Why did I buy the Redmi Watch 2? Mainly because my Fossil watch went in for repair, and they said it’d be at least a month before it came back from the factory. For a month I’d have nothing on my wrist to check the time, so I had a fresh excuse to buy this thing. I got in on the first batch, paid around 299 yuan—retail was supposed to be 399. The packaging is nothing fancy. Open it up and there it is. Gotta say, even though it’s basically an oversized fitness band, the build quality is genuinely nice. From a distance it really looks like an Apple Watch. Up close it still looks like one. As long as you don’t swipe, you can pretend it’s an Apple Watch. I’ve used it for about two weeks now, and I’ve got some thoughts, so I figured I’d write them down.

I forget when Xiaomi put out these earphones. Launch price was 999, then all of a sudden I noticed they’d been cut in half to 499, and before long you could pick them up on eBay for 299… From 999 down to 299. These things lose value fast. And this is supposedly a kickass “dual dynamic” + “dual balanced armature” setup. Mine came from eBay, listed as brand new. What showed up was a plain box with the earphones, some spare silicone tips, and even a mysterious “Bluetooth adapter” of unknown provenance (turns out that was in the original package too, for phones without a headphone jack). The stock silicone tips are genuinely badly sized — way too big. They leak sound, which is why I kept thinking something was wrong with the sound at first. Switched to one size smaller and the problem went away.

I’ve been using some rebranded Philips charger in my car all this time — I’ve mentioned it before, and it doubles as a mount so you can glance at navigation. I bought it back then because it was one of the few products that could charge wirelessly. But after all these years, a few things about it have gotten genuinely annoying. The suction cup doesn’t hold well. When it gets too hot, it falls off. At least 4-5 times over the years — rare, sure, but having it drop while you’re driving is pretty nasty. It blocks your view. A big lump like that sitting in the middle does get in the way sometimes. Wireless charging power is too low. After I retired my OnePlus 5 for a Pixel 3XL, this thing couldn’t even charge it — it would actually drain the battery. Besides not charging fast enough, the Pixel 3XL would also disable LTE data from overheating. I’m using this for navigation, damn it — no data, no navigation. Why does it overheat? Because the thing sits dead center. Fine in winter, broken in summer. Anyway, it’s been several years. Time to replace it.

Buying this thing was a total accident — I saw it going for absurdly cheap on Xianyu. I’ve got a decent impression of the Xiaomi Piston Pro. I still use it plugged into my tablet or PC for Galgames and videos. The sound isn’t anything high-end, but it’s not bad either — good enough for watching videos or playing games. It has a mic too, so it can pinch-hit for voice chat. So when I saw how cheap this was, I bought the “Xiaomi Dual-Driver Earphones.”

The place was getting too dusty — the bed and the sofa both had a layer of it — so my wife said we should buy a “mite remover”. I looked into it and, well, a “mite remover” is just a vacuum cleaner with a UV lamp bolted on… So we might as well buy an actual vacuum. A vacuum isn’t only good for handheld work; you can swap the head and use it on the floor too. That’s how I ended up with a Xiaomi vacuum. It happened to be on sale — 12 interest-free installments, a 50-yuan coupon, and a free Xiaomi desk lamp thrown in. So I bought it.

Xiaomi had a sale a while back, so I picked up this water purifier for a little over 1000 yuan, with six months of interest-free installments thrown in. Xiaomi actually sells a bunch of under-sink purifier versions, and I honestly don’t know which model I got — probably the 400G one, the single-filter version.

The Redmi Note 3 my parents have been using is almost two years old now, and I’ve had it repaired a bunch of times to keep it breathing, but recently I found out my dad smashed the screen again. So I couldn’t be bothered to keep it on life support. The Redmi Note 7 is out, so let’s just switch to that.

A hot product a while back. It promised “small” “powerful” “multi-functional” all at once, and on top of that it actually looked good, so I bought one. Also, I’m a sucker for the ThinkPad red-and-black color scheme. Too tempting. Turns out I’d pre-ordered it ages ago, only to find out it was just a crowdfunding campaign. I don’t know why these idiots insist on crowdfunding everything. Call it a pre-order, slap a new name on it and call it crowdfunding — genuinely stupid. Anyway, I got the thing in early December, and the packaging was the familiar ThinkPad style.

Picked up a Xiaomi Pad 4 recently. Feels like it’s the most worthwhile Android tablet you can buy right now.

A girl at work wanted to buy a Xiaomi power strip and dragged me along to hit the free-shipping minimum. I saw this thing, so I threw it in. 9.9 yuan.