9to5Mac Reviews

Adding HomeKit to your house can be expensive, but as the technology progresses, more affordable options have been making their way to market that make HomeKit a viable choice for more consumers.

A couple of weeks ago, Zac reviewed Hong Kong-based VOCOlinc’s HomeKit-enabled LED light strips, noting that the price almost seemed too good to be true for a HomeKit product with no bridge required. Intrigued by the company, I decided to try out their smart power strip with HomeKit support.

How does it work? Read on to find out…

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There are Apple products I’ve been more excited to receive, but I can’t think of any that I’ve awaited with such impatience. The reason? Curiosity about that audio quality!

I wrote last time that it was Home hub and voice control of HomeKit devices for my partner that really sold it to me, and I wasn’t expecting too much from it on the audio front. Sure, it was going to beat out other smart speakers, but I didn’t see it as serious competition to proper HiFi brands.

But as the reviews came in, I started to wonder …

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A few months back, the team at Sandmarc asked if I’d like to review their wide lens for iPhone X. In the past, having covered a handful of iPhone lenses, I remained skeptical. That was until I got the kit in hand. I have to say that Sandmarc’s wide lens kit pleasantly surprised and impressed me.

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Normally, I deal with price at the end of reviews, but there are times when you have to address it right at the beginning – and this is definitely one of those times.

One way of looking at the price of the Yohann iPad stand is that it’s a rather small piece of wood costing $130. A different way of looking at it would be to say that it costs almost exactly the same amount as Apple charges for another iPad accessory: the leather sleeve for the 10.5-inch iPad, which we reviewed last year.

Jeff struggled to justify the price of that – but did conclude that you probably wouldn’t be disappointed if you bought it. Can we say the same with this? Well, let’s start by looking at its USP …

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If you’ve got any recent model iPhone, you’ve got a great camera – both for still photos and for video. So good, in fact, that many independent filmmakers use it to shoot both shorts and full-length movies.

But such reports can give a somewhat misleading impression. Very often, the iPhone is the capture device, but it’s coupled to far more expensive supplementary kit like professional lenses, and gimbals to smooth footage.

What DJI has done with its latest gimbal is to bring smooth mobile shooting – and more – down to a price level that makes it extremely affordable. So much so that, when you consider all the things it can do, I’d say it qualifies as the best-value iPhone accessory on the market at the moment …

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One of the downsides of living in a city is that opportunities to fly your drone tend to be limited. Where I live is well inside the massive chunk of drone-free air over London. Indeed, I’m inside both controlled airspace for my nearest airport (London City, less than five miles away) and a separate Restricted Area above central London.

So if I want to reach clear airspace, it’s either a car ride or train journey away – which means I only really do it when I have a specific reason or project in mind. That makes it hard to build on, or even maintain, my flying skills.

DJI of course has its own drone simulator built into the DJI Go app, but it’s more of a conceptual implementation than an accurate simulation of real-world physics. Which is why I decided to try Zephyr, a simulator for the Mac and Windows that claims to accurately model the actual flight characteristics of the drones it covers …

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Traveling can disrupt even the best laid plans, and with today’s connected lifestyles, the stress of an unexpected situation is only exacerbated if you’re worrying about keeping your devices powered up. Combine that with the chaos and and spectacle that is the annual Consumer Electronics Show, and you’ve got the perfect storm for a travel headache.

Earlier this month, I spent 5 days in Las Vegas for CES 2018. With me came The Carry-On, modern and thoughtfully designed luggage with USB power sent over to try out by Away. Over the course of the show I put The Carry-On to the test, traversing miles of hotel, casino, and airport carpeting to bring you my thoughts. Let’s take a look at how well it held up and how it kept my devices charged…

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In the run-up to the HomePod’s delayed release, I’ve been experimenting heavily with Amazon Alexa in various forms. While Alexa is most present at home where I’ve placed Echo Dots throughout my house for controlling lights, I’ve also tried Alexa in the car using Garmin Speak which is a dash-mounted GPS with Amazon’s voice assistant built-in.

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When Beam announced its app-controlled OLED smart button last month, it struck me as a fun – if relatively pricy – idea.

What you get is a modern-day take on a button which you can wear on clothing or attach to a bag. Instead of a fixed message on metal, you get a 400×400 pixel AMOLED screen on which you can display anything you like …

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There are some brand looks you recognize at a glance, and Marshall is one of those. Black casing with rounded edges. Black speaker grille with gold surround. And, of course, the brandname in gold script across the front.

