Arlo Ultra First Look: A Mixed Bag

With the release of Arlo Ultra, the company has upped the ante with not only 4K video quality, but also some neat new features including HDR, color night mode, auto track and zoom. But this jump to higher resolution and feature enhancements has some initial teething problems. Having unboxed the Ultra (below), I began the … Read more

TiVo Mini Wireless Adapter Slated For Midyear Release @ $60

TiVo has never taken the Mini wireless for television programming due to MPEG2 bandwidth considerations … and the resultant experience, which would be highly variable dependent upon ones home network. Of course, I told you how to take matters into your own hands (five years ago!). But for those still looking to something other than … Read more

Sonos Contemplates Atmos Satellite Speakers & Lower Priced Subwoofer

As Sonos looks to expand its market footprint, the company hit a number of customers today with a survey that describes potential products — each listed at various price points to gauge interest. Most interesting are Sonos One-esque speakers with enhanced bass and Dolby Atmos in addition to (finally) a more affordable Subwoofer, penciled in as … Read more

Tablo OTA DVR To Automatically Skip Commercials

Nice! Come March, Tablo DVR owners will be able to automatically skip commercials while playing back television recordings. Unlike TiVo’s somewhat kneecapped SkipMode that only indexes popular, primetime programming and requires manual intervention at each break, Tablo’s solution should index just about everything* and will be automated: Tablo’s commercial-skipping magic is a cloud-based hybrid of digital signal … Read more

IKEA Smart Shades Are Here (with Alexa and Apple HomeKit!)

Ikea Smartshades are here! Well “here” as in some European stores with broader availability expected February 2nd — hopefully that includes the US, although prior reports indicated our availability would come later in the spring. In any event, we now know sizes, prices, and mechanics. There are two lines of grey Ikea smart shades, one … Read more

New Roku Audio Products & Expanded Voice Control On The Way

While Roku freely admits their primary business is advertising, given several significant job openings around the world, the company continues to see audio as viable hardware category with a continued emphasis on platform voice control. The TCL-branded Roku soundbar announced at CES 2018 has reportedly been killed and Roku has taken matters into their own … Read more

Garmin Vivoactive 3 Music Goes Mobile With Verizon LTE

Garmin is poised to take the Vivoactive 3 Music fitness watch, introduced last summer, to the next level with Verizon LTE. According to the FCC-published user manual, you’ll be able to connect to Verizon for data transfer and text messaging. Data transfer is a nice addition for those that want to sideload music without having to … Read more