4G Smart Meter Communications Hub

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A photo of our electric meter with a new 4G communications hub on top.

If you’ve been reading this blog for some time now, you’ll be aware that, in March last year, our smart electric meter stopped being smart. It’s now fixed, and we have a new 4G communications hub too.

For some reason, that even now we’re not entirely sure of, no regular readings were being set back to our energy supplier. This meant that we had to take manual readings, which was a pain – our meter is in a cubby hole under the stairs in our cellar, behind our tumble dryer. We get our energy from Octopus (referral link), and although they tried various things at their end, after a few weeks, it was determined that we needed an engineer visit.

Unfortunately, this has coincided with the shutdown of the Radio Teleswitch service, which controls older Economy 7 meters. This means that, nationally, there’s huge demand for engineer visits to replace these older meters with newer smart meters. Whilst the shutdown should have happened last year, it’s been delayed and will (probably) happen this year. As such, it took until January for us to finally get an engineer visit.

The Communications Hub

It turns out that the electricity meter itself was fine. The issue was in the Communications Hub; if you have smart meters, then you’ll typically have:

  • An electricity meter
  • A gas meter (if you have mains gas)
  • A communications hub, which sits on top of the electricity meter and manages the home connection and the link with your energy supplier
  • An In-Home Display (IHD) which displays your usage
  • Some Octopus customers also have an Octopus Home Mini which sends your usage data over your Wi-Fi connection in real-time.

All these talk to each other using a private Zigbee mesh network. The Communications Hub then sends data to your energy supplier using one of three methods:

  1. If you live roughly south of the M62, then it’s sent over O2’s 2G or 3G data network.
  2. If you live roughly north of the M62, then it’s sent over a lower frequency 400 MHz radio data network operated by Arqiva.
  3. Or, if you have a newer communications hub, it’ll use Vodafone’s 4G network, and these are installed nationally.

4G migration

We originally had the second type, but now we have the third type which uses 4G. And it’s been working fine since the engineer installed it back in January, which is a relief. We’ve also noticed that it has a better connection with our IHD; before, it would periodically lose connection and wouldn’t show live data.

Plus, the new 4G communications hub is more future proof. If you have an older smart meter communications hub that uses 2G or 3G, then at some point in the future, your energy supplier will need to replace it. Of the four big networks, O2 is the only one still offering 3G at the time of writing. In fact, it may have already been switched off by the time you read this.

The slower 2G networks will be around a little longer, but the plan is that they too will be switched off in 2033. So, if you live in central and southern England, or in Wales, and have a smart meter, then sometime in the next 7 years, an engineer will need to come over and replace your Communications Hub. It should only take about an hour, and, at least in our case, there was no interruption to our electricity supply whilst the work was being done. There are no plans to shut down the 4G networks any time soon; according to this web site, Vodafone’s 4G contract runs until 2038.

If you live in the North of England or Scotland, then your current communications hub should carry on working. However, if you are having connection problems, then a 4G communications hub may work better.

Meanwhile, I’m just relieved that we don’t have to do any more manual readings.

Playlist of the month: Uncredited guest vocalists

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A screenshot of the Uncredited Guest Vocalists playlist

This month’s playlist is all about uncredited guest vocalists. As in, songs released by bands and artists that feature another artist who doesn’t get a credit on the cover. Whilst collaborations are common in pop music – look at all the artists that have recorded with Ed Sheeran, for example – sometimes, the collaborating artist only receives a minor credit in the small print, if at all. That may be because the song was released before they were famous in their own right, due to contractual issues, or they may choose a pseudonym.

As usual, you can follow along with the playlist on Spotify.

  • “Wrap Her Up” by Elton John (featuring George Michael and Kiki Dee). Nowadays, George Michael is credited on Spotify, in this song where he sings in falsetto all the way through. However, Bradford’s own Kiki Dee, who famously collaborated with Elton on Don’t Go Breaking My Heart, doesn’t receive the same billing.
  • “Danger! High Voltage” by Electric Six (featuring Jack White). In the music video for this song, it’s presented as a duet between Electric Six’s lead singer, Dick Valentine, and the English actress Tina Kanarek. She doesn’t actually sing the vocals, however – they’re provided by Jack White, from the band The White Stripes, again in falsetto.
  • “Shiny Happy People” by R.E.M. (featuring Kate Pierson). It was listening to this song which prompted me to create this playlist, as R.E.M. is an all-male band. The female vocals are from Kate Pierson, better known as the female vocalist in the band The B52s.
  • “Got Your Money” by ODB (featuring Kelis). Like with Wrap Her Up above, Kelis is now credited on Spotify, but she wasn’t at the time. This was released shortly before her debut single, and so she was a relative unknown back then.
  • “The Opera Song” by Jurgen Vries featuring CMC. Two pseudonyms here – Jurgen Vries is one of the many names used by Darren Tate (along with Angelic, DT8 Project, Citizen Caned and being one half of KOTA). CMC is a pseudonym used by Charlotte Church, who at the time was only a singer of classical music – her pop album, Tissues and Issues, had yet to be released.
  • “The Gathering” by Delain (featuring Marko Hietala). Marko popped up a few times in last month’s symphonic metal covers playlist, and here he is again, uncredited on this single from Delain’s first album. He’s subsequently collaborated on several other Delain songs, including Sing To Me and Your Body Is A Battleground, where he is credited.
  • “Bring Me To Life” by Evanescence (featuring Paul McCoy). I’ve mentioned in a previous playlist how the male vocal part was added to this song at the insistence of the record label; they’re not in the original demo version, or the re-recorded version from 2017. Paul McCoy, from the band 12 Stones, provides the additional vocals.
  • “Just Around The Hill” by Sash! (featuring Tina Cousins). Sash! are no strangers to collaborations, with most of their singles featuring credited guest vocalists. Just Around The Hill was their first attempt at a ballad, rather than the Eurodance that they were better known for, and features vocals from Tina Cousins who wasn’t credited on the cover. Which is odd, as she previously collaborated with Sash! on Mysterious Times, their sixth single, where she was credited.
  • “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin'” by The Righteous Brothers (featuring Cher). Way back at the beginning of her music career, over 60 years ago, Cher recorded backing vocals for this song before she was well-known in her own right.
  • “Killer” by Adamski (featuring Seal). Nowadays, Seal is credited on Spotify, but at release in 1990 he wasn’t, as this was before he was established as an act in his own right. Seal later recorded his own version of the song for his 1991 debut album. ATB covered Killer in 2000, and that version also has uncredited vocals from Drue Williams (who, to be fair, isn’t famous enough to have his own Wikipedia page).

Graduated from car seats

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Earlier this month, our ten-year-old reached an important milestone: they became tall enough not to need a car seat.

As I write this in March 2026, children need to use a car seat until they’re 135cm (4 feet and 5 inches) tall, or until they turn 12, whichever happens soonest. Obviously our ten-year-old isn’t twelve yet, so this means they’ve reached 135cm tall. They therefore no longer need to be strapped into a child car seat, and can sit in the front of the car for the first time.

Three different car seats

Since they were born at the end of 2015, we’ve had three different car seats. The first was a baby carrier type, which clipped into a base fitted to the car using Isofix. All three of our cars have had Isofix anchors built-in. We could also clip the car seat onto a pram frame, so transferring a sleeping baby from the car to a pram was possible without waking them up.

The second came when they were around 18 months old. This was a forward facing car seat that rotated, so we could easily get them in and out. Like the baby carrier, this came with a harness rather than using the seatbelt, but it remained in the car rather than being removable.

By the time they’d reached the age of four, it was time for another, larger car seat. This one was a more, front-facing seat that didn’t rotate, and didn’t include a harness. Instead, we strapped our ten-year-old in with a standard seatbelt that went across the car seat. Back when I was that age, I had a simple booster seat which had no back, but those aren’t sold any more. Instead, this one had a back and extra head protection against side impacts.

Now, there’s no need for any additional protection at all. Which is handy as it meant one less thing to pack whilst we were in London and our ten-year-old was with my parents. They can also take advantage of the heated seats in our Nissan Leaf.

What to do with old car seats

When it comes to what to do with old car seats, the advice is mainly to take them to your local authority recycling centre. You shouldn’t buy or receive a child car seat that’s second hand, unless you absolutely trust the person selling it to you about its age and condition. If it was in a car that has been in an accident, then there’s a risk that the car seat may have been damaged, and so it may not offer as much protection in another accident. It’s a shame, because car seats are expensive, and they’re not the easiest things to recycle either.

That being said, you can buy all-through car seats (sponsored link) that should serve most children from birth to age 12 (or 135cm). Had these been available back in 2015, we would have saved quite a bit of money, although I wonder how adaptable they are for older kids.

Matterbridge – enable Matter for all your smart home devices

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Screenshot of the Matterbridge main interface

I’ve only recently come across Matterbridge, which allows you to add a wide range of smart home devices as if they supported the Matter smart home standard, even if they don’t. Once installed, it runs as a server that acts as a bridge between whatever devices you have, and your choice of smart home ecosystem using Matter.

Whilst I have a handful of Matter devices – some Wi-Fi and Thread smart plugs, and a smart light bulb, many of my devices don’t support Matter. They’re either older Wi-Fi devices, or use Zigbee. To make those devices available to Google Home, I’m currently using Home Assistant and Homeway, but Matterbridge offers an alternative.

If the Matterbridge interface looks familiar, it’s because it’s derived from Homebridge. Whilst Homebridge is designed just to work with Apple Home, Matterbridge will work with Google, Alexa, Samsung Smartthings and Apple Home, amongst others.

Installing Matterbridge

I’m using Matterbridge alongside Home Assistant, and so I’ve installed it as a Home Assistant App (formerly known as an add-on). If you run Home Assistant Container, then you can also install Matterbridge as a Docker image, or you can install it using Node Package Manager (NPM).

It’ll take some time to install and run the first time, but once done, you’ll be able to open the interface inside Home Assistant and will get a screen similar to that in the screenshot. However, it won’t do very much until you install some plugins

Install the Home Assistant plugin

If you want Matterbridge to see the devices added to Home Assistant, then you’ll need to install the Home Assistant plugin. This is true even if you install Matterbridge as a Home Assistant app.

Most of the default settings should be fine, but you’ll need to provide a ‘long lived access token’ for your Home Assistant user account. In Home Assistant, click your user profile at the bottom of the left hand menu, select the ‘Security’ tab, scroll to the bottom, and click ‘Create token’. Give it a name, like ‘Matterbridge’, and then copy the token text and paste it into the Home Assistant Matterbridge plugin settings. Then, restart Matterbridge using the restart button at the top right of the Matterbridge interface. You don’t need to restart the whole app for this.

Once Matterbridge has restarted, it’ll bring all of your Home Assistant devices in. On the right hand side, next to each device, is a tickbox, so you can untick them to hide those devices that you don’t available via Matter. If you have lots of devices, but only want to share a few, then the plugin settings includes a ‘Whitelist’ feature that may be quicker than unticking hundreds of devices.

One other thing I had to do for some devices was hide some entities. Otherwise, the device showed up as two (or more) separate devices in Google Home; Apple Home was a little better and grouped these per device. Again, this is done in the Home Assistant plugin settings.

Optionally install the Zigbee2MQTT plugin

Another of Matterbridge’s plugins supports Zigbee2MQTT. This is the app that I use to add my Zigbee devices to Home Assistant, however, Matterbridge can connect to it directly using MQTT. There’s a couple of good reasons to do this:

  1. It means Home Assistant isn’t an additional intermediary. Say I want to use Google to turn on a Zigbee light: this request would go from Google, to Matterbridge, to Home Assistant, to Mosquitto (my MQTT broker), to Zigbee2MQTT and finally to the device. By connecting directly, you skip that third step.
  2. The Zigbee2MQTT plugin is more mature, and pulls in data such as how the device is powered.

