Wednesday, November 17, 2021

My CCKO CK9919 20 litres stainless steel smart rechargeable sensor garbage bin

During the recent 11.11 big sale promotion festival, I have purchased a CCKO brand (model CK9919) 20 litres stainless steel smart rechargeable sensor garbage bin to be used in my kitchen. Its price was around RM170 after discount.


It is "smart" in the sense that it can automatically open its lid whenever its infra-red sensor detects an object near its top, then start a 5 seconds countdown after the object is cleared, and then automatically close back its lid.

You can see it in action in the video below:


Besides infra-red object detection, its lid can also be automatically opened by slight vibration to the bin (such as gently kicking its body) or by pressing a button on its top panel.

In this way, you can throw your rubbish into it without touching any part of the garbage bin. Convenient and hygienic.

There are other even smarter models of garbage bin available in the market. Some can even automatically wrap up the garbage bag inside when it is full, and automatically reload a new garbage bag after the existing used one is taken away. However, those types of smarter garbage bin require the use of their own special garbage bag (which is not cheap), and their price is higher too. Therefore, I did not choose those smarter type.

There are quite a number of different sizes available for CCKO elegant stainless steel garbage bin. In terms of shape, there are also 3 choices: round cylinder, rectangular and square.

For kitchen use, I found the rectangular type is more space-saving, and the size of either 15 litres or 20 litres is more suitable. Both the 15 litres and 20 litres have the same base size of 30cm x 22cm. Their difference is on the height: 20L one has a height of 50.5cm whereas 15L one is 39.5cm.

You can use smaller size one for living room, bedroom, writing desk, toilet, etc. accordingly.

The CCKO smart garbage bin consists of 3 parts: the stainless steel outer bin, black colour plastic inner bin, and its cover. Just like normal garbage bin, you can put garbage bag inside the inner bin to collect your rubbish.

This CCKO garbage bin comes with a user manual, a QC certificate, a USB charging cable, and 3 sample garbage bags. The user manual is written in Chinese.



Its actual opening available for you to throw rubbish is approximately 25cm x 13.5cm only.


The magic is played by its cover, with sensors and electronic motor to open and close its lid. It is powered by a 1,500 mAh rechargeable 18650 lithium-ion battery. The size of this 18650 battery is larger than AA size battery.

Charging can be done by connecting the round connector of its charging cable to its charging port, and the USB end to either a wall charger or a power bank. It is said that a single charge can last for more than a month operation.


When you take out the cover and turn it over, you can find 2 compartments. One is the battery compartment, and the other compartment is used to place a bag of activated carbon to remove bad odour.



I like this garbage bin very much. It is smart. Its stainless steel body looks solid, classy and elegant. It is easy to use.

More importantly, this CCKO CK9919 garbage bin is water-resistant, protecting its electronic parts from damage being splashed by liquid. I did read some online reviews to some of its cheaper counterparts without water-resistant feature that those garbage bin will stop working after some time, probably due to electronic parts damaged by liquid.


Friday, November 5, 2021

My B03 home-use upper-arm digital blood pressure measuring and monitoring machine with colour background and voice function

After I have purchased and used the Jumper JPD-500E fingertip pulse oximeter, I have recently added a B03 home-use upper-arm digital blood pressure measuring and monitoring machine for my family use.


There are several types of home-use blood pressure monitor available in the market, including the traditional bisep (upper-arm) type, wrist type, finger type, etc. The American Heart Association (AHA) recommends the upper-arm culf type for more reliable measurements.

This B03 upper-arm digital blood pressure monitor can operate with 4 AAA-size alkaline batteries, or powered with 6V USB power source. It has English speaking voice function, providing instruction for blood pressure measuring, and reading out the result after the measurement is completed. It cost slightly more than RM50.


This machine provides 3 measurement values, namely Systolic (upper) value in mmHg, Diastolic (lower) value in mmHg, and pulse rate in bpm. It has memory to store up to 99 times of readings each for up to 2 different persons. It will auto power-off itself 1 minute after measurement is completed and there is no further operation by the user.

Before its first usage, we need to set its date and time by long pressing the S button and then using the M button to do the value setting, so that the date and time for its stored readings are correct.

Blood pressure readings below 120/80 mmHg are considered in the normal range. High blood pressure a.k.a. hypertension is categorized base on severity into Elevated, Stage 1 Hypertension and Stage 2 Hypertension.

Hypertension is also called "the silent killer" as many patients do not have obvious symptom for years. They might not be aware of having hypertension, unless periodically doing medical check-up with doctor, or using this type of home-use digital blood pressure monitor to frequently self check-up.

Hypertension after the Elevated level will need to seek for medical consultation from doctor, and medication might be needed to lower down the blood pressure. Prolonged hypertension can cause damage to body organ.

On the other hand, low blood pressure a.k.a. hypotension refers to blood pressure readings below 90/60 mmHg. Hypotension generally has less impact to our health than hypertension, and usually does not need any special medical treatment, unless there is symptom occurred.

