Graham Williams

As one of the longest running names in technology, Sony has recast itself dozens of times over the past four decades. From producing black and white tube TVs to the Walkman, from the Trinitron to the PS4, Sony has a pedigree of advancing technology with serious style. This year at the International CES in Las Vegas Sony has announced a wide range of products that we can look forward to throughout this year. Want to know more? Read on.

Welcome to 2016. If you’re like a lot of people out there (present company included!) you’re probably looking in the mirror saying “eh…this could be better”. Instead of making a resolution to “get fit” this year, it’s time to come up with a plan of action that you can stick to. I have three tips here that can help you make fitness an integral part of your 2016. Stick with ‘em and you’ll find a better, fitter you throughout the year.

I’ve had a number of fitness trackers in my life over the past few years. My favourite was the FitBit Flex; simply, light, and did its job fairly well. The problem is that our demands on our fitness trackers have increased: Samsung fired the first shots in the smartphone war, with Microsoft and FitBit coming out swinging. Apple dropped their Apple Watch bomb earlier this year, outselling every other smartwatch before it…put together.   Garmin has been making some smart moves with their Vivosport line over the past year or so, and like many other tracker makers, they’ve stepped up their game with heart rate monitoring, releasing the aptly named Vivosmart HR. It’s a watch-like band with a heart rate tracker, a connected app and website, and it comes in at a reasonable price. Is it your next fitness tracker? Let’s find out.

“That doesn’t look like any router I’ve ever seen.”   That’s the general consensus I heard about the Almond+ when I showed it around. It’s a device that stands in for three types of things in your smart home: a powerful dual-band router, a long range wifi extender, and a smart home hub.   It arrived from Best Buy wrapped in brown packing paper and accompanied by a Securifi Door/Window Sensor, and a Peanut Smart plug. Also in the box were precisely two packing peanuts; I’m guessing the shipping budget was a bit tight, or those were rogue peanuts on the lam from a future Pixar film. Either way I got to researching the Almond+ and getting it setup. Here’s how it went.

For those looking for big picture, getting past 75” can get quite costly; you’re stepping up into panels that are larger, heavier, and eat up a lot of power. I should know, I recently upgraded to a VIZIO M70-C3 and I’m loving it. But my heart has always been with home theatre projector. In the right environment, a projector can give you a picture that is bright and beautiful, at screen sizes that are metaphorically bank-breaking when you try to spec them out with a panel. Best Buy sent over the BenQ HT3050 for me to review. I did; read on to see how it performed.  

There have been a number of accessories made for the iPhone and for Android phones that haven’t always made sense; some cases are just too big to handle, and other accessories seem incredibly niche. That’s why I’m always hesitant to cast judgement on a new accessory; it might be frivolous, or it might be the next must-have widget.   In the case of the GameBarz and BowBlade accessories, one of these two fits the “interesting” category, and one does not. Read out to find which is which and why.

Home theatre has evolved to be so much more than just a big TV on a stand in a dark room; companies like Dolby Labs and IMAX have been working with standards bodies and alliances such as the Blu-Ray group to help deliver an experience that meets and in some cases even exceeds what you can see, hear, and feel in the theatre. This article acts as a guide for the baseline of what you need and how to get the most out of that equipment for the best home theatre experience.  

Adding wireless coloured light to your home is a relatively new concept, with a lot of new players out there. There are the established brands like Philips Hue, which have commanded a premium on the market, partially because they have brand recognition for being first, and partially because they’ve made a great product. MIPOW PLAYBULB is an entrant into the market that offers a lower cost way to put wireless coloured lighting into your space. I have three products that we’re looking at today, read on to see how they fared in my home.

If you have electric baseboard heating you’re probably feeling left out of the smart thermostat revolution. Popular models like the Nest Thermostat and Ecobee aren’t focused on customers like me with baseboard heaters, so I jumped at the chance to review this – it’s the Sinope 3000W Wireless Smart Thermostat starter kit. Read on to see it installed and learn how it works.

As a luxurious summer for most of us draws to a close you may find that despite being fairly active you’re not feeling as energetic or healthy as you think you should. If you’ve fallen off the fitness bandwagon it’s not that hard to get back on—if you have the right tools to help you. Enter wearable technology (and a few other little extras) that can help you kick things into high gear and get you to the next level.