New Gadgets #250: What Have sspai Editors Bought Recently?

Many readers are curious about what the editors at sspai actually buy in their daily lives. Through the "Editors' New Gadgets" column, we aim to introduce the novel products our editorial team members have been using recently, letting them share their own hands-on experiences with these new gadgets.

@Xiaokui: Extra-large enclosed litter box. Reference price: 109. After struggling for the Nth time to clean up wet cat litter stuck to the floor, I decided to buy a new litter box for my cat.

The old one was bought when it was just over six months old. For a cat over a year old, the litter-retaining height was clearly no longer sufficient. Every time it used the toilet, it scratched like scattering petals, wreaking havoc even on an 80×140 cm litter mat.

This time, I was determined to buy an enclosed one. After a few days of research, I snagged a 66 cm long large litter box that can switch between fully and semi-enclosed forms. Remove the top, and it becomes semi-enclosed.

The assembly steps are simple: just install the small door and handle according to the instructions. Having used it for almost a month, the biggest change is that I finally no longer have to sweep litter every day. In daily use, there is virtually no litter overflow, and the accumulation of litter on the control mat has drastically reduced.

No matter how much the cat scratches, the flying litter is kept within a controllable range. However, it’s not without its flaws. The biggest issue is that scooping the litter is more troublesome than before.

Because of the enclosed design, it has an anti-tracking structure and top above, with the cat's entrance at the bottom. For daily cleaning, you need to remove the top and grid before scooping. If you're rushing out the door, you can only reach in through the top opening to handle it; since you can't see inside, it’s a bit more cumbersome to operate.

So, if your cat is like mine and loves to frantically scratch the litter every time, this kind of large enclosed litter box can indeed solve a lot of overflow problems. But if your cat is relatively well-behaved when using the toilet, choosing a regular open litter box with a higher retaining wall is actually sufficient. Additionally, there is no specific brand recommendation for this litter box.

If needed, you can just use an image search to buy a similar model, mainly focusing on whether the size and structure meet your cat's needs.

@Clyde: Li Auto AI Glasses Livis. Reference price: 2,340 yuan. A new car is like a new house, especially the Li i6, which literally puts "home" in its slogan.

Shortly after taking delivery of the car, I bought quite a few things from the Li Auto store, with the Li Auto AI Glasses Livis being my biggest financial investment. Compared to smart glasses that project large screens or display AR info in your field of vision, the Li Auto AI Glasses Livis lacks any "augmented display" functions. Therefore, it feels more like an accessory, and its exterior design is consequently as close to everyday eyeglasses as possible.

The round-top, square-bottom design leans youthful. Both the matte and glossy versions offer a semi-transparent "Explorer Edition" frame style, which I assume many tech enthusiasts will appreciate. If you treat the Li Auto AI Glasses Livis as regular glasses, it offers plenty of options for optical performance.

I personally opted for Li Auto's customized Zeiss Superb lenses. By providing a recent prescription from a professional optometry institution when placing the order, you can submit it via the Li Auto app to get customized lenses with blue-light protection and a free-form toric design. These offer higher clarity than standard lenses, making the visual experience closer to the naked eye.

The fit for different face and head shapes is quite forgiving. I particularly like detail designs like the 15-degree outward folding redundancy in the hinges. After all, in my opinion, the Li Auto AI Glasses Livis is still a relatively "chunky" pair of glasses (compared to regular ones), and this design allows me to be a bit more casual and confident when handling and wearing them.

However, because the temples have built-in speakers, even though they use lightweight TR90 material and don't cause heavy pressure on the nose bridge and ears during prolonged use, the stuffiness caused by the large temple area is quite noticeable, especially in the hot summer weather. Coupled with the fact that the right temple integrates a lot of gesture controls, there seems to be no good solution for this. As for the speakers, I don't have much to say.

They are clear enough for listening to music or navigation indoors or while driving. I once used them for a meeting, and according to the blind test results from our company's "Apple fanboy" chief, the microphone effect is better than AirPods Pro. I must say, though, that the "glasses + earphones" two-in-one form factor is the right direction.

As long as you're not in an environment heavily reliant on noise cancellation, putting on the glasses allows you to consume content freely while solving the issue of disturbing others with external audio. I suggest wearable hardware companies without clear ideas at least make some non-smart glasses with speakers. The same goes for the camera.

Although it is equipped with two cameras (one on each side), the maximum 12-megapixel, 1440p/30fps output capability means its practical application remains at the level of documenting daily life. Moreover, due to EIS anti-shake and cropping in vertical shooting mode, the video field of view is significantly reduced compared to the actual view. When shooting first-person close-up videos, if the subject isn't careful, they'll easily end up at the bottom edge of the final footage.

Therefore, I currently use it more for photos—snapping parking spots, recording sights on the road, or having a video backup during emergencies is always good. Compared to similar smart glasses, the biggest differentiators of the Li Auto AI Glasses Livis are probably MindGPT and vehicle control. Beyond value-adding AI capabilities like in-depth research, voice and wake word customization, simultaneous interpretation, and OpenClaw integration, Li Auto has pushed seven major updates to these glasses from January 2026 to now, with almost every update featuring one or two highlight functions centered around vehicle control.

