Ryobi is coming out with a new 18V cordless LED tripod worklight, and there’s so much going on with it that I don’t know where to start.

At first glance, the new Ryobi cordless worklight, PCL691, looks fairly ordinary, and even boring. You can probably understand where I’m coming from; tripod lights have been around for a while, and besides, how innovative or pioneering can a new worklight be?

This is also Ryobi that we’re talking about, a brand that mainly caters towards budget-conscious DIYers and homeowners. I wasn’t expecting them to be so groundbreaking.

After skimming through the main features, I checked out Ryobi’s press kit media gallery for image selection, and that’s when it hit me – this is not an ordinary worklight.

At a glance, it’s a standard tripod workight, and not Ryobi’s first 18V cordless model.

The light panels can pivot, allowing users to aim light where they need it.

The Ryobi cordless tripod worklight be extended to a 7-foot height, and delivers up to 3,800 lumens of max brightness.

And you can also attach a Ryobi cordless fan on top.

Wait – what?

How did this image of a tripod-mounted fan get into Ryobi’s media gallery?

Oh. WOW.

So, the tripod base has a Ryobi 18V interface built into the top. You can remove the worklight head and attach different Ryobi “lifestyle and recreation” products.

Ryobi has a very long list of compatible LED lighting, radio and speaker, and fan options that can be used with the tripod base. If you forget, a QR code on the product itself will take you to the appropriate support page.

Some of the compatible products go back to Ryobi’s blue days, before they switched to a hi-viz yellow-green color for their tools.

If you have a different worklight you prefer for specific tasks, go for it!

The connection head can pivot 135°, adding versatility to any of Ryobi’s compatible cordless flashlights and worklights.

Or attach a Bluetooth speaker or jobsite radio. That seems convenient for placing your tunes or podcasts at ear-level.

The tripod looks a bit chunky when folded down, but still very portable.

It also features 3-way hybrid power options. The Ryobi TriPower tripod LED light can be powered by an 18V cordless power tool battery, 40V cordless outdoor power tool battery, or AC power via a standard extension cord.

What can you do with the light head once removed from the tripod base? Pop in a battery and use it as a separate worklight.

There are 4 brightness modes: low, medium, high, and single panel.

Grab the light and bring it with you when working in tight spaces, such as under a car.

There’s also a flip-up hook built into the side handle.

This lets you hang the light for added convenience and versatility, such as inside a camping tent.

The handle is also sized just right to clamp onto wood studs and standard construction lumber.

That’s a LOT of versatility and flexibility in what initially looked like an ordinary cordless tripod worklight.

Ryobi is packaging the tripod light with the base and worklight, and the worklight will also be available separately as model PCL632.

Key Specs

• 7′ max height
• TriPower compatibility
  • Ryobi 18V battery
  • Ryobi 40V battery
  • AC power via extension cord
• 135° pivoting head
• 3,800 lumens max illumination
• 4 brightness modes
  • low: 1,300 lumens
  • medium: 2,300 lumens
  • high: 3,800 lumens
  • single panel: 800 lumens

Price: $199 for the tripod base and worklight bundle (PCL690)
ETA: August 2024

The new tripod worklight will be sold exclusively at Home Depot.

Discussion

I wonder if some of my awe is due to my surprise. The tripod light came off as a solid but otherwise ordinary-looking worklight, and then it quickly demolished my expectations.

As a tripod worklight, I’m not very impressed, but I also don’t see any major compromises or “gotchas.”

The TriPower feature seems useful, and essentially means you can power the light – or any compatible Ryobi 18V cordless lighting, fan, or sound options – with any Ryobi 18V or 40V Max battery, or AC power if accessible.

The tripod base lets users aim lights or fans to better aim exactly where they’re needed.

Just these two features – being able to swap different power sources or different head attachments – provides enormous convenience and an abundance of possibilities. I think that Ryobi raised the bar with this one.

I think this is a great example of a brand that perfectly understands the needs and wants of their core audience and target users.

Ryobi says the new light provides “unmatched versatility,” and I think they could be right.

Is the worklight package lacking in any way? Can you think of features that should have been added? I can’t.

