The Lutron Aurora Hue switch controller is brilliant, just brilliant. Slap it over the light switch and you solve the usability issue with a Philips Hue installation. Power comes from a coin battery, and it uses Zigbee for effortless and reliable setup and configuration. But, $40 a switch, yeah, $40… I’d be shocked if there’s more than $2 in hardware […]
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Google Assistant has finally come to the Sonos One, and I couldn’t be happier. While it’s still a bit less-than-first-party (e.g. the same lack of room awareness as Alexa), being able to control Google Music via voice from the device makes it no longer a paperweight in the lounge. Enjoy voice control for Sonos from your phone, a Google Home […]
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Aside from the fantastically orange “Fire Dragon” SKU, the COROS VERTIX watch has a slew of very nice features/sensors. Including: heart rate, oximeter, altimeter, accelerometer, compass, gyroscope, and thermometer. As well as 45 (!) days of battery life, as long as you stay off the GPS (which is “only” 60 hours), & BTLE (phone connectivity) / ANT+ (sensors). It also […]
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So got an email today about the new 2nd edition Circle being available. They are calling it the “Circle Home Plus”. I have to admit, I still use my first edition Disney Circle on my kids VLAN today, the time limits and shutoff time alone are worth it. While they aren’t perfect (can’t set what is LAN vs WAN on […]
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Reviews for LG’s newest OLED are starting to arrive, and quite unsurprisingly, given their PQ dominance the last few years, it remains KOM. LG’s 2019 C9 OLED TV is the best-performing TV I’ve ever tested at CNET. In 2018 I said the same thing about the C8 and in 2017 I said the same thing about the C7. Year after […]
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I’ve never run across OpenZWave before so the specifics of what it does are still a bit fuzzy (if you’ve used this, and know exactly what it does please let us know). It looks like a C++ (with .NET wrapper available) library which allows anything that wants to interact with a Z-Wave network natively, to do so. If this is […]
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I can understand why streaming services, like Netflix, have focused more on improving resolution on the video side of things. More people have 4K TVs, than 5.1, 7.1, or full Atmos setups. But it is welcome news from Netflix has now turned their attention to sound, with the announcement that they are turning up audio quality as well. It will […]
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Hubitat has posted about an update coming to their hubs. Names Rules Engine 3.0 it sets to replace the current 2.5 version. That have added much more flexibility, for my use case. Having a script that is editable, else and elseif now available, and better changes to UI to handle all rules on one screen. (vs the multiple clicks it […]
Read moreNetflix’s authorization model, generously applied here, is rubbish. Frankly, there’s no other way to say that. Content levels are applied to profiles, which are freely selectable on EVERY device. Yes, I can set a GLOBAL parental control PIN for the account, but that’s a broken way to manage access. Can we please have profile based authentication? I would love to […]
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Excluding Z-Wave devices is sometimes necessary either when they didn’t pair correctly the first time, or if you’ve obtained them 2nd hand. This process is really easy if you have a PC and a USB Z-Wave stick. This video outlines the process.
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