home automation

How to Make a DIY Smart Home Security System (No Monthly Fees!)

We no longer live in a time wherein order to have a security system at home, you have to call the likes of ADT, Brinks, or some other giant security conglomerate to come and install expensive cameras, alarms, etc. and then charge you a ridiculous monthly fee to “monitor” your home for you. Instead, there are a ton of smart home devices that can easily be used to create a smart home security system that will not only do the same thing for less money and no monthly fee, but also have a ton of other benefits that you can […]

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How to Make Your Home a Smart Home

If you’ve ever wondered how to make your home a smart home? Or maybe wondered what a smart home was in the first place? This video can help. It’s the new year and my sister and her fiance just bought their first house. A fixer-upper in the town of Poughkeepsie (about 2 hours north of NYC). So I figured, while they’re fixing the baseboards and taking care of the mouse situation, I’d come in and make it a smart home. Ok, so first things first. What is a smart home? The definition of a smart home is essentially having home

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How to Make a Phone Call Using Google Home (& Use Your Actual Phone Number)

Google has finally started rolling out their new Google Home feature that allows you to call someone. As in, actually call their real cell phone, not just ring their Google Home app if they happen to have one installed. The feature only works in you are in the US or Canada at the moment and requires that you speak English (sorry, my French Canadian friends) and although all of the things you need to make it work aren’t immediately apparent, once you know, it’s pretty easy. Here’s everything you need to start making calls using the Google Home. Check You

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Best Looking Home Monitoring Camera Ever

The Best Looking Smart Indoor Camera Ever (Video)

So Hive reached out to me and said they wanted me to come by and check out their booth at CES and show me a new device they were launching. Honestly, I’ve heard the name before but wasn’t that familiar with them. So decided to do some digging first. Turns out their actually super popular in the UK as the leading smart home brand their in over 750,000 homes. They sell a variety of starter packs with different lifestyles in mind from a basic starter pack with a a hub, a smart plug, 2 smart light bulbs, and two window/door

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Sony Xperia Touch: A Projector That Lets You Have a Touchscreen Tablet On Any Surface

Ever since I saw the original Surface (not the tablets, it was a giant table you could use as a touchscreen oh so long time ago), I’ve always wanted a touch screen table, wall, whatever was realistically possible. Now, while that does exist, it isn’t quite what you’d call affordable. The Ideum touch screen table, for example, starts at about $10,000. Now a lot of this price comes from making large enough displays that have touch capabilities, but what if you didn’t need the screen? Sony has finally brought to market their Sony Touch, a projector they’ve been touting around that

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How to Enable Netflix Casting from Google Home

When Google Home was released, it was able to cast videos from YouTube directly to any Chromecast device you had installed on a TV. All you had to do was say “Hey, Google. Show me a Casey Neistat video on the Living Room TV” and viola you’d be thrown into watching the popular YouTuber’s latest videos. Frankly, the ability to cast things to the TV is one of the differentiators that Google Home has over the Amazon Echo, but what if you want to watch something from another service instead? Well, starting now (if you have the latest version of

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Is Google Home Better Than The Amazon Echo? (Google Home Review)

The new Google Home is Google’s answer to Amazon’s Echo, the voice-activated bluetooth speaker and home automation assistant. Before going into a comparison though, let’s discuss the Google Home itself. OK, so the Google Home and air freshner-looks aside, it does look like it belongs in your home. It’s a lot smaller than say, the Echo, and just has a look that will probably fit well with most of your other appliances. The bottom grill that covers the speakers is interchangeable as well with a few different color options, all of which aren’t on sale at the moment, but should come

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Google Home Unboxing (Video)

Amazon probably wasn’t too happy when Google announced their competition to the Amazon Alexa, the Google Home. I happen to own and, frankly, love my Alexa so I knew I’d have to get a Google Home to test it out once it was released. Which it was, and finally arrived so before I put it through it’s paces and see what makes it different from Alexa, I imagine some of you would like me to do an unboxing first, right? There you go a quick unboxing and spec overview of the Google Home. Again, I’m excited to see what it can

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Home Automation: It’s Finally Time to Try It

Technology, automation, and efficiency. Three things nerds like us get way more excited about than your average person. (Who doesn’t love a good spreadsheet once in a while? Ah, that’s the stuff.) Thankfully for us, we’re living in an age where technology is evolving faster than it ever has before, and our phones, tablets, computers, cars, and other tech are all trying to anticipate what we want them to do before we even know we need them to do. Sometimes they’re suggestions are more useful than others. I didn’t know I needed to go to the casino during breakfast, thanks,

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