Health and Beauty

In my youth I had a beard which came to a nasty end when the chef I was working for took a dislike to it and removed one side of it with the fish scissors, such things today would end up in a court case. So while I often go a day or two without shaving going several weeks in order to test this was something my neighbours had not seen before.

A visit to the Wearable Technology Show had me feeling less fit and able than normal. This device was one of the worst offenders simply because the people wearing them were the exact opposite of me in three ways, young, fit and healthy.

When you get to my age the bald look is in, not by choice but simply because hair stops growing on top, it makes up for this by growing extremely vigorously around the sides and out of most other orifices, so a Hair Clipper still has it uses.

The Braun Beard Trimmer BT 5010 is one of Braun’s new range of grooming aids for men. It is a well-designed rechargeable battery-powered tool that makes it easy to keep one’s beard in good shape.

Steaming food means that the goodness -often boiled away- is retained. So is it possible to have healthy and good tasting food. This item from Morphy Richards gives you a good chance and best of all it is not a whole lot of fuss to produce it.

If you are a regular shaver, how many strokes do you take to complete a shave? According to Gillette it is 170 strokes.

It looks like a round neck pair of in ear buds. It is, so you could use them as a simple music player however it is also a ‘Wearable Music Player with Fitness Tracker, so it can play music in a beat to match your heart rate (pulse).

An analogue watch with a step counter. Yes analogue I do hope younger children are still taught to read a watch rather than rely on digital timepieces. This is a very smart looking offering with a circular dial and absolutely no buttons.

When a company decides that the blades cannot be improved they then look to what surrounds them and here Gillette work on what to you and me looks like the plastic shield that stops the blades meeting your face at anything but the perfect angle.

This is watch, a fitness device and it tracks your footsteps. More importantly if you wear it while in bed it tells you how well/or not you are sleeping. So what if anything makes this a better device than numerous other such offerings?

This is an improved and updated version of something that I had for a while before I could use it as it had a problem with syncing for those of us who use Android. I am pleased to say this rather smart unit does not have those problems.

Reviewing an item like this attached to my TV requires many hours of work just to see if the dire sound quality associated with many American movies can be improved once that hurdle is overcome then you check to see what else it can do.

Earlier this year Gillette launched their Fusion ProGlide and I have been using the two razors provided ever since, while their five blades in the shaver are very good I do not have a wet shave more than about twice a week.

Just in case you need a last minute present for the man in your life then Gillette has a suggestion that could help smooth relations.

The problem with handheld massagers is that unless the area of pain is reachable you need another person to operate it. While as an older person I have aches and pains all over my body like a lot of other people my back is the main offender.

This has been waiting since early 2014 to be reviewed; it came at the same time as the Pulse Oximeter and the Blood Pressure Cuff. The Pulse Oximeter worked immediately, the Blood Pressure Cuff when Android went to V5 but this had to wait for an iPad to arrive.

Music while you ride could well be what you do with this product as it is supplied with a handlebar mount. However it is still a perfectly good set of speakers for those of us who prefer music from the comfort of their armchairs.

Certainly a first for me, a Sat Nav designed for use on a bicycle, most car Sat Navs are totally unsuitable for such a job as their batteries have at best only a few hours of use before they expire without help from a cars battery.

It seems strange to talk about scales that use batteries but of course unless they are the old type that use weights all modern scales need a display and that normally needs at least a small battery. This is the exception it uses no battery.

Not the first back massage unit I have reviewed, as – like a lot of people of my age – I have a bad back they are always met with my backs apprehensive approval. This has one advantage over other powered units its small size when rolled up.

The latest offering from Braun to keep your face perfectly smooth, it is both a wet and dry shaver but unlike the last version I reviewed that had rubber sides this has a chrome effect and is therefore easier to drop if wet really means wet, like in the shower or bath.

Earlier this year I found a device that you do not need to wear that analyse your sleep patterns, that device came from Finland. Now a second somewhat similar device and they also come from Finland, my geography is not that great but two companies producing sleep analyst tools from a single European country is surely something a little unusual.

This is a French company that is perhaps best known for computers especially smaller offerings. Here as far as I know their first venture into weather prediction with a very comprehensive range of parts to give you accurate readings.

Men’s shavers tend to fall into a wet or dry category. However there are some products, of a more recent development, that are classified as being both wet and dry devices for use when removing the stubble that continues to appear on our faces.

When bleary eyed I viewed the first night sleep statistics on my Android phone I almost let out a cheer as at last a sleep monitor gives a real figure so you no longer feel you are going crazy with what other devices claim for sleep periods.

A visit to a riverside iconic London event centre introduced me to a stylish activity tracker that doubles as a hands-free earpiece.

This is the latest in a range of health and fitness items. It has one distinct difference in that it looks like a standard smart analogue watch. It is quite thin, is worn on the wrist, and, to anyone else looks exactly like a wrist watch.

This arrived shortly after the Mio Fuse, for something that uses the same App it works in quite a different way often to achieve the same goals. However its obvious differences are unlikely to matter to the user just getting the results.

There used to be a popular saying, in fact it could still be in use but I have not heard it recently, which implies “the older you get, the younger policemen appear!” I could also add from my own experiences that “the older you get, the steeper hills appear” or “the older you get, the longer it takes you to remove a product from its packaging.” This last statement sprang to mind as I struggled to extract the Withings Activité Pop offering from its protective casing. Admit

This is the latest fitness device to come my way, as I am now using Android 5 it should link without problem, it is stated to work with later versions of Android 4 with low power Bluetooth 4 and that is what you should check before purchase.