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Happy holidays! Here's our 2021 gift guide! |
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By Stacey Higginbotham |
I'm pretty sure that, for most people, 2021 isn't going to be one of fond remembrances. For Kevin and I, it has been a year of reckoning, as people continue to lose trust in technology and the companies that sell consumer gadgets. Add to that the ongoing pandemic and the in-your-face reality of climate change, and it's hard for us to tell you to go out and buy a bunch of data-gathering devices or hunks of electronics and plastic that may only last a couple of years.
But I love giving people gifts and seeing the joy that arises when someone is offered a new experience or item that proves just how well you know them. So in that spirit, we have tried to showcase a few extremely cool IoT devices amid a smattering of more practical gifts that acknowledge the reality of our current times. We've also included services and a few books so as to prevent anyone from contributing to a landfill. We hope you can find something surprising or useful as you embark on your gifting journey. |
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Air purifier: With Amazon launching an air quality sensor this week, it's clear that mainstream consumers are interested in their air quality. But after playing with three or four different air quality monitors, I came away frustrated, because one can't always open a window to clear out the bad air they detect. So I recommend giving loved ones an air purifier with its own air quality monitor. Bonus points if the monitor doesn't communicate with you often, but instead just starts cleaning the air when it detects problems. I recommend the Filtrete Smart Air Purifiers sized for medium or large rooms, which are available for $274.99 and $329.99, respectively. These purifiers track and filter out particulates, as well as measure CO2, temperature, and humidity. They do not track nonvolatile organic compounds (VOCs), so if that is important to you, then you might need another option. As gifts go, this one is incredibly practical; it's also the sort of thing a parent might buy their kid who lives in a region with a lot of pollution or wildfire risk because they know that kid would never spend their money on something like this. In that case, maybe splurge for a filter change every six months, too. Image courtesy of S. Higginbotham. — Stacey Higginbotham |
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The Kinsa thermometer: You may not think you need a connected thermometer, but this is a good gift for any parent or public health-oriented friend. That's because if they set up the app, not only will this thermometer take the recipient's temperature, it will share data about the illnesses spreading in their community. Crowdsourcing epidemiology wasn't something people used to care about, but we've been living with this pandemic for almost two years now. Plus, when you're really sick, it's nice to have a record of your temperature rising and falling on your smartphone. The Kinsa thermometer comes in three versions, ranging from $24.99 to $39.99. Image provided by Kinsa. — Stacey Higginbotham |
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Donate some electronics for a cause: My sister-in-law used to be an elementary teacher on the east side of Austin, Texas, and some of her students were too poor to have shoelaces, much less school supplies. Since she would spend tons of her own money on supplies, one year my family asked her what else she'd like to be able to provide them; we ending up buying shoelaces, clean socks, toothbrushes, school supplies, and more. To be sure, not every school teacher will need a basket of shoelaces for her classroom, but I guarantee that every teacher needs something. And it's hard to go wrong with donating supplies on behalf of someone, especially if you search for classrooms located near the gift recipient or look to support projects that they might especially appreciate. I like to scroll through Donors Choose and search for IoT when I'm looking for classrooms to support, but choose according to your recipient's needs. Image provided by MakeyMakey. — Stacey Higginbotham |
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"This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race": In keeping with my less-tech-is-more holiday gifts, I'm tossing in one of the better reads from 2021. Nicole Perloth, a New York Times reporter, wrote a cogent and eye-opening book about the threat of cyber warfare that includes a lot of relevant history and takes a deep look at the threat that an attack on industrial assets poses. She also provides recommendations as to how we can improve our overall information security even as we connect more and more assets to the internet. And unlike many non-fiction books about cybersecurity, it's an entertaining read. Prices are dependent on where you shop for books but are listed at $27 for the hardback and $21 for the e-book. Image courtesy of Bloomsbury Publishing. — Stacey Higginbotham |
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Subscriptions: To all those well-intentioned gift givers who forget to buy something for a friend or loved one and then realize that due to the mess of the current shipping infrastructure and supply chain a physical gift will never make