A Sharper Sense of Reality: VR, True Colours and Soy Sauce Worth the Wait | Vol. 42

A headset needs a better reason to exist than making its owner look temporarily unavailable. For the Meta Quest 3S, that reason is the software: compatibility with thousands of apps and games, including Quest 3 and 3S exclusives. That makes it worth considering as a way into experiences you actually want, rather than as a gadget purchased in the hope that a purpose will arrive later.

Meta describes the Quest 3S as offering the same mixed-reality capabilities and fast performance as Quest 3. That is a meaningful statement about its intended role, but not a declaration that the headsets are identical in every respect. Treat it as a shared capability claim, not a complete buying comparison.

The strongest reason to choose this headset is therefore quite specific: you want access to Meta’s mixed-reality software, and there are already apps or games you would like to explore. The library gives that interest room to grow beyond one demonstration. Thousands of options are useful; a handful you genuinely want to return to matters more. Start with those, rather than with the vague ambition to become a person who does things in mixed reality.

The Shokz OpenSwim Pro makes most sense when your week includes both swimming and listening somewhere that is not a pool. Its central trick is not simply being wireless: it combines Bluetooth headphones with a self-contained music player. Those are two different jobs, and here the distinction determines whether your music follows you into the water or stays metaphorically on the deck.

On dry land, Bluetooth provides the connected listening mode. Underwater, Bluetooth does not function, so the OpenSwim Pro plays files from its internal storage instead. This is the essential buying decision, not a footnote. If you already keep a music library, it is a practical arrangement. If your entire collection consists of things you have saved inside streaming apps, expect a change in routine rather than an effortless extension of it. A favourite playlist and a folder of playable audio files are not the same possession.

The built-in player has 32GB of storage, with somewhat less potentially available after system files and data management. More usefully, its format support extends well beyond the MP3 label: FLAC, WAV, AAC, M4A, APE and WMA are supported too. That gives people with existing file collections some flexibility without requiring everything to be converted into one format. The appeal is autonomy: once your audio is stored on the headphones, underwater playback has no need for a live phone connection.

The physical proposition is also distinct from conventional earbuds. This is an open-ear, bone-conduction design weighing 27.3 g, rather than a pair of speakers inserted into your ear canals. That is a meaningful format choice for someone who specifically dislikes in-ear listening. The weight is modest on paper, though a number alone cannot tell you whether this particular shape will suit your head.

Battery planning depends on which half of the product you use. The listed maximum is nine hours over Bluetooth, falling to six hours in MP3 mode—the mode that matters for swimming. A full charge takes approximately 90 minutes, while a ten-minute quick charge is listed to provide three hours of listening. That is a useful provision for discovering, shortly before leaving, that yesterday’s organised version of yourself never plugged it in.

The strongest reason to choose the OpenSwim Pro is that its two modes serve genuinely different settings. It is not the right answer for someone who wants streaming underwater, and maintaining stored music is a small but real chore. For a swimmer comfortable owning audio files, though, that older-fashioned requirement buys something useful: listening that does not ask a Bluetooth connection to do a job it cannot do.

Socks have a remarkable ability to occupy every unused corner of a suitcase while remaining impossible to find. The small Thule Compression Packing Cube gives them, your underwear and a few T-shirts a defined address. Its more useful trick, though, is taking some of the empty space out of that address.

A compression zipper removes excess air between clothes, reducing the volume of the packed bundle. That makes this more than a pouch for people who enjoy sorting things into smaller pouches. The point is to keep a clothing category together while making it occupy less room. For a carry-on traveller, that is a worthwhile intervention before deciding the answer must be a larger suitcase.

There is a useful distinction between compressing clothes and simply forcing more of them into your luggage. This cube addresses the air between garments; it does not make the garments themselves disappear. Thule lists dimensions of 26 × 18 × 11 cm expanded and 25 × 18 × 3 cm compressed. Those are the cube's dimensions in its two configurations, not a promise that every stack of clothing will shrink to the same thickness. Pack with a little judgement. The zipper is not a referendum on whether you need another T-shirt.

The small size makes particular sense as one part of a packing system. Thule identifies underwear, socks and T-shirts as suitable contents, and says most carry-ons accommodate four small cubes or two small cubes plus a medium. That offers a practical way to separate clothing groups rather than compress everything into one communal textile brick. Thule recommends rolling clothes to save space and minimise wrinkling, so the intended routine does involve some preparation rather than a last-minute scoop from the laundry basket.

The material choices suit that organizational role. The bluesign-approved 100D ripstop nylon is semi-transparent, letting you identify the contents without displaying every detail. Thule describes it as water-repellent, and the cube uses YKK zippers. A webbing handle gives you somewhere to grab it or hang it while travelling. At 80 g, the small cube adds a modest amount of weight to the packing arrangement.

