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Ember Travel Mug

Ember Travel Mug: Keep your drink HOT!

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Ember Travel Mug: The SMARTEST Mug

The Ember Travel mug isn’t just a regular old travel mug, it’s a smart connected device that does so much more than hold your favourite hot drink. It’s a smart mug and has a lot of features that will help you throughout the day. So, without teasing you much longer Ember will notify you once your drink has reached you preferred temperature. This is set via the app on your smartphone or via the mug itself. For those without a smartphone, tap the Ember logo on the fron to select temperature settings. Simply twist the dial at the bottom of the mug and select your temperature. The temperature is displayed on the front of the mug via lights.

Features

So, the app and the mug really work well in tandem and the use of the app will open up a whole world of abilities to you:

  • Set a preferred temperature (hot or cold)
  • Set a preset temp to different beverages (Coffee, Tea, Mocha for example)
  • Remotely adjust the temperature
  • Name your mug
  • Set celcius/farehnheit
  • 2 Hours battery life. (2 one hour drinking cycles, however this is dependent on external temperature, liquid temperature when initially poured, how quickly the drink is consumed. Whether lid is on or off, there is a whole set of factors which can affect the battery life. However, Ember have stated that the travel mug is designed to last 2 hours.

Without a smartphone

Whilst you can use the app without a smartphone, you are very limited with the features available to you. For example you cannot give your mug a name. Nor can you set presets to different drinks.

What is the Ember Travel Mug

The Ember Travel mug is designed to give you a feeling that your drinking from a ceramic mug, with what Ember are calling a perfect lip interface. The Ember Travel mug has a lid that screws off instead of a lip to enhance this feeling. The difference between the Ember Travel Mug and a regular travel mug is that a regular mug will keep it hot. Yet, the Ember Travel Mug will keep something at a temperature for longer and it won’t get warmer, or even colder.

The Ember Travel Mug works by using 7 temperature sensors to make this functionality a reality. Not all users want to use it to keep their beverages warm, but you can also keep things cool. The Ember Travel Mug has a rapid cooling system to help keep them cold and have them warm throughout the day.

Compatability

The Ember Travel Mug is compatible with Apple and Android devices. All that is required is an iPhone that is updated to iOS 8.0+ on an iPhone 4s or later. Android devices that are Android 5.0 & BLE 4.0 or above.

To purchase the Ember Travel Mug please click here!

 

chemex

Chemex Coffee Maker

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We love our coffee here at the How To Kill An Hour offices and when we saw this coffee maker, we had to try it out! It’s elegant in design and minimalistic in tech. A little different than what us tech enthusiasts usually use. However, we are a place that’s more than just tech. We’re the place to come to find out the best ways to spend your free time. Drinking coffee is one of those past times that can be done whilst working or when away from the desk! Without teasing too much, we tested the Chemex 3 cup classic coffee maker and we loved it! But how do they achieve this?

Chemex: Taste

It claims to deliver the ‘purest flavour experience’ and it does just that! The coffee from the Chemex coffee maker is absolutely lovely! It certainly delivers a different taste than the coffee that we usually use out of an electronic coffee maker. The way that Chemex deliver such a great tasting coffee is due to one thing. Working in tandem with the Chemex Bonded filters the coffee that’s delivered is pure. Like filtered water. No sediments or any bitter elements like that, just pure gloriously tasting coffee.

Included with the Chemex Three Cup Classic is a polished wood collar and a leather tie, providing great grip. The coffee maker is glass, so it helps prevent a user burn their hands on the glass. All in all a great design that doesn’t look out of place in your kitchen. We were very impressed here at the office!

 

Purchase your own Chemex 3 Cup Classic Coffee Maker here!

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Coffee under threat

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There could be a caffeine shortage

Climate change could push up the price of our beloved addiction coffee, prices might rise as the temperature does.

The price of coffee is likely to go up as the land where the coffee is farmed might not be suitable for the coffee to grow.

Ethiopia is the birthplace and the biggest exporter of Arabica coffee beans, but according to a report in Nature Plants today, the production of the bean could be under threat unless action is taken.

Basically we are drinking a lot more coffee than we are producing and so far the manufacturer’s have enough coffee saved up from previous years to continue to drink it as normal – which means we’ve avoided a price hike or a shortage altogether.

However the long term outlook is causing greater cause for concern. Scientists from London’s Kew Gardens have said that if action is taken, a coffee shortage could be avoided – 2 possible solutions are: the relocation of coffee-growing areas and forest conservation.

A combination of the two could avoid a coffee shortage, therefore avoiding the human population having a major meltdown due a lack of their caffeine fix!  

Astronaut in Space

How to Drink Coffee in Space

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NASA astronaut sucks on balls to get his caffeine fix.

It is crucial to stay awake when on a mission in space, so drinking coffee is no brainer, except when you can’t actually drink it as you’re in zero gravity.

Air Force Colonel and ISS (international space station) crew member Jack Fischer came up with a genius idea to turn his coffee into balls, which can be dehydrated and easily transported. Now, whenever he needs a pick-me-up, he just sucks on some balls.

Minipresso

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We tried the Minipresso this week and are impressed! This little gadget is incredible, we can have high quality traditional coffee, whenever we want, wherever we want. Just press the semi-automatic piston to inject small quantities into the the coffee adapter! Multiple cartridges are included inside the gadget allowing us have more than one drink throughout the day!

 

To buy your own Minipresso please click here!

To listen to the guys chatting about this please click here!