u/mogulman1

Watched some reviews on the new Garmin 70/170. Seems pretty cool, especially for the price point. Priced similarly to the Active series from Amazfit. It's got me thinking about my next watch. A lot of features for the price. 5 buttons. Seems like Garmin is trying to stay competitive with lower end models.

I like the ability to create a quick workout from the watch. That seems cool. Another thing is the ability to view sports scores and stock pricing through the watch. Amazfit has apps for this but honestly, they suck.

Anyway. Just throwing it out there because the Garmin are new.

Helping a kid move to Frisco, Tx. 58 year old couple. Driving. We are from the mountains in CO. Should be finished helping him by 5/25/26. Thinking about doing a TX road trip. Maybe stopping in Austin and San antonio, then going to South Padre island (or some other beach area) for a few days. Not much beach in CO. On the way back stopping in Fredericksburg, Lubbock and Amarillo.

Trying to figure out how long we should stay at each place.. We haven't planned anything other than wanting to go to a beach since we're land locked. Also we won't be doing any long hikes or walks as my wife is semi disabled and can only walk few blocks. We like wine, beer and architecture, history and nature. Zoos. Etc.

I'm thinking:

5/25 mon-5/27 wed Austin

5/27 wed- 5/29 Fri San Antonio

5/29 Fri- Mon 6/1 south Padre

6/1 mon - 6/3 wed Fredericksburg

6/3 wed - 6/5 fri Lubbock

6/5 fri - 6/7 Sun Amarillo

6/7 drive home to CO

That's a couple of days in each place except a few more at the beach. Any suggestions on more or less days in each place? Skip a place? Different beach area? We are retired so can spend +- a few days also. Just driving a car, no RV.

Anyone try this unit yet? Costco has it for $129. It seems to be new.

Interested as it seems to have a wider surface area, and dual infrared. No preheat.

I ordered it to try. Will update.

Bought a Panasonic Arc5 from Amazon back in January 2026. Model ES-ALV6HA.

Came from a Gillette fusion blade. Also tried the Braun 9 sport for a few weeks. I had electric razors about 25 years ago, but eventually gave up because none of them were really close enough. Back then I tried Norelco, braun, remington and panasonic. Based on some reviews it seemed like they have gotten better.

Initially seemed to shave pretty close. Had to pull my skin a little bit and shave along my jaw to get it closer around that area. I was pretty satisfied. Cleaned according to inatructions after every shave. Also, used shaver oil once a week. I usually shave every day. Once in a while I miss a day.

The last few weeks I've noticed that it has been leaving some hairs unshaved on my neck and around my face. I tried some Lectric Shave since last week. Doesn't seem to have helped. Of course I'm outside of any return window, but thinking of going back to my razor and cream.

Is there something I can try to make it work better?

Are the blades needing to be replaced already? Seems kind of early.

When you shave with these electric razors do you go light or press hard? I've tried a few different pressures. When there is a stubborn hair, I have to press harder. Just wondering what pressure is normal for them.

Almost ready to give up.

Ok. My Fitbit scale finally died. So now I'm ready to buy a smart scale that integrates with Zepp app. Only I can't find any current models in the US.

Are there any? I see multiple threads where people ask, and the answers are older scales that aren't readily available in the US.

This has me considering leaving Amazfit for another vendor. It's really frustrating.

Second choice, any good quality recent scales that work well with Google fit and sync weight to Zepp?

I have a Zerowater 32 cup dispenser that I use for my CPAP machine. I fill up the dispenser about once per week. The dispenser is kept in a closet in my bathroom. I pour water into it using a pitcher from the sink.

My normal tap water is around 100 TDS. I have used the dispenser for a very long time without the TDS going above 0. I'm thinking more than a year.

Is there some time limit where I should be replacing the filter even if the TDS isn't rising?

Is there some amount of time I should be cleaning the dispenser and top? Do I replace the filter at the same time, or can I just keep it moist somewhere?

