Smart home

As the undisputed multiple time defending winner of the “hardest person to buy gifts for” award, I know the difficulty I put my family through every year around the holidays. I guess it runs in the family. My dad has always been the hardest person for me to buy for. I can never read what he’s interested in and when I do, he’s already gone out and bought it for himself. I can usually rely on cool gadgets to do the trick though. This year, he’s right at the doorstep of retirement and has taken a shining to many of the smarthome things I have around the house. I’m going to start the gift search with stocking-sized gifts. From a possible smartwatch to a light bulb, here are a few ideas to mull around for that difficult-to-buy-for man in your life.  

Almost all the information currently on the Internet is created by humans. Content mainly produced by people. But the Internet of Things (IoT) is about devices connected to the Internet and interacting with other connected things and to a small extent with humans, and providing its own content. It is a concept that has enormous potential to impact how we live and work and is already starting to impact the home. But we are just at the tip of the iceberg. Smart TVs already comprise some of the billions of “things” currently connected to the Internet, and they will definitely have a role to play as the Internet of Things unfolds. I will start to identify that potential.

Many people I know have mentioned their fear of break-ins or theft—especially my friends with rental homes. But there’s not much they can do outside of placing a broomstick in the sliding door, or hoping the deadbolts on their doors hold: they’re not allowed to have an alarm installed. Nor would they want to permanently install a device in a place in which they will only be residing temporarily. There’s a great solution to this problem now! The iSmartAlarm is a portable, yet powerful device that acts as a great theft deterrent using nothing more than a couple portable pieces of hardware, your wireless network and your smartphones.  I just had a chance to test it so click below to check out my review