First Look: The Kwikset Kevo Lock
The Key That’s Always With You I hate carrying keys. While the smart phone has absorbed just about everything else I carry in my pockets, the keychain seems to be the one item I can’t shake. My notebook is gone,…
Smart Bulbs vs Smart Switches
The Great Lighting Debate Lighting your smart home can be confusing. A decision that used to revolve around a handful of bulbs must now account for dozens of variables… How important is power consumption? Do I need colored light? Do…
First Look: The Quirky+GE Tripper for Wink
The folks at Dropcam broke my heart earlier this year. Hot off the heels of the release of their excellent Dropcam Pro web cameras, Dropcam took a small step closer to embracing the home security market with the announcement of…
REVIEW: Philips SlimStyle LED 60w Replacement Light Bulb
Good light; right price. As I research lights for our house, I thought it would be helpful to continue to reviewing the most common players lining the store shelves. I covered the excellent Cree LED bulb last week, so lets…
First Look: The Wink Relay
Mission control for your smart home. Once you have your whole home working together (perhaps through the Wink Hub we looked at yesterday), you’re going to want an easy way to control it. Smart phones are the default interface, but…
Quirky+GE Introduce 8 New Wink Enabled Smart Home Products
Just hours after we took our first look at the awesome Wink Hub, the folks at Quirky have introduced 8 very interesting new smart home products to complement the rest of the Wink-compatible line up: The Norm – $80 –…
First Look: The Wink Hub
One device to rule them all. With new smart home gadgets entering the market on almost a daily basis, there’s no shortage of new solutions for common problems. Unfortunately, that also means there’s an abundance of new apps, protocols, and…
REVIEW: Eneloop Rechargeable Batteries
Secret little money savers. We knew having kids would be expensive, but one expense we didn’t account for was keeping batteries in dozens of electronic toys. Every birthday and each Christmas brings with it a new family of chirping plastic…
Government Confirms: LED Lighting is Getting Better and Better
A recent report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (surely a fun place to work), confirms that LED lighting continues to pull ahead of Compact Fluorescents and Incandescents in performance per watt. It’s a great time to replace your bulbs,…
Rethinking the Home Security System
Better choices with a smaller budget. A few weeks ago, we sat down with our builder to go over an itemized budget as we break ground on the new house. One thing that stuck out to me was the $1200…