Update: My CPAP uses about 10oz/day of water. 2.3 gallons/month.

I'm thinking of cleaning once/month and then changing the filter after 6 months. I guess I'll taste the water every month and see if it tastes fishy.

Drove from Colorado mountains to Las Vegas this past week round trip. Stayed in Kanab, UT on the way there for 2 nights. On the way back we drove straight home. We used the Equinox around Vegas for about 5 days. We also paid for Tesla membership.

On the way to Vegas, we primarily used in-car Google maps. Driving to Kanab on the first day was pretty uneventful. Started at 100%. Stopped in green river and charged to 77% (maps said to go to 70%). Stopped in Richfield, UT for lunch. Changed max charge to 100% because we weren't on a time limit until we were done with lunch. Got to about 90%.

Didn't feel like we waited a lot for the car to charge. Arrived in Kanab with about 30%. Tried to charge at a Chargepoint DCFC, but the only open charger didn't work. Checked the app after 30 mins and one of the other chargers opened up. Charged to about 80%. The next day, we were volunteering at an animal shelter and they let us charge, so we charged to 100% while we worked. Left the next morning to Vegas with about 97% charge.

We could have made it directly to the Luxor, but wanted to have some charge to do some things, so we stopped at a Tesla charger in Vegas and charged to 80% before we went to the hotel.

In Vegas, everything was pretty smooth. Wish we could have just charged at the hotel. Ended up stopping a few times at Tesla Superchargers to top off the charge, since we did some sightseeing (valley of fire, casinos, wizard of Oz at the sphere). Mostly pretty good experience, although I wish the chargers that I picked had more to do around them. A Tesla supercharger near a casino would be ideal.

On the way back, we were going to charge up to 80% before we left this morning, but there was a concert and if we left our parking spot at the hotel, I might not have gotten a new spot since they were selling spots for concertgoers. So we decided to see how it would go starting at 58%.

Vegas to Colorado. We used ABRP on the way back. This seemed to be fine. Although we stopped 5 times. Both ABRP had similar routes. Made it back with 10% left.

A few notes:

-ABRP in the car was a little funky. The car android kept disabling ABRP. I had to go into the play store to enable it. ABRP crashed once when there was no internet. ABRP won't work at all if there is no internet. So I had to wait to use it again. Ultimately, I went back to the in-car Google maps. I might have liked ABRP better but it had some limitations.

- Battery mileage on the left side of the driver display seemed pretty useless other than showing the max mileage after we charged. Sometimes it would drop a lot and then stay at a certain mileage for a long time. Sometimes the mileage it displayed was scary. It almost never matched anything from the maps.

-Even in Google maps, the arrival battery percentage would change quite a bit. Sometimes I would charge to the recommended amount or even a little more, then drive for like 15 minutes. The map display would show me arriving with 20%, then sometimes it would change to 5% or 8%. It was kind of scary. One time it asked if I wanted to add another charge stop. I ended up making to the next charger.

-I started out plugging Tesla chargers into my car and then using the Tesla app to start charging. Occasionally this didn't work. I changed to starting the charge first and then plugging in. This seemed to be more reliable.

-We used the Peacock app to watch a few shows while charging. It crashed a few about 6 times during the trip. Lame.

Biggest issues:

-hated the range anxiety. Wish the built-in apps and display would more accurately tell how much mileage I had left. I started to feel like even though the map(or ABRP) said to charge to 40-70 percent, I wanted to charge to 80 every time to be safe.

-group texts. Need to find a way to mute group texts while I'm driving. DND didn't even seem to stop them. I think even snoozing a group chat in Android is ignored via the car.

Also, forgot to add. On the way to Vegas, with the Kanab stop, the time it took to get there wasn't much different from a gas care. On the longer trip back with all the stops, the electric probably took us about 2.5 hours longer. This was due to stops and also not going as fast.