Video Intro

Related Posts:

New Craftsman and Ryobi Cordless Lighted Magnifiers New 2nd-Gen Milwaukee M18 Rocket Tower Light: Brighter, USB, and Carrying Case New EGO Cordless Floodlight

Adam Engst:

Pirate Ship is a shipping platform with an elegant interface that allows users to access discounted shipping rates from USPS and UPS with no subscription fee. I’ve used it a handful of times for mailing packages, and it has been brilliant.

[…]

And, oh, what a lovely interface!

[…]

Pirate Ship has negotiated corporate-level discounted shipping rates of up to 89% off retail and passes most of those savings on to customers. For shipping something heavy, Glenn has seen international shipping prices that run about $200 on UPS’s site, while Pirate Ship’s rate was about $60.

That slight arbitrage allows Pirate Ship to avoid the monthly subscriptions that make no sense for all but high-volume shippers—Stamps.com charges $19.99 per month plus postage, for example.

[…]

Pirate Ship’s support pages are also outstanding.

Lisa O’Carroll (via Hacker News, New York Times, Slashdot):

Apple has been found to be in breach of sweeping new EU laws designed to allow smaller companies to compete and allow consumers to find cheaper and alternative apps in the tech business’s app store.

The European Commission, which also acts as the EU antitrust and technology regulator, said it had sent its preliminary findings to Apple after an investigation launched in March.

[…]

The company has 12 months to comply before it face fines of up to 10% of its global revenues but the EU hopes ongoing dialogue will lead to compliance rather than sanctions.

Margrethe Vestager (tweet):

Because the ball is now in the gatekeepers’ court. They have to convince us that the measures they take will achieve full compliance with the DMA. And where this is not the case, we will intervene. Within a month of the compliance deadline, we opened no less than five non-compliance cases. Today, we are opening a sixth one: we will look into Apple’s new business model: the commercial terms Apple imposes on app developers who want to reach end users on the iOS platform. The criteria these app developers have to meet to even be allowed to operate as alternative marketplaces or make apps available via sideloading. And the complex user journey for those users who want to download and install alternative marketplaces and sideloaded apps.

We are concerned that Apple designed its new business model to discourage app developers and end users from taking advantage of the opportunities afforded to them by the DMA. The letter of the DMA is clear: gatekeepers have to allow for alternative app stores to establish themselves on their platforms; and for consumers to be fully informed about the offers available to them. So that they can freely choose where they want to source their apps, and at what conditions.

And there is more. Today, and after less than three months from opening, we adopt our first Preliminary Findings in a case of non-compliance. And it is again about Apple. About the many ways in which their new terms fall short of the DMA requirements regarding steering of users to options outside the Apple App Store. As they stand, we think that these new terms do not allow app developers to communicate freely with their end users, and to conclude contracts with them.

William Gallagher and Mike Wuerthele:

In a statement to AppleInsider, Apple said that it denies failing to comply with the DMA.

Throughout the past several months, Apple has made a number of changes to comply with the DMA in response to feedback from developers and the European Commission. We are confident our plan complies with the law, and estimate more than 99% of developers would pay the same or less in fees to Apple under the new business terms we created.

All developers doing business in the EU on the App Store have the opportunity to utilize the capabilities that we have introduced, including the ability to direct app users to the web to complete purchases at a very competitive rate. As we have done routinely, we will continue to listen and engage with the European Commission.

John Voorhees:

In particular, the EC’s preliminary findings take issue with Apple’s response to the DMA’s anti-steering provisions[…]

Benjamin Mayo:

The Commission says Apple may charge a fee for facilitating “the initial acquisition of a new customer” via the App Store, but it essentially cannot charge for each ongoing transaction.

Tim Hardwick:

The Commission also said it was opening a new non-compliance procedure against Apple over concerns that its new contractual requirements for third-party app developers and app marketplaces, including its €0.50 Core Technology Fee, “fall short of ensuring effective compliance with Apple’s obligations under the DMA.”

