Bob Ankosko

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Super compact
Nice build quality
Easy to set up and use
AccuVoice modes aid the hearing impaired
Minus
Sound could be fuller
Surround sound is subtle

THE VERDICT
The AV203 TV speaker just might be a godsend for viewers with hearing loss who have difficulty discerning voices and movie dialogue.

The small rectangular box sat in my foyer for days before I realized it was the Zvox soundbar I’d been waiting for. My god, this thing is small, I thought as I pulled the AccuVoice AV203 TV Speaker out of the box. I was immediately impressed with its heft and build quality and as curious as ever about how the diminutive bar would perform.

Performance
Features
Build Quality
Value

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Excellent sound quality
Compact and well-built
Easy to set up and use
Great value
Minus
No Wi-Fi streaming
No visual feedback
No grille cover

THE VERDICT
Kanto’s SYD is a simple, high-performance Bluetooth speaker that will wow you with rich, powerful sound that belies its size.

I could tell SYD was a serious speaker the moment I heard Joni Mitchell singing “A Case of You” from 1971’s Blue. Her angelic voice was mesmerizing in a way I didn’t expect from a speaker this size, not to mention a 47-year-old recording — and I was streaming from my phone.

You can’t see the Internet of Things but, trust me, it’s there — and growing rapidly as every imaginable kind of “thing” becomes (or at least tries to become) net savvy. But what exactly does IoT mean? And if we move beyond the quaint Jetson-esque vision of the future, what are IoT’s real-world implications? To get a handle on where our increasingly interconnected world is heading, we tracked down Dave Evans, former chief futurist for Cisco and co-founder of the Silicon Valley IoT startup, Stringify. Strap on your seat belt and prepare for an exciting ride into the future.

S&V: Let’s start with the basics. We’ve been hearing a lot about IoT — the Internet of Things — over the past couple of years. It so all-encompassing. How do you define it?