This post brought to you by 3M. The content and opinions expressed below are that of Gear Diary. Your information belongs to you. It’s more valuable than just about anything else you own and yet, when working in a public place it it open and available to anyone passing by your device’s screen.
If your house has a power outage at night, you probably won’t have a backup power solution in place. I ran into this a few weeks ago when our power was out from 6:30pm to 9:30 the next morning. Ugh. BeON Bulbs not only solve this problem, they also handle security and safety lighting duties in your home. How? Well…
Piper isn’t just a video monitor for your home; it’s a total home automation hub and security system as well. Combining a 180-degree high-quality camera with night vision, microphone, and home automation, Piper can alert you to unexpected activity and even turn on your lights or emit a siren automatically. Starting at $199, Piper is an excellent high-tech watchdog.
I remember the days when we had to worry about the ADP person coming in on a Saturday morning to hook up the security in my Mom’s house. Took him all day long, and I’m pretty sure it was expensive.
With plenty of options out there on the market for home security, Swann Communications decided to take it upon themselves to create the do-it-yourself way with their Swann One Smart Home Equipment, and gave us the opportunity to review it!
There are two things that I always have on me: My wallet and my keys. With technology catching up fast, I’m finding less and less use for my wallet, but one thing that I know I will need for at least the next 4-5 years are house keys. And there’s nothing worse than losing those.
As a teenager I had a friend named Nick who was infamous for losing his house keys and as a result would have to crash at my house until his parents got home. Eventually they installed a garage door code that he could input to let himself in without using a key.
Google tracks everything we do. It’s common knowledge that they use web search, emails, and general use patterns to tailor advertising to their users. But Google is always looking for ways to gather even more data, and if you’re an Android user one of those tools is Google Opinion Rewards, an app that pays you to take Google Surveys.
Most smartphones include a way for owners to send a message to anyone who might find their device when it’s lost, but there are plenty of items that don’t have that capability. Let’s say you left your laptop bag in a cab, could an honest person figure out an easy way to return it to you? With HomingPIN, they could.
Let’s be honest, your kids are learning at a pace that you cannot keep up with. Technology is forever changing and media is one of the quickest ways to get information to kids. But sometimes too much can be a bad thing. Luckily there’s a Kickstarter program that might help you as the parent better manage your child’s media consumption.
This post brought to you by 3M Company. The content and opinions expressed below are that of Gear Diary. The other day Raina and I were sitting on the couch, each of us was on our iPhones playing Two Dots. I glanced over and could see everything on her screen.
Swann has proven again that they’re one of the best names in simple home security by announcing their new ADS-466 Wi-Fi All-Weather Camera. This camera can be mounted any which way indoor or outdoors and delivers 720p quality video, as well as audio through your home’s Wi-Fi network. The ADS-466 is available today at 2pm EST for $179.99.
I’ve been looking at WiFi cameras on and off for years. Just within the last few, there have been cameras that have the home monitoring aspect which includes alerting you when something is being picked up on the camera. That’s where the Motorola FOCUS 66 WiFi HD Home Monitoring camera comes in.
Yesterday we invited everyone to join us on the Outlook Mobile App Challenge, which seemed like a fun way to put this new ‘universal inbox’ app to the test. Since then some significant security concerns have been identified that makes this an app that we cannot recommend using right now. As a result, we’re stopping the challenge immediately.
Dear Verizon: Why exactly have I chosen a password for your site, when upon login from a new computer you’re still going to ask me about some obtuse reference I probably have not jotted down and which may have multiple answers? In many cases, answers to these dumb challenge questions are easily found by looking at social media sites.
There are some negative aspects to using embedded software in hardware. A few sites have written that about how phones or tablets still on Android versions below 4.4 are at risk for a vulnerability in the default browser. Don’t blame Google for this; blame the OEMs and carriers, as Google fixed the issue. However, there’s much more to this story.
The quirkily named Okidokeys are smart locks for your doors. Consider Okidokeys the gatekeeper to your Smart House. With these neat gadgets, you can unlock your doors using mobile phones or RFID tags without changing the look of your door from outside. Okidokeys are compatible with all cellphones and smartphones on all carriers. The Okidokeys Access Pack retails for $259.
A few years ago I set out to turn my mid 1970s home into an “after-market smart home.” At that time, I turned to a specific company. Since then I’ve taken a more individual approach that focuses on specific “best-in-class” products that work well, but are not part of an overall integrated system; the Kwikset Kevo is one such product.
Spammers have gotten more and more sophisticated in recent years. Long gone are the offers of millions if you simply help some poor Nigerian refugee. Now you can get official-looking emails that, if you don’t think before you click, can take you to all sorts of unscrupulous places. One example of this convincing type of spam came this afternoon.
A number of weeks ago, we took a first look at the GL200 Spy Tec Real-Time GPS Tracker. This small unit allows you to keep tabs on people, vehicles, or other key “assets.” The tracker is easy to use, offers detailed information, and it has a rechargeable battery that gets up to two weeks of tracking per charge.
During CES 2012, I left my gear bag at a hotel after a meeting. I was able to find it using FindMyiPhone and gained a deep appreciation for the power of geo-location. But what if you want to track a car or teen driver and don’t have FindMyiPhone? That’s where the Spy-Tech GL-200 Real-Time GPS Tracker and service come in.
