Something not too many people have, but you really like. Not like a flashlight or a knife/multitool. My most unique (although still popular) are probably my loop quiet ear plugs. They come in handy in a lot of cases and word really well.
Not sure if it quite meets the standards of the question, but I keep calfskin driving gloves in my car and I love them. They’re good for when the steering wheel is too hot or too cold, they keep my hands from getting sweaty on long car trips, and they make me feel like an old-timey race car driver.
A cheap little tape measure. It’s surprising how often it gets used.
I’ve got a keyring one. So handy.
I drilled a little hole in one of my guitar picks and added it to my keychain. It comes in handy for all sorts of things!
I’m intrigued, what kinds of things?
Well, it comes in handy as a mini pry tool, a mini scraper, and on occasion it can even work as an improvised screw driver! You can also use it to play the guitar in a pinch lol
Everytime I eat certain meats I end up with food stuck in my teeth.
This has happened enough times that I wished I carried toothpicks. So now I carry a slim brass tube filled with wood toothpicks.
Do you also have a belt holstered hot sauce?
A fresnel lens
What a the main (and other) use. Fire or magnifying?
Mainly magnifying but it has a little ruler and can start a fire/fuse some plastics in a pinch too.
Yours has a ruler? Cool!
My pocket DAC/Amplifier Combo, works over Bluetooth and wired, built in mic. Allows me to both have great audio quality for music over wired and use my favorite IEMs wirelessly when sound quality isn’t my first concern (biking, working in my lab, chores, etc). I used to just use my wired DAC for listening to my phone, but having the flexibility of choice makes life so nice.
I just wish they had used a better battery, I have had to send it in multiple times for battery swelling.
Qudilex 5K? Just wondering if I should expect problems, love mine…
No, the Ifi GoBlu. Great sound quality, great aesthetic, convenient size, garbage battery quality. I have had to send it in 3 times for swelling. Each time, I have buckled down more on making sure I was more careful with charging; using a smart charging or low power USBC AC adapter, then using only low voltage adapters, finally demanding they send me an AC adapter designed for it since they didn’t include one.
Such a significant thing to cheap out on with a $200 piece of tech, especially when LiPo batteries are already so cheap. They also refused to send spare batteries as well this last time, which I am more than capable of replacing myself, to save ~3 weeks of time. I have decided that if it happens again, I will just find a comparable size/voltage battery and solder it in myself to spare myself the hassle.
Thanks, it really does have a great aesthetic! Sounds tedious, might be a flaw in their charging circuitry, so yeah I’d go for self repair. Good luck.
How do you store your music? Why do you need a stand-alone DAC?
I use Tidal for listening to music on my phone most of the time, whether wired or wireless. That, plus USB Audio Player Pro for wired listening, gives a pretty good sound quality over my DAC. At home and in my work office I have dedicated DACs and tube amps for driving my cans (Schitt Modi + Littleblack Mk.2 in my office, Schitt Mobius + Feliks Echo 2 at home).
I use the dedicated DAC on mobile for a few reasons:
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My phone doesn’t have a headphone jack and I have been dissapointed by most USBC-to-3.5mm dongles’ build quality, so using a higher quality DAC gets around that.
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I also generally prefer a balanced 4.4mm jack over an unbalanced 3.5mm, both for a more solid physical connection and to reduce crosstalk, and my DAC has both 3.5/4.4mm ports.
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For wireless. I use IEMs that have a wired connection and the bluetooth adapters/replacement cables are pretty low quality in my experience (low battery capacity, poor sound quality, poor build quality, finnicky connectors, etc.) and a combo bluetooth/wired dac is avoids most of these issues. It also means I can keep the DAC and my phone in different places on my person (great for having my phone on a stand while biking and keeping the DAC in my pocket, or leaving my phone charging while I listen to music in my lab).
