Darryl Wilkinson

Price: $2,499 At A Glance: 6.4-inch diagonal color touchscreen • Motion sensor • Built-in IR, RF, and Wi-Fi • Kicks all other remotes controls’ butts

My Remote Can Beat Up Your Remote

If you like car analogies (I don’t, but I’ll use one here anyway), RTI’s T4 is the Hummer of universal remote controls. At a little more than 9 by 6 inches (not to mention over 2.5 inches thick), it’s a monster that will dwarf nearly everything else sitting on your coffee table. It weighs 2 pounds. It sports an LCD touchscreen that by itself is larger than most other remote controls. At this point, you’re probably thinking that the prime consumer demographic for the T4 is the guy who feels the need to make up for some, shall we say, inadequacy in his personal life.

This A-BUS makes it easy to "Take the 'A' Train" in any room in your home.

Three computers and one broadband Internet connection in my house means that there's a computer network in my future. Right now, it's a hypothetical network, since my ISP (Prodigy) has only succeeded in providing hypothetical DSL service. I know it's coming, though, and I'm looking forward to installing the network about as much as one looks forward to shaking hands with his proctologist. My life is complicated enough without the added grief that a router, a switcher, numerous runs of CAT-5 cable, and unsavory terms like Ethernet and TCP/IP will bring into it. I want something elegant and simple that will provide me with the intended result—in this case, Web pages that load before I've finished typing in the URL and the ability to steal hard-drive space from my kids' computer—without requiring me to complete a doctoral thesis in connectivity and network administration.

Price: $3,945 At A Glance: Up to three independent music streams • Built-in FM tuner in each keypad • Rhapsody and SHOUTcast Internet radio access

Collage Hits a Home Run

Given the choice, Hercules would choose to clean the Augean stables in a single day rather than wire my house for multiroom audio. Gypsum dust, asbestos-laden insulation fibers, desiccated rodents, and poisonous spiders are just a few of the delights that await the installer (or, in reality, me) who takes on the task. It’s also a logistical nightmare since my house doesn’t have an attic or basement, plus the house only has about 8 inches of crawl space underneath it. Don’t get me wrong, I like my house. It’s the thought of running wire through, under, and around it that gives me pause.

Samsung Electronics thinks your home should be smart – as long as it’s filled with Samsung Smart TVs, Samsung home appliances, and Samsung smartphones that are all connected and managed through Samsung’s Smart Home platform. Samsung’s Smart Home is designed to enable homeowners to control and manage many of the devices in their homes via a single, simple app. The devices that Samsung envisions to be part of the Smart Home ecosystem will include refrigerators, washing machines, Smart TVs, digital cameras, smartphones, and wearable devices (such as the Galaxy Gear). In the beginning, Samsung Smart Home will offer three features: Device Control, Home View, and Smart Customer Service. Device Control provides what you would think from the name: the ability to monitor and control home gear, such as turning the house HVAC on/off or changing lighting scenes. Interestingly, Smart Home will offer a voice command function on all of the controller devices. According to Samsung, “Users can also use chat control on their smartphone app as a fun, convenient way to communicate with their devices.” (Only as long as the appliances don’t start talking back…) Home View will allow users to view their home in real-time thanks to cameras built into Samsung appliances. (So, that means no walking around in the kitchen in your underwear…) The Smart Home’s Smart Customer Service will notify customers “when it’s time to service appliances or replace consumables, and provides assistance in after-sales servicing.” The company has developed a dedicated Smart Home software protocol (SHP) to facilitate communication between Samsung devices as well as (hopefully) other manufacturers’ appliances and devices.