All Posts by Phil Nickinson

Sonos One review: Adding Alexa is just the start

Posted by Phil Nickinson on 18 Oct 2017 10:49 am

The best way to stream music wirelessly in your home is getting smarter, but still has plenty of room to learn. Sonos is one of those products that's simultaneously extremely complex yet blissfully simple. Or let's put it another way: It's a complex product for the folks who made it. That's a good thing, because sometimes the more work that goes into making something, the easier it is for...

Wireless Charging 101 with Modern Dad

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Posted by Phil Nickinson on 11 Oct 2017 1:34 pm

Android and iPhone living together with the magical glow of wireless charging. It truly is the future, folks. This is the first of a series of three videos sponsored by the Wireless Power Consortium (which really does have one of the coolest names in the business). First up, a high-level look at wireless charging. Coming up: a closer look at how my family's using wireless charging more these...

NVIDIA Shield TV vs. Apple TV 4K: Which should you buy?

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Posted by Phil Nickinson on 11 Oct 2017 9:00 am

Spoiler: The specs don't matter as much as which platform you live in and which streaming services you use. There are now more ways to watch television than ever. The same was true last year and the year before that. And it'll be true next year as well. That's the good news. The bad news is that the streaming landscape is as complicated as ever. Which hardware should you get? (That depends.)...

Sonos One and Alexa are a match made in heaven

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Posted by Phil Nickinson on 5 Oct 2017 10:00 am

Alexa gets the headlines when it comes to Sonos' new speaker, but it's even more assistants and services are coming — and that's what's truly exciting. It's easy to look at what Sonos announced today in New York City — a new Sonos One speaker, with microphones and Amazon Alexa integration built in, as well as external Alexa support for its older speakers — and think "OK, that's it. That's easy...

Google's Pixel 2 headphone adapter costs $20, and a part of your soul

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Posted by Phil Nickinson on 4 Oct 2017 3:49 pm

Wait. What. Why. Good news, everyone! The Pixel 2 (and Pixel 2 XL) don't have a headphone jack. Instead, you'll use USB-C. Oh. You wanted a headphone jack. OK, well GOOD NEWS, EVERYONE! There's a 3.5mm to USB-C adapter in the box. Just don't lose it, because a new one costs $20 from Google. Enjoy the future, folks. Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL Pixel 2 FAQ: Everything you need to...

What color Amazon Echo should you buy?

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Posted by Phil Nickinson on 2 Oct 2017 9:00 am

You can have any color you want, so long as it's black. Or white. Or maybe made out of wood. Or just get a case or something. Let's just be perfectly honest up front. I don't care which color Amazon Echo you get. New Echo, old Echo, Echo Plus, Echo Spot, Echo Dot, whatever. OK, it's not that I don't care. It's just that we haven't been properly introduced yet, and I don't yet know all your...

Amazon Fire TV can now show live video feeds, but the lag remains

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Posted by Phil Nickinson on 1 Oct 2017 10:01 am

Live video from your connected cameras works on the Fire TV, but the experience still needs a lot of work. Tucked amid all the new hardware announcements from Amazon this week was a little nugget about Amazon Fire TV. Specifically, that you can now view live video feeds from Alexa-enabled cameras. That's the same sort of functionality we have on the Echo Show, of course. And as it turns out,...

Which new Amazon Echo are you going to buy?

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Posted by Phil Nickinson on 29 Sep 2017 8:00 am

Six new products. But only so much money in the wallet. Which one will get you to crack yours open? Amazon announced all sorts of stuff this past week. An all-new Amazon Echo. A souped-up Echo Plus. A cute little Echo Spot. Echo Connect, which'll let you make phone calls over an existing landline. A new Fire TV that'll dangle off the back of your set in 4K. And Echo Buttons, which will let you...

Echo, Fire TV, Echo Spot, and more: Everything Amazon announced at its Fall event

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Posted by Phil Nickinson on 27 Sep 2017 4:29 pm

That's a whole bunch of new hardware from Amazon — from new Echoes to a new Fire TV and some crazy little buttons. Today, Amazon unveiled a boatload of new hardware at a quickie event in Seattle. That's not to downplay it at all. I've been to a lot of hardware events over the years, and this one might well be packed with more new devices than any before. And, yeah. It can be a bit...

Sonos event: What we want, and what we expect to see

9 Comments

Posted by Phil Nickinson on 27 Sep 2017 9:00 am

Sonos has an event for new hardware coming up on Oct. 4. Here's what we hope to see from the company in New York City. When it comes to wireless music at home, nobody does it better than Sonos. (Don't even try to convince me otherwise. You're wrong. And I love Chromecast, too.) The darn things indeed are addicting. I started with a Play:1 and quickly bought a Play:5. I sneaked a Play:3 into...

