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Well, watch out, that didn’t go to plan

canal in Venice

I recently bought an Ultra Compact Power Bank to replace my existing power bank and to use on a day trip to Venice. 

My main use case is when travelling with just my phone or attending a conference with just my phone. 

If I have my laptop with me I can usually use that to charge the phone. My phone can usually hold a charge for most of the day, but I have found now and then something I am doing kills the battery.

On my day trip to Venice I only planned to take my phone and the power bank. I also thought I should be able to charge my Apple Watch as well if that ran out of power. 

Now the power bank worked a treat in charging the phone, I was down to 25% battery so plugged the phone into the attached cable on the power bank and it recharged the phone.

Towards the end of the day I noted that my Apple Watch was down to 1%. So I retrieved the USB-C watch charging cable from my bag, plugged it into the USB-C port on the power bank and watched the phone literally not charge. 

It wasn’t critical I had my watch (I had my phone) but it was annoying that the charging didn’t work. I hadn’t tested charging the watch before I left, but had for the phone.

When I got home I checked the process, this time using the USB-A charging cable that came with the phone, and this time with the power bank it did charge the phone. So, maybe next time I will take the USB-A cable.

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Replacement Powerbank

I have bought an Ultra Compact Power Bank to replace my existing power bank. My original Power Bank was 20000mAh which I had bought four years ago. It got considerable use and now no longer holds a charge. So, I knew I needed a replacement.

This one was smaller at 10000mAh, but it was also a lot smaller and importantly lighter as well. I also like how it came with included cables.

 

My main use case is when travelling with just my phone or attending a conference with just my phone. If I have my laptop with me I can usually use that to charge the phone. My phone can usually hold a charge for most of the day, but I have found now and then something I am doing kills the battery.

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Now it’s just 157

funky cat headlight

I recently charged my Funky Cat to 100%, the predicted range was 157 miles. Just a bit under from what I reported in December.

The predicted range is based on how the car used energy for the last 100km. Over the last few weeks it has been cold, so I have had the heating on, the windscreen has been misting, so I have had both the heating and the air conditioning on as well.

Batteries perform less well in colder weather and last week it was right down at zero, even if we did not have any snow.

I’ve not drive the Funky Cat in snow and I think it would be either an interesting experience or an utter nightmare.

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Tech Stuff: Top Ten Blog Posts 2025

Don’t have access to my stats anymore to post a top ten of individual blog posts.

However in 2025 I published 43 blog posts.

In 2024 I wrote 61 blog posts, down slightly from 2023 when I published 69 blog posts. In 2022 I wrote 30 posts. In 2021 I published 32 posts on the blog, and in 2020 I wrote 43 blog posts.

Total views and visits in 2025 was down on 2024.

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Well it is getting colder…

I recently charged my Funky Cat to 100%, the predicted range was 159 miles.

I haven’t charged to 100% for a while as I haven’t been doing that much driving.

When I first got the Funky Cat in August 2023 whenever I charged to 100% my predicted range was usually 185 miles. Not quite the 193 of the advertised WLTP range but pretty close. However in the winter it did drop quite dramatically.

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Photographing the past

Wrote a blog post about my time at the Western Colleges Consortium. I realised how few photographs I have of my time there. Did find this one of the filing cabinets in 2004 with the big format printer on top.

filing cabinets

Oh, that’s a fax machine next to the cabinets.

I didn’t really capture what I did back then in photographs. I didn’t really do as much photography back then as I do now. Part of the reason is I am taking more photographs now, but the second reason was back in 2004, a mobile phone was for making phone calls and sending texts. You didn’t really take photographs with a phone; you used a camera. I did have a camera in 2004, actually I used two, a Canon digital SLR and a small Sony Cybershot. Both actually took good photographs (well not in low light).

Checking the EXIF data of the filing cabinet photograph I realised that this was the first time I took a photograph with my then new Sony Cybershot. That explains the weird shot. Or so I thought, it appears I have a number of Sony Cybershot photographs with a DSC00001 file name. Suspect that the numbering was reset when you either deleted the photographs from the Memory Stick or used a different stick.

In comparison in 2004 I have 1062 photographs in my Mac photos app. In 2024 I took 4517 photographs. This year I have taken less, but in 2024 I did a photo a day which usually mean me taking a lot more photographs.

Of course, before digital, using film in the 1990s and (very) early 2000s, I would probably take three or four rolls of film, with 36 photographs on each roll.

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No more WeMo, this time I mean no

light bulb on a wet surface

I have finally unplugged my WeMo devices and bulbs.