Dan Moren:

Should the EC find Apple to not be in compliance in these areas, it would require a substantial reworking of much of Apple’s EU terms. As with the previous investigations, it will likely take some time for a final ruling to be issued, though we may get a preliminary ruling such as the one above in a matter of months.

This uncertainty is not good for anyone trying to build a business using App Marketplaces or Web Distribution.

Warner Crocker:

This will bounce back and forth over the next nine months and will probably become even more contentious given quotes like this from Thierry Breton, the EU internal market commissioner: “Apple’s new slogan should be ‘act different.’”

Previously:

• No Apple Intelligence or iPhone Mirroring in EU at Launch
• iDOS 3 Rejected From the App Store
• UTM Blocked Outside App Store via Notarization
• EU to Charge Apple for Violating DMA
• DMA Non-Compliance Investigations

Update (2024-06-25): Jesper:

In the DMA, the ground rule is for sideloading apps to be allowed, and to only very minimally be reigned in under very specific conditions. Apple chose to take these conditions and lawyer them into “always, unless you pay us sums of money that are plainly prohibitive for most actors”. Apple knew the rules and understood the intent and chose to evade them, in order to retain additional income.

In the App Store Guidelines, as written and period appropriate, the ground rule was for in-app purchases to be allowed only through the App Store’s native in-app purchase system, at the penalty of removal from the App Store. Epic chose to take those conditions, break them and lawyer up. Epic knew the rules and understood the intent and chose to evade them, in order to retain additional income.

It is completely fair to look at what Epic did and say “that was kind of a dick move”. (I personally think it was kind of a dick move, even as I agree with some downwind consequences.) But any argument that what Epic did was wrong and what Apple did was right hinges on distinctions that do not make sense to me.

[…]

Apple has a significantly easier time silently assenting to the qualms of dictatorships than to simply stop reaching into the pockets of customers, many of which have funneled tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars for the most consistently successful high margin product in the history of mobile telephony, or developers who have largely made those devices attractive in the first place.

John Gruber:

This sounds like they’re going to insist that Apple make installing sideloaded apps and alternative stores a no-hassle experience. What critics see is Apple putting up obstacles to installing marketplaces or sideloaded apps just to be a dick about it and discouraging their use to keep users in the App Store. What I see are reasonable warnings for potentially dangerous software. We’ll see how that goes.

[…]

For sideloading, Apple requires that developers “Be a member in good standing of the Apple Developer Program for two continuous years or more, and have an app that had more than one million first annual installs on iOS and/or iPadOS in the EU in the prior calendar year.” Apple’s requirements are an attempt to prevent fly-by-night scammers from opening marketplaces or offering nefarious apps for sideloading. But the EC sees that as a catch-22, where the only way to become a marketplace or offer sideloading is to already be a longstanding developer in Apple’s own App Store.

[…]

I complain as much as anyone about the aspects of the DMA that are vague (or downright inscrutable), but this aspect seems clear-cut. It’s a bit baffling why Apple seemingly sees notarization as an opportunity for content/purpose review, like with last week’s brouhaha over the UTM SE PC emulator.

Riley Testut:

We tried to warn Apple that rejecting UTM was illegal 😬

When we first met with the EC a few months ago, we were asked repeatedly if we trusted Apple to be in charge of Notarization. We emphatically said yes.

However, it’s clear to us now that Apple is indeed using Notarization to not only delay our apps, but also to determine on a case-by-case basis how to undermine each release — such as by changing the App Store rules to allow them.

For these reasons, we are no longer telling the EC we trust Apple to be in charge of Notarization. 🤷‍♂️

Paul Haddad:

I’m confused as to why the answer was an emphatic yes to begin with. At best the answer should’ve been Apple hasn’t weaponized notarization on Mac, yet…

Steve Troughton-Smith:

Apple is convinced

1) that they’re the good guys
2) that European regulators are dumb

It’s patently obvious that neither of these are the case. Until that actually sinks in, this is going to continue to be a rollercoaster.

Michael Love:

On Apple and the EU: if you take all of our EU revenue on iOS and move it to Android instead, it would be enough to make our Android revenue roughly even with our iOS revenue. In absolute terms it’s like 20% of iOS, but if you take 20% of iOS and move it to Android, Android ends up bigger than iOS, at least for us.

