What A Difference $220 Can Make! No, I’m not being sarcastic. I have now just purchased the new Sonos Move portable, battery-powered smart speaker. I guess I’m just a “use it or lose it” type of person when it comes to coupons or special discounts. The Sonos Move has a manufacturer suggested retail price (MSRP) of $399, but I recently received trade-in credits for $220 off any new Sonos product. If you follow Sonos at all, you probably know that they are never discounted and rarely go on sale so the retail price is the price you usually have to pay. So yeah, that’s an expensive portable speaker, but with this discount the price is only $179. Ok, only is a relative thing when you can buy a simple Bluetooth speaker at the gas station or convenience store for around $10 or $15. I Loved It, I Hated It Let me be the first to admit that when Sonos introduced the Move, I had the same reaction as many other people at first. “Wow! That’s exactly what I’ve been waiting for - An awesome sounding Sonos Wi-Fi speaker that can be part of a multi-room, whole-house Sonos music system while also being totally portable and usable with Wi-Fi or Bluetooth”. The specs are impressive - Beautiful Sonos mechanical/aesthetic design, waterproof for use indoors, outdoors, around the pool or at the beach, long-lasting rechargeable battery power, a cordless recharging stand, and for the first time, the ability to also use it with Bluetooth. The Move supports both …
Music
Can You Avoid Buying a new $1,500 Stereo Receiver?
When my clients decide to buy a new TV, they are often surprised when I tell them they will also need to upgrade their stereo receiver. If you have anything more than a standalone TV, you probably have a modern audio-video receiver (AVR) connected. Popular brands includes Sony, Denon, Yamaha, Anthem, and others you may never have heard of. The AVR becomes the heart of your entertainment system. It provides the audio processing for stereo or surround sound output which is much better than the TV’s own tiny built-in speakers. Everything, and I *mean* everything, plugs into the AVR first. Video and audio sources for what you want to watch or hear: Cable and Satellite service boxes (we all love to hate ‘em) CD & DVD players (does anyone still use CD’s?) Streaming boxes (Apple TV, Roku, Chromecast) AM/FM Radio turners Generic digital audio inputs Generic analog audio inputs Turntables (classic vinyl collection anyone?) Digital music players (iPods, MP3 players) Game consoles (Microsoft XBox, Sony Play Station, or Nintendo Switch) The AVR routes the signals to one or more connected outputs: Television screen Analog audio outputs (speakers) Digital audio outputs External amplifiers (pre-amp outputs) The main output from the AVR is sound sent to speakers - lots of speakers. For a minimum stereo sound, you’ll have two - a left channel and a right channel speaker. (That’s to mimic the two ears that every human has, in case you were wondering.) Typical media rooms and …
Out With The Old; In With The New
Spring has Sprung! Now that we have swung full speed into Spring, it’s time to plan for re-planting the smart home garden of controllers, devices, and appliances. Every Spring I take an inventory of where things stand, what needs to be fixed or changed, and what I would like to do. It’s not necessary to change your home automation equipment frequently, but once a year it is worth a look. Technology improves, prices change (usually downward), and new capabilities that were not even a glimmer in your eye become feasible. You don’t have to wait for an actual sale to upgrade or grow your smart home. With careful selection of products and planned upgrades and migrations in a timely fashion you will save lots of money in the long run. I know it may be cheesy, but the adage “time is money” also applies. If you speed up your home network and automate more functions in your home, you can give yourself the luxury of more time for other things and we all know time is the most precious commodity. Is Your Crystal Ball Rusty? A video doorbell? Nobody was even thinking about that before they were created. An industrial grade mesh Wi-Fi network for great coverage everywhere in your home that doesn’t cost thousands of dollars? Nobody knew that was coming. A control system built into your smart phone and free with an operating system upgrade? Nobody saw Apple HomeKit or Google Home Assistant coming before it did! Not All Fun And Games It’s not all exciting new tech (or toys) to …
Bring The Cineplex Home With Plex Media Server
Media - A Fancy Word For News, Leisure, & Entertainment The Plex Media Server is an amazing product that brings order to all your media - music, photos, and videos. It deserves serious consideration to be included as part of your smart home system and best of all, it is mostly free! In our modern digital age our collection of books & magazines has been replaced with their electronic equivalent. Many of us no longer subscribe to newspapers or magazines and get most of our information online by reading websites or following newsfeeds on social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. If you’re an avid reader, most likely like me you long ago ditched the hardcover or paperback printed book and started using an E-reader like the Amazon Kindle. Now my book collection is just a few electronic files stored in my device and online in a cloud account. (Actually, I mostly listen to audio books from Audible, but that is really the same kind of thing.) But what about photos, music, and video? What’s the electronic equivalent of those dusty old photo albums; stacks of vinyl records; cd cassettes; or heaven forbid - 8 track tapes; or shelves full of VHS video tapes and DVD discs? Entertainment is an important part of any smart home system. At home we spend a lot more time consuming media (a fancy term for watching TV & movies, reading, or listening to music) than adjusting our thermostats, unlocking our doors, or playing with …
Should You Get An Apple HomePod?
Rip Van Winkle Is the Only Person That May Not Have Noticed The big news last week is the shipment (finally) of the long-awaited Apple HomePod smart speaker. The reviews are in and now all the early adopters are jumping in with their reviews, blog posts, and click-bait comments. I am not going to join the swamp with everyone else - it is easier for you to read the existing reviews and it saves me the trouble of repeating what has already been said. I am limiting my opinion to this specific question: “If you are interested in a smart home and home automation, should you buy an Apple HomePod”? Sounds Great to Me Let me get this out of the way first. The HomePod sounds great. The audio quality is superb and vastly exceeds the quality of anything from Amazon or Google. But it should! There is no surprise here that a $350 product sounds better than a $50, $100, or $200 speaker. That’s really table stakes in this game. If the HomePod didn’t sound really good, it would be in a lot of trouble. The Easy Choices First I like to use a process of elimination to help make decisions. Find the easy flaws first, and use a process of elimination to reduce the selection further. It is easier to choose between two or three options than twenty or thirty. Since the HomePod can be many things - a smart speaker, a voice assistant, a home automation controller, a TV sound system, a music player, & more, it risks being a “Jack …
Turn your Amazon Echo into a DIY home intercom system
Update: "Never mind". As of this week (June 26, 2017) Amazon has pushed out software updates for all Amazon Echo products that allows direct room-to-room calling. Now by giving each of your Amazon Echo devices their own name (e.g. Office, Bedroom, Kitchen, etc.) you can use them as room-to-room intercoms by simplying issuing the command "Alexa, call kitchen". I am very pleased to see Amazon add this capability so quickly and make it very simple to use. My originl workaround suggestion: The new Alexa Calling & Messaging service turns every Amazon Echo and Amazon Dot into a voice telephone. The free service allows you to make telephone-like voice calls from your Alexa device to any other Alexa device in the world free of charge. There is no monthly fee, no per-minute fee, and no per-all fee. You can also use the just-updated Amazon Alexa app on your smartphone to do the same thing. Of course, this a walled-garden system - every person you wish to call must also own an Amazon Echo device or be using the Amazon Alexa app on their smartphone. This has very interesting possibilities and when the video-enabled Amazon Show device starts shipping at the end of June, video calls will also be possible. For me, there aren’t a lot of people I know with Amazon devices that I would want to reach this way. A regular phone call, text message, or email would be fine. However, since I do have multiple Amazon devices in my home (two Amazon Echos and five Amazon Dots), I though …