas with 80x the warming power of carbon dioxide. When Lomi dirt is used in combination with soil to grow plants, these nutrients are broken down by microorganisms to help feed plants. Nutrients like carbon get stored in plant matter instead of released as carbon dioxide.
Now, the most important question: Does it stink?
No. There is a long explanation to why, but we will just say “science” and move on. Lomi is also pretty quiet, so you can run it at night and wake up with fresh new soil that was once coffee grounds, egg shells, and other kitchen waste.
The Lomi team is on a mission to eliminate 10 billion pounds of waste from the global waste stream by 2028. For $550, you can do your part to help.
