Darryl Wilkinson

MusicLites is a wireless speaker/light system from Artison and Sylvania. Each MusicLite combines a 10-watt LED light (equivalent to an incandescent 65-watt light output) with a 2.75” speaker plus a built-in 20-watt amplifier and RF receiver. The system uses a proprietary 2.4 GHz technology, and the MusicLites fit in standard four-, five-, or six-inch recessed cans. Installation is as simple as setting a dipswitch or two on the back of the MusicLite assembly and then screwing it in to a standard light bulb socket. No cutting. No new wires. Any one of up to three sources can be transmitted to up to six zones, and multiple MusicLites can be configured together as one zone. Each MusicLite can be set for either left channel, right channel, or summed mono output. Audio sound quality is surprisingly good, especially for such a small speaker. The company will release a wireless 8-inch 300-watt powered subwoofer before the end of the year.

MusicLites retail for $250/each. A single transmitter with wireless remote control retails for $100/pkg. The subwoofer will have a suggested retail of $600. Overall it’s a very impressive package for the money.

Locks have been around ever since people starting accumulating stuff that they didn’t want other people to get their hands on. Over the millennia, various types of locks have been used to safeguard all kinds of things: stones (a.k.a. jewels), money, jars of Nutella, castle dungeons, the secret formula for the Krabby Patty, automobiles, and houses, just to name a few. Supposedly, there are 4,000-year-old clay tablets (probably locked away in a museum somewhere) from the Babylonian Empire that show an early form of keys on them. In ancient Greece, keys were large enough that they were carried on a person’s shoulder. (Although Leonidas might have said, “This is Sparta!”; he most certainly never said, “Where did I put my keys?”) Wealthy Romans didn’t have to worry about losing their keys, either, because they often wore their keys on their fingers as, well, key rings.

Today, of course, we have lots of ways of locking up things without resorting to the old-fashioned lock-and-key routine. When it comes to smart home technology, motorized, electronic door locks aren’t exactly the newest home automation device...

At ELK Products’ press conference on Thursday, the company introduced several new additions to its Two-Way Wireless security and control product ecosystem. The ELK-6030P Wireless Pet Immune PIR motion detector is designed to be used with ELK Products’ M1 Cross Platform Control along with the ELK-M1XRFTW Two-Way Wireless Transceiver. Some of the notable features of the ELK-6030P are easy installation with a keypad-initiated walk test mode, two selectable sleep mode duration choices to help extend battery life, and a built-in security/convenience bright-white LED.

Numinus can put a full star field on the ceiling in your home theater – or anywhere you want them to for that matter. If you ask them nicely, they’ll also create a sky dome for you that’ll change from daylight to nighttime whenever you choose. For the really star struck, Numinus can reproduce the way the stars looked in the sky on the day you were born, married, or, maybe, first discovered they could put a sky dome in your room. The stars can be set to twinkle (a little or a lot), and very realistic shooting stars can be programmed, too.