So from the standpoint of developer platform priorities, this is an extremely stupid game for Apple to play, and they stand to lose far, far more from it than from the DMA.

Update (2024-06-26): Nick Heer:

If you are somebody who believes it is only fair to take someone at their word and assume good faith, I am right there with you. Even though Apple has a long history of capricious App Review processes, it was fair to consider its approach to the E.U. a begrudging but earnest attempt at compliance.

[…]

That is, however, a rather difficult position to maintain, given the growing evidence Apple seems determined to evade both the letter and spirit of this legislation.

ICQ (via Hacker News):

ICQ will stop working from June 26

You can chat with friends in VK Messenger, and with colleagues in VK WorkSpace

Wes Davis:

ICQ was started in 1996 by Israeli company Mirabilis, which AOL bought in 1998. ICQ grew to 100 million registered users at one point, at least according to a 2001 release from Time Warner, which had combined with AOL in a famously doomed merger. AOL sold the service to Digital Sky Technologies, the firm that owned VK, then known as Mail.ru, in 2010.

Via Mark Christian:

ICQ really was something special to me. I was absolutely glued to it for most of 1998 in particular, although I used it for years and years. I made some great friends on there[…] ICQ was the first social media platform I ever made a home on, and the uh-oh! notification sound will be etched in my mind forever. It’s hard to believe it’s been more than a quarter of a century since I was using it all day long; it’s even harder to believe that I’m still talking to some of those internet friends on a regular basis.

John Gruber:

Pre-mobile, “instant messaging” had a surprising number of popular platforms.

[…]

They all worked more or less the same way, and using any of these protocols was a lot like messaging today with iMessage, WhatsApp, or Signal. But there was one big difference: with the old “instant” messengers, you were only available while your computer was online. And even then, you could set your “status” — green for “sure, hit me up, I’m free”, and red for “I’m online, but don’t bother me right now”. And if you quit your messaging client or, you know, closed your laptop, poof, you were offline and unavailable.

If you wanted to contact someone asynchronously, you sent them an email. If you wanted to chat with messaging, you both needed to be online simultaneously.

The other key difference was that there used to be clients like iChat and Adium that worked with more than one service. It felt like you had some control and could use these services on your own terms. Now everything is all locked together. The only iMessage client is Apple’s. You can only use it on Apple’s platforms. And even then you can only log into one account at a time.

Previously:

• Online Messaging Systems of Yesteryear

Bain Capital, a private equity company, acquired Apex Tool Group in early 2013. Apex Tool Group (ATG) owns Gearwrench, Crescent, and a number of other tool brands that cater to different industries.

Apex Tool Group has been the focus of news and credit ratings reports recently, and I found the implications to be concerning.

From what I can gather, it seems that Gearwrench and Crescent Tool’s parent company is saddled with debt, and is also considering selling their Sata tool brand to help generate cash,

While some of the reports use extremely esoteric financial language, there are enough clues to provide context.

Let’s start by going back a few years.

Here’s what Apex Tool Group’s portfolio of tool brands looked like in 2014.

And here’s what it looks like now. Some of their brands were shuttered, but many were regrouped.

In 2017, Crescent Tools announced a new brand identity. Crescent essentially absorbed several formerly independent ATG brands – Lufkin, Wiss, Nicholson, and HK Porter.

Addition brands were folded into Crescent in the years since then, such as Jobox. Erem and Xcelite are now part of Weller.

In 2019, ATG closed down Armstrong and Allen tool brands. ATG didn’t explicitly confirm this until directing Armstrong shoppers to replacement brands. They later launched Sata in the USA as an Amazon-exclusive line of lower priced mechanics tools. Sata tools are available internationally.

Last year, we posted about Bain Capital’s reported efforts in 2021 to sell Apex Tool Group to the Wanxiang Group, a Chinese company focused on the automotive industry.

It was reported that the deal fell through due to “a snag in valuation.”

