Podcast: Download
Join the Blind Abilities Team for a Lil Sumpin’ Sumpin’ for the Holidays. Nick, Jessica, Pete and Jeff along with friends serve of some holiday wishes and gift ideas for all to consider. We thought sharing our stocking stuffing incarnations would help spread the joy of giving during the festive month of December. We hope you enjoy and to all, a wonderful Holiday Season and to all, a Happy new Year!
The Blind Abilities Team.
With the ever changing sales and promotions we thought it best to suggest checking your favorite stores and outlets for the suggested gift ideas. amazon.com offers a wide variety of goods and remember to check the reviews as they may help in your decision making process. Remember to be aware of deals that seem to good to be real. PayPal and other forms of transaction offer some safeguards in your purchased agreements. Shop wisely and safely.
See Complete Transcription below.
Thank you for listening!
You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities
On the web at www.BlindAbilities.com
Send us an email
Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the App Store.
Transcription:
A Lil’ Sumpin’ Sumpin’ for the Holidays! Gift Ideas for Stuffing that Stocking! (Transcription Provided)
[This transcript contains multiple people’s voices)
The holidays are a great time to discover new devices and new services for both you and your loved ones.
Happy holidays Pete!
Hey Jeffrey, happy holidays to you too my friend.
Well we got a little something something for the holidays for everybody.
We certainly do, we asked a bunch of our friends for ideas for holiday gifts.
Well let’s get to it.
Let’s do that.
Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas.
I’d like to suggest a stocking stuffer from the Harbolt Company.
I’m thinking of a reversible USB to Micro-USB, heavy-duty six-foot charging cable.
The really cool thing about this is that either end of it can be plugged into the female port either way.
You don’t have to juggle with the USB going in the right direction or the Micro-USB going in the right direction.
This is reversible meaning regardless of which way you insert the male plug into the female plug, it fits, a very cool feature especially for blind and visually impaired individuals.
These appear on the Harbolt Company, that’s Harbolt Company spelled out .com, and the price of this six-foot rugged cable is $24.99.
I know one thing that I’d like to have is one of those Samsung TVs, the ones that talk.
My gift suggestion for the holiday season is Optigrill made by T-fal.
The Optigrill with its sensor technology can detect items on the surface, and with its sensors and beep,s it can cook your meat or fish to perfection, whether you like it rare, medium, or well-done.
It has six settings which are hamburger, chicken, sandwich, steak, or fish, and every time it cooks it to perfection.
It takes a lot out of the guessing work, it keeps your counters clean, and it’s easy to wash.
So it’s a great gift, it is a little bit on the pricey side but well worth the money if you want to give somebody who is a little bit all thumbs in the kitchen a great gift for something they can use on a day-to-day basis and basically save money in the long run.
[Cash register sound]
$99.95
An Apple watch series 3.
I’m not gonna turn my nose up at it if I was to unexpectedly get one.
If you or someone you know is always losing things, consider one of the trackers from Tile.
Operated by Bluetooth and a smartphone app, these chips will attach to virtually anything, and there are bunches of shapes, styles, and price points, get as few as one, or as many as eight.
Prices vary.
Merry Christmas, my idea for a stocking stuffer would be the Apple smart battery case for your iDevice.
It works really good, you can charge it, and once you put it on your phone, it goes through the battery case first and then, through your iPhone battery.
I usually get about two days charge between the two so you don’t have to charge your phone for two days which is great, as far as they know most places it runs about $99.95, so, it’s a little more expensive stocking stuffer but hey aren’t we all worth it.
How about a Bluetooth soundbar.
[Cash register sound]
Amazon Basics 2.0 Channel Bluetooth sound bar $69.99.
And here’s an item I think will fit in any stocking.
It’s the Logitech keys to go ultra portable bluetooth keyboard.
It’s about the thickness of a quarter, maybe an eighth of an inch thick, it’s near full-size but it’s a little smaller, but it’s easy to get used to.
I got one, it’s very durable, you can clean it with ease, and it slides right inside your backpack without taking up any bulky space.
It’s very handy, has an on/off switch, it charges, no batteries needed, just charge the back up with your mini USB cable and there you go.
Great item, great price, it’s always on sale on Amazon.
You can get the certified refurbished for half price, those sell for about twenty four dollars on Amazon.
That’s the Logitech keys to go, ultra portable bluetooth keyboard.
One of my things on my Christmas list that I would like is an Echo 2nd generation, so that I can play my music through a fairly decent speaker without having to get up and plug my Echo dot into the auxiliary of my sound bar and switching the input over so I could play it just by asking her to play a song.
[Cash register sound]
All new Echo second generation by Amazon $99.99.
Come on guys, you need to dream big, I want a driverless car.
I think she’s dreaming.
Or maybe a two seater drone.
[Cash register sound and laughter]
Ho Ho Ho Merry Christmas.
I have a stocking stuffer that’s not necessarily tech related, nor is it exclusive to the blindness community, but it’s a cool idea that I’ve used for years.
I will purchase some scratch-off lottery tickets, yes, lottery tickets.
They run from $1.00 to $2.00, sometimes $5.00.
And I just buy a handful of them and put them in somebody’s stocking.
My wife, my son, or give them to a friend, who knows the intrigue is there.
‘
Are they worth just $1.00, or are they worth more?
It might not be as imaginative as maybe a lot of the other ones, but it’s a gift card from iTunes.
We all know that the majority of blind and visually impaired people do have an iPhone.
I think these cards go a long way.
You can put as little as $10.00, or as much as $100.00.
So it’s really up to you on how much you love this person, but nonetheless it’s a great gift because there’s always an app that we’re itching to buy but, I don’t want to spend the money.
