For Packed Lunches, Patio Wildlife and a Film Night That Travels | Vol. 12

Portable projectors are usually sold as an escape from the tyranny of the television. In reality, they can become a small plastic hostage negotiation involving apps, cables, a tripod bought in 2017 and one increasingly irritated wall. The XGIMI MoGo 3 Pro is compelling because its specification tries to remove several of those objections before anyone has had time to lose the remote.

This XN13A model combines a 1080p listing specification, Google TV with licensed Netflix, and a 130-degree adjustable built-in stand. That last bit is more important than it sounds. A projector that needs a stack of cookbooks to point vaguely at a wall is not portable; it is just kitchenware with a power cable. Here, the stand is part of the product rather than a separate apology.

The selected UK version also includes the PowerBase Stand. Since the projector has no built-in battery, this is not decorative furniture: it is the difference between setting up near a socket and taking a film night to the garden, spare room or that holiday rental with exactly one functioning lamp. XGIMI quotes approximately 2.5 hours of playtime in ECO mode under laboratory conditions, with less battery life outside that mode.

At 1.1kg and 204.9 × 95 × 95mm, the MoGo 3 Pro makes a persuasive case for the sort of person who has a blank wall, an overstuffed streaming watchlist and a suspiciously flexible definition of “we should probably go to bed”. We think it is a particularly complete answer to the portable-projector itch, provided its battery arrangement is understood rather than discovered halfway through the third act.

Bird feeding used to be a fairly analogue arrangement: put out seed, glimpse a blur, announce that it was probably a blue tit, and receive no corroboration whatsoever. The Birdbuddy PRO Solar Smart Bird Feeder is for households prepared to give that small garden drama an AI-powered camera, an app and a modest production budget.

The feeder includes a detachable solar roof, while its camera can take 5MP photos and 2K video with HDR and slow-motion support. That is a slightly ludicrous specification for documenting a creature whose principal achievement is flinging seed on to the paving slabs, and we mean that as a compliment.

Its 0.9-litre seed capacity is sensible rather than enormous, making this a garden gadget rather than a silo. The empty feeder weighs 600 g, rising to 1,150 g when filled, and comes with both a metal hanger and a universal mount. In other words, there is a route to installation before somebody starts improvising with string and misplaced confidence.

Our view is that the PRO Solar earns its place as the more feature-minded option: it makes birdwatching shareable, records the interesting bits and includes daylight charging. It also remains a connected camera, so the romantic garden escape ends precisely where the 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi signal does.

There is a particular sort of household confidence that comes from looking at a plain keyring, a glass jar or a wooden keepsake and deciding it ought to have your initials on it. The ARROWMAX SGS MAX exists for that impulse: a cordless mini engraving pen, rather than a full-sized workshop tool attempting to colonise a tiny flat.

We think its appeal is mostly in the restraint. At 15 × 15 × 150 mm and 53 g, it is a small, self-contained object with an aluminium-alloy body, an OLED status display and a chuck for securing bits. It looks designed for the person who wants to make or personalise things, but has no interest in acquiring a shed and an opinion about dust extraction.

Five modes are available: automatic sensing plus fixed settings of 15,000, 20,000, 25,000 and 30,000 RPM. The stated top speed is no-load, which is the grown-up caveat amid all this satisfying miniature-tool theatre. Still, selectable settings and a visible status display make more sense than an anonymous gadget with one button and the emotional range of a toothbrush.

The box is also unusually well considered. ARROWMAX includes 30 engraving bits, 12 polishing bits, a magnetic Type-C charging cable and an aluminium-alloy storage box. That makes the SGS MAX a useful complementary pick for small-scale hobby jobs and personalisation, especially where a conventional rotary-tool collection would be wildly disproportionate to the task at hand.

Office lunch has become an oddly complicated branch of adult life. Pack a cold meal and spend the afternoon pretending salad is a personality. Bring something warm and join the microwave queue behind somebody reheating fish with the confidence of a man who has never known consequences.

The Crockpot Portable Electric Lunch Box is the tidier-looking answer to that particular small misery: a 20 oz portable food warmer intended for on-the-go use. The supplied listing also describes it as spill-free and dishwasher-safe, which is exactly the sort of administrative detail that stops a lunch gadget becoming a bag-based incident.

We think its appeal is less about culinary theatre than quiet practicality. It gives a packed lunch its own dedicated route to being warm, which makes sense at a desk, during travel, or anywhere the communal kitchen has become a shrine to abandoned mugs.

There is a very clear boundary around the idea, though. This is a compact 20 oz lunch box, not a portable canteen for people who regard lunch as a competitive event. That limitation is not a scandal; it is simply the point at which sensible portion planning meets human appetite.

The PETKIT AIRSALON MAX is a pet drying box, a phrase that initially sounds like somebody has taken a perfectly ordinary towel and given it a software roadmap. Yet the problem is real enough: bath a cat or small dog, then spend the next stretch of your day negotiating with a damp, offended creature and protecting the soft furnishings from its revenge.

PETKIT’s answer is the AIRSALON MAX (PD10), an indoor box for cats and small dogs aged six months and above. Its 36°C to 40°C temperature range and six fan-speed levels can be adjusted through the PETKIT app, where remaining time, internal temperature and humidity are displayed. Comfort, Normal and Fast modes cover the obvious routines, while custom settings can be saved for anyone prepared to build a tiny personal climate programme for their pet.

We think that degree of control is the genuinely interesting bit. Plenty of household gadgets claim to remove a chore; this one makes a very particular, wet-fur moment less improvisational. The openable petting door is a sensible concession to the fact that pets are not parcels, and the removable filters and base plate acknowledge the other fact: fur will turn up everywhere, including inside the expensive appliance designed to manage fur.

There is some ceremonial faff. The AIRSALON MAX arrives inactive and needs PETKIT app activation before first use. It also measures 500 × 473 × 447 mm and weighs around 9.7 kg, so this is not a casual bathroom accessory to shuffle about when guests appear. More importantly, the manual requires an owner to stay present, and asks that no towels, mats or other items go inside because they can obstruct airflow. The machine may be clever; the responsible adult remains stubbornly analogue.