I remember when I first started getting into smart homes. I was happily running a few (WiFi based) Echo speakers, but I started to hear terms like ‘Zigbee’ and ‘Z-Wave’ thrown around too. I was also (obviously) aware of Bluetooth, but I’d mainly seen it used in headphones and mobile phones: so it seemed odd … Read more
Ring had a bad end to December 2019, with various news items in the mainstream press about different breaches and hacks, including the very worrying story of parents who noticed that a ‘hacker’ was watching their children play via the nursery’s Ring camera. Ring therefore released various new app features at the start of 2020 … Read more
The world of smart home technology has developed quickly and for the most part, it’s an exciting and positive change. Being able to control your smart home with ease, whilst checking in on video feeds when you’re out and about (or simply in another part of the house) has never been easier. It’s fun, convenient … Read more
Smart light strips are an awesome invention – they can instantly add interesting yet subtle lighting to various areas around your house, and their color can be quickly changed or dimmed to suit your needs. ZigBee (not WiFi) smart strips have added benefits too, but with so much choice, which one should you get? Philips … Read more
One of the nice features of smart bulbs is that not only can then change color (and be dimmed), but since they’re a digital product, they can be programmed to do other interesting things such as ‘dance’ along with music or change color to reflect a movie on TV. Philips Hue have great support for … Read more
Being able to repeat sounds and songs (via Amazon’s “loop mode”) on your Amazon Echo devices is a really useful feature – it can save you money (compared to paying monthly subscriptions for “premium music” on third party white noise skills), and it’s also useful for parties, night-time or where you simply love a new … Read more
Philips Hue’s Lightstrips have some really nice features, and they can work really well in various places in your house – especially behind your TV, and in your kitchen. In-fact, I’m considering using them in my kitchen but I wanted to know exactly how many Lightstrip packs to buy since I may need to cut … Read more
One of the nice features within the Amazon Alexa platform is the ability to loop music playing on your Amazon Echo devices, whether it’s an individual song or a playlist. You can also (sort of) loop songs kicked off from routines, granted with some caveats. This guide covers how to do this. Looping music on … Read more
I’m one of those people who like to organize everything via their calendar. I need to ring a company up? Put it in the calendar (otherwise I’ll totally forget!). My wife asks me to hang something on a wall? I put it in the calendar… but probably still forget to do it! But either way, … Read more
I’m one of those annoying people who likes to track everything in their life on a calendar! Whilst I’ve used the calendar features on my other Echo devices, I love the calendar on the Echo Show – mainly because you can visually manage your calendar due to the Echo Show’s touchscreen. The Echo Show’s calendar … Read more