Experiences with Fitbit

I've had a Charge HR for a little while now, and I've had nothing but problems with them. It starts off with a little bit of lifting from the front plate, then pieces fall off until the whole back comes off... then it won't charge, water gets in there, and that's never good. I've burned through two of them in the exact same way. A while ago, I posted about it on Instagram.

I told myself, I'd not buy another Fitbit. Unfortunately, I found a pretty good deal on a Pink/Gold Blaze... so here we are again. Me, with another Fitbit. I think that the Blaze might be a little better, honestly, because it's a much more advanced version of the Flex, which I had no problems with. It's similar to the Flex in the way that the bands are interchangeable. So, if something happened with the band, I can just take the doodad out of the band and get a new one. There's no need to be replacing the entire thing like I'd had to with my Charge HR.

So far though, I'm actually relatively unhappy with it. I can't figure out how to get my phone notifications on it, and it isn't tracking my sleep at all like it's supposed to. Of course, recently I upgraded my phone to something newer, so I don't quite know how to work it yet, I suppose. Hah. So I don't know, I changed the Sleep Sensitivity setting this morning, so we'll see if it works tonight. I sure hope so!

My RetroPie

Omigosh has it been forever since I gave this blog some attention! I have been thinking about coming back to it for a while now, but with so many life changes that had happened since my last post, it made it difficult. But, I'm ready to come back and breathe new life into this neglected blog of mine. Starting with... my most recent project I took on!

Late last year, when the NES Classic came out, I had looked everywhere for it. Every time we went into town, we were at every Gamestop, every Walmart, Target, looking to see if they had new stock of them in. The answer was always no. When they announced they weren't making anymore, I gave up. Now, the SNES Classic preorders started, and obviously, they sold out just as fast. I realized that I didn't want to go through the same stress as I did with the NES in trying to find this thing. Disappointed, I started to look at other options, and came across something that I could work with. I decided to make my own! How, you ask? With a Raspberry Pi!

It wasn't really difficult at all, either. With a starter kit from Amazon, an Xbox One controller, and the RetroPie, I had a really workable make-shift console. I later upgraded the SD card that came in the kit to one much bigger (to hold more games), and purchased a Nintendo-inspired case for it.

I'm in so much love with this little guy. My favorite game system of all time was without a doubt, the Super Nintendo, so I'm so happy to be able to play all my old, favorite games from my childhood. I remember sitting for HOURS in front of a Super Nintendo as a young child, playing Super Mario. It was some of the best memories I have. Both my mother and I would sit in front of the television for hours playing video games. It was great. I think about it now, and realize that maybe my mother at that time was a bigger gamer than I was!

The little flap of the case opens and reveals all the USB ports, and the Ethernet port. This is where I can plug in my controller, or my mini keyboard if I need it. If I don't need them, I can just unplug everything, close the flap, and it'll sit there looking adorable. Unfortunately, the buttons on the front are cosmetic only, as well as the little light to the left of the buttons. I have however, seen people be able to mod this case and their Pi to light the empty square up, and have workable buttons. This is something I wish to do in the future for mine, but right now, I think I'm happy with how it is. (Plus it seems to be a little too technical for me?)

The photos are a little misleading, cause it actually looks rather large! However, in reality, it's actually super-small! It fits in my hand! To anyone wanting a SNES Classic, or NES Classic and can't find one, I will forevermore suggest this to them. There's no need to spend upwards to $200 on ebay for the Nintendo version, do this instead, and get all the games you actually want on it!

I really do adore this thing. It's so easy to think of a game I want, grab a ROM of it and just send it to the system over my Wifi network. It was money well spent for the amount of games and entertainment I can have with this little thing!