Hiro

@hiro.report

Writing about Tech, Apple, Gear, and Mindfulness. Sharing cool finds every Sunday: 🌐 https://subscribe.hiro.report 📷 https://hiro.camera ✉️ hi@hiro.report 👤 He/Him

Building tiny occult gadgets in the lab is just the right kind of weird zen I need right now… I wired an ESP32 to a tiny e-ink display to build an offline pocket oracle. A little button press pulls a randomized tarot card, plus it wakes itself up at 7am every morning to deal a card for the day.

iOS 27 Beta 3 finally unlocked the new Siri voice customization features for me. The changes are pretty subtle, but still noticeable. I'm digging it. Hopefully they provide even more range for these dials closer to launch.

Screenshot of Siri mods

Mildly obsessed with the built in lighting on my new record cabinet from local Austin artisan, Glue and Lagom

Record close upCabinet close upMedium cabinet shotWide cabinet shot

I continue to be pleasantly surprised by the Siri AI beta… I just today realized that if you invoke with saying "Siri" or "Hey Siri" that it automatically goes into conversation mode where you can interrupt and ask follow-up/clarifying questions.

Starting to experiment with AI driven development for hardware. First up, an e-ink Tarot Card of the day with a button to draw a random card. Still finalizing the software and then will work on a fun 3D printed case for my pocket-size digital oracle.

Esp32 with eink display showing the Nine of Cups

Unless I'm mistaken, this seems new to iOS 27: We can finally adjust playback speed for voice notes in messages! We also can play them in the background while doing other stuff, which is pretty great.

Today 9:50 AM
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Hey Capture app user friends, do any of you have a large-ish Obsidian library (2000+ entries) and want to help me beta test a new experimental feature for the app? Hit me up! (OR if you're not a user yet, visit capture.surf and let me know if you want to help test!)

“[BLANK] is an experimental beta” warning banner

It's 10pm, the kids are safely in bed, I've had my sleepy magnesium drink and I'm pushing point release updates to my little Mac app. Is it bad that I'd take this over going out for drinks any day of the week?

The new Oura Ring 5 looks awesome. I've been super happy with my earlier gen Oura for what I've found to generally be way more accurate sleep/recovery data than Apple Watch with the added benefit of letting me wear my analog watches and still get all the analytics I like to nerd out on.

Oura Ring ®
Subtle. Power.
The world's smallest smart ring is here.

This week I've been drooling over a brushed steel lamp I can't afford, learning I've been journaling like a Spanish fighter pilot for years, and reading a website powered by a solar panel. Also in tonight's Hiro Report ⚡ - a Raspberry Pi camera built by hand with custom firmware - an AI voice comp

Frama T-Lamp

The Texas Military Forces Museum put on a really fantastic Vietnam battle reenactment this Memorial Day weekend. Got a few shots between my iPhone and the Q3, all edited in the new theLab emulations.

Close-up of a soldier’s watch	Heat of battleAPC driverKitted out soldier

Recently started using Claude voice chat again after writing it off last year… It's gotten LOTS better! OpenAI still has the advantage for sure, but Anthropic has made big quiet strides here. Hope they keep iterating on this.

I've got a fair amount of travel coming up this summer, anyone have any favorite travel tech I should look at?

Just added the most commonly requested feature to Capture— The ability to append to a section of an existing note. Now you can keep your personal and work Daily Notes sorted 🙌 capture.surf

Apart from being stressed out, I'm enjoying playing with the Grow app for Apple Watch this week. It's a free companion that's basically a customizable, cheerful little gremlin tracking your health metrics for you. Grow watches steps, sleep, HRV, workouts, hydration, and sunlight, and awards a Gol

Grow app on my Apple Watch

What are the odds that all the current weirdness going on in the world is somehow attributable to the fact that most American youth of today start every sentence by invoking the Norse deity of mischief and chaos?

Totally nerve wracking, and completely drenched in coffee but HERE IT IS... Capture is LIVE! 🎉 ⌥C anywhere on your Mac → into Obsidian in under 2 seconds. Mac-native. Tiny. No complicated UI nav. capture.surf