.FLYINGHEAD PRODUCT REVIEW
.TITLE Will the Unotron Washable Wireless Keyboard sink or swim?
.AUTHOR David Gewirtz
.OTHER
.SUMMARY Nothing, well almost nothing, is more compelling to boys of any age than destroying things, especially if you know you’re not going to get in trouble doing it. With that in mind, you can begin to understand our excitement when the Unotron Washable Wireless Keyboard showed up for review. To us, the word "washable" doesn’t mean what it means to normal people. To us, the word "washable" means "OK to sink and drown". Read this review to find out if the Unotron Washable Keyboard managed to swim…or sink.
Nothing, well almost nothing, is more compelling to boys of any age than destroying things, especially if you know you’re not going to get in trouble doing it.
.CALLOUT My plan was foiled. The damned thing wouldn’t sink.
With that in mind, you can begin to understand my excitement when the [[http://www.unotron.com|Unotron Washable Wireless Keyboard]] showed up for review. To a guy like me, the word "washable" doesn’t mean what it means to normal people. To a guy like me, the word "washable" means "OK to sink and drown".
Heh, heh. This was going to be fun.
.TEASER To learn whether David managed to drown the keyboard, tap here for the full story.
Wasting no time, I filled a tub with seven inches of water and dropped the keyboard into it. My plan was to let the keyboard sit at the bottom for a little while and then see if it’d still work.
My plan was foiled. The damned thing wouldn’t sink.
Apparently, part of the way the devious folks at Unotron make their keyboards washable is by making the internal workings water-tight. That means there’s air inside the keyboard. Enough air to make the thing float, as shown in Figure A.
.FIGPAIR A It’s not sinking. I wanted it to sink.
No problem. Plan B. I’ll just get a couple of bricks and put them on top of the keyboard to hold it down.
Plan B was also foiled because I live in a brand new house. One not made of brick. There’s not a frickin’ brick anywhere on the block. There also aren’t large rocks, cinder blocks, or anything else that I could push off the dock to sink the keyboard.
Have I mentioned I have a very tolerant wife? Standing in the kitchen, thinking my dilema through, I noticed the empty milk bottle I’d just left sitting on the counter. I’d left it there all morning. Like I said, Denise is very tolerant.
Having an engineering degree, I understand the concepts of buoyancy and displacement. I never thought I’d be writing about buoyancy in Computing Unplugged, but I grok the math. In this case, it was simple. Fill the milk bottle with water, shove the keyboard in the tub, and place the milk bottle on top.
As most of you might figure, the milk bottle doesn’t add much weight, but because it prevents the water in the bottle from displacing, it managed to keep the keyboard seven inches under water, as you can see in Figure B.
.FIGPAIR B The keyboard is finally underwater, where it belongs.
I gotta tell you, getting that rubber ducky to stay put was quite a challenge! In any case, I finally got all the elements together and left the keyboard underwater to soak for 15 minutes.
After the fifteen minutes were up, I rescued the keyboard, stuck it on the sink, and let it dry for about eight hours. I could have used a towel to dry it off, but, have I mentioned I’m a guy? It sat there until I got bored.
Still dripping a little water, I brought it near my test PC, tapped the Windows key, selected a text editor, and proceeded to write this review.
Even after flooding it in a bathtub, the Unotron Washable Keyboard took a sinking and came out typing. I only have one complaint. Take a look at the bottom of the keyboard, as shown in Figure C.
.FIGPAIR C The metal key is glued on.
As you can see, the way the keyboard stays waterproof is with a special waterproof battery door. To open the door, which is sealed quite tightly, you need to use the square metal key. This worked fine, although I am concerned that after repeatedly replacing batteries, the seal might degrade. But that’s not the issue.
The issue is the key is attached to the keyboard with an adhesive glue blotch. The glue is not waterproof. So, when I removed the keyboard from the bathtub, the metal key was still in the tub, sitting on the bottom.
This doesn’t impact the functionality of the keyboard in any way. But you’d think they’d find a mechanical way for securing the key to the keyboard. This is only a minor gaffe, but it keeps the keyboard out of five star territory.
Because this thing passed the most extreme torture test I could get away with (Denise wouldn’t let me run it through the dishwasher), we give the Unotron Washable Wireless Keyboard a Titanic four out of five.
.RATING 4
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
Learn about the [[http://www.unotron.com|Unotron Washable Wireless Keyboard]].
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO
