Marrying a tech writer might seem like the most exciting thing for many hardcore geeks, second only to becoming a tech writer themselves. Imagine all the gadgets that would come to your door, all the access to the latest features and hardware, all the nerdy things you could do! When I met my now-husband, a developer and Geek with a capital G, the idea appealed to him too. It wasn’t the only reason he married me — at least I hope so, hah! — but it was certainly a perk.
With a few years under our belt, now, he’s had to come to the realization that despite the benefits of the job, there’s also a lot of work, sweat, and sacrifice that happens in the background before a review, guide, or even news article is written. Here are a few stories or collections of anecdotes that explain what he’s had to suffer through for me, and hence for you, dear Android Police reader.
Astrophotography with a jackal soundtrack
I only started using my Pixel 4 XL around February of 2020 — not the best time to test anything outdoors, I reckon. That meant I didn’t have much time to try night and astrophotography. Come the summer of 2020, I decided it was time to give that a go, so I planned a small night photo excursion.
Up the Faraya road we went, past the Mzaar ski slopes, into uninhabited territories, then past a first army checkpoint, then another. No light or civilization around, nothing but a barren land, the fresh midnight wind enveloping us, and, uhm, a symphony of jackals (or wolves, excuse me if I don’t know the difference) all around us. We stopped the car, I set up my flimsy tripod, and took several shots. My husband insisted we stay near the car and keep the lights on, just in case we needed to run for our lives. Every minute or two, he’d remind me it would be a good idea to go back. But the sky was perfect for astro shots and I was nerding out in front of my Pixel 4 XL, so I had to stretch his patience and panic mode a little thin. He never complained though, and we got to live to tell this fantastic tale. I also have these three incredibly cool photos to show for it.
One TV remote to rule them all
If you’re going to set up a new TV remote, I recommend not doing it the day of an important game. But what do I know? After spending weeks looking at my Logitech Harmony and repeating to myself “I’ll get it set up today, I’ll get it set up today,” I finally decided to install it the day of El Clásico. (Sidenote: I’m a Real Madrid fan, husband is a Barcelona fan.) So there I am, at home, trying to figure out how to build Harmony routines that tie together the TV, soundbar, DVD player, NVIDIA Shield, and cable set-top box, without shutting anything down, when I realize it’s time I rushed to the pharmacy, for my other job.
Let’s just say that when my husband got back home that evening, he discovered all of our regular remotes were in a drawer, and there was a note telling him he had to wait for me to get there to finish Harmony’s setup. I was done just in time for the game, but it was a pretty darn close call. Barcelona won 3-0, so all was forgiven.
An alarm unlike any other
Some smart home gadgets are fun to try and could leave vanilla cookie scents in your house, others aren’t all that user-friendly. Imagine having to take down your blinds, install a new thingamajig that’s supposed to smarten them, only to discover that it’s sloooooooowwwwwww and incredibly noisy. For a whole month, we were woken up every morning by a loud and continuous noise above our head while the tiny Soma motor, bless its heart, was working its butt off to lift our bedroom’s blinds. Needless to say that review quickly became the top priority on my list and the day we published it, my husband jumped on the bed and ripped the Soma off the wall. The following night was the best sleep he’s ever had.
Smart home with a side of dumb
Continuing with the theme of smart home devices and reviews, I couldn’t tell you how many times I had to change set ups around the house, put a smart lamp here, a dumb one there, move furniture, plug things in awkward places (not like that), install new contraptions, and of course my awesome husband was there through it all. Trying to help me install what needs to be installed and test what needs to be tested. Visiting dozens upon dozens of stores to unearth the weird battery format for that camera I had to review. Rewiring our intercom and replacing our house’s cylinder lock with a new one to let me test a smart lock. Sleeping in a Pimp My Ride-like bed. And countless other little things here and there.
Imagine what you have to go through when you buy one new smart home gadget, and multiply it a few times. Not just because we had to test more items, but we also had to test them in multiple setups for me to be able to write a proper review. And we often had to troubleshoot a lot of that because we’re early adopters.
Have you spoken to Assistant in Portuguese?
We write a lot of articles about Google Assistant and smart speakers here on Android Police, which means that we do a lot of testing in our own homes. Thanks to Voice Match, that usually doesn’t affect other users, but there are still exceptions and situations where the speaker wouldn’t realize whom it was talking to and stump my husband. Maybe I set it to Portuguese to test something and forgot to revert back to English, maybe I changed the default music provider, maybe I created a new routine or modified an existing one, so many instances of things not doing what they were supposed to. This certainly resulted in moments of hilarity or frustration as my husband tried to understand what was happening. I’ve received my fair share of, “What did you do to Goo-Goo?” messages while I was at work and he was at home.
Model, actor, test subject
Since we’re only two people at home, one of us has to serve as a model and another has to take the pics. I usually feel more comfortable behind the lens, and since I have my husband’s approval to post his photos/videos online, he ends up standing in front of the lens most of the time. This results in hundreds of situations of “hey, can you please stand there, wear this, do that, hold this, put that, jump there, walk here, etc…” when reviewing anything from Bluetooth headphones and earbuds to 360 cameras, phones, smartwatches, and more. But at least he ends up with really cool videos sometimes, like the one below.
He also lends me his ears, eyes, and hands for any review when I need a second opinion.
Monitored browsing ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
One of the most awkward devices I’ve reviewed was the Firewalla, a network monitor that lets you see what each device on your home WiFi is doing, the sites it’s accessing, data it’s consuming, and so on. The day I set it up, I realized it had more power than I had anticipated, but with great power comes great responsibility. So I talked to my husband, explained what I could block and see from his browsing habits, and told him that I’m turning off a few of those features and ignoring a few others when it came to his personal devices. I wasn’t going to spend my time snooping on him, I was a lot more interested in snooping on the different smart devices in my house, but I do appreciate that he trusted me and didn’t object one second to the fact that such a powerful device was attached to the home network. I’m sure many other partners wouldn’t agree to let go of that level of control over their data, not for a review nor for all the reassuring words in the world. And yes, we’re still together, nearly two years later.
All the betas, all the tests
I only have two phones at any given time, usually the latest Pixel plus the generation before that — the rest get donated to friends and family. You can imagine the fact that my husband has another phone, a OnePlus too, is a welcome addition to my testing arsenal. I get a third lottery ticket to see if a server-side update has rolled out to us and grab screenshots, I can compare stable releases of Google apps on his phone vs betas on mine, I try to test new versions of OnePlus apps and software on his phone, and sometimes I might even enroll his device in some betas because I need us both to be using that new release or because whatever feature I’m trying to trigger isn’t showing up on mine. There isn’t a week that passes without me asking to borrow his phone or sending him weird messages on WhatsApp that end with “just testing, don’t mind me.”
Being an Android Police writer’s life partner comes with a lot of unexpected perks and side-effects. I’m incredibly lucky that I have someone who’s awesome, supportive, patient, and willing to accommodate all the weird requests, challenges, and unexpected changes that my work has introduced in our lives. And now you all know a little more about what goes on behind the scenes when an Android Police article is being prepared.