If you’ve been following our smart home tracker, you already knew Wyze bulbs were launching “soon” … and now I can provide even more precision: they go on sale next week. Further, due to what looks like some premature web publishing, we seemingly have all the details. Unlike Hue and IKEA lighting, Wyze is going … Read more
Back in January, we broke the news of upcoming Ring outdoor smart lighting and related accessories. This new system was described at CES as a means to extend your existing Ring ecosystem by not only allowing for wireless lighting, but also motion detection. Both can then be integrated with Ring cameras to help capture any … Read more
The Tablo Quad over-the-air DVR recently started shipping and our friends have posted reviews. TechHive DVR boxes that plug directly into your television, such as TiVo’s Bolt OTA, are inherently simpler than all this, but Tablo’s advantage is that it works with whatever streaming boxes or sticks you might already be using. […] While the … Read more
Announced many months ago, the first cut of Alexa Guard has finally arrived. The gist of Alexa Guard is to centralize select monitoring functions withing a single area, utilizing the traditional home/away security system approach and bringing Amazon closer to our dream of a virtual hub … that Siri hasn’t quite managed to achieve. Initial … Read more
Ring announced DoorBell Pro HomeKit support way back in June 2016. And, over the years, the company has continually stated that they have been eagerly waiting to release HomeKit compatibility (us, too). Anyone who’s followed the Ring account on Twitter has been greeted with the following response time and time again. Our priority is to … Read more
TiVo continues to experiment with their underlying SkipMode technologies. We’ve seen them invert ad skipping to highlight Super Bowl commercials the last two years and they just recently implemented automatic commercial skipping. But now they’re attempting something new with “Chaptering.” Sorta like DVD chapters, TiVo personnel are testing backend content bookmarking within a DVR recording. … Read more
Here’s a round up of upcoming smart home products and services from some of our favorite companies. Some possible cancellations as well. Ecobee ecobee4+ thermostat Timing: Soon Key detail: Glass screen new ecobee room sensor Timing: Soon Key detail: Magnetic base ecobee indoor camera Timing: Later ecobee contact sensor Timing: Later Arlo Arlo Video Doorbell … Read more
Despite questionable privacy practices, it’s increasingly difficult to quit Alexa given Amazon’s continued device integration and Routine enhancements. And today our very own Adam Miarka discovered Ring video now includes Alexa speaker announcements of “Person Detection.” Except it may not actually be active yet, given his limited testing. While Adam can enable the option for … Read more