A report in late 2021 said:

Apex’s inability to generate a material amount of earnings hampers recovery in key debt metrics, the ratings agency said in the report, adding that the owner Bain was unlikely to infuse much-needed cash so that debtholders could be made whole and Apex’s looming maturity profile could be solved.

An “inability to generate a material amount of earnings?” “Much-needed cash” that they presumably weren’t getting from their parent company or sales? This didn’t sound good.

Let’s fast forward a few years to 2024.

Back in February 2024, Apex Tool Group credit ratings was downgraded. Their debt exchange rating was downgraded to SD (selective default), and term loans due in 2029 and 2030 were given D (default) ratings.

A default happens when debts are not paid by a certain time or according to the terms of the loan. A loan rating is an assessment of a company’s ability to repay loans or other payment obligations – they’re essentially a measure of risk.

In March 2024, S&P Global upgraded the Apex Tool Group back to a rating of CCC+. This was an improvement, but suggests that ATG remains a high credit risk.

There are some plain-language assessments buried in the S&P Global analysis, including:

Though marginally improved, we continue to view Apex’s capital structure as unsustainable absent a significant improvement in its profitability.

According to a Bloomberg report in early April 2024, Apex Tool Group restructured some of their loans, paying less than originally promised to their creditors.

As an aside, Gearwrench, in their recent marketing campaign, has been advertising how their lower prices could help users avoid long-term debt associated with tool truck brands (such as Snap-on). There’s a bit of irony here, with reports suggesting their parent company needs a boost in sales to help pay off loans and long-term debt.

At the end of April 2024, Bloomberg reported that Bain Capital was considering the sale of Apex Tool Group’s “China business,” which “includes the Sata brand, at $300 million to $500 million.”

It was reported that the intent was to “offload non-core assets to raise cash.”

Sata launched on Amazon in late 2019, and became available at Lowe’s online store in early 2023.

On the Sata USA website, the company describes themselves as the fastest-growing premium-quality mechanics hand tool company in the world over the last 20 years. It seems potentially ominous that Bain Capital wants to “offload” Sata to “raise cash.”

It’s difficult to piece together a complete picture of what’s going on at Apex Tool Group, as they’re privately owned by Bain Capital.

But, none of what is revealed or suggested by financial analysts, ratings bodies, or business news reports sound good.

Debt is not necessarily bad for a company. However, it’s not a good sign when a company cannot pay back its debts in full.

Gearwrench is a solid tool brand, and Crescent is consistently decent. I highly doubt their stories are ending anytime soon, but all this news of debt, the fallen-through acquisition talks, and Bain now seeking to sell chunks of ATG is definitely concerning.

As a reminder, Apex Tool Group owner Bain Capital was also part owner of Toys R Us, which closed all stores and was liquidated in 2018.

Related Posts:

“New” Bosch Tools Don’t Ship with L-Boxx Tool Box System Inserts Dewalt 18V NiCad Cordless Power Tool System is Officially Discontinued Grizzly Announces New Home Depot Brand Page for Machinery

Adam Engst:

News started to spread this morning on the MacAdmins Slack, Rich Trouton’s Der Flounder blog, and Tom Bridge’s site about how our friend and Take Control author Charles Edge died suddenly and unexpectedly on 19 April 2024. He was in his late 40s, and yes, his standard bio picture below gives you a feel for his sense of humor and irreverence.

I met Charles at a MacTech event in New York in 2012, but I already knew that he had written a bunch of tech books and thousands of Krypted blog posts on sysadmin topics. We exchanged some email about the possibility of him writing a Take Control book then, but it wasn’t until early 2014 that we came up with the idea that turned into Take Control of OS X Server.

[…]

He left Jamf in 2020 and was most recently working on Secret Chest, a password manager aimed at quantum-proofing Apple’s Keychain.

Previously:

• iMessage With PQ3
• Free Space Required for Modern macOS Upgrades
• Apple Discontinues macOS Server
• When macOS High Sierra’s Content Caching Isn’t Working
• Restoring the Default Set of Mac Fonts
• Build and Reverse MD5 Hashes Programatically

Update (2024-04-24): See also:

• Armin Briegel
• Mac Admins
• Thomas Reed
• John C. Welch