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Don’t get me wrong. I love Lyft and Uber. But sometimes a taxi is better.

I recently ordered a Lyft for a 40-minute ride. The app said it would cost $53. Ridiculous, I thought. When I started over, the price changed to $43. But Lyft wanted to pick me up at a different address than the one I typed in, an aggravation I’ve experienced many times. I thought I’d have to cross a wide boulevard in the freezing rain at night. So I called a taxi. Price: $39. Arrival: instant. Driver: courteous.

A friend of mine has also faced his share of Lyft annoyances. Last summer, he was waiting for a ride home from the airport when they canceled it and dinged him $5. More recently, the app kept telling him it was still looking for a driver. To avoid missing his plane, he used Uber, even though it was more expensive. On the return trip from the airport, the designated Lyft driver changed his mind just before entering the ridesharing area and drove away. My friend could see the guy’s car as a little dot on the app’s map. The second driver whined about having to drive so far from the airport, fearing that he wouldn’t get a passenger on the way back.

Here’s the lesson: Sometimes a taxi is better than ridesharing. Taxis, no longer a monopoly, have responded to competition by improving their service. Even their cars seem clean now.

DYSON HEADPHONES

A cousin says she wears a mask when visiting Beijing because the pollution is three times worse than Los Angeles. Maybe she should get the new “Dyson Zone” headphones. The vacuum people know a thing or two about filtering out bad air.

Dyson went through 500 prototypes before coming up with their new headphones. Some looked more like scuba diving equipment, according to a reviewer on Engadget. The final design makes you look a bit like Darth Vader, but so what.

The Zone uses a mini version of a classic Dyson filter to prevent dirty air from entering your nose and mouth, down to a tenth of a micron. Besides allergens and dust, it captures gases, including nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and ozone. It costs $949 but could be worth it in polluted cities. Reviewers say it’s comfortable, even when lying down. It’s supposed to arrive before 2023.

RIDEABLE LUGGAGE

The $685 Airwheel scooter suitcase is luggage you can ride on, all the way to the gate.

After you hop on, raise the handle and grip it. It can go over 6 mph, about the speed of a fast jogger, and carries up to 286 pounds. It comes with an anti-theft alarm. Go to Airwheel.net to see it in action.

INDOOR COMPOSTER

I feel so environmentally friendly now that I’m composting. Conveniently, the trash room on each floor in my condo building has a bucket for veggie and fruit scraps. But here’s another way to do indoor composting: Use the Lomi, a $500 gadget about the size of a bread-making machine.

It may be a bit noisy, but the Lomi turns your food waste into actual dirt, reducing the volume of scraps down to about 10% of the original. In a ZDnet video, I watched a user who lives on a boat with his wife and kids. First, he lets the container fill up to 75%, then he allows it to churn for about five hours until the volume goes way down. Then he tosses on more food.

Unfortunately, using the quick method destroys all microbes, which are needed for plant growth. But there’s also a “grow mode.” It takes around 18 hours and requires a bag of Lomi microbes, which spring to life in the damp soil.

Currently, the Lomi is on sale at lomi.com for $426, but you’ll also need to spend $50 every three months to replace the charcoal filters. It might be worth it if you want to help the environment. The average user will reduce carbon emissions by 67%, by keeping food waste out of landfills. If you get your electricity from renewable sources, you’ll reduce emissions by 100%.

THANK YOUR AMAZON DRIVER

Recently, I said: “Alexa, thank my driver,” and the driver who delivered my package received a $5 reward from Amazon. If you don’t have a device with Alexa on it, you can download the free Alexa app to your phone. Once in the app, tap the blue icon, then tap the keyboard to text Alexa. Next to the text box is a microphone if you prefer to speak. The five drivers who get the most thank-yous will receive $10,000 each, plus another $10,000 for their favorite charity.

INTERNUTS

• “This robotic tentacle gripper is terrifying.” Search on that phrase to see a robo octopus that can pick up objects that humans can’t.

• Underwater Buoy Could Power Homes by Capturing Ocean’s Power. Search on those words to see a CNET article on the 50-ton “Archimedes Waveswing.” The test phase is off the coast of Scotland’s Orkney Islands. So far, it has beat all expectations to produce as much as 80 kilowatts when the waves are high.

• 99percentinvisible.org covers overlooked topics. I listened to an episode on cable cars in Wellington, New Zealand. For some clifftop homes, your own private funicular may be the only way to access it. Helicopters deliver the furniture.

Joy Schwabach can be reached by email at joy.schwabach@gmail.com.

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