Tristan Perry 
Smart plugs are great (or so the marketing says…) – they can easily be used to turn household devices and appliances on/off via your voice, a phone app, automated schedules, and more. Awesome. Unless, of course, you want to control a device which has an electric or mechanical switch – like the red switch below: … Read more
I have been on a bit of a smart lighting journey over the past year. I originally disliked the idea of smart lighting, before buying a couple of smart lights here and there – and really liking them. I now have a range of smart lights, including a homemade ZigBee lightstrip and a Philips Hue … Read more
One of the best features that IoT has brought to the smart home is lighting control. There’s nothing like having an automatic wakeup call from your lights or being able to switch between relaxing evenings or parties with friends at the flip of a switch. Smart home technology is here to make our day-to-day lives … Read more
I remember when I installed my first LIFX bulb: it was my first full-RGB (color) smart bulb, in-fact. So naturally I jumped into the ‘Effects’ section of the app and I played around with all the different effects: Visualizer syncs the bulb to music which is pretty cool, however color cycle is my favorite: it … Read more
Despite building my own DIY smart lightstrip for my kitchen last year, I purchased Philips Hue’s lightstrip to run around my desk in the black friday sales. Why did I do this? Well, I wanted to compare the Philips Hue Lightstrip Plus to my own ZigBee DIY one. Is Hue’s offering really worth the high … Read more
Smart plugs are pretty useful devices – allowing you to easily control your appliances with a phone app, preset timers, and even your voice. But it’s not always practical to take your phone out every time you want to control it. Alternatively you can use a smart speaker, but remembering the correct voice command to … Read more
How do you illuminate your home? Incandescent bulbs are too wasteful, giving off so much energy in the form of heat. Plus, since they burn out relatively quickly, you need to change these bulbs more often, which can be a real hassle, especially when a ladder is involved. Fluorescent bulbs were a big step forward … Read more
The Flash Briefing feature on Amazon Echo devices is quite useful, unless you dislike the news or weather provider – in which case a very useful feature quickly becomes wasted. Thankfully it’s quite easy to change the news and weather provider used for your flash briefing, along with adding loads of other briefing sources – … Read more
So… I recently asked my Google Nest Mini device for a news update, and it went on (and on and on…) for over 10 minutes. TEN MINUTES! Luckily I have a short attention span and I fell asleep around the 7 or 8 minute mark. Nonetheless, this default behavior can be quite frustrating. Luckily Google … Read more
If you are someone who doesn’t like stepping onto a cold floor in the middle of the winter and would prefer to wake up with a cup of coffee instead, then you might have invested in an underfloor heating system. At the same time, you might have heard that a smart thermostat can help you … Read more