It’s just a great gift for someone to have.
I would love to have a driverless red shiny Jeep with the convertible top, Wi-Fi in it, and an iPad built on the dash, that way I can get up and go wherever.
Merry Christmas, another stocking stuffer I have, well actually it won’t fit in your stocking un less you have a really big stocking, but it’s called the Hamilton Beach egg cooker.
You can get it at most stores, Walmart, Target, and they run around $20.00.
It will do hard-boiled and poached eggs, generally it will do seven eggs at a time if you want that many done, but it works really well, it’s easy to use, and it’s a quick way to get hard-boiled eggs if you enjoy eating them or poached.
I prefer the hard-boiled over the poached, but hey it makes for a great inexpensive gift that can be used by many and is really fun to have, especially during this lovely cooking season for the holidays so, I suggest getting one of those to use for the cook in your family.
[Music sound effect]
I need a wired headphone with a boom mic, with a emphasis on the microphone.
It’d be really cool.
Here’s a great gift, and it’s very practical, it’s very affordable.
It’s a Samsung Q2U microphone.
It’s USB and XLR, that means it’ll plug right into a USB port on your computer or a device and it will also plug into a mixer with the XLR cable.
Now this is the same microphone basically as the ATR2100, and that is known as a very affordable and quality mic, and this one is supposed to have just a little bit more dynamic range to it.
Another really nice thing about this microphone, it comes with two cables, a micro USB cable and the XLR cable, and it comes with a stand.
Now this stand is better than most stands that I’ve seen.
This one also has a four inch extension so it gets it off the table and up near your face so you can eat the mic, you know what I mean.
I think it’s a great mic at an affordable price.
You can find it on sale on Amazon as low as $44.99.
Usually it sells around, oh I would say $70.00, $69.00, something in that range, but every once in a while, you see a sale.
And what you can do on Amazon is watch this item and be notified when there’s a price drop and that’s a great practical beginning microphone, and that’s the Samsung Q2U microphone on Amazon.
A nice stereo speaker that could hook up to my phone, so when I want to play my music, I can you know, jam out, like that there, get some.
Another item that I would like would be the Sonos One speaker which has some Alexa features built in.
[Cash register sound]
Sonos One compact wireless speaker for streaming music, works with Alexa $199.94.
Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas everybody.
This stocking stuffer idea is from Amazon.
Get this for somebody that you love, or for somebody that you don’t really love, but for whom you’d like to get a holiday gift.
How about an Amazon gift card, they’re easy to purchase.
Just go to amazon.com and search for Amazon gift cards, or open up your easy to use Amazon app, and look for the category: gift cards.
They range from $10.00, to hundreds and hundreds of dollars, if they’re a really really good friend.
You can also purchase other gift cards on Amazon for small fees, so it’s simple and you can do it as an e-gift card and just send it to their email address, or text the e-card to your friend.
[Music]
If your loved one is a music or digital services person, consider a subscription.
Many subscription services like Pandora, Google Play Music, Apple music, and Netflix, and so on, offer packages that you can buy for other people, or for yourself, especially around the holiday time.
[Bell sounds]
Merry Christmas, another stucking stuffer that I have for you is the Fitbit flex 2.
It is a workout band that can track your calories burned, your steps, your workout time, and your sleep also, it runs around $60.00, depending on what store you buy it at.
It works really great as a fitness tracker, the app is completely accessible, and it’s a great stocking stuffer because it’s small, its mid-range price, and it gets people motivated to workout and track their weight loss and everything, and to let you know how many steps you get each day.
I really enjoy mine so I think it’s a good idea for all ages, it’s a great general gift for people.
A pair of cordless ear buds that I could pair it to my phone.
Another great gift is the LG wireless headphones, they go around your neck and they have in earbuds that pull out and they retrack.
That’s on the 910 series, but you can get some really affordable ones like the 780 series, and those just magnetize right back onto the piece that goes around the neck, fully controllable, I love them, they’re just handy as heck, and you don’t even notice you’re wearing them anymore.
That’s the LG tones, and they range from $45.00 to $100.00 depending on which series you get.
Check out the 780s or check out the 910s where they retrack, and that’s on Amazon.
Ho Ho Ho Merry Christmas.
One of my favorite gifts for the holidays is the Amazon Echo dot.
This is the younger brother or sister to the full-blown Amazon Echo, and the second generation has all of the features that the Amazon Echo has, but at a much much reduced price, and if you stay tuned to your Amazon Prime notifications, you may find a package deal with more than one Echo dot at reduced prices.
Put one in every room and network them.
You can turn on your music in the living room from your bedroom, or if you’re really really frivolous, get an Amazon Echo dot for your bathroom.
Hi this is Nick D’Ambrosio from Blind Abilities.
I’d like to wish everyone happy holidays and a wonderful new year.
I’m sure you can find most of the stuff on Amazon or your favorite site that you want to check it out with all the holiday prices, there’s gonna be a bunch of sales everywhere.
You bet there are so go to your Amazon app or just Google whatever it is you want to buy.
There’s so many places that want your money.
I can pretty much guarantee it around the holidays.
Everybody have a great holiday season, be safe, and stay healthy.
And a Happy New Year.
And a Happy New Year to everybody, take care now.
Thanks for listening, and until next time bye-bye.
When we share what we see through each other’s eyes, we can begin to bridge the gap between limited expectations and the realities of blind abilities.
For more podcasts with the blindness perspective, check us out on the web at www.blindabilities.com, on Twitter at blindabilities. Download our app from the app store, Blind Abilities, that’s two words, or send us an email at info@blindabilities.com.
Thanks for listening.