I wrote about some WeMo devices I have at my home. Since I moved house last November, I have been using some WeMo devices from Belkin that I have had for a while, but hadn’t used for a fair few years in my last place. These were smart plugs and smart bulbs. I wrote that Belkin are going to stop supporting WeMo devices from January 2026. So, in the longer term I will need to either remove them or replace them.

I did remove them when I had problems with the app, but then they had a reprieve when the app started working again.

I had trialled an Amazon Smart Plug which had been on a special offer. I kept a note on prices using the Keepa extension, and when the plug (and the smart bulbs) recently dropped in price, I made a purchase.

Amazon Smart Plug

The bulbs were easy to install, after installing the first one, the second one almost installed itself.

The only downside. One of the nice functions of the WeMo devices was the “away from home” functionality, which meant that if I was away the lights would go on and off at random times. I have since discovered that the “away mode” for Amazon devices is only available in the US. What’s that about then?

Anyhow, the new Amazon devices seem to be working, and are much more reliable than the WeMo devices.

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Out of order

I use Tesla Superchargers for my Funky Cat because they are significantly cheaper than other public charging options. I was on my way back from Birmingham, and though I didn’t have enough charge to get home, I did to get to the Gloucester Services. On previous trips back from Birmingham I would visit Frankley southbound services on the M5 and use the Tesla chargers there, which would then get me home. However, my preference was to head to Gloucester as the services there are much nicer than the ones at Frankley and I did fancy getting something from the Farm Shop at the services.

When I arrived, I had a 12% charge left on the Funky Cat. I drove around to the Tesla chargers, and it looked like most were free, and there was a reason for that. I did my usual process of starting the charge on the app and then plugging in the cable to the Funky Cat. This appeared to go okay, but then as I waited for the charging to initialise and start, I saw there were problems. The Tesla driver next to me was having a similar issue. It appeared that the chargers were temporarily out of order.

The Gloucester Services have a set of other chargers in their parking as well. However, all the other chargers were all busy. 

I popped into the services anyhow as I needed the loo. My new plan was to go to the northbound services via Junction 12. However, when I came out I saw a car was about to leave the (other) chargers, so I quickly took their place and put the Funky Cat on charge. At 69p kWh not as cheap as the Tesla chargers, but certainly cheaper than Gridserve or InstaVolt at other motorway services.

I went in to the services to get some coffee and browse the shop.

By the time the Funky Cat was at 84% I saw that the Tesla chargers were now working. Was it worth moving the car, well the ones I were using were 13p more per kW. So, using the other chargers and with my 31.3 kWh I was charged £4.07 more than if I had used the Tesla chargers at 56p kWh.

However, moving the car for probably another 5 kWh would save me 65p, so I didn’t bother. I had enough charge to get home, so I unplugged the Funky Cat, took a photograph of what I had been charged and headed home.

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Made it by minutes…

pocket watch
Image by Bruno from Pixabay

I often use the Tesla superchargers when charging the Funky Cat, as they are often significantly cheaper than other public chargers. The last time I used the chargers at Cribbs Causeway I had an issue with one of the chargers so I missed the cheaper charging window.

On my way up the M5 and needing a charge I tried again, though this time I arrived with about ten minutes to spare (not quite the fifteen I planned for). However this time I used the charger that worked last time first and it just worked. This meant I got my charge at 32p kWh rather than 56p kWh. This saved me over nine pounds on my 39kW that I put into the Funky Cat.

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Missed it by minutes…

I often use the Tesla superchargers when charging the Funky Cat, as they are often significantly cheaper than other public chargers.

For example the Gridserve chargers often charge around 85p kW, however the Tesla chargers are not only cheaper at peak times, but much cheaper off-peak. It does vary, but at the time of writing the Tesla superchargers at Cribbs Causeway in Bristol are 56p from 9am to 8pm, 37p from 8pm to midnight and for the rest of time they are just 32p.

To put that in perspective, charging my Funky Cat and putting a big charge of 32Kw into the car could cost £27.20 from Gridserve, but if I put the charge before 9am at Cribbs on the Tesla chargers, then the cost would be £10.24. That is a big difference. 

I decided to head to Cribbs and use the cheaper rate for charging by Tesla. I arrived with about five minutes to spare. This doesn’t matter as the rate you pay is the rate at the point you start charging.

However, the first charger I used, did not work. I have had this issue before with some Tesla chargers. I tried starting the charge again, once more no luck. I then needed to unlock the charging pin, move the car to a different chargers and try again. By the time I moved the car, it was now past 9am, so, I had to pay the higher rate. The difference was that my 33.9Kw charge cost me £18.63, but if I had managed to get the charge going at the cheaper rate then it would have been £12.54, a saving of just over £6.

I think the next time I try this, I need to get there at least fifteen minutes before the charging window changes so I have time to move the car if I need to.