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Electronic gadgets move beyond comforts of home

At a beach, a woman holds a Blackberry RIM pager that provides wireless e-mail and Web access. Near the water, a man uses a BeachHunter ID metal detector to look for treasures hidden in the sand. PHOTO: NY TIMES

The beach is one place you can't take an underexposed shot; digital image sensors adore bright sunlight, and the bright, vivid colors of summer make sensational subjects. It's just too bad that surf, sand and spray can mean instant death to your expensive gear.

Most camera makers offer underwater enclosures for certain models. (Ikelite, at www.ikelite.com, carries most of them.) They're not cheap (US$500 to US$1,300), but you'll almost certainly be the only one on your block whose vacation shots include fish and other sunken treasure. Sony also sells a watertight Marine Pack for its DSC-P1 Cyber-shot Digital Still Camera. The nifty housing (US$249.95) allows the camera to be used to a depth of 30m.

If you find yourself close to the water but not actually under it, a more practical beach camera may be one that doubles as an MP3 player, like the Kodak mc3 Portable Multimedia Device (US$300 with 64 megabytes of storage) or Polaroid's PhotoMax MP3 (about US$200 with 16 megabytes). The pictures, at only 640 by 480 pixels, are unimpressive by today's standards -- but hey, can they play Surfin' USA?

Memory cards

The real problem shooting digitally at the beach, of course, is that all your shots are trapped in the camera. One solution is to empty out your camera's memory card periodically onto Minds(at)Work's Digital Wallet (www.mindsatwork.net), a portable, battery-operated hard-drive gizmo that holds 3, 10, or 20 gigabytes of photos (US$350 to US$550).

Or, if you're feeling particularly social, you could print out the pictures right there on the beach. Polaroid's tiny, self-contained P-500 printer (US$250) accepts most camera memory cards and prints out 2-inch-by-3-inch (5.1cm-by-7.6cm) instant photos (US$10 for a 10-shot film/battery pack). The alternative is waiting till you get home, but that, of course, is no day at the beach.

High-powered binoculars bring the world closer. Unfortunately for people not blessed with steady hands, they can also make the world seem as though it is undergoing a constant earthquake. Canon's 10x30 IS binoculars (US$699) use electronics and a special optical system to create steady, magnified images. The system can even eliminate the vibrations of a moving car, making the binoculars ideal for drive-by birdwatching.

Pedometers

The Brunton pedometer does that rarest of things for an electronic device: it makes a noise when it works. The US$19.99 unit, which emits a faint click each time its user takes a step, can record speed (in strides per minute), total number of steps taken, distance covered in miles or kilometers and the number of calories burned.

Metal detectors are still associated with retirees who comb the beach for stray quarters, but a growing number are being bought by younger customers seeking to hunt for historical relics. The BeachHunter ID from White's Electronics (www.whitesdetectors.com, US$799.95) is unusual in that it is completely waterproof and can work to a depth of 7.6m in both fresh water and saltwater, so that daring fortune hunters can search that sunken Spanish galleon for doubloons.

For those who insist on staying in touch, Motorola's Talkabout T5200 (US$49.99) offers the sound quality of a more expensive two-way radio, a 3.2km range across 14 Family Radio Service channels and 38 codes for greater privacy. Each unit also has an optional confirmation tone, which will save your children the embarrassment of saying "Roger Wilco" while they're at the snack bar with friends.

When most people think of music on the beach, they are reminded of the dreaded boombox, scourge of peaceful vacations everywhere. Boomboxes are the audio equivalent of mutually assured destruction -- each side is armed to the teeth, and nobody wins.

Fortunately, there's a selection of personal audio and video players that allow you to enjoy your good taste without imposing it on the people one blanket over. Sony's new Network Walkman Digital Music Player NW-S4 (US$349.95) can hold 120-minutes worth of digital music, including MP3's, WMA and WAV files, in a stylish water-resistant package. Best of all, it runs on only one AA battery. That's one more than you'll need for Freeplay's wind-up S360 radio (www.freeplay.net, US$69.95), one of the few translucent products that actually gives you something inside worth looking at: the gears that run this battery-free radio for up to 25 minutes after just 30 seconds of winding. Unlike other hand-cranked technology (including Freeplay's own flashlight) the two-pound radio is light and portable.

For those who don't just want to listen to the ball game, Casio's EV-660 Hand-Held TV offers VHF and UHF viewing with a surprisingly clear picture. At US$179.99, it's a little more expensive than some other personal televisions, but its three-inch active-matrix screen means that you can tell the difference between the players even without a scorecard.

Gone are the days when checking the temperature at the shore meant twisting your neck to see the rusty Hires Root Beer thermometer on the boardwalk.

Modern sun mavens hoping to attain the perfect tan and to avoid turning into a human hot dog can use the US$89.95 SunUVWatch (www.sunuvwatch.com). Users enter skin type, based on how easily they tan or burn, and the sun protection factor, or SPF, of the lotion they are using. The detector measures the intensity of the sun's ultraviolet rays and sounds an alarm for one minute once a user's safe maximum exposure time has been reached.

Surfers, sailors and jet skiers can keep track of temperature, wind speed, and wind chill with Speedtech's Sky Mate Windmeter (US$78 from www.speedtech.com). The lightweight unit can be worn around the neck on a lanyard and is water-resistant to a depth of 1m.

Beachgoers can check severe weather alerts with the Portable All Hazards Weather Radio from Speedtech. This bright yellow US$55 receiver picks up all government weather stations. In standby mode, the radio will sound a one-minute warning in case of impending storms or hurricanes.

Storm detectors

If you don't trust the government's weather experts, Speedtech has a Thunderbolt Storm Detector (US$399) that will warn of storms up to 100km away and estimate their time of arrival. If a storm is detected the device delivers its data in a digital readout with an audible warning, which might persuade you to stay onshore during the next perfect storm.

Although vacation usually means leaving the office behind for a week or two, you can take it with you. But be warned: dragging a laptop computer to the beach is not a good idea, as the sun and sand can do horrible things to your machine.

If you do take it, however, a waterproof case like the Pelican 1470 (prices starting at about US$130 at www.sailnet.com) can go a long way toward protecting your laptop from moisture and salt air. And a sturdy folding work surface like the Lapstation Pro (US$79.95 at www.intrigo.com) will keep your machine off your lap (and the sand).

If you manage to avoid sand and water but can't escape the sun, Private Eye Cases (privateeyecases.com) makes a carrying case (US$129) that folds out and creates a tent-like structure around your laptop. If you need to check your office e-mail, the Sierra Wireless AirCard 510 (www.sierrawireless.com/ProductsOrdering/510nb.html) fits into a laptop's PCMCIA slot and can connect to the Internet via Sprint's CDMA wireless phone network. The AirCard 510 sells for about US$400 plus monthly service fees.

If you are leaving your laptop at home, a Blackberry RIM pager (US$400 plus a monthly service fee) can provide e-mail and Web access, and its enclosed design makes it less vulnerable to the elements. And a digital voice recorder like the Sony Voice File ICD-BP100 digital recorder (US$200) can hold up to 168 minutes of your ideas, which can then be uploaded as WAV files for transcribing or plugged into speech-recognition software on your computer back at the hotel.
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