Sort By: Post Date | Title | Publish Date
CES 2015
Nexturn Takes Its Turn at DIY Home Automation
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Jan 06, 2015
Mobile lifestyle product maker, E FUN, is joining the smart home fray with the introduction of a line of DIY home automation devices. The new smart home systems and devices will be sold under the Nexturn brand name. Neturn systems will initially be available in three starter kits labeled Bronze, Silver, and Gold. The systems are built around…
Continue Reading >
CES 2015
Westinghouse Goes NUCLI Early Access with Amazing New Deadbolt
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Jan 06, 2015
Westinghouse’s new NUCLI deadbolt locking system is one of the most amazing and ambitious electronic door locks I’ve seen to date. The NUCLI replaces a standard deadbolt lock with no modifications necessary for most doors. What makes this lock stand out amongst a myriad of smart locks hitting the market is…
Continue Reading >
Accessory Reviews
Logitech Harmony Ultimate Home Universal Remote Control/Automation System Review
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Dec 30, 2014

Performance
Features
Value
PRICE $350

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Color touchscreen with vibration and gesture support
Emits IR from remote, hub, or blasters
Integrates with multiple home automation hubs
Minus
Inconsistent performance with SmartThings Hub
No remote control locator feature
Limited external IR emitter outputs

THE VERDICT
The apply named Harmony Ultimate Home Control is the ultimate home and AV controller you can buy, program, and use without the help of a professional integrator.

It was January of 2013, and Logitech, in an effort to “refocus its strategic direction,” announced it would divest itself (by end of the year) of several non-core product categories—among them speaker docks, digital video security cameras, and, notably, its Harmony activity-based universal remote controls. Unfortunately, by that time, short of the fancy installer-only control systems from the likes of URC, Control4, and others, Harmony had pretty much eliminated the competition for remote controls selling for more than $50. So a dim, non-Harmonious future looked imminent for DIY home theater enthusiasts wanting more than the standard, three-in-one, el-cheapo universal hanging on a peg at Walgreens...

Continue Reading >
Remotely Possible
Giving Thanks for My Smart Home
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Nov 24, 2014
If only my smart home could cook turkey without drying it out...
Continue Reading >
Remotely Possible
Exciting News! We Pulled the Plug On Your Smart Home Hub
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Oct 27, 2014
On Friday of last week (Oct 24 or “Devolve Friday” as it’s now known), visitors to the Revolv website were treated with the following headline: ”We want to share some exciting news with you. Revolv is now a Nest company.” Wow! Considering that Nest — the maker of the hugely popular Nest Learning Thermostat and the less-popular Nest Protect smoke/CO alarm — has one of the biggest corporate sugar daddies in the world (i.e., Google), that’s incredibly exciting news. As I stated in a recent review of the Revolv Hub Home Automation Controller: “The Revolv Hub is a powerhouse that looks to be relatively future-proof from a hardware standpoint. A great choice for a newbie.” With the crazy amount of money Google/Nest could throw at it, Revolv could evolve into the epitome of a smart home system hub.

Moving down the Revolv home page, however, readers soon discovered that the exciting news is actually...

Continue Reading >
Remotely Possible
CEDiA Expo 2014 Wrap-Up
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Oct 07, 2014
CEDiA 2014 is over and done, but its effects will linger on in the form of first impressions, developing trends, and new technologies. By the numbers, it was a great convention with more than 480 exhibitors and well over 18,000 attendees who made the trek to Denver from 82 countries around the world. But those are the dry statistics. What’s much more exciting was the stuff we saw and heard, as well as the trends we noticed and how they’re going to affect the industry. (By the way, CEDIA didn’t officially change the organization’s name. I did, but I’ll get to that later.)

Dolby Atmos was still too new to have been everywhere on the Expo floor. In those booths where it was being demonstrated, though, it was...

Continue Reading >
Accessory Reviews
Revolv Hub Home Automation Controller
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Oct 02, 2014
Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value
PRICE $299

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Seven radios built in
Extremely easy initial setup
Minus
Pricey next to other DIY automation hubs
Lacks some advanced programming features

THE VERDICT
The Revolv Hub is a powerhouse that looks to be relatively future-proof from a hardware standpoint. A great choice for a newbie.

Humble isn’t a word anyone would associate with Revolv and their distinctive, teardrop-shaped, little red smart-home controller—which the company calls, with uncharacteristic restraint, the Hub. In fact, this device is easily the flashiest and most recognizable of all the smart home gadgets around today.

Continue Reading >
Accessory Reviews
SmartThings Hub Home Automation Controller
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Oct 02, 2014

Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value
PRICE $99

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Z-Wave and ZigBee radios built in
In-app live chat support
Supports multiple third-party devices and services
Minus
Doesn’t support Insteon
No tablet-specific app layout

THE VERDICT
The SmartThings Hub offers an impressive range of support, its app is powerful and smartly designed, and it’s a great value.

As with all up-and-coming DIY home automation systems, the SmartThings Hub is intended to make your life a living nirvana, bringing peace, love, and, yes, even rock ’n’ roll (grunge or otherwise) into your smart home. The $99 price—with a free app and no monthly subscription fees—is certainly a tasty enticement for someone with a sweet tooth for home automation on the cheap. But the big question is whether there’s enough meaty substance to the SmartThings system to satisfy a homeowner’s long-term automation hunger. Or does SmartThings give nothing more than a sugar high that inevitably leads to a disappointing crash later on?

Continue Reading >
Accessory Reviews
Affordable New Home Automation Systems Put the Smart in Your Home
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Oct 02, 2014
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.
Continue Reading >
CEDIA 2014
For Crestron, Pyng is an Awesome Thyng
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Sep 15, 2014
At Crestron’s CEDIA press conference, the company spent time explaining how Crestron Pyng is going to save time for integrators when programming Crestron both small and large home automation systems. According to Crestron, home automation apps have traditionally been “add-ons to control systems that are programmed using computers.” With Crestron Pyng, on the other hand, “you are not adding an app to your automation system. The app is your automation system.” Pyng uses a compact hub to connect accessories - such as Crestron’s wireless lighting controls, various window treatments, thermostats, Yale wireless door locks, and security systems - and runs scenes and events with or without the presence of a smart device. It also continuously backs up all the home settings to a cloud server, which provides a way to restore the system to a previous configuration if the homeowner makes changes to the system that need to be reversed.

Crestron also introduced...

Continue Reading >

Pages

X