When the pandemic forced us to close our building, I needed to get my synagogue up and running, remotely and online, as quickly as possible. Lume Cube’s products were a big part of helping us pivot from in-person services and meetings to being all online while still looking somewhat professional. Their latest product is the Lume Cube Ring Light Mini; let’s take a look.
Govee makes a wide variety of smart lights and appliances, and the new Govee Gaming Light Strip G1 is another step forward in their line of IoT (Internet of Things) ambient lighting products for gamers. Simply put, it is a strip of LED lights that users mount to the back side of their computer monitors to create different ambient lighting.
Since 2017, Govee has been designing and producing smart home products, including ambient lighting, home appliance products, and smart IoT systems. One of their most recently released products is the Govee AI Gaming Sync Box. I had a chance to review the version that comes with a single light strip meant to accommodate televisions between 55 and 65 inches measured diagonally. This version of the kit sells for $167.99. There is also a version that adds a pair of Govee’s RGBIC TV Light Bars, which sell for $299.
There’s something supremely cool about having smart lights in your home that are white when you want but can also be any other colors when you prefer a different vibe. If you have recessed lighting, as I do, you may have considered installing smart floodlights, but if you want to get them from a known brand, they can be as much as $50 per bulb! The new Nanoleaf Matter BR30 Smart Bulbs are reasonably priced, and rather than being from some random maker, they come from Nanoleaf, a well-known smart lighting brand. Let’s take a look.
Fun lights make everything better. They’re not just for arcades anymore. You can outfit your gaming cave or even your home office with all sorts of great LEDs. Twinkly offers up all sorts of LED products that can brighten your space, and now they’re offering a new Entertainment Hub desktop app to really take your LED game up to a new and sparkling level.
After spending countless hours scouring the latest press releases, sitting through virtual embargoed showcases on new products, planning to be in Vegas, and once again having to attend virtually, we’ve found that the best-laid plans don’t always work out. Even so, we’ve compiled a list of some of the most innovative and exciting tech that came out of CES while trying to stay away from products that won’t ship or become available in 2022. So, without further ado, we present Gear Diary’s Best of CES 2022 Awards!
You have LED string lights, bendable tubes with LED lights, and under-shelf mounted LED lights, but do you have Twinkly Dots? Twinkly Dots are pill-shaped, matte LED bulbs that can diffuse 16 million colors at 360º; you can wrap them around things or stick them to surfaces using the included adhesive pads, and they look fantastic.
Twinkly makes light solutions that can be used year-round in a variety of settings; their new generation LED light strings are easily configured with smartphone apps using WiFi and Bluetooth, and their latest offerings are the Twinkly Line and the Twinkly Flex.
Sure, your home is smart, but it can always be a little bit smarter. It’s the little things that make smart objects more useful, and Lenovo understands that smarter items need great design as well as intelligence to become integral to your everyday life. That’s why they’re rolling out the new Lenovo Smart Clock Essential with Amazon Alexa alongside some new ambient light docks for it.
I’m a bit of an eternal optimist, so I always try to look for the “good idea” in the pitches we receive. Even if I can’t figure out how I might use something, I can usually put myself in the shoes of someone who would. Then there’s the pitch we received for the delightful Flik Me, an LED hand that can be set to either wave at other drivers … or flip them the bird as you drive by.
Headlamps are one of the most convenient ways to carry a flashlight hands-free when you are in the dark. Most headlamps have a single focussed beam that aims light directly in front of you, but that’s not the case with the Liteband PRO 1000 Headlamp; it provides a 210º beam, shining a light on everything directly in your path and on both sides. Wondering if this might be an even better lighting solution, especially when walking or working outdoors at night, I asked a long-time headlamp wearer, my husband Kev, to give the Lightband PRO 1000 a try.
Need a classy-looking portable speaker that can also function as a light? Take a look at the LG XBOOM 360. Made to radiate sound in all directions for up to 10 hours when on battery power, the LG XBOOM 360 is one of the more sleek and stylish portable speakers we’ve seen. Inside the LG XBOOM 360’s conical-cylindrical body, there is a 5.25″ glass fiber woofer and a 1″ titanium horn tweeter; LG says that the reflector structure of the tweeter and woofer will deliver 360 sound with minimal distortion indoors and outside. Available in four colors, including Burgundy, Peacock…
A while back, I converted two rooms in the back of my house to the ultimate man cave. Part of that was a home bar project that I have taken great pride in. I recently was lucky enough to be offered a Neon Mama customized light for review, and it has really enhanced the area and stepped up my entertainment game.
When Jess and I started setting up our daughter Skyler’s nursery, we knew that we would eventually need more smart lightbulbs. Even though I’d previously bought the basic white Philips Hue smart bulbs before, I want to try their ambient smart bulbs to see how they would work in a nursery setting. The Philips Hue White and Color Ambiance Smart Bulb Starter Kit that I received not only works with Alexa but with Google Home and Apple’s HomeKit as well.
Last year, I reviewed the Arlo Pro 3 2K QHD Wire-Free Security Camera System, which is still going strong. One of the best things about the Arlo wireless system is how easy it is to set up and how customizable the app has been over time as my specific needs have changed. The Arlo system is, of course, expandable, and I recently added the new Arlo Pro 3 Floodlight Camera.
If you regularly drive in rural areas, where the possibility of hitting a deer is a nightly driving challenge, this bit of info might be of interest. There is a new type of lighting technology that has been substantially proven to reduce vehicular collisions with deer in low-light driving conditions. It’s not available yet, but hopefully, it will be coming soon.
The light in my laundry room doesn’t work properly. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it flashes so rapidly I’ve had friends joke it’s like a strobe light. One thing I learned from this is that there’s no really great solution for lighting in odd spaces, which is why Luminook has me so excited! See, Luminook is exactly what I’m looking for to deal with my laundry room that thinks it doubles as a bad club. It’s a powerful strip of LEDs that can be placed around a doorway in a closet or other poorly lit space that aim outwards to…
Signify, the world leader in lighting took to IFA to announce a few new Philips Hue lighting products including an updated version of the Hue Go, the Philips Hue Smart Button, a Hue Smart Plus and even two candle bulbs.
Nanoleaf made a name for themselves with their color-changing triangular-shaped Light Panels back in 2016. Now they’ve upped the ante with the Nanoleaf Canvas; light squares with edge-to-edge illumination, built-in sound reactivity, touch sensitivity, and a whole lot more. Canvas is a beautiful piece of kinetic artwork that adds brilliant light and a sense of playfulness to any space.
As a podcaster and someone who does a lot of video conferencing, I was looking for a solution to the dreadful lighting situations when video recording while mobile and on my laptop; then I was introduced to the Lume Cube AIR VC.
Half my household has really enjoyed testing the Monster Illuminessence lighting kits the last few weeks. The new Monster fan enjoyed the intuitiveness of the remotes, the tremendous number of flashing patterns, and of course, the color options. I found them to be a fun novelty more than a permanent lighting choice, but I’m also not 5 like my other tester…