Gadgets

FIRST LOOK: Amazon’s Echo Dot

June 29, 2016 1 Eric Murrell

Upgrade your nightstand It’s no secret that we love the Amazon Echo; what I initially wrote off as a bizarre little gadget quickly became our current favorite smart home gadget. There’s something about that readily-available combination of knowledge and speed…

Automation

Is it Dumb to Build a Smart Home?

June 23, 2016 7 Eric Murrell

If you enjoy reading tech journalism or watching HGTV, you probably know there’s a bit of a renaissance and a backlash occurring at the same time in the smart home/IoT (internet of things) world right now. The renaissance is coming…

Gadgets

7 Days with the 9.7″ iPad Pro

April 6, 2016 7 Eric Murrell

I’ve owned three iPads since 2010, and I’ve never cared for any of them. What began as an initial excitement about the impending tablet “revolution” always regressed to a casual indifference toward a device that only seemed suited toward content…

Audio/Video

REVIEW: Amazon Echo

December 22, 2015 6 Eric Murrell

The closest we’ve come to a robot butler. Remember the first time you saw Siri in Apple’s iPhone 4S? It was one of those transformative pieces of tech that you never knew you needed, but instantly knew you wanted. Siri,…

Audio/Video

FIRST LOOK: 4th Gen Apple TV with Siri

December 2, 2015 0 Eric Murrell

The Start of Something Big Boy, have the streaming box wars heated up or what? What was once a boutique product that you purchased just for Netflix has turned into a huge new industry that’s just getting started. Oddly enough,…

Gadgets

REVIEW: Culer Home Space Cooler

August 26, 2015 4 Eric Murrell

Feeling is believing. Disclaimer: The folks at Culer very kindly provided a unit for this review. As always, the opinions are my own. I hate being hot. Summer is easily my least favorite season on the year, so much so…

Gadgets

REVIEW UPDATE: Canary Home Security

August 12, 2015 0 Eric Murrell

Better every day. We originally took at look at the Canary home security system earlier this year; at that time, we recommended it on a trial basis as we experienced some outages and bugs related to early software for a…

Automation

REVIEW: XY Find It Beacon

June 5, 2015 17 Eric Murrell

Disclaimer: The folks at XY Find It very kindly provided several bluetooth tags for this review. As always, the opinions are my own. It’s human nature to be forgetful. Although Evernote, Google Calendar, and 1Password have whipped my digital life…

First Look

24 Hours with the Apple Watch

May 13, 2015 2 Eric Murrell

The beginning of something great. After waiting for a nerd’s eternity, my hotly anticipated Apple Watch Sport arrived yesterday. I’ve spent the last 24 hours putting it through every kind of test I can think of. Here are a handful…

Audio/Video

How I Made My Internet Connection 10x Faster

April 28, 2015 9 Eric Murrell

Get what you’re paying for. Netflix was dropping out constantly, and that was the final straw. Like many of you, Netflix has become the focal point of entertainment in our house. It’s what the kids watch when they need a…