I have an older home. One thing about older houses is pull chain lights, many, many pull chains. Anyone who has walked around a basement in the dark or near dark fishing for a light pull chain can attest that it is a massive pain. After one stubbed toe too many, I turned to home automation as a lower cost […]
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I’ve been debating about whether I wanted to put the time into doing a proper review of our Neato Robotics Botvac D80 Robot Vacuum. Afterall, it kind of is a smart home device, and it’s really nice to not have to vacuum the house during the week… But on the other hand, it’s a vacuum cleaner. This will not be […]
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When I finished watching Person of Interest, I was on the prowl for a replacement. Lo’ and behold, someone mentioned that a new show might be able to fill that void called Wisdom of the Crowd. Skeptically optimistic, I scheduled and watched the premier this past Sunday and was simultaneously intrigued and let down with the results. Wisdom of the […]
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Ring offers a variety of different doorbell cameras, with options available for those without a doorbell ($200), power-over-Ethernet (PoE) ($500, I imagine for new builds or challenging wireless environments), and the Ring Pro for those with an existing low-voltage setup. The $250 (can be found for $190 occasionally) Ring Pro, is not quite in impulse buy territory. But, if it […]
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The trailer I watched for ABC’s new show The Good Doctor was pitiful, leading me to have little faith it would become part of my weekly lineup. Had I not been on the hunt for shows to review, I likely never would have watched the first episode. The trailer felt uninspired and shallow; just one more example of how Hollywood […]
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I have never been a big fan of Seth MacFarlane. When I heard about him starring in a Star Trek-like TV show, it was no surprise that I immediately set my phasers to stunned. However, after watching a trailer for the show, my interest was slightly piqued by the possibilities. The visuals looked fairly impressive and the comedic slant could […]
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I like the recent trend to make higher-end Wi-Fi routers look interesting. Stepping away from the old-school canister or plain shell with antenna is especially pleasing. No one has embraced this more fully than D-Link, with the DIR-855L/R being one of the latest crop of performance routers. Sporting a dual-core 1.4GHz Broadcom BCM4709C0 SoC, this 4×4 stream AC3150 (1000Mbps […]
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I typically rely on my manual 35mm SLR to take higher quality pictures. I have in the past only used my camera phone for casual picture taking. I recently switched to an Apple iPhone 6s plus and acquired an Olloclip Active lens at the same time to see if I could get photos with the two that would replace my […]
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Let me start by saying, I am not much of a gamer. So while the NVIDIA Shield Android TV box has been out for a while, offering 4K UHD support for native playback and over-the-top (OTT) services like Netflix, the value proposition really did not speak to me given its $200/£150 (16GB) $300/£220 (500GB “PRO”) price tag. The landscape for […]
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Mobile cases are a strange thing. Yeah, it’s clear that they provide a valuable service by protecting your device should it meet the ground in an unscheduled way, but they’re ugly. Or at least, if not ugly, they obfuscate the industrial design of the device making your thin, metallic device into a clunky plastic one. I tend not to destroy […]
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