Darryl Wilkinson

I’m in the interesting position of telling you how to do something with a subwoofer that you shouldn’t do. No, it’s not illegal. But in the ears of those for whom sound quality is more important than ergonomics, décor, and/or domestic tranquility, it’s definitely heretical.

Last week, Nest announced they were pulling the plug on all their customers' Revolv smart home hubs. Why am I happy about this?

We lost a pioneer of the modern loudspeaker industry with the passing of William (Bill) Hecht earlier this year on September 12th at age 89. I was only five years old (and I imagine many of you reading this weren’t even born yet) in 1967 when Bill Hecht patented his signature contribution to the audio world, the soft-dome tweeter, arguably the most widely used speaker driver worldwide for the last 30 years. I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Hecht once during my career. In this age of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and the endless onslaught of 24/7 self-promotion, Bill Hecht was a quiet, self-effacing man who seemed most comfortable behind the scenes. Indeed, throughout his career, Hecht and his company, United Speaker Systems, was known for making the speakers that made other speaker companies famous.

Too often smart home technology is more "because we can" than it is "because we should." The Flex House at CES 2018 proved that you can integrate smart home technology that's highly functional rather than mostly hype.