The Chaser Report - Un-Skippable Episode | WELCOME TO THE FUTURE | ANDREW HANSEN

Episode Date: April 23, 2023

Please enjoy a special episode from our Welcome To The Future podcast as we enjoy a 4 day weekend. Andrew Hansen and Charles Firth investigate a bluetooth skipping rope. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gadigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is the Chase of Report. I got in there before the intro could finish. Hello, I am Loughlin, the producer of this show. Charles and Dom are not with us today because they have very wisely chucked a tactical sickie and extended a two-day weekend into a four-day weekend. And I respect the hell out of them for doing that. Thank you for joining us on the show.

as always, we like to bring you high quality content. And that is why on this bare minimum Monday, we are giving you a high quality episode of another podcast that we make. If you haven't listened to Welcome to the Future right now, what planet do you want? You're missing out, okay? Listen to it. It's a good show. It's got funny tech products. It's got funny tech prospects for the future. And most of all, it's got Bluetooth. And isn't that what the world's really needing right now. Bluetooth and podcasts, and we're giving you both of those things. It's a very good show, and in last week's episode, we were joined by Andrew Hansen, and he and Charles had a look at a particular product. It was a Bluetooth skipping rope. I won't spoil how it all goes, because you're going to

listen to that in a second and have a lot of fun. In the meantime, a quick public service announcement as tomorrow is Anzac Day, lest we forget to tell you that when are not going to have an episode. So if you need an extra thing to mourn, there's that you can deal with. If you're still looking for content, always listen to an old episode of the show, or do what I'm going to do tomorrow and re-watch the entirety of Auntie Donna's Coffee Cafe. That's right. This is a plug for someone that we are in no way connected to. Good show, though. I recommend checking it out. Okay, you guys have a good one. I'm going to leave you with a quick quote from a book that I have begun reading recently.

It's by one C. Firth, it's called American Hoax. This is the first page, the dedication. It's to myself with frank admiration. And I encourage you all listeners to go out and admire yourself with as much undeserved confidence that 2005 Charles Firth gave himself. With that, I leave you. good day and enjoy welcome to the future. Welcome to the future.

Hello and welcome to another episode of Welcome to the Future. And I'm Charles Firth. Today we've got Andrew Hansen as a special guest. Hello, Andrew. Hello, hello, Charles. Hello. I was in the future there for a minute. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It welcomed me so convincingly to the future. I had to wait for it. To the future. So the reason why we've set up this as a separate stream and it's not just part of the Chaser report anymore is because I reckon within maybe a fortnight AI will get so good that we'll just be able to type into chat GPT4

create another episode of Welcome to the Future we won't even have to be here. In fact, probably if you think about it, this episode may well just be AI generated. You can't tell the difference. Well, how would you know? Yes. Because I mean, I can't tell.

The production values are so sleek. In both? Both. Maybe it's the echo. It could be that. It makes you just go, that's too AI. I mean, and it's an amazing invention AI, isn't it? And I know artists are very excited about, you know, having their work stolen and reused at 30% of the original quality.

Yes, I love it. It's a bright new future. I think for everybody. Okay, but that's not the topic of today's episode. Today's episode is all about one product and one product alone. I'm very excited about this because I think it really does solve a problem for a particular market segment. And it is the Renfo smart jump rope, right? Yeah.

So it's a Bluetooth-controlled rope. Okay. And what it does is it solves the age-old problem that I'm sure, I'm sure you've been through, Andrew. I know I suffer from it terribly, which is not being able to jump and count at the same time. Oh, yes. This solves that problem.

And I can tell you now, like, if you've got like a two-year-old kid and you ever, you know, those challenges that you do where it's like, can you do go to 20? They always fucking miss a few numbers. Get them a rent-fo smart jump. What's it called? Jump rope.

And then your problem's solved. Hang on, what two-year-old can do jump rope? Oh, I don't think that's something my two-year-old can do. Well, remember, well, maybe more like five-year-olds. They always have, because they, is it for the MS? Yeah, the charity jump rope things or something? You've got to jump over a skipping rope. Yeah.

So this, so what, does it have a speaker in it, Charles? Does it count the numbers? Yes. So what it does is it's got, oh, you can't really. see it, but essentially it looks like a jump rope, but on the side, in the handle, is a little LCD screen, and as, as you're jumping, it counts the number of jumps, which is going really useful. And then, no, but the thing is, it's got an app, right? So you download the Rentfo app, and it sinks the number of jumps that you've jumped with your app.

So you can store that, you're like, forever. You can go, oh, okay, I jumped, you know, 23 jumps today. Say in 50 years time, you want to know. Or no, say next Tuesday, you go, oh, how many jumps did I do on Wednesday last week? you can look it up it's there in your app never forget it ever again because that's part of the problem with this

you know just counting in your brain you do it you walk out of the gym within half an hour yet you're not remembering how many jumps you've jumped you don't know it's so annoying isn't it I mean I know what you mean this has solved a real problem and people you know it will come up in conversation

like you'd be at a dinner party and people will say oh how many jumps did you do you know, on February the 13th last year. And you go, oh, fuck, I don't know. I've forgotten. Well, this app solves that problem. And it forever. And you'll be the life of the party.

Yes, with this app. So there is. It is irritating, isn't it? I mean, I do find the same. Gosh, they've really answered a need, haven't they? Yes. A huge need has been answered. And the great thing is, it's only $20 US,

which is pretty good. Hang on. So it's actually cheaper than a jump rope that doesn't have the smart features. Yeah. The only thing I'd say is there are a few reviews from users on it. And look, it gets a fairly high rating. It gets about four, four and a half, right? So it's better than it.

