This week I had the great honor of being on the very first episode of a new podcast called the Conversations of Things. Joe Dugandzic of Smarter Home Life is the host, and it’s going to be an interview show with tech people about the Internet of Things and Home Automation. Joe is such a […]
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ecobee3 is Awesome – Don’t Buy It
In my previous article I tried to give you the flavor of how to install the ecobee3 Smart Thermostat, and now let’s talk about how it actually works. But if after hearing more about it you feel tempted to buy one, don’t do it. My timing couldn’t be worse on this, because I just found […]
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A Noob Installs the ecobee3 Thermostat
When I was in college, my roommate Sandy and I wanted to put up a hanging plant. Remember the 70s when macramé plant hangers were all the rage? If not, go ask your mom. Anyway, she said we should go get a boy to help us. I told her that if we couldn’t do it […]
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Watch Bad Guys (and Coyotes) with the Ring Floodlight Cam
We live in a pretty safe neighborhood, but we like to keep an eye on things around our house. As safe as the neighborhood is, we do know of cases where deliveries have been stolen from front doorsteps from time to time. You’ve probably heard about the Ring Video Doorbell that we reviewed last January. […]
Continue readingMore TagCES 2017: ShadeCraft Sunflower Autonomous Robotic Shade
Allison interviews Armen Gharabegian from Shadecraft about their new autonomous robotic shade called the Sunflower. This novel shade tracks the sun to keep a desired spot shaded throughout the day. The Sunflower connects you to the IoT and the smart home ecosystem from the outdoors. The Sunflower is solar powered and includes an integrated camera […]
Continue readingMore TagHow to Turn Off NAT-PMP and UPnP on Your Router
A few weeks back after the disastrous distributed denial of service attack on the DNS servers was found to have been caused by insecure Internet of Things devices, Bart suggested that we turn off automatic port forwarding. This is a technology that is built into routers that allows devices (and software) inside your network to […]
Continue readingMore TagWhat Could Kill Just the 2.4GHz WiFi Network?
The new hip thing today is these Internet of Things devices, right? Steve and I have been dipping our toes in with the Ring video doorbell, the Chimes that go with it, the Hue Lights that automatically change in time with The Expanse series on SyFy, the Nest Protect smoke alarm that’ll tell us if […]
Continue readingMore TagYet Again the Answer is 2.4GHz Separation
About four years ago, my son-in-law Nolan bought Lindsay a webcam from a company called Foscam so that she could watch her dog Dodger. She followed the instructions to set it up to a wired Ethernet connection and it worked perfectly. From her Mac or her iPhone she could control the camera, move it around […]
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