Pair Matterbridge to your other ecosystems

Once you have your devices set up, it’s time to scan that big QR code on Matterbridge’s home screen, using the smart home app of your choice. How this will work will depend on the app:

  • In Google Home, it’ll add all the devices in an ‘In Your Home’ section at the bottom, for you to then allocate to rooms
  • In Apple Home, you’ll be asked to configure each device in turn, including setting a custom name allocating them to rooms.

After this initial setup, any new devices added to Matterbridge will automatically appear in the other apps.

Advantages over other options

Using Matterbridge as a way of bridging your Home Assistant devices to other smart home ecosystems has a number of advantages. Previously, I was using Homeway, but by using Matterbridge:

  • It’s free – I don’t need to pay a third party for this.
  • It retains local control, so if I decided that I didn’t want Homeway any more, my devices would still work.
  • It’s a lot easier than setting up Google Assistant manually in Home Assistant.
  • Once configured, devices work in both Google Home and Apple Home – you don’t need to configure them separately.
  • Whilst Homeway used to be really reliable, in recent weeks it has randomly disconnected from Google Home without warning. So far, I’ve been using Matterbridge for about a month, and have not had any significant issues with it.

To this end, I’ve disabled Home Assistant’s built-in HomeKit integration, and I’m just using Matterbridge now. So far, so good, although I don’t tend to use Apple Home very much.

In terms of disadvantages:

  • Not all types of device are supported. Some may appear as switches rather than their actual device type, such as a washing machine or dishwasher.
  • It will only work with Amazon Alexa if you have an Echo device with Alexa on it. Although I have the Alexa app on my phone, and use it on Fitbit Versa, Alexa requires a physical Echo device to manage Matter devices. It won’t use another vendor’s Matter server. However, Homeway’s Alexa support seems more stable than its Google Assistant support, so this doesn’t really affect me.

Other plugins

There are a number of other plugins available for Matterbridge. These include plugins for Shelly and Somfy devices, that allow Matterbridge to connect to these directly. In time, more of Homebridge’s plugins could be ported to Matterbridge, which would enable devices from the likes of Tuya/Smart Life or Philips Hue. But, for now, you can use these devices via the Home Assistant plugin.

We’re off to London today

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A photo of the Union Flag flying in front of Tower Bridge in London

So, in the start of the month round-up, I mentioned that Sci-Fi Weekender had been cancelled with only a few weeks notice. This meant that we had three nights of childcare arranged, with no plans. So, as this post goes live, Christine and I will be on our way down to London.

It’ll be my first trip to London in two years, although Christine has been more recently for some conferences related to her work. Normally we go once a year, so a two year gap is unusual for me. We’re travelling down by train, as per usual; I drove to London and back once, and vowed never to do so again.

It’s also the first time since 2021 that we’ve had a child-free weekend in London. We, of course, love our ten-year-old to bits, and there’s no shortage of things to do in London as a family. But when it’s just two of us, we can just be a little more agile and spontaneous, and can be a bit more daring when it comes to food. Plus, some of the places we’re planning to visit are things that our ten-year-old would either dislike or find boring. Instead, they’re staying with my cousins, and then with my parents in York.

That being said, as I write this, we haven’t firmly decided what we plan to visit. So far, we’ve got the train and the hotel booked, and may go and see a West End show one night. The trips to London we’ve enjoyed the most have had a mixture of planned and spontaneous activities, so we deliberately don’t plan the trip too much before we arrive.

I’ve got a few pre-written blog posts to go live over the next few days, and then I’ll write about where we went. See you soon.

Plug-in solar is coming to the UK

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On Sunday, the government announced the go-ahead for shops and supermarkets to sell ‘plug in solar’ kits. These are solar panels which don’t require a professional installation, and can be simply plugged in to a regular plug socket to power your home.

Until now, plug-in solar panels haven’t been legal in the UK. If you wanted solar panels, you either had to have them professionally installed, or only use them with a battery that you kept separate from the energy grid. We had solar panels professionally installed on our roof in 2023. Meanwhile, a former colleague of mine had a series of fold-out portable solar panels that she uses with a portable battery for use in her campervan.

