u/Austinp-woodworking

For context, I started cubing around 2 years ago on and off - starting with the GAN 356M, eventually moving up to the GAN 16M. I loved the 16M, but had continual problems with the center caps falling off of them if the cube was dropped - and since I have a toddler at home, just not letting it be dropped isn't really an option. Unfortunately this last weekend my toddler knocked it out of my hand at an airport, and that was that. Red center cap is now officially gone for good.

Originally I was going to nab another 16M to replace it, or maybe jump to the 17, but then I remembered that the 16UI recently released in the US. I've got the money to blow on the upgrade and I do love smart gadgets, so I figured what the hell and ordered one.

First Impressions: I was very pleasantly surprised at the fact that it felt very similar to the 16M in terms of weight. I expected it to be a good deal heavier, but I was obviously wrong. You can only really tell it's heavier at all if you're holding both at the same time. The turning feel does feel a bit different, but I'm also comparing a fresh-out-the-box cube to one that's seen a lot of solves, and I recall that the 16M felt very different out of the box then it did a week later. The overall build quality seems excellent, the charging case is slick, and the battery life is great.

Smart Functionality: So since this was an impulse buy, I hadn't really done much research on smart cubes and what they could do, so I didn't really have much in the way of expectations. I knew that they could record solves and connect with apps/websites like cstimer and acubemy, but that was about it. I was very pleasantly surprised when I learned they also record orientation data. The connectivity works really well in terms of the device. I found that the official app for the cube was buggy to the point that I couldn't even get it working, but my understanding is that no one really bothers with it anyways, so I went straight to acubemy and haven't had any issues there! Only very minor annoyance is that you have to re-connect it each session, and if you accidentally left your browser window open in the other room, it won't be able to connect with your phone until you close it (or vice-versa).

Training: As said in the title, I'm a relatively casual cuber. My average time is usually around 40-50s - my best of all time was just under 30. I currently do a 2-look CFOP. I don't really sweat my time that much - I'm an older dude, and I don't have any delusions that I'll be competing in competitions or anything like that. Cubes for me are more of a fidget toy to keep my mind and hands busy. But that's not to say I don't like getting faster, otherwise I'd have just stuck with the beginners method and called it a day.

Before, I rarely bothered with timing myself because it added more hassle than I was generally willing to put into it, but now I tend to just keep an acubemy window open on my desktop so i can knock out quick solves when I have downtime, and since it basically records automatically there's no real additional effort. And seeing the scramble get checked off as I go has made it a lot easier to use real scrambles as well. Also, being able to take a solve, and view the breakdown on acubemy and see not only exactly how I solved each phase, but to get the feedback about where I could have used much shorter algorithms has been great! I've already learned that I re-orient my cube way more often than I should be and it's costing me a lot of time in my solves

I'm also just starting to play around with the training features on acubemy, but I'm still getting used to it. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be built around learning new algorithms so much as drilling the ones you already know, which is a shame since I'd really love to use this cube to help learn full OLL/PLL. If anyone knows any tools that integrate well with these tools for that use-case, let me know! (or if I'm just using acubemy wrong)

Non-Smart Usage: I'm not a cube collector, so I was hoping that I'd be able to use this both as a smart cube and as a "dumb cube". And of course you can, though I've found it kind of annoying how when the cube isn't connected to a device, it constantly flashes white as you're solving it. It's certainly something you can ignore, but personally I found it annoying. Not enough for it to be unusable, but enough to whine about it here lol

tl;dr - I really enjoy it and don't regret spending the extra $$$ on it. I certainly don't "need" any of the smart features at my level, but I still find it fun, and given that the extra cost over the 16M is basically just a halfway-decent dinner out for 2, I'd say it's worthwhile for even a casual solver if you've got the cash for it. If you're a "real" cuber, then I'd have to imagine that the training and analysis features are nearly invaluable for perfecting your solves. My only real gripe is that there isn't a way to turn off the "please connect" lights in order to better use it as a "dumb" cube, and that's a pretty minor one.

Right now my goto method for making pizza is to put a stone on top of my propane grill, crank it up as high as it will go, then toss it on for a few minutes.

It works OK, but I definitely have issues with the bottom of the pizza burning a bit - I recently picked up a Masterbuilt Gravity 1050 and the pizza oven attachment caught my eye. Has anyone here tried it out and can give a review comparing it to simpler methods like a pizza stone?

Mostly what the title says, some quick googling has only turned up a blank white center cap to replace the white centercap with the logo, but I can't find anywhere I can purchase a replacment cap to replace the blue center cap

Would be a real shame to have to drop another $80 on a replacment just because of one tiny missing piece, anyone know where I can find a replacement center cap for other colors??

Just got a 2026 Outback touring and I'm loving it so far - the hands-free self driving in particular is awesome, as someone who unfortunately does a lot of highway driving. My only real complaint so far is the attention nagging monitoring. I totally get it when the drive assist is running (both hands on and hands-free), but it also nags me when I've got all that turned off and am just driving old school.

It nags me at most stop signs as I'm looking left and right for other cars, which is just stupid. I found an option to turn it off in the menus, but it seems that doing so turns it off hands-free drive assist (at least, the time I turned the monitoring off, I never got hands-free mode to engage).

Is there an option to not get nagged when I'm actually driving the car or do I have to choose between having hands-free available and driving without the dings at every stop sign?