MY LIL' REMINDER

My Lil' Reminder, retail $9.99 (Their website is now offline)
Manufactured by (Unknown) for My Lil' Reminder (Their website is now offline)
Last updated 02-02-11




This product was not designed to be used specically as a flashlight, but because it uses an LED as a small flashlight, then on this website it goes.

This is a small digital voice recorder with a built-in white LED flashlight. For the purposes of this website, I'm going to focus primarily on the flashlight - with the exception of the recordings I made and published on this web page, so you can hear the product in action.


SIZE



First thing you'll want to do is gently but firmly pull out & remove that plastic tab you see sticking out of the battery door. This is an insulator, designed to prevent unwanted activation before you receive it.

To use this product as a flashlight, just press and hold the rubberised pushbutton below the word "LIGHT" on the top of the product; release the button to douse the light.

To record a message, hold the unit approximately 3" from your mouth, press & hold the "REC" button, and speak clearly into it. Speak as though you were speaking with somebody on a long-distance telephone call; do not mumble or whisper. When finished recording, release the "REC" button. While recording, a red LED on the upper surface of the unit will come on. Recording capability is 20 seconds; if this is exceeded, the red light will turn off and the product will stop recording.

To play back the message, press & release the "PLAY" button. Hold the unit ~3" from your ear if the volume is insufficient; otherwise holding it up toward your face works well. If you do not wish to hear the entire message, just press & release the "PLAY" button again, and playback will stop.

The unit only records one message; if you press the "REC" button again - even briefly - the previous message will become lost. Doesn't matter if your first recording is 15 seconds, 10 seconds, or even five seconds long. It will be erased as soon as you start another recording on it.



To change the batteries, use a small Phillips screwdriver to remove and then set aside the screw holding the battery door in place.

Slide the battery door off, throw it in the garbage can (dustbin), and take the bag to the outside wheeled garbage can (wheelie bin) so the garbage man (dust man) will haul it away next week...O WAIT!!! YOU'LL NEED THAT!!! So just set it aside instead.

Tip the four used AG13 button cells out of the body, and dispose of or recycle them as you see fit.

Insert four new AG13 button cells into the body, orienting them so all their button-ends (-) negatives face the bottom. All of the flat-ends of the cells should be facing upward.

Slide the battery door back on, insert the little screw, and gently but firmly tighten it.
Aren't you glad you didn't dispose of that battery door now?

Unable to measure current usage due to how the product was constructed.



This product is meant to be used as a voice recorder with an occasional-use flashlight built in, not as a flashlight meant to be carried around, thrashed, trashed, and abused; so I won't pee on it, try to flush it down the toilet, bash it against a steel rod or against the concrete floor of an outdoor patio, let my housemate's kitty cats bury it in the litterbox or poop on it, run over it with a 450lb Celebrity, or perform other indecencies that a regular flashlight might have to go through.
So this section of the web page will be significantally more bare than this section of the web page on a page about a flashlight that was born to be a flashlight & nothing but a flashlight.





Beam photograph on the test target at 12".
Measures 6,180mcd on a Meterman LM631 light meter.
Even for a product that was not intended to be a flashlight, this is a dissapointingly low value.


Spectrographic analysis
Spectrographic analysis of the white LED in this product.


Spectrographic analysis
Same as above; newer spectrometer software setting used.


Spectrographic analysis
Spectrographic analysis of the red "REC/PB" LED in this product.

USB2000 spectrometer graciously donated by P.L.



.WAV sound.
This clip is 79,476 bytes in length; dial-up users please be aware.
It has a recording of me making a short shopping list and then playing it back.


.WAV sound.
This clip is 134,595 bytes in length; dial-up users please be aware.
It has a recording of a Commodore 64 speech synthesizer saying the phrase:
"He shoots up drugs with dirty needles."
and the product playing it back.


.WAV sound.
This clip is approximately 0.2 megabytes (229,401 bytes) in length; dial-up users please be aware.
It will take no less than one minute to load at 48.0Kbps.
It has a recording of a Commodore 64 speech synthesizer saying the phrase:
"He drinks Massengill brand post-menstrual disposable douches."
and the product playing it back.

I cannot provide any of these clips in other formats, so please do not ask.


Here is proof that I used a Commodore 64 computer with the "SAM" speech synthesizer to say these phrases.
I deliberately misspelled the words "Massengill", "disposable", and "douches" so the program would say them correctly.





TEST NOTES:
Test units were purchased on the My Lil' Reminder website in mid-October 2006 after seeing TV ads for it, and were received on the afternoon of 12-13-06.

Product was made in China. A product's country of origin really does matter to some people, which is why I published it on this web page.


UPDATE: 09-04-07
I converted the .AVI video files on this web page to .WAV audio files - they are audio-only, so it will save a lot of load time.


UPDATE: 09-21-09
I'm currently using this product to make keeping a tobacco diary easier; using a paper diary was just too much of a pain in the toliet muscle (especially when I'm going somewhere in my scooter), but this makes things considerably more easy.


UPDATE: 09-26-09
If I'm going to keep a "siggeret" diary, at least I'm going to have a little fun with it; as you'll hear below:

.WAV sound.
This clip is 58,176 bytes in length; dial-up users please be aware.