The UK is catching up with our European neighbours in this regard. In Germany, over half a million households already have these systems, which are known as Balkonkraftwerk and can be picked up for around £500. These plug-in solar panels can simply clip over your balcony railings. Seeing as the German supermarkets Aldi and Lidl are now widespread in the UK, I wouldn’t be surprised if these plug-in solar kits will start appearing in their middle aisles soon.

Because they don’t require a professional installation, they’re much more suited to people who rent their homes, and people who live in flats without access to a roof.

Why hasn’t plug-in solar been legal before?

So why is the UK only now catching up with Germany? Here’s an explanation from Terence Eden, who I credit with first making me aware of this:

Terence Eden

@inpc because the grid was originally designed to support electricity flowing in one direction.

It's a bit like asking why it's illegal to connect your sewage pipe back into the mains. It wasn't designed for that and it carries risks.

Thankfully, the grid is mostly upgraded and can now handle energy flowing in both directions.

March 15, 2026, 14:34 1 boosts 2 favorites

The electricity grid needs to be capable of handling both import and export from households, and in the past it wasn’t very good at this. Nowadays, it mostly is, and so a big increase in people exporting excess electricity from their homes shouldn’t cause too many problems. Which is a relief, considering how many houses already have solar panels – it’s rare to see a housing estate with at least a couple of houses with solar panels on their roofs already.

You may not get export payments

Depending on your energy supplier, using a plug-in solar kit may not allow you to get payments from your energy company for the electricity that you export. Most suppliers will insist on a Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS) certificate, which only comes from professional installations. However, Octopus Energy no longer requires this for its Outgoing Octopus export tariffs, so if you’re with them, you just need to contact them to get set up for export payments.

It’s worth noting that you’ll be paid significantly less per kWh for exporting electricity; as it stands, Octopus pay 12p per kWh, versus typically 24p kWh for import. It was 15p per kWh until earlier this year. Most other suppliers pay even less, so if you’re not already with Octopus, maybe consider switching. Here’s my referral link – you’ll get £50 off your next bill once your first direct debit payment has been taken, and so will I.

In any case, if you’re considering a plug in solar kit, maybe also consider buying a battery that you can charge whilst it’s sunny. Anker’s SOLIX range is popular, and here’s a 2 kWh model that costs £999 (sponsored link). That way, you can use the excess electricity yourself.

This will help the UK reduce its fossil fuels reliance

As energy secretary Ed Milliband says in the announcement linked above:

Global events demonstrate there’s not a moment to waste in our drive for clean power because there can be no energy security while we are so dependent on fossil fuels.

Oil and gas prices have shot up in recent weeks, thanks to the latest war in the Middle East. Allowing more households to start using solar power will reduce our reliance on burning gas to generate electricity, as well as being better for the environment and air quality. We spent a five figure sum getting our solar panels installed three years ago; now, many households will be able to get a small system for just a few hundred pounds. And I think that’s great news.

Migrating from Bluesky to Eurosky

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A screenshot of the Eurosky web site

I’ve moved my Bluesky account to Eurosky. If you follow me on Bluesky, then you probably won’t have noticed any difference, as everything will have migrated over.

Eurosky is a PDS (Personal Data Server) for the Atmosphere, which is the system of interoperable social media services that Bluesky uses. As the name suggests, it’s based in Europe, and so my personal data is stored somewhere with more closely aligned privacy laws to the UK.

Signing up for Eurosky

Eurosky opened for registrations last month, and is now home to a few thousand users. You can create a fresh account there, or you can migrate an existing account from Bluesky (or indeed any other app in the Atmosphere). I did the latter, and used their EU-HAUL tool to migrate my account. It took around 20 minutes in total. I previously tried the PDS MOOver tool, but this failed for some reason.

Once the migration was complete, I just needed to log out of my deactivated Bluesky account, and then log in using my Eurosky account. You can still use the official Bluesky app and web interface, so there’s no change to the user experience.

I use my domain as my username, and so my username remains the same after the migration. If you don’t have your own domain, then your username will change from [something].bsky.social to [something].eurosky.social.