But apparently the syncing, the Bluetooth syncing part doesn't work very well. So the whole storing it in here, it's very unreliable apparently. So in terms of Bluetooth's to your phone, does it? Yes. Or your car, perhaps? Bluetooth's your... And you're going, see, this was a perfect opportunity to cut Bluetooth out because what is it?

It's a fucking cord. It doesn't have to be cordless. It's a cord. It's built for being plugged in. Yes. But... Well, I'm intrigued by the price, so, Charles, because I've just done a quick search online for what jump ropes cost.

What did you say it cost? Well, 20 US dollars. I've just noticed it's actually $50 in Australia. So pay a bit of... Oh, 50 in Australia. Well, that's, okay, that is a bit more. Because I can see a jump rope here for 40 Australian dollars that doesn't have any smart features at all.

So for an extra 10, you can get this. Yes. And the good thing is, because it's not just about, you know, the past, it's also about the future. You can set yourself a goal on the app. You can say, I will see. skip 200 jumps tomorrow. I see.

And you sort of do a pre-commitment and then it counts them up. Yeah, I see. As you're doing it, though. It's just so, I mean, I really feel that other, you know, exercise products ought to have a digital counter in them, shouldn't they? I mean, are there punching bags that can count how many punches you've delivered, for instance? Surely there are. Actually, can I say, though, I have to make a bit of a correction because a couple of weeks ago on this podcast, we were talking about health products. And we're looking at the whittings range of health products, right, which sync with the, they've got some whittings.

They're the sort of Nokia range. They're called whittings. Anyway, I was mentioning how my smart scale updated its firmware, and as a result, you could talk to the internet. internet now and it could measure me but my app it wouldn't sink my weight with the app right oh big problem your life must have fallen apart so it could tell me it could tell me the weather but it couldn't record my weight onto the fitness app right but it turns out i then lost about five kilos and suddenly it started sinking again and what i think happened was that i got so fat that it didn't recognize me it thought a stranger had stood on that on that scale and so it wasn't singing with the

out because it was going oh that's somebody else standing on that sky it's probably like touch ID or you know fingerprint ID yes exactly it's fat ID yeah it's not a way it's a different person yeah that's right um locked you out yeah I had to slim down just to uh to get back into my app. Well, unless it's a sort of an incentive thing that they've built, built into the software. I'd say it's more of a disincentive. But yes, no, you're right. Actually, and there's another correction.

Sorry, this is a totally wrong podcast. This segment is not peer reviewed, is it? Which is that in addition to the Bluetooth, there is in fact a USB type C socket on the jump rope. You unscrew the smart handle. Okay. And inside the smart handle is, oh, no, no, no, wait a minute. No, no, no, no. It's saying that's what should happen.

Sorry, this review that I'm reading says that's what should happen, but it doesn't. Oh, it should plug in. It should plug in. Just like I said. But actually it doesn't. But how, I mean, if you're using a skipping rope, there's a lot of hand movement going on. I mean, how are you going to plug it in to something really? It's being whizzed around at a great speed, isn't it?

Yeah. Oh, I see. No, yeah, I don't think you do it in real time. You do it afterwards. But then that's a whole, that's a whole other caboodle. You're better off just spending 10 minutes trying to make it sync with your Bluetooth. It's a much better use of time. Imagine all the things that you've got to do in your day.

Hang on, I just need to set a side. So five or ten minutes to plug in the skipping rope. And just to be a little bit more technical, I've got a better review here that goes into a lot more of technical thing. It not only counts the total skip number, it also counts the total skip time, the calories burned, and flag any tangles that you had during your skip, right? So you can count the tangles. You can count the tangles. Yeah, which... It's quite clever. Yes. So, I mean, imagine a situation, you're at a bar, um, somebody cute walks up to you. They want, they want to get the number of tangles that you've had in your skiprope routine over the

last month, average number of tangles, you can't deliver that unless you've got a smart rope, smart jump rope. But yeah, you could pull that out. You'd take the rope with you, I imagine. Yes. To the bar as well. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Well, don't we all? Yeah, I think that does make a lot of sense. Tangle. And so, and the good news is that you can get the Renfo smart skipping rope from J.B. hypho um and but unfortunately that's where all the we're all fitness enthusiasts head for their gym equipment and um i'll just uh see if there's any other it's got a durable pbc rope um and it's got it comes with a rope as well well that's that's the most revolutionary thing yet it's yeah it includes a rope it's right and look it includes tons of things it's got two

handles so it's not just for people who have only one arm it suits people with two arms um comes with a rope two cordless balls why does it have two cordless balls what would you need a ball two cordless balls yeah i'm sorry what it doesn't explain what they're for two rope buckles what are they for this is obviously some sort of technical fitness things two rope a lot of stuff two triple a size batteries one use a manual and one storage bag. Yeah, a skipping rope with a user manual. Now, that's what I want.

And the best news is it's got a safety auto shut off timer. So if you put it down for more than 200 seconds, it turns itself off, which that is a huge safety concern. Because imagine if you'd left your rope on all day. I mean, you're going to imagine what would happen. Very dangerous. Oh, boy. You'd be screaming.

It'd be like those old ads of the woman with the. burning chips who used to be on TV oh my goodness the chips except to be the rope oh my goodness the rope

we left it on we'd have to start running public advisory campaigns remember to turn off your rope next time you leave the house

turn off your rope every year 10,000 Australians die because they don't turn off their rope our gear is from ride

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