It has the product playing back the prase "Entering sector one point four" in the same manner as the speech synthesizer in the coin-op arcade video game ''Star Trek'' {it's supposed to be Mr. Spock saying this}, then say "I mean...cigerette number fourteen", in the same manner as the speech synthesizer in the coin-op arcade video game ''Looping''.


UPDATE: 09-29-09
I've been keeping this diary using a format like the one used on the Star Trek: DS9 episode "The Darkness and the Light"; as you hear in the following audio (sound) clip:

.WAV sound.
This clip is 23,634 bytes in length.



UPDATE: 10-21-09
When you change the batteries, the message you recorded is *NOT* lost!!!
I fully expected that it would be, but that was not the case.


UPDATE: 11-03-09
If you have a long message stored, and only need to listen to the first part of it, pressing "PLAY" while the message is playing will stop the playback and not cause anything to be erased. This is handy when you have a lengthy recording, and only need to hear the first part of it - no need to have to listen to the whole thing.


UPDATE: 11-24-09
I have started another tobacco diary, and this unit plays a rather important role.
It might suck as a flashlight, but it records speech just fine thankyouverymuch. No complaints in that department.


UPDATE: 12-31-09
Although I'm no longer keeping the tobacco diary, I do use the product to record the time of day every time I spark up a "C". As before, it's performing this task quite admirably.
I'm using it this way to help ensure an interval of 45 to 50 minutes between each smoke.


UPDATE: 01-01-10
One of the units I have has inexplicably become broken.
I heard rattling inside of it all day yesterday; when I unscrewed the two case halves last night, the LED fell out when I opened the case halves. The following photograph shows this:





UPDATE: 01-04-10
One of the two units is noticeably more sensitive than the other when it comes to audio recording and playback; I swapped the batteries between them to see if that was "it", but it was not.

Here is an audio clip that demonstrates this. Both units were recorded to simultaneously, with the word "testing." directed between the microphones of the two units; and the video camera's mic was directed directly between the speakers on the two units to assure an equal distance.

.WAV sound.
This audio clip is 27,296 bytes in length.



UPDATE: 01-08-10
The replacement unit (the more sound-sensitive of the two) records perfectly well when held at arm's length (approx. 24") from the mouth when speaking at normal indoor amplitude (volume); the instructional materials advise holding the unit 3" away from the mouth when recording. So yes, it really *IS* more sensitive to audio than it was designed to be.


UPDATE: 01-21-10
The unit I'm using for my "siggeret diary" occasionally "goes off" in my pocket, queering that day's entry. This occurs approximately one time per month. Although I ***DO NOT*** place blame on the product itself, I do think that it's worth mentioning.


UPDATE: 07-04-10
I'm once again using this product to keep a "siggeret" diary.
In this recording, you can hear me say "5:59...Entering sector zero point nine five" in the same manner as the speech synthesizer in the coin-op arcade video game ''Star Trek'' {it's supposed to be Mr. Spock saying this}, then say "I mean...cigerette number nine point five".


UPDATE: 07-07-10
I attempted to use the product to record the sounds of fireworks being discharged in our neighbourhood on the evening of 07-04-10 (or "04 Jul 2010" if you prefer); I met with rather limited results as the audio (sound) file directly below illustrates.
.WAV audio of fireworks being discharged as recorded by this product.


UPDATE: 07-08-10
Again, I attempted to use the product to record the sounds of fireworks being discharged in our neighbourhood on the evening of 07-05-10 (or "05 Jul 2010" if you prefer); I met with rather limited results as the audio (sound) file directly below illustrates.
.WAV audio of fireworks being discharged as recorded by this product.


UPDATE: 07-11-10
My sister gave me a My Lil' Reminder Deluxe on the morning of 07-09-10 (or "09 Jul 2010" if you prefer).

This URL has the My Lil' Reminder Deluxe for sale at $18.99 a pair.


Photograph of the new unit.


Spectrographic analysis
Spectrographic analysis of the white LED in the new unit.

USB2000 spectrometer graciously donated by P.L.

.WAV audio file of the product playing back the recording I made on it.
You should be able to hear, "Do some wash, scrub the water closet, and vacuum."


UPDATE: 02-01-11
I've been keeping a temporal (time) "diary" of sorts so I can get an idea of the interval in between smokes; I've been doing this for eveal months now on the same set of batteries.





PROS:
Does what it was intended for adequately


CONS:
Much dimmer than expected - even for a product not made to be a flashlight
Batteries it uses could be difficult to find in brick-&-mortar stores
Appears to have rather delicate construction
Records only one message, regardless of length


    MANUFACTURER: Unknown
    PRODUCT TYPE: Digital voice recorder w/flashlight
    LAMP TYPE: 5mm white LED
    No. OF LAMPS: 1
    BEAM TYPE: Medium spot w/soft fall-off to perimeter
    SWITCH TYPE: Momentary pushbutton on/off
    CASE MATERIAL: Plastic
    BEZEL: Plastic; LED slightly protrudes from case
    BATTERY: 4xAG13 button cells
    CURRENT CONSUMPTION: Unknown/unable to measure
    WATER- AND PIDDLE-RESISTANT: No
    SUBMERSIBLE: NO WAY HOZAY!!!
    ACCESSORIES: 4 batteries, swivel, split-ring
    WARRANTY: Unknown/not stated

    PRODUCT RATING:

    Star Rating





My Lil' Reminder * (Their website is now offline)






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