The everyday compromise is access. Compression adds a zipper step between you and the contents, which matters if you repeatedly dip into the cube during a journey. It makes more sense for clothes you pack once and retrieve at your destination than for an item you need every hour.

That is the appeal here: a contained, compact clothing bundle with enough visibility to remain useful. Choose it because your packing needs structure and a little less trapped air—not because every possession requires its own nylon apartment.

Soy sauce is easy to treat as a background ingredient until dinner consists largely of fish, rice and a small dipping dish. That is where YAMASAN KYOTO UJI Double Brewed Soy Sauce makes its strongest argument: choose it for a meal where the sauce has room to matter, rather than expecting its production story to transform everything it touches.

The defining detail is the second brewing. Instead of using salt and water, the process uses naturally brewed Koikuchi soy sauce. That is a meaningful distinction from an ordinary bottle, and a more useful reason to consider it than an impressive number on its own. The manufacturer also says the sauce is naturally and slowly brewed for more than 1,000 days. Your sushi dinner need not take quite as long.

That extended process is interesting, but it is not a tasting note. It does not, by itself, establish that this sauce will be smoother, sweeter or more appealing to you than the one you already like. The buying case rests on exploring a different brewing method, with sushi and sashimi—the manufacturer's recommended pairings—as a straightforward place to begin. A small dipping dish gives that choice a clearer purpose than a recipe in which soy sauce is one of fifteen ingredients.

YAMASAN also says the sauce contains no additives and that its soybeans and wheat are non-GMO. Those are useful distinctions for shoppers who specifically seek them, not automatic proof of better flavour. Wheat is also the firm boundary here: this is not a wheat-free alternative, regardless of how patiently it was brewed.

Our take is to consider it a table-focused addition rather than a compulsory replacement for your everyday cooking sauce. If sushi or sashimi is a regular pleasure, the double-brewed approach offers a specific, worthwhile avenue to explore. If you simply need soy sauce to do its usual job in a busy recipe, there is less reason to make fermentation the evening's main topic.

“Something between sage and the cupboard at my aunt’s house” is a perfectly serviceable way to discuss colour until somebody has to find the paint. The Nix Mini 3 gives that conversation a more concrete starting point. Place it against a suitable surface, take a measurement through the Nix Toolkit app, and use the result to find paint matches or digital colour values. Its appeal is not that everyone needs a colour sensor. It is that some people keep encountering the same oddly specific problem.

The useful distinction here is between remembering a colour and carrying a usable reference forward. A decorator might want a paint match for an existing wall; a designer might want HEX, RGB or CMYK values from a physical surface. The Mini 3 serves both purposes. That makes it more interesting than a gadget reserved for the next time you repaint the spare room. It can connect a physical colour choice with a digital project, without requiring the phrase “a bit less blue” to do all the technical work.

Paint-library access is a substantial part of the proposition. Nix advertises more than 200,000 brand-name paint colours, but that is not a promise that every paint range you want will be included: libraries depend on the selected country, and premium colour systems require a subscription. For a Canadian buyer, the relevant question is whether the country-specific selection covers the paints or colour systems involved in the job. A large library is useful; the right shelf matters more than the size of the building.

The measurement process also imposes a clear boundary. This is a three-channel colorimeter intended to get its best results from solid, opaque, flat surfaces, with the sensor held firmly and flat against them. Texture, patterns, extreme gloss and soft materials can reduce accuracy. That makes a plain wall a much more natural assignment than a patterned cushion. Treat its paint matches as references for choosing paint, not a reason to abandon sample checks: the decision still concerns how the finished room will look, not just the colour value of one scanned spot.

It is also an app-dependent tool, not a self-contained instrument. The Mini 3 uses Bluetooth 4.0, requires Nix Toolkit, and its setup instructions call for location services to be enabled. Anyone hoping to leave their phone out of the decorating process should look elsewhere. For an app-comfortable buyer, the same arrangement puts paint references and digital values in the place they are likely to use them.

Ownership involves modest but real upkeep. USB-C charging takes about three hours according to the setup guide, and Nix recommends a monthly charge during storage. Keep the lens clean, and retain the included Diagnostics Tile for periodic app-based performance checks. Its IPX4 splash resistance does not make it waterproof, either. This is a measuring tool for deliberate work, not something to rinse off with the paint tray.

The Mini 3 makes most sense when colour matching is a recurring task rather than a single decorating emergency. For that buyer, translating a surface into searchable paint references and usable digital values is a distinctive benefit. Everyone else can reasonably keep arguing over the swatches.