Smart Homes

Alarm clocks remind me of referees — they’re necessary, but I still tend to get annoyed at them for doing their jobs. You need to be reliably woken up on time every day, but it’s still irritating to be roused from a restful night’s sleep by a repeated buzzing sound next to your ear. With the right alarm, you’ll hopefully be less …

Alexa can be helpful in the kitchen. Chris Monroe / Tips Clear You used yours Amazon Echo for kitchen basics, from setting hands-free timers to listen to music while cooking. But there are so many other ways Alexa can take your cooking experience to the next level. For example, Alexa can help you figure out how many calories are in …

In 2020, Amazon, Google, and Apple are making good smart speakers. The competition between these tech giants only drives them to keep getting better. Amazon popularized smart speakers with the original echo and the Alexa Voice assistant, but today you have several options, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. How do you choose the best smart speaker for your …

For someone who sits most of the work day, I’ve never given much thought to office chairs. In front quarantine I started in March and spent most of my work in the Tips Clear Smart Home, a house where we test Security cameras, smart speakers and other products. I submitted stories of upright dining room chairs, upholstered couches, and numbing …

Entry-level juicers rotate the blades at high speed and push your products through a mesh screen in just a few moments to sift out the juice. A centrifugal juicer can be messy and noisy, but there’s nothing like fresh juice at home, especially when you are grow own products. There are a few Things you should know about choosing the …

Yes, it’s smart, but a Google Home Mini or Nest Mini can also act as a simple Bluetooth speaker. Josh Miller / Tips Clear One of the Google Home ($ 130 at QVC) Features that I use the most are also some of the simplest. Yes, Google Home devices are great in calculate math problems, report the weather and serve …

Apple’s Tuesday event brought new Apple Watch and iPad hardware, the Apple One Service Bundle – and software updates, including iOS 14, iPadOS 14, TVOS 14 and WatchOS 7. The software updates went live on Wednesday and, like so many other people, I kept updating my phone to get iOS 14 asap. iOS 14 adds a variety of changes on …

A staple kitchen appliance for decades, blenders top wishlists for weddings, graduations and housewarming parties. They’re your best bet if you want a quick smoothie or a frozen beverage, and you can even use them to chop, grind or mix dry ingredients. Blenders aren’t necessarily a luxury item, but start looking and you’ll see that right next to the $50 …

Select home security cameras have facial recognition that allows you to create a database of friends and family members who come to your home on a regular basis. Then, when the camera sees a face, it will determine whether or not it is someone in your familiar faces profile. The software can be hit or missed due to a variety …

We’re all depending on our home Wi-Fi networks more than ever these days — and few things are more frustrating than dead zones where the signal drops or you just can’t connect. If you’re looking to eliminate issues like those, your best bet is to upgrade your home’s router to a mesh system that uses range-extending satellite devices to better …