Marshall speakers and amps are as closely associated with rock bands as the electric guitar. From buskers on the street with a single unit to banks of speakers on the stage of big band concerts, it’s hard to picture the scene without that Marshall name.

So when the company offered a range of AirPlay speakers, it would have been impossible to resist trying one out …

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There’s no shortage of external drives around, both spinning metal and SSD, though higher-capacity portable SSDs are still in relatively short supply.

The iStorage diskAshur 2 combines an SSD in capacities of up to 4TB with hardware encryption and protection against physical tampering which it claims makes it the most secure drive in the world …

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Even when moving home is for all the right reasons, it still has to count as one of life’s most mixed experiences. While the end result is hopefully a better home in a better location, the process also involves a great deal of stress, work and expense. In the case of our own recent move, we can tick all five boxes …

But one of the fun parts is the chance to start again with a blank sheet in terms of designing your home the way you’d like it to be. For most of us, that’s a DIY process. We look for inspiration online and in stores, then sit down at the computer – or pencil and paper – to play with ideas.

The posher approach is to hire an interior designer to do it all for you. You tell them your tastes, and what you’re looking to achieve, and let them come up with designs. You then say yes or no to the various elements, and they rework the designs until you end up with a final one you approve …

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Fibaro Flood Sensor is the first leak detector that works with Apple HomeKit. This lets you use Flood Sensor ($69) in Apple’s Home app in interesting ways not possible with other leak detectors.

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I have never been particularly fond of any of Apple’s mice. I appreciate the company’s dedication to simplicity when it comes to their products, but for my uses which include design and gaming, Apple focuses entirely too much on form over functionality.

As someone who frequently has multiple apps running at the same time, I find Mission Control (formerly Exposé) to be one of my favorite and one of the most useful features of macOS, and I like to use a third-party mouse that has extra buttons with my Mac so that I can program them for Mission Control’s window commands (specifically, Mission Control, Application Windows, and Show Desktop).

This makes switching between Photoshop documents or getting to a file on my desktop as simple as a mouse click. That’s why I decided to go against the grain, so to speak, and try the Microsoft Surface Precision Mouse. 
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Over the past few years, Ultimate Ears has become somewhat of a household name in the world of portable speakers. Their ever-popular Boom lineup has shown that portable speakers can have excellent battery life and sound great. Recently they’ve taken it one step further by bringing Amazon’s Alexa to the portable speaker with their new Blast speakers. Combining a smart voice assistant, with a solid Bluetooth speaker, what’s not to like?

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When Apple decided to drop USB for USB-C I was actually excited about it, contrary to most people’s reactions. Thankfully there are many companies like 23Devices making solid products to help us be more productive with the tools we have.

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Hunter is a company known for commercializing ceiling fans over 130 years ago, and today the company is the only firm making smart home ceiling fans that work with Apple HomeKit. Hunter’s SimpleConnect line includes three ceiling fan models available in multiple finishes that are priced from $299.

Each Hunter ceiling fan includes a built-in LED light that makes SimpleConnect a 2-in-1 essential for HomeKit homes. This enables Siri control from Apple devices, Control Center access on iPhone and iPad, automation with other smart accessories through Apple’s Home app, and much more.

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ecobee is the maker of what I consider the best HomeKit thermostat on the market, and the new version called ecobee4 adds built-in Amazon Alexa voice control and works with Google Home. ecobee4 offers the same features as the HomeKit-enabled ecobee3 which we reviewed last year, so should iPhone users spend the extra money on the new version?

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With so many docks on the market, ElevationLab makes the seemingly bold claim that its new ElevationDock 4 is “the best dock for iPhone.” However, it didn’t take me very long with the product to realize that the company isn’t exaggerating; it is hands down the best iPhone dock I’ve ever used. Here’s why…

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If you’re looking to shoot 4K video from a sedate position, your iPhone already has you covered. The latest iPhone 8 and upcoming iPhone X both offer 4K video recording at up to 60fps for buttery-smooth slo-mo. But if you’re looking to ride a mountain bike (or, indeed, a commuter bike on London’s potholed streets), abseil off a building or do anything else adventurous, you probably want a dedicated action cam.

You know a company has really hit the big time once people start using the brand name as a generic name for the product category. Biro and Hoover are the obvious examples from years gone by, but one of the best examples in today’s world is GoPro. Half the time people refer to ‘a GoPro,’ they really mean it as a generic term for a compact action cam …

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