Getting through this pandemic hasn’t been easy. Each day can feel like a slog, especially when, for many people, the necessary shelter-in-place restrictions have no end in sight. While being cooped up and isolated from others isn’t pleasant, there are some ways to make the experience more bearable.
This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED service editor Alan Henry and WIRED senior writer Adrienne So join the show to talk about the gadgets, media, and lifestyle adjustments that have helped them get through quarantine so far.
Show Notes
Find more WIRED recommendations for the gear and tips to get you through the pandemic here. Read Joe Ray’s review of Eat Your Books here. Read more about how to get free library books on your Kindle here. Read Alan’s guide on how to pump up your playlist here. That Vulfpeck song is “Wait for the Moment.”
Recommendations
Adrienne recommends the Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids Edition tablet and the show The Expanse. Alan recommends Aukey T21 True Wireless Earbuds and Freefall Radio. Mike recommends the Zojirushi Micom Rice Cooker & Warmer and NHK World’s Dining With the Chef.
Adrienne So can be found on Twitter @adriennemso. Alan Henry is @halophoenix. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our executive producer is Alex Kapelman (@alexkapelman). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.
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Transcript
[Intro theme music]
Michael Calore: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Gadget Lab. I am Michael Calore, senior editor here at WIRED. Lauren Goode is out this week, so we’ve got a bit of a different show for you. I’m joined by WIRED service editor Alan Henry and WIRED senior writer Adrienne So. So first, Alan, welcome to the show.
Alan Henry: Hi, thanks for having me.
MC: Of course, your debut appearance, it’s great to have you. And hello, Adrienne. Welcome back. A multiple-time returning guest star on this show.
Adrienne So: Yay. Hey, Mike. Yeah, my kid is out today, but I’m here without her.
MC: Today we are going to be talking about the various things that are helping us, the three of us, get through the current global health crisis. Right now it’s the first week of July. We are several months into the coronavirus pandemic, with over 10 million cases worldwide and over 500,000 deaths. And whether we’re directly affected or not, the crisis has filled all of our lives with grief, fear, and uncertainty. But we also know one thing that does a better job of protecting us than anything else, and that’s isolation. So even though some cities and states are gradually reopening, most of us are going to stay cooped up for a while longer.
We wanted to use this episode to pass along some of the things that we’ve been using, to make sheltering in place more bearable. If you’re a regular listener of this show, you know that we always do a segment at the end where we each make a recommendation. And you can just think of this episode as one big recommendation show, just like the Covid-19 shelter-in-place, survival edition.
We hope that some of the things we recommend are things you can make use of as well. That’s the whole reason we’re doing this. So we’re going to divide the show into three segments. First, we’ll talk about the gear that has improved our quality of life during these last few months. And then we’ll discuss the changes in our routines that have helped us adjust. And at the end of the show, we’ll each recommend pieces of entertainment, like a book or a podcast or a program, that’s been keeping us happy.
We’re going to start with hardware. So Adrienne, you’re on deck first. What is the gear that has helped you the most over the last few months?
AS: As I think I mentioned on my previous appearance on Gadget Lab, I have been sheltering in place with a 3-year-old and a 5-year-old. It’s been a couple of months now, and our daycare still isn’t open. So we’ve cobbled together our quarantine pod with another family, who also has a 3- and a 5-year-old. We’re doing a nanny share and putting together hours and arranging four different parents’ schedules, and it’s driving me bonkers.
So the thing I was going to recommend is the new Amazon Fire Kids tablet. It just came out, I think, a month ago. And I have a couple of other kid entertainment devices right now. I have the iPod Touch, I have a mini iPad, but the Kid’s tablet is the one I’m really relying on right now, because my 5-year-old doesn’t nap anymore. It’s foam padded, and it has Amazon FreeTime, which is Amazon’s platform. You can set an age range, from 3 to 7, for age-appropriate entertainment. So I can just park her on the couch for an hour or two, so I can get something done every now and again.
I was going to recommend something a little more exciting, but if I had to recommend the one thing that is getting all four of us through a workday, it’s probably a Kid tablet.
MC: Is it rugged-ized at all? Because I know that some of the Amazon ones are sort of made for bashing around.
AS: Well, they upsell you. For an extra $20, one of the things you get is this huge, foam-padded puffy case with a stand. And I say it’s totally worth it. I can hear my daughter walking around the house going, “Oops. Oops.” Just bashing into things. And it’s been totally fine. But the other thing about the Fire tablet is that it has a two-year worry-free guarantee. I recommended the tablet to another friend. His 5-year-old was holding it, and he literally smashed it full on into the corner of the table. He would just smash the screen, from pure frustration, like all of us right now. They returned it, and Amazon sent them another tablet right back. So if you have a younger kid, it’s totally worth it.
MC: Yeah. I think Amazon is happy to replace those, because they know that if they send you a new one, you’ll keep consuming content on Amazon. Right?
AS: Yeah. That’s the other thing. But you can also … I snuck into the parent dashboard and just blocked everything that had Barbie on it. And she’s like, “It’s so weird. It’s like Barbie doesn’t exist.” And I was like, “I know, it’s like she vanished from the earth. I don’t know what happened.”
MC: All right, Alan, what is your gadget recommendation for people?
AH: So it took quarantine, and me sitting around at my computer and taking phone calls and things a lot, for me to really get into true wireless earbuds. A friend of mine turned me on to the Aukey True Wireless Ear Buds. And I’m sitting here, just holding the charging case. I’m not an AirPods person—I am an Android user, which is why I’m not an AirPods person. And I have terrible nightmares of being one of those people, here in New York City, who will lose one ear onto the subway track, and then have to wait five hours for somebody to come and get it with a broom, and now it’s grody and disgusting. And I don’t know if I ever want to put it back in my ear.
All that aside, the Aukey True Wireless Earbuds sound great. They’re like, $30. Sometimes they’re on sale for less. I think I got mine for $22, on sale, at Amazon. And they are the earbuds that convinced me that wireless earbuds aren’t that bad. They fit well. They sound great. And I can sit here and talk to my dad on the phone while I’m writing an article, and no one is the wiser either way. So it worked out really, really nice that way.
But I just thought it was really cool, because it was such a low price point, to get into actual wireless earbuds. The ones I normally use have a cord that goes between your ears, and that makes me feel more secure. If it falls out of my ear, then it’s still on my person, somehow. But again, take your advice from me with a grain of salt because, I was that guy who’s like, “There’s no headphone jack in my phone. Argh.”
MC: I’m also one of those people. I’ve tested a bunch of those wirefree, wireless, true wireless, whatever you want to call them, ear buds. And the problem that I kept having is that, they sound great, but when I put my phone in my pocket and walk around, they start cutting out all the time.
AH: Yeah. Absolutely.
MC: I understand that that’s been getting better. But is that still a problem, on the cheap end?
AH: It depends. My experience is that in summertime it’s fine. I can put my phone in my pants pocket, and I still have great reception. In the winter, I put my phone in my big jacket chest pocket. And that’s appare