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Little credit card multitool in my wallet, not sure of that counts as a multitool
Band aids, also in the wallet
I had this! I think this exact brand. I stayed at this hotel (holiday inn) a while back, went down for brekkie, and it got stolen from inside the hotel room, along with my watchstrap compass. The floor manager stated that his people never steal. Ok, well, they did. Pissed me off. I won’t stay at that hotel chain anymore.
I want one of these for my wallet one day…
A bandaid? Slightly bigger than normal size and in the thicker material.
The random EEC knife cut, children (yours or otherwise), even semi fixed a shoe (makeshift tape).
I carry mine in a wallet so even if I’m without EDC I have it.
I carried BAND-AID® Brand TOUGH STRIPS® (had to go look it up to get all the bullshit right) in my wallet for years. I highly recommend these specifically because they work incredibly well in situations most bandages don’t. I used to slap them all over while working in a wood shop for a variety of reasons. They stay on all day even doing crazy shit. They’ll cover just about anything pretty well including harder spots like fingertips.
I don’t carry them anymore because I have a deathly tape allergy and they will kill me now. I get so many little nicks and cuts to this day that I wish I could slap those fuckers on.
Try BAND-AID® Brand Hydro Seal. Generic works as well, but you waste one unwrapping sometimes. I get cuts and dings everywhere, changed my life.
Superglue might fit the niche the band-aids left. I’m an apprentice bench jeweler and I’m constantly getting cuts, scrapes, and accidentally plunging burs into my hands. A little disinfectant and then superglue, shit stays closed and doesn’t compromise my grip or flexibility.
A small pair of vernier calipers. I don’t use them a lot, but sometimes they come in very handy.
Pair of Light My Fire nylon sporks, in my belt pack. They come in handy.
Not quite EDC: handheld luggage scale. Surprising how often I want to weigh something while out and about.
Does a tick remover count? It gets used almost daily with my dog.
Gaffer tape folded up into a square
I used to carry that, for when I used to actually do that job lol
I laminated my vax card and put it in my wallet for the very short window of time when some businesses asked to see it, and now I just use it as a toothpick.
I had this in my wallet for a very long time and literally never used it once lol
Plus one for ear plugs. I have a little case with rubber ear plugs that I always keep on me due to sensitive hearing. Freaking game changer at concerts or scouting events
I carry a 3D printed universal shopping cart unlocker that doesn’t stay in the cart after it’s released. I never carry coins and I still need to shop.
I always bring my carts back though.
Why does anyone think that coin lock shopping cart thing is gonna prevent cart theft in the first place? Shit, even if I was homeless and desperate to steal a cart, it ain’t all that hard to come across someone willing to donate a quarter…
Where did you get the idea it’s to prevent cart theft? It’s to get people to bring the carts back so they don’t need to pay staff to do it.
Carts that lock their wheels if brought offsite are to prevent theft. No “homeless” (criminal cart stealer) is going to want a cart that doesn’t roll.
I’m not sure where you are or what sort of cart technology you’re referring to, but they’re purely mechanical devices in my area. Inserting a coin physically unlocks the lock cable tethering them together.
The idea is that once you put your cart back and reconnect the tether lock to the next cart in front, it’ll pop your shiny quarter back out and lock the tether again.
None of that fancy electronic GPS stuff around here, it’s all mechanical. And in practice, nobody gives a flying fuck to go through the extra inconvenience, they just leave the quarter in there and leave the cart wherever.
The idea might have sounded neat in the research, development, and engineering phases, but they totally underestimate people’s laziness when they’re loading their groceries up in the rain.
And since most everyone just leaves the quarter in there, then they all remain unlocked, and anyone can just up and steal one if they want anyways.
You must be American.
They cost more than a quarter here. Nobody ever leaves money in them. They’re always locked up to get people to pay to unlock them.
Everyone also uses automatic wheel locks on them (a separate device) to disable them from rolling if taken off the lot. I’ve never seen a thief with one.
Indeed, American here. They’ve only just started using these locking carts at our Aldi grocery stores.
