Home Tech

The Lyric Round Wi-Fi Thermostat is So Smart and Cool That It’s Hot!

Raina and I continue to add smart features to our home. We love the Haiku Smart Fan we installed and reviewed here on Gear Diary. (Read the review!) The next step in the process was adding a smart thermostat. I received a Lyric Round Wi-Fi Thermostat for review. This second generation unit is small but packs a punch. It’s awesome!





HP OfficeJet 200 Mobile Printer Truly Delivers a Mobile Office

Your computer is now thin, powerful, and gets great battery life. Your tablet is even thinner, often just as powerful, and gets even better battery life. Your workflow is truly mobile. And yet, if you want to print a document, you need to go into the office. Thanks to the HP OfficeJet 200 Mobile Printer, that’s no longer the case!



Samsung SERIF TV: Art You Can Watch in Your Home

Samsung has collaborated with the Parisian design duo of Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec to create the SERIF TV; in the process, they have re-envisioned not only “how the TV looks but also how it functions.” From top to bottom, inside and out, the Bouroullec Brothers re-imagined every aspect, from its minimal yet solid exterior form to its refined user interface and even its simplified remote control. The Samsung SERIF TV is just as beautiful to watch as it is to experience, with the best picture quality available in a 40” TV. The SERIF TV draws inspiration from typography: from the…







Brooklyn Bedding Has “One Mattress to Rule Them All”

Brooklyn Bedding’s website offers the tagline “One Mattress to Rule Them All.” It’s an interesting statement but slightly inaccurate. You see, this is the third “bed in a box” I’ve reviewed, and it’s the one that offers the most options. In addition to a range of sizes, it also offers a range of firmness. And the price can’t be beat.




Ilumi LED Smartbulb Boasts Impressive Feature Set, Performance Disappoints

The ilumi smartbulb brings a ton of features to a previously “dumb” appliance. Unscrew your boring old light bulb and screw in the ilumi smartbulb and you’ll get a highly efficient, color changing, music sync’d, presence detecting light bulb that can be controlled by your smartphone via Bluetooth connectivity. You can get yourself an ilumi A19 smartbulb for $59.99.



Welcome Home; Now That’s Smart

Raina and I closed on our new home last month. It is on a lovely street with gorgeous, architectural homes. Ours is not one of them. No, we bought a cute, and fairly non-descript split level. We love it and, along with a traditional renovation, we are updating the technology; here’s what is going into our house’s tech-makeover…




Libratone ZIPP, Is It Worth the Extra $50 Over the ZIPP MINI?

We recently took a look at the new Libratone ZIPP MINI. I was impressed with the design, the features and, especially, the sound. The ZIPP MINI is, as the name suggests, the smaller version of the Libratone ZIPP. That begs the question, what do you get for the extra $50 you’ll pay for the regular ZIPP?