If you regularly wear the glasses out, it can completely free your hands to fulfill most vehicle control needs when approaching the car: opening the front or rear trunk, configuring automation tasks (Task Master)... even summon features like directing parking, driving straight in or out, or parking out to the left or right can be handled with a simple "Hi Li." The prerequisite is that the glasses have a network connection—occasionally, when used with an iPhone, even though the phone clearly has a network, the glasses still prompt "Offline Mode.

" I currently don't know whether to blame the iPhone or the glasses. Additionally, MindGPT is quite fast. Plus, when Li classmate responds to requests that require thought, it cleverly pads in filler words like "Let me think" or "Let me take a look," making the voice assistant experience feel quite brisk.

Its actual problem-solving ability also took a step up after integrating with Xiaohongshu. However, there are a few things I just have to vent about. First is the "Driver Independent Sound Field" feature.

Currently, most in-car voice and even media playback during driving can be output to the glasses, achieving a state where neither navigation nor music interferes with other passengers (music output can be optionally taken over). However, while in the car, "Li Classmate" only allows in-car responses instead of glasses audio responses. Not only is the experience fragmented (after all, navigation comes from the earphones), but occasionally when it's inconvenient to press the shutter button on the temple and you want to snap a quick photo of the scenery, you can't trigger the glasses' photo or video function via "Li Classmate" on the car system.

Second, although Li Auto has improved some media transfer experiences via OTA, the data transfer speed between the Li Auto AI Glasses Livis and the phone is still not ideal. The processing time for video files after transferring to the device is quite long. Furthermore, while media shot when connected to Android and iOS devices can be synced across the other platform's client, the synced media content remains independent and cannot be unified into a single, complete timeline media library, making it quite messy to use.

Third is the terrible app quality control. Let's set aside the duplicated vehicle controls between the Li Classmate and Li Auto apps. On the Android platform, which I personally pay more attention to, the crashing issue of the Li Auto and Li Classmate apps on Android 17 QPR Beta (rendering remote vehicle control and unlocking completely unusable) has been ongoing for nearly three months since I reported it through multiple channels (even providing detailed solutions).

They have yet to fix what should be a top-priority issue—meanwhile, connection issues on iOS 27 Beta get swiftly fixed. Perhaps I should advise Android users not to buy Li Auto? Their Android development team doesn't even seem to bother to vibe check.

@Bei'ao: Adjustable dumbbells. Reference price: 582.94 yuan.

I've been a bit afraid of dying recently, and I felt that exercising to maintain some vitality seemed necessary. But I didn't go to the gym. The main reason is that I used to be purely overweight with zero strength; I'd get exhausted just lifting a large water jug to pour water, let alone wrestling with an empty barbell at the gym.

So, besides walking a few kilometers outside for cardio, I picked up a pair of plate-loaded dumbbells for under 100 yuan. Together, the two weighed about the same as a single empty bar. After wrestling with them for a few months, I was finally tortured enough by the cheap dumbbells.

The weight needed for certain exercises had long exceeded their capacity, and changing plates for small exercises like triceps extensions required unscrewing bolts, which was annoying as hell. There isn't much to say about the item itself; the only special thing is the purchasing channel. I bought this thing from a Xianyu merchant, which is probably similar to buying wholesale from Alibaba.

The price is definitely much cheaper than branded dumbbells on Taobao. A pair of 24kg bilateral adjustable dumbbells would cost close to 1,000 yuan based on Taobao averages, but I got this, including shipping for nearly 50kg of goods, for under 600 yuan. Actually, if you search on Alibaba yourself, you could probably find drop-shippers with even cheaper prices, but I was truly too lazy to filter through manufacturers.

The product itself is actually quite nice; it's in a very standard state of an export-to-domestic OEM factory. Opening it, I was hit in the face with two English manuals, and the shipping box had a huge "DUMBBELL" printed on it—no brand, no trademark, no Chinese. The gears operate smoothly overall, and the convenience of adjusting the weight is touching.

I finally understood what it means to adjust weight based on your immediate state; changing the weight takes just ten seconds, making me wonder what the point of all that time I wasted changing plates during previous workouts was. There are also drawbacks during the language ability test phase. Adjustable dumbbells themselves aren't as stable as fixed-weight or plate-loaded ones.

The rattling of the plates when lifting is quite noticeable, and for movements like goblet squats that require holding the sides, it feels like it might not be great for the mechanical structure. Although they won't fall off, it heavily affects the stability of the movement. My own thought is, since it hasn't嫌弃 me for being a noob, I'll just treat it as training my own stability along the way.

The gap between the plates and the bar is actually not small; a few millimeters of wobble is very obvious when transmitted to the hand. When I placed the order, the merchant said there was a max 40kg adjustable version, as well as a more convenient single-adjustment dumbbell where you rotate the handle to adjust both sides simultaneously. But I always worried it wouldn't be as stable as the bilateral adjustment, and if I could handle 40kg dumbbells, I'd just go to the gym.

I ultimately chose the more basic model. If you also don't want to go to the gym and only plan to exercise at home, I highly recommend buying adjustable dumbbells. They are incredibly convenient.

For people who aren't too fond of exercising, saving a few seconds of convenience reduces the activation barrier to working out by an order of magnitude. At the very least, the cost-effectiveness is off the charts, so if you give up, you won't feel too heartbroken, and reselling it won't incur much loss. Those few dozen-yuan small dumbbells are already promised to an equally noob friend, and I've recently been urging him to come to my house to carry them away and join the ranks of those wrestling with empty bars.

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