Universal Backpackers King Size Mosquito Net

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01ID7E7B4

This is a large mosquito net that I received at a discount in exchange for my unbiased review. Although I have not yet had the opportunity to actually try this mosquito net in a mosquito-rich environment, I can tell that this is a very good product.

Packed in its carrying case, this mosquito net from Universal Backpackers is small and light enough to easily take along on a trip. It weighs in at just over eleven ounces, and is approximately one foot square.

The mosquito netting itself is a very fine mesh, but also seems durable. I don't think this mesh will tear easily. I am a little concerned about whether or not this mosquito net will be easy to set up, and perhaps just as importantly, how easy it will be to get back into the green carrying case. It is for these reasons that I am rating this product four stars and not five stars.

QBall Reaction Ball

https://qballextreme.com/

These balls are an interesting eye-hand coordination training tool that I received at a discount in exchange for my unbiased review.

I received a set of two of these training balls. They are made of solid rubber, and are fairly dense. They certainly seem well-made.

There are a variety of exercises these balls can be used for. The company that produces these balls has an entire section of their website dedicated to explaining these exercises, and how using these balls can improve your eye-hand coordination, your reaction time, and your focus, among other things. You can also find videos demonstrating how the balls may be used.

I have not used the balls enough myself to be able to say whether or not the company's claims are true, but I can say that I have enjoyed practicing with the balls. The exercise that I like, and have attempted several times, involves bouncing a ball from about waist height alternately with each hand, so you are bouncing two balls in quick succession--one with each hand. The idea is to see how many bounces you can accomplish in a minute. Because the balls are not perfectly round--they have dimples or divots on them--the balls do not bounce in a perfectly true fashion, meaning you have to work a bit to catch them.

I've always thought that I have better than average eye-hand coordination, and my minimal experiments with these balls bear that out. The first time I attempted this exercise I successfully bounced the balls 86 times. Since then I quickly improved to the point where I'd pretty easily reach the 90s, and my best score (out of perhaps 15-20 attempts) is 104 catches in a minute. By comparison, my wife and adult daughters each achieved a best score, after a few attempts, of 74, 56, and 47. (I won't embarrass them by being more specific than that.)

I have no reason to doubt the company's claims that regular exercise with these balls would improve eye-hand coordination, focus, etc. The balls are fun to use, though the exercises do get a bit tedious after a while. If you're willing to spend some time training, I think these balls are probably worth purchasing. They are relatively inexpensive, and should last a long time.

Oco Wireless Surveillance Camera

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00O7Y96IM/

This camera, which I received at no charge in exchange for my unbiased review, is actually quite a disappointment. I can not recommend it to anyone who is considering the purchase of a wireless surveillance camera. 

For starters, the picture quality on this camera is not as good as on the only other camera I can compare it to, which is a Nest Cam. While the Nest Cam offers 1080p resolution, and this Oco camera only offers 720p resolution, I don't think that difference is what I am noticing. (I have watched plenty of 720p videos on YouTube that look a lot clearer than the video this camera produces.)

The sound quality, and what sounds the Oco camera can pick up is also not as good as what the Nest Cam is capable of.

If those were the only issues with this camera, though, I would have rated the Oco camera three, or possibly even four stars. The really big issue I have with the Oco is that unless you pay for a cloud storage service you can only either a) watch video live, using a phone app, or b) see 10-second clips when the camera detects motion. And even those 10-second motion-triggered clips are not recorded consistently. The camera seems to miss plenty of things that should have triggered a 10-second recording.

I wanted to be able to use this camera to record our dog when we are out, to see what she does, etc. In most cases a 10-second clip will be recorded when the dog starts to get up off the couch, but then the clip just stops. So all the camera does is let us see some of the time when the dog got up, and we can see from the time stamp when that was, but we can't see what the dog did unless she did it within 10 seconds of starting to get up.

I am not certain if longer clips can be recorded if one of the cloud services is purchased. The cloud services cost $9 per month or $99 per year if you want ten days of clips saved. I believe that even with the cloud services, however, there is not a way to simply record everything.

It seems to me that if you have the need for a surveillance camera, you probably want to have access to everything that happens once you have turned it on and set it to record. With the Nest Cam, (which also does require a cloud service if you want access to more than the last three hours), everything is recorded and there are ways to easily find the parts of the recording that include motion.

The Oco camera was easy to set up, and does seem to be reasonably well made. I understand that an Oco 2 model is coming out soon that will allow for SD storage of video. It sounds, though, like the Oco 2 is still only going to record clips. (I could easily be wrong about this.) I'd be happy to evaluate an Oco 2 camera as well, and compare it to the Oco camera I received, but I have a feeling that based on how critical this review was, an Oco 2 may not be in my future.