featured

REVIEW UPDATE: Culer Solo Cooler

July 5, 2016 0 Eric Murrell

Some cool improvements. Disclaimer: The folks at Culer very kindly supplied a Culer Solo for this review. As always, the opinions are my own. As we enter the thick of the summer, if you’re anything like our family, I’m sure…

Audio/Video

10 Reasons Your Family Needs a Drone

June 30, 2016 0 Eric Murrell

A different perspective. Something dangerous happened to me in Vermont this May… I caught drone fever. I go on a trip to help church plants with a group of creatives every May, and this year several friends brought their drones…

Automation

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…

Audio/Video

FIRST LOOK: Ring Stick-Up Cam Outdoor Camera

June 27, 2016 0 Eric Murrell

All seeing; all knowing Indoor surveillance cameras are a dime-a-dozen these days (with excellent offerings from Canary, Nest, Netgear, and others), but there has been a hole in the market for a while now for user-friendly outdoor solutions at an…

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…

News

Our Home Building Horror Story

June 22, 2016 8 Eric Murrell

“You haven’t moved in yet?!” Hi; remember us? I know, it’s been a while. You’ve probably noticed that updates have been sparse around here; now that the worst months of our living nightmare seem to be drawing to a (thankfully)…

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: Sonos PLAY:5 (2nd Gen)

December 28, 2015 2 Eric Murrell

Still king of the hill. Disclaimer: The folks at Sonos provided a PLAY:5 for this review. As always, the opinions are my own. If you’ve been reading this blog for any amount of time, you’re aware of my untamed affection…

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,…