TELEVISION

            When my VanLIfe began, among the things I brought with me from The Shed was my 32” monitor.  In there, I used a laptop, not a PC with a CPU and all that.  But I kept the lid shut and worked and watched on the Big Screen.  It was a foregone conclusion that it would accompany me into Blue Maxx.

            It stashed pretty neatly in that 4”-wide niche between the back of the dresk and the side of the bed.  It had to be stashed while traveling – and wrapped in padding – or bumpy roads would have sent it flying.  I considered trying to mount it to the dresktop permanently, most likely on a swivel so I could watch it in the Office or in the Bedroom, but I just did not see it being stable enough.  Bumpy road would jiggle the bejeezus out of it.  And if you have ever had your bejeezus jiggled, you know what an unsettling sensation that can be.

            So, on the occasion of a special event – Super Bowl was one, Pebble Beach Pro-Am Golf Tournament was another – I pulled it out, unwrapped it, attached it to its stand, pulled out the Sometime Shelf and set it up between the sink and the dresk, dug out my HDMI cable, attached the 110V power cable, plugged it in to one of the rear AC outlets, plugged the HDMI cable into my laptop, plugged the laptop into the AC outlet, connected to my hotspot via my phone, sat in my chair, tried not to worry how many watt-hours those AC devices were costing me, and watched the game.

            Then, when the game was over, I undid all those steps.  It was an awful lot of work when I could’ve just flicked on my iPad Air and watched on that.

            The picture shows the set-up to watch the golf tournament.  If you follow the cable on the right-hand side, you’ll notice that the HDMI cable leads into a white converter pack, which then leads along a white wire to my iPhone.  That’s right, I was streaming it off my phone directly into the monitor.

            Now, I thought this was gonna be the bee’s knees, but it wasn’t even the ant’s pants.  There were numerous stalls and periods of choppy viewing.  Also, my plan had included keeping the iPhone plugged into the USB port – and, thus, charging – the whole time.

            Flaw in the Plan, Stan:  the iPhone’s only lightning port was needed for the HDMI connection, so no charging was possible.  The video connection drained the phone down to nothing before the telecast was even over.  Bah. 

I tried that set-up to avoid involving the AC-powered laptop (and its significant power draw) for four hours or more.  It’s a new laptop, so I probably could’ve just run it on its internal battery for that long and not killed it (and recharged it with the next day’s sunshine), but I thought that this might be better.  Wrong you were, Ricko.

For the Super Bowl, the evening atmosphere (pic, below) was very cool indeed, and I tried using the iPad Air’s hotspot instead of the phone’s, but the results were the same if not worse.

           So, the Big Screen effect was proving to be elusive and labor intensive.

Thus, shortly after the Pebble Beach episode, I revived a notion that I had had while living in The Shed.  It occurred to me one night as I lay in bed, watching my 50” TV from across the room, that the Big Screen I was looking at from about 12 feet away, and the iPad Air held at bent-arm’s length (i.e., about 2 feet, maybe a tad less) were essentially the same view size.

            To test the notion, I turned on my iPad Air, held it at my usual watching distance and slowly moved it between my face and the 50-incher.  It was like the moon eclipsing the sun: a near-perfect match.

            So now, I tested the notion once more in Blue Maxx, and got the same result.  Hence, as a result of that result, I decided that the monitor – though pretty cool – was an unnecessary space-taker-upper.  I sold it to a bud for some ridiculously low price and promoted Air to PVD (Primary Viewing Device) and have not once regretted it.

[The above photo shows the iPad Air about 18” from the camera, and another 18” in front of a 27” monitor.  View size appears to be very similar.]

            There have been occasions when I’ve used the laptop while sitting at the desk, but 95% of my viewing is on the Air.

            Being solo, it works fine.  If I was sharing my space with someone and trying to watch programs or games on a 7.9” shared screen, well, the Air would not cut it.  But I’m not.  I’m solo and loving it, and the smaller screen is A-OK with me.