The B03 digital blood pressure monitor uses the standard from World Health Organization (WHO) to determine the category level of its measured blood pressure. Its backlight will turn green for normal blood pressure, orange for mild hypertension, and red for severe hypertension. This visual effect is very handy, especially for the elderly to know the category of their blood pressure level, without the need to interpret the Systolic and Diastolic readings themselves.



The more recent International Society of Hypertension (ISH) 2020 classification of hypertension is as below:


As mentioned in the User Manual of the B03 digital blood pressure monitor, our blood pressure constantly changes throughout the day. It tends to be higher in the early morning and also in the afternoon, and lower at night during our sleep.

There are many mobile apps available to help us record down and monitor our blood pressure readings. Unfortunately, the B03 digital blood pressure monitor is unable to send its readings to our handphone, and we have to manually key-in the readings in the app by ourselves.

One of the recommended mobile app to use is BP Journal developed by a Malaysian called Jason Ong (owner of PortalGroove Solutions). It supports a multitude of global and regional blood pressure classification guidelines (ISH, ACC/AHA, ESH/ESC, NICE, etc.). It supports multi-profiles and able to generate report so that you can share with your doctor or family members.

As prevention is always better than cure, it is highly recommended for every family to be equipped with an upper-arm digital blood pressure monitor, to be used by the whole family, especially the elderly. With the handy blood pressure monitoring machine, you no longer need to check your blood pressure at clinic, as you can self-service at home, and you can have as frequent measurements as you like.


Sunday, October 24, 2021

Online stock filtering and screening by inventory turnover and receivables turnover

Cash flow is critical in running all businesses. Companies without healthy cash flow are very likely to go into financial trouble sooner or later.

In normal business operations, there are several factors that have great impact to the cash flow of the company, including:

  • How fast can the company sell out its goods?
  • How fast can the company collect the full payment from its customers?
The first factor can be rephrased in layman terms as "how fast can the company make money through its operations?", which is no doubt, the faster the better. This can be reviewed by its inventory turnover rate.

When the company's goods are stored in the warehouse or display rack, there is storage cost involved. The value of the goods could also be depreciated as they are approaching their shelflife expiry, or when newer goods are introduced to the market which becomes more attractive to the customers. Most importantly, the goods can only bring revenue to the company after they are sold (or leased) to customers.

The formula to calculate inventory turnover is:

Inventory turnover = Cost of goods sold / Average value of inventory

Low inventory turnover rate indicates:
  • Weak sales
  • Over-stocking (too much goods produced or brought in)
This can be resulting from poor marketing and/or poor sales to clear out the inventory effectively. This can also be due to lack of customers' purchasing interest to the goods, which could be:
  • Price is set too high
  • Product quality is too low
  • Low demand

High inventory turnover rate indicates:
  • Strong sales
  • Insufficient inventory (not a good sign)
This can be resulting from effective marketing and/or aggressive sales. This can also be due to:
  • Price is set too low
  • Product is good that customers are willing to pay for its price
  • High demand
Even if a company achieved a consistently high inventory turnover rate, its cash flow is yet affected by its receivables turnover rate.

There are generally 3 ways a business collect money from its customers:
  • Advanced (prepaid) collection - customer paid before receiving the goods.
  • Cash term collection - customer pay upon goods delivery.
  • Credit term collection - customer is given interest-free period to make payment within a timeline (normally 7-days, 14-days, 30-days, 60-days, etc.) after receiving the goods.
The money that customers owe to the company, normally due to credit terms, is called receivables. It is a common sense that high receivables will tighten up the company's cash flow, and, on the other hand, advanced payment collection will have positive impact on the company's cash flow.

The common formula for receivables turnover is:

Receivables turnover = Total credit sales / Average accounts receivables

However, the formula used in Rakuten Trade Stock Screener is:

Receivables turnover = Total revenue / Average accounts receivables

This could be due to the difficulty in separating the credit sales from the revenue with the financial information made available to the investors.

A high receivables turnover rate indicates that the company is effective in collecting back the money owed by customers. A low receivables turnover rate is normally a red alert to investors and bankers.

Here is an example to perform stock filtering and screening in Rakuten Trade based on the 2 turnover rates as mentioned above.

Login to Rakuten Trade online trading website, select the Stock Screener menu, add a new filtering criterion, and select Receivables Turnover (%). Set its minimum to 10%.

Then, add in another filtering criterion Inventory Turnover (%). Set its minimum to 10%.


You should be able to get a list of around 40-50 matching stock counters on your screen at this moment.

Note that inventory turnover is generally industry-related, and you should compare the inventory turnover rate of a company with its peers in the same industry. For example, we expect a high inventory turnover rate in the FMCG industry.

If you don't have a Rakuten Trade account to access to the Stock Screener above, you can use this link to open a new Rakuten Trade account for free, including no charge for opening new CDS account. By opening account with the link, you can get 500 RT Points within 30 days upon your account activation. Beside that, if you start your trading within the first 10 business days after account activation, your first online trading brokerage fee will be rebated as additional RT Points as well.


Hint: Click on the "Older Posts" link to continue reading, or click here for a listing of all my past 3 months articles.