Alternative PDSs

There are a few other PDSs coming online now. Blacksky is aimed at black people and is based in the US. Cory Doctorow is using one where he is the only user (he previously resisted joining Bluesky until now). In time, I imagine Atmosphere PDSs will become a bit like Mastodon instances, where there will be lots of small servers that people can run themselves, as well as the core Bluesky instance. Indeed, the Atmosphere is essentially analogous to the Fediverse, and the underlying AT Protocol works in a similar way to ActivityPub. A WordPress plugin called Wireservice is in development.

This is all very geeky stuff and I’m sure most Bluesky users will stay put on the Bluesky PDS. But I feel more comfortable using a service like Eurosky which is in a more closely aligned jurisdiction to me.

The Power Hall and Cosmic Chaos

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The Power Hall at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester

A couple of weeks ago, we went back to the Science & Industry Museum in Manchester, to see the newly re-opened Power Hall, and their latest exhibition, Horrible Science: Cosmic Chaos. I’ve written about their previous exhibitions here and here.

The Power Hall

The Power Hall has been closed for six of years for a refurbishment. This has included replacing the roof, and installing a more efficient heating system. Indeed, the new heating system is now an exhibit in itself – it’s based around water-source heat pumps which pump water from an aquifer 90 metres below the museum. The heating system also incorporates a recovery system for the steam generated by the various machines on display in the Power Hall. Overall, the new system should be cheaper to run and better for the environment, and explaining how it works is just what the museum should be doing. It’s quite the comparison to see this fancy new system alongside machinery that’s over a hundred years old.

Speaking of the other machines, these are not all on at the same time, but there is a schedule for when they are powered up. These include a talk by one of the museum’s explainer staff, about where the machine came from and what it was used for. We got to see the Buxton diesel generator in action, which used to work in mine research site in Buxton at a time when the site wasn’t connected to the Nation Grid.

As well as static machines, the Power Hall is also home to some locomotives. There’s an enormous steam locomotive with two tenders, that was built in Manchester almost 100 years ago but worked in South Africa. A smaller locomotive, which was built for the Isle of Man, has been sectioned so that you can see inside it. There’s also Ariadne, a Class 77 electric locomotive that was built for services on the now-closed Woodhead Line between Sheffield and Manchester, and was later exported to the Netherlands. The Woodhead Line used a 1500 KV DC electrification system which isn’t used elsewhere in the UK (apart from on the Tyne & Wear Metro) but is common in the Netherlands.

The refurbishment of the Power Hall is good, and it’s nice to see some of the old exhibits again. It’s also nice for the museum to have more than one building open again; hopefully the rest of the site will be ready by 2030 for the 200th anniversary of the Manchester Liverpool Road station.

Entry to the Power Hall is free.

Inside the Cosmic Chaos exhibition at the Manchester Science and Industry Museum

Horrible Science: Cosmic Chaos

The BBC is following up its hit Horrible Histories series with Horrible Science, and this exhibition is themed around its central character, Dr Big Brain. At the start of the exhibition is a short video where you are recruited as one of his henchpeople, and you are tasked with helping him conquer the solar system. On the way, you get to see what passes for a toilet on a Soyuz-Mir spacecraft, how astronauts live in space, and what each planet in our solar system is like. There’s a good balance of objects from the museum’s collection, with videos and interactive activities for kids.

The exhibition is primarily aimed at 8-14 year olds, as you would expect for a CBBC TV series, but I learned a few things whilst there. As with other special exhibitions, you need to pay extra for entry. Advance booking is recommended for busier times, like school holidays, but when we went on a Sunday it wasn’t too busy.

Accessibility

I’m going to skip over the accessibility section for this one as it’s basically the same as last time we visited.

Etikez PM260 Label Printer review

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A photo of the Etikez PM260 Bluetooth label printer, in a pastel purple colour.

I’ve bought myself a new Bluetooth label printer – it’s this Etikez PM260 Label Printer (sponsored link).

