Gear Patrol | Spirit of Adventure, Passion for Gear

Change is in the air

It’s time to replace your ceiling fan. That brass and wicker adorned wafter you installed in your living room in 1991 has had its day in the country kitsch sun. Update your decor with the 2012 Red Dot Design Award winning Haiku Fan. Completely deconstructed and reimagined from the ground up by the experts at Big Ass Fans, the Haiku is a marvel of minimalism and efficiency. Three sleek and smooth airfoils meld into the motor housing to deliver what they call “organic essentialism”. Hippy jargon aside, whether you order it equipped with the hand-finished Cocoa or Caramel colored Bamboo foils the Haiku is lust worthy enough to be hung on a wall, never mind the ceiling.

The beauty continues with the internals as the Haiku drive unit is an absolute model of efficiency. While most Energy Star certified fans suck up sixty-five Watts of juice, the Haiku spins on approximately two to thirty Watts, making it 450% to 700% more energy efficient. That means it’ll only cost you about five bucks a year to keep those blades spinning. The cost of the chiropractor visits you’ll need from staring at your ceiling, well that’s another story.

Learn More: Here

Naturally on top

The anticipation for Samsung’s lastest addition to their premier Galaxy line of mobile phones has been higher than any other Android device we can remember. Was it for good reason? Well, the revealed specs include a massive, 4.8-inch Super AMOLED display at 720p resolution, 16-64GB of internal storage with a microSD slot for expansion, Bluetooth 4.0, a 2,100 mAh battery and a Exynos quad-core processor, all nestled inside a frame that weighs only 1.2oz and measures 8.6mm thick.

There’s also an 8MP rear camera, complete with zero shutter lag, a start up time of less than one second, plenty of image tweaking settings, best shot mode, and a 3.3 shots per second burst mode, as well as a 1.9 MP front-facing companion camera. While that’s all great news for Android fans looking to one-up other Android users with state of the art hardware, it’s the Galaxy SIII’s software that truly separates it from the pack.

We’ve got more images, details, and even the melodramatic first TV commercial after the break.

Back from the future

The dystopian Neo Tokyo of 2019 described and depicted by Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira may be as likely as our Mayan predicted destruction, but that didn’t stop the team at Japan’s Znug Design from having a crack at building Tetsuo Shima’s bike. The ZecOO ($70,000 projected) is easily one of the best looking, and possibly priciest electric motorcycles we’ve seen yet. While the styling for most e-bikes tends toward the off-road look, this low slung cruiser ticks all of the boxes that even the average custom may have missed.

Luxurious terrarium living

Attrap’ Rêves (or dreamcatcher in English), is an innovative French hotel chain located in the Alps, Provence, and Côtes d’Azur regions, geared towards eco-friendly travelers who dream of sleeping under an open night sky with all of the comforts of home. Each bubble stands roughly 10 feet high by 14 feet wide, and comes equipped with an entrance lobby, rigid floor, king-sized bed, luxury furniture, and a telescope to help you count the stars. Additionally, each space is equipped with a silent air-filtering system to ensure constant air recycling. Toilets and showers are housed in a separate, wooden, and private cabin in the near vicinity.

The bubble structures are made out of anti-UV material, adhering to all safety norms required by the industry and ensuring you don`t wake up with an oddly tanned face. Similarly to traditional hotels, Attrap’Rêves offers different suites: Zen, Nature, Glamour, Thousand & One Nights, Chic & Design, each with their own pricing (from ~$143 euros to ~$655) and unique features. That may sound steep for human-sized terrarium, but where else can you live out your fantasies of being Pauly Shore in Biodome?

Reservations are strongly recommended, particularly for the early weeks of August and November as their skies are reportedly filled with shooting stars. We’ve got additional photos after the break.

Buy Now: ~$143+

Timeless advice

The relentless pursuit of sartorial, intellectual, philosophical, and physical excellence is all codified in The Gentry Man: A Guide for the Civilized Male. Inside this manly bible, readers will find highlights from all 22 issues of Gentry Magazine published from 1951-1957 that some of our older readership might remember as the spiritual predecessor to GQ and the like. From its no-frills cover to its evocatively creative interiors, this gorgeous anthology offers classic advice that even younger generations could benefit from reading, in-between texts and tweets. In fact, no stone is left unturned as The Gentry Man expounds time-honoured tidbits and perspectives on a wide range of topics including travel, food, drinks, fashion, art, sports, cars, etc. In other words, everything a sophisticated man should know to give James Bond and Don Draper a good run for their money, both now, or in their heyday.

Buy Now: $14

Amateur Gardener? There's an app for that

We’ve all severely neglected or, worse, killed a few plants. Before you could make the excuse that keeping track of sunlight, water, and the quality of the soil was just too much for your one track mind to handle. Now, with Koubachi (~$142), your black thumb isn’t so easily wiped clean.

Using a Wifi sensor inserted directly into the soil and a free iPhone app, Koubachi lets users know exactly how good (or bad) they’ve been treating their plants. Specifically, the device monitors soil moisture, ambient temperature, and light, and checks those metrics against that particular plant’s needs. All of those health metrics are then easily viewable via the iPhone, and alerts can be set when things get into dangerous territory. Since the system literally does all the dirty work for you, it’s time you finally repented for your gardening ineptitude and grew something healthy.

