Darryl Wilkinson

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Affordable New Home Automation Systems Put the Smart in Your Home

Darryl Wilkinson | Oct 02, 2014 | 2 comments

It’s disappointing to note that, already well into the second decade of the 21st century, the smartest component of most people’s homes is a programmable thermostat—and chances are, it hasn’t been programmed since it was installed (if at all). But you can’t really blame homeowners for not rushing in droves to embrace home automation or, as it’s more often called, the “smart home.” Neither the high cost of reliable systems nor the low reliability of cheap systems has been all that enticing.

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Affordable Smart Home Automation: It's About Time (Install Time)

Darryl Wilkinson | Feb 18, 2014 | 0 comments

I’m on a quest to find the best of the affordable smart home automation systems that are available (or will be shortly). The first couple of review samples have come in, and one of the primary aspects these two systems have in common is the impressive amount of engineering and design effort put into making installation and set up as easy as possible. That’s vitally important because for home automation to really get its foot in the door (so to speak) and appeal to more than just gadget-freaks like me, the system controllers need to be smart enough that the end user doesn’t have to commit an overwhelming amount of brainpower to the process of setting them up and getting them running. If the initial installation of a smart home automation controller is anything close to the pain involved in creating a bunch of macros in a programmable universal remote control, there’s going to be a lot of product returns from unhappy customers.

The first system to arrive was...

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Airmega Smart Air Purifier Now Includes Amazon Alexa Integration

Darryl Wilkinson | Jan 04, 2017 | 1 comments

In general, air purifiers have always seemed a bit like, um, smoke and mirrors to me. After all, most of them just sit in the room; and, frankly, I can never tell if they’re actually doing anything at all other than taking up space. It only took about 30 seconds for the Airmega folks to give me visual confirmation of their claim that the company’s Airmega Smart Air Purifier models remove more than 99 percent of the particulate matter in the air in the room...

Audio Video News

All Ears - and Eyes - on the I-Sonic

Darryl Wilkinson | Apr 25, 2005 | 0 comments

Evidently, Polk has a thing for XM Satellite Radio. About six months after they introduced a stand-alone, home-component XM tuner (the XRt12), the speaker company is pulling the wraps off of a new XM-ready tabletop entertainment system called the I-Sonic. Sure, you might think it's just a new compact stereo system designed to sonically kick the you know what out of you know which (heavily advertised) tabletop system from you know who. (And who am I to say that you're wrong?) But a quick look at all of the I-Sonic's features and capabilities makes it appear to be something more - you know, the kind of thing your grandmother could use but will still impress the heck out of your more techno-sophisticated friends.

CEDIA 2012

An AVR That Can Fill an Entire Home with Music

Darryl Wilkinson | Sep 08, 2012 | 0 comments

URC was showing off the company’s long-awaited DMS-AV Network Home Theater Amplifier that takes a 125-watt x 7 AVR with boatloads of inputs and features and marries it to a URC Total Control-based whole-home music distribution system. The DMS-AV connects to the homeowner’s LAN and can handle up to 32 streaming audio sources. You can even digitally stream the analog output from a turntable to any of the connected zone amplifiers in the home. URC says the DMS-AV is finally shipping with an MSRP of $1,499.

Audio Video News

Analog Video Be Gone

Darryl Wilkinson | Jul 11, 2006 | 0 comments

Gefen's new analog-to-digital video scaler takes the VGA output from a single analog video source, such as a computer's analog video output or a DVD player's component video output, and scales it to 1280 x 1024 (for computers) or 1080i (for HDTVs). The input resolution is automatically detected while the output resolution and refresh rate can be selected through the unit's on-screen display menu or front panel push buttons. As a result, the company says, installation can be accomplished "in seconds." (That seems a bit optimistic, unless they're talking about double or maybe even triple digits. But we get the point.)

Audio Video News

Anna Morph and Her Silicon (Optix) Enhancement

Darryl Wilkinson | Feb 27, 2005 | 0 comments

High-end home theater owners may already be familiar with Silicon Optix, Inc. The company's Image AnyPlace video scaler provides a great deal of flexibility for installers when choosing where to locate a front-projection monitor in relation to the screen. The scaler's Image Geometry Correction circuitry adjusts the image for off-axis projection in two dimensions (two-dimensional Keystone Correction), so for nightmare-installation rooms the projector may be mounted at the top, bottom, or either side of the projection screen. The scaler also makes it possible to project images onto cylindrical, spherical, or completely irregularly shaped objects. (Imagine the thrill of watching movies on the top of your brother-in-law's shiny bald head.)

Surround Processor Reviews

Anthem AVM 40 Pre/Pro

Darryl Wilkinson | Feb 26, 2008 | 0 comments

Hide your credit cards now before it's too late.

My son, Nick, recently attended an engineering weekend for high-school seniors at a nearby university. After splitting into teams, the attendees competed in several engineering challenges, one of which was to build a contraption made from a meager assortment of supplied materials (including an Alka-Seltzer tablet) that would move a small toy car across a pan of water.

Surround Sound System Reviews Home Theater Systems Reviews Subwoofer Reviews Tower Speaker Reviews Wireless Multiroom Speaker Reviews

Aperion Intimus 4T Summit Home Theater System

Darryl Wilkinson | Sep 20, 2012 | 0 comments

Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value

Price: $3,499 At A Glance: Automatic speaker discovery and channel assignment • Uncompressed 24-bit wireless digital audio • No AVR needed

Not long ago, FedEx deposited a 7.1channel HTIB from Aperion Audio outside my door. It’s not really fair to call it a home theater in a box because the system actually comes in seven boxes and sells for $3,499. But since it includes source switching and amplification, it technically qualifies as an HTIB, albeit a rather unusual one. Aperion Audio prefers the term preconfigured home theater system. Normally, setting up this sort of home theater package would entail speaker wires crisscrossing the floor accompanied by the requisite grumbling, stripping of wires, and fumbling with speaker terminals. In this case, though, the Aperion speakers—a pair of towers, a center channel, a subwoofer, and two pair of satellite speakers—come out of their boxes, get placed in their appropriate spots in the room, have each one’s power cord plugged into the nearest AC outlet…and that’s it.

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April Showers Knock Out Power: Are Your Prepared for Natural Disaster?

Darryl Wilkinson | Apr 07, 2014 | 0 comments

I spent a tense 30 minutes the other night huddled on the floor in the hallway outside my father’s hospital room. The National Weather Service had issued a tornado warning for the area, and the hospital had gone into “Weather Plan 2” mode. Everyone in the building—even the patients who couldn’t get out of bed—had to gather in the hallways. My father was one of those temporarily bed-ridden patients, and I’m sure that the mind-twisting aftereffects of anesthesia coupled with post-op morphine made the hurried, bumpy rush from his room to a hall full of two dozen other patients seem even more surreal than it was for me. It became even more surreal after all the patients were returned to their rooms following an “all clear” announcement when, within minutes, the whole process was repeated (albeit with significantly more grumbling from the patients and staff.)

As I was busily texting and tweeting about the collective predicament we were in (it’s actually not true that I caused a small riot when I ran through the hallway yelling “Morphine for all!”), the flickering of the hallway lights during the height of the storm started me thinking about how incredibly dependent we are on technology - technology that most of us take totally for granted until it doesn’t work anymore...

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Darryl Wilkinson

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