But wait, you may think, don’t you already own a Bluetooth label printer? Yes, I do, and I reviewed that one a couple of years ago. And, despite buying this new one, I still use the previous one more frequently! I’ll get onto why in a bit, but first let’s outline the ways in which this Etikez PM260 model is better:

  1. It supports larger labels. It comes with 30x40cm labels, but can support 50x80cm portrait labels.
  2. As well as connecting to mobile devices via Bluetooth, it can also plug into Windows PCs and Macs via a USB-C cable.
  3. You can do mail merges from Excel spreadsheets.
  4. There’s a wider variety of label designs, including clipart.

It’s mainly the first three reasons why I bought the Etikez PM260. I wanted to be able to print labels easily via a mail merge, so that I would be more likely to actually send Christmas cards this year. And yes, I’m aware that posting about Christmas cards in March is a weird flex, but I’ve already had a chance to use it for something else. Namely, our ten-year-old’s birthday party invitations. I drew up a list of names in an Excel spreadsheet, and then we designed the invitations in Word, and used Word’s mail merge feature to print the invitations. Then, we used the Labelnize app on Windows to design the labels, and imported the names for the labels from the same spreadsheet. As well as installing the Labelnize app, there are printer drivers to install.

It worked reasonably well, although for some reason the printer only printed on every other label. In other words, after printing 10 labels, we ended up with 9 blank ones interspersed. I was able to re-stick the labels onto the backing roll to use again, and I hope this was a one-off, otherwise a roll of labels will last half as long. The labels print quickly, as it uses thermal printing rather than ink or laser toner.

What’s less good about it

For day-to-day use, we still use the Phomemo D30 printer. It’s more basic and can only print text and emojis, albeit in a variety of fonts. But it’s much quicker to use. By contrast, the Labelnize app for the Etikez PM260 is much more powerful, but you have to choose a design for each label, or design your own. It’s therefore not as quick to use as the Print Master app for the Phomemo printer.

The Phomemo printer is also quite a bit cheaper – currently it’s £16, as opposed to £27 for the Etikez PM260 – and it’s smaller. Both have a built-in battery, although the Phomemo printer should have slightly longer battery life.

If you don’t own a label printer at all, then the Etikez PM260 definitely offers more features, and overall gets my recommendation. But both printers have their place, and we use them both regularly.

Hopefully, this means I’ll have less of an excuse not to send Christmas cards this year!

Hoppers film review

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The film poster for Hoppers

Yesterday, we trooped off as a family to watch the latest Disney Pixar film, Hoppers. This is Pixar’s 30th feature film, and the 19th one I’ve seen. Generally, we look forward to Pixar films, and this one didn’t disappoint.

I’ll be honest: when I first saw the poster, I thought it was a film adaption of the French series Grizzy & the Lemmings. It’s not – for a start, the protagonist is a beaver, not a lemming.

Plot

The story focusses on a rebellious girl named Mabel, who wants to protect a picturesque glade in her home town of Beavertown. The town, led by Mayor Jerry Generazzo (voiced by Jon Hamm) has cleared the glade of animals, ahead of the construction of a new motorway. Mabel discovers that one of her university lecturers, Dr Sam Fairfax, has developed technology that allows people to ‘hop’ inside realistic animatronic animals. So, she steals an animatronic beaver in the hope that she can re-establish a beaver colony in the glade and stop the road. Along the way, she meets the King of the Mammals, the council of other animals, and sets herself up for a showdown with the mayor.

Besides Jon Hamm, Meryl Streep also has a cameo role, as do Alan Carr and Amanda Holden in the UK release.

My review of Hoppers

So, what did I think of Hoppers? Pretty good on the whole. I mean, it’s a Pixar film, and Pixar films are rarely bad. There’s a good mix of humour and sad bits, and the story isn’t wholly predictable. It’s not the emotional roller-coaster that a film like The Wild Robot was, but it’s fun. It’s certainly a good family film, and there’s a revelation at the end that made me laugh out loud (no spoilers). The three of us all enjoyed it.

We saw at The Light cinema in Bradford (my second favourite cinema chain), and with it having only opened fully in the UK on Friday, it was relatively busy. Thankfully, the days where Pixar films came out in the UK months after the US are gone.

If you are wondering, yes, there are scenes after the credits.