Buy Now: Wifi Sensor $142 | App Free

Elevated coffee, courtesy of gravity

Behold: a coffee maker that would make both Norman Foster and Bill Nye the Science Guy proud. Bodum has, as usual, done it right with their PEBO Stovetop Vacuum Coffee Maker ($80). With a form that’s as elegant as its function, this brewing device boasts a stovetop-safe borosilicate glass which is extremely strong, scratch and heat resistant, and won’t become cloudy over time – ensuring years of attractive coffee brewing.

Using clear glass on the entire device allows you to see the whole process, as it happens. The heated water creates pressure within the lower chamber, pushing the water up to mingle with the coffee grounds. As it is removed from the heat, the pressure drives the coffee back down through a filter. The resultant rich black coffee resembles brews made with a French press. While the vacuum brewing concept has been around since 1958, Bodum has reintroduced this coffee maker with a more durable and elegant design. Not only will you be able to serve up a mean cup of joe, but you’ll look impressive while you do it (important for those mornings after).

Buy Now: $80

Goes for the nuts first

Think of Mallory Kane (played by MMA Fighter, Gina Carano) as Jason Bourne with a functioning memory and some sweet heels. Carano comes alive in this action-thriller by acclaimed director Steven Soderbergh. As hired heavy for a private black bag ops firm working for the United States Government, Kane is betrayed by the very people she works for after she performs an extraction job to save a Chinese journalist. Then things go, as they say, haywire. Blindsided, attacked, chased and essentially targeted for the meat locker, Kane unleashes mixed martial arts Hades on everyone who crosses her and proves that the absence of a Y-chromosome leaves nothing to be desired when it comes to lethal force. With great plot twists and the kind of action sequences that make Steve Seagal pine for his younger, thinner days, Haywire is festooned with an all-star cast including Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas, Ewan MacGregor, Michael Fassbender, Bill Paxton and Channing Tatum (ahem).

Buy Now: Blu-ray $20 | iTunes $15 | Vudu $22

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Hard Drive

If you’re getting rid of an old computer, be very careful about the data that you leave behind on the hard drive. Having someone steal your social security and credit card numbers would be bad enough, but think of what would happen if someone got a look at something much worse — like a glance at your browser history.

Don’t take that chance. Merely deleting files or reformatting does not actually delete anything from your computer, and any hacker who knows his bytes from his bits will easily be able to recover them quickly. To get your machine super clean, get the Drive eRazer Ultra ($250) by WeibeTech, a stand-alone hardware device that will write zeros over every single bit on your drive. When it’s done, there’s simply nothing left to recover and, unlike other modes of wiping your data, the eRazer will not destroy the hard drive (just everything on it). It even has a “Department of Defense spec erase method” and works with nearly all computers and operating systems.

This could be one of your most important purchases you ever make when you think about the potential consequences of having your computer’s entire history fall into the hands of someone who could do real damage with it — like your wife.

Buy Now: $250

This week we’re reporting from Edinburgh, UK, and seeing things through the traveler’s lens (more on Edinburgh in the coming weeks). In that spirit, this week’s picks are all about seeing familiar things from a different perspective. We’ve also got two recipes that celebrate the changing of the seasons, which is exactly what happened this week across northern Europe as countries celebrated May Day, the pagan religious festival marking the beginning of summer. Here in Edinburgh, that means fire, drumming, and screaming naked people painted red.

It’s a big and complicated world. We’re at tips [at] gearpatrol.com if you think there’s something we should know about.

Got wood?

For 80 years, Norwegian knife maker Helle has been building ornate, wood-handled knives that look every bit as good on your mantle as they do in your backpack. Interestingly, the company has lived to be an octogenarian without ever building anything but fixed blades. That all changes this spring with the Dokka folding knife.

Helle took its time to ensure that it could properly package company pillars like a strong, triple-laminated stainless steel blade and birch handle into a folding package. The Dokka gives you 3.5 inches of blade that creates a sexy wooden sculpture when folded into its 4.6-inch handle. Like other Helle knives, the Dokka is put together by hand in rural western Norway.

Your buddy’s bright red Swiss Army knife looked pretty good – up until you pulled out this handcrafted Norwegian masterpiece. Game over.

Buy Now: $159

The new bull market

New York is known for a lot of things, but barbecue ain’t one of them. Luckily for those in the city that never eats good barbecue, there’s hope on the horizon. Brisketlab is a self-described “underground smoked meat guild” that sells shares in authentic, Texas-style brisket to hungry New Yorkers. At a price of $25 a share, purchasers get a pound of brisket that’s been smoked using post oak wood straight from the Lone Star state, as well as an invite to a monthly shareholders’ party where you can collect on your meaty investment to the accompaniment of live music and drinks. Registration is set to open to the public early this summer, but eager eaters can sign up on the company’s website to be notified exactly when the culinary IPO launches. Our suggestion? Strong buy.

Learn More: Here