The Amazon Echo Show just lost one of the few reasons to buy it

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Posted by Phil Nickinson on 27 Sep 2017 8:14 am

With Google pulling support for YouTube video, the Echo Show just lost an arm. Or maybe an arm and a leg. And this isn't just a flesh wound. Google and Amazon have apparently found themselves in a little bit of a spat, as reported by The Verge, with the former pulling its fledgling video service (YouTube) off the latter's latest connected device (Echo Show). Or to put it another way: The Echo...

The LG V30 has an amazing camera, but it won't make you a great photographer

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Posted by Phil Nickinson on 26 Sep 2017 12:00 pm

7,000 miles from home is no place to realize that you're a bad photographer with no real knowledge of photography. Five years ago, I was flown to Seoul to cover the launch of a brand new smartphone line. Business class, on Korean Air. In my gear bag was a brand new, full-frame DSLR. It cost well over $1,000 and was a pretty big step up from the prosumer model I'd been using pretty well until...

Amazon Music app adds Alexa support (but only in four countries)

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Posted by Phil Nickinson on 26 Sep 2017 8:29 am

Now you can ask Alexa to play you all sorts of things instead of just hoping you hit the right result. Amazon has added the ability to search through the Amazon Music app using your voice with Alexa, instead of ... erm ... searching with your voice through whatever it was it was using before. The update is a good thing, really, prominently placing an Alexa button at the bottom of the app and...

Amazon Alexa: What you need to know

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Posted by Phil Nickinson on 24 Sep 2017 12:07 pm

There's Alexa, and then there are Alexa Skills. And that's where the fun really begins. So you already know everything there is to know about Amazon Alexa, eh? Good for you. It's important to be able to turn lights off and on and ask questions and play music and all that stuff. It's that sort of the thing that the Amazon Echo was made for. It's that sort of thing that makes smartphones smarter...

KeySmart Pro review: Tile tracking on a great key organizer is invaluable

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Posted by Phil Nickinson on 21 Sep 2017 12:00 pm

If you lose your keys — or if you even think you might lose your keys — then this is a no-brainer. I can't say that I've ever really lost my keys. I tend to put them in the same place every time I return home. And I keep them in the same spot in my bag when I travel. Keys, they say, are pretty important. Having written that, I now fully expect to lose my keys in the coming days. That brings...

Best smart lights for Amazon Alexa

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Posted by Phil Nickinson on 21 Sep 2017 8:00 am

Which smart lights are the best if you're rolling with Amazon Alexa? It's a trick question. All of them are great. (OK, some are better than others.) We're starting to get to the point where smart lights are a dime a dozen. OK, they're not anywhere near that cheap yet. But prices are continuing to drop. And perhaps more important is that they basically all work with Amazon Alexa — and that...

What's new on Amazon Prime Video for October 2017

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Posted by Phil Nickinson on 20 Sep 2017 7:22 pm

There's a lot to watch on Amazon Video. Here's what's coming up in October 2017. Amazon Prime Video has is one of the go-to destinations for on-demand content, thanks in no small part to devices like the $50 Amazon Fire Stick, the $90 Amazon Fire TV, and now the $229 Amazon Echo Show. (That said, we're expecting new hardware from Amazon any day now, so maybe hold off on buying something new if...

Google Home Mini is the Amazon Echo Dot competitor we need — now it just has to sell

33 Comments

Posted by Phil Nickinson on 19 Sep 2017 3:40 pm

Google's problem hasn't been that it can't make good hardware. It's just that it's never been able to market it properly. Fun fact: Google Home is my favorite of the connected-speaker-assist-things so far. I like it more than Amazon Echo. Way more than the Echo Dot. Maybe not quite as much as Echo Show, but that's a whole 'nother product just waiting for a purpose. No, these are not to scale...

The iHome iAVS1 is a boring Echo Dot alarm clock

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Posted by Phil Nickinson on 19 Sep 2017 12:00 pm

It's a clock with an Amazon Echo Dot shoved inside. And I'm having no problem containing my excitement. On one hand, it's good thing that so many accessories manufacturers are jumping onto the Echo Dot bandwagon. Amazon's budget Echo is a prime candidate for cheap accessories that make it do more than was originally intended. But that may be the undoing of the iHome iAVS1 clock. iHome, of...

Best Smart Switches for Amazon Alexa

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Posted by Phil Nickinson on 15 Sep 2017 10:00 am

Because turning on things with your fingers is so 20th century ... So you've got a home. You've got Amazon Alexa doing her thing, be it in an original Echo or an Echo Dot or maybe the new Echo Show. (Or in any one of the third-party offerings that take advantage of what she can do.) It's time to ramp things up a little more. Let's talk switches. This actually is a two-parter. It's absolutely...

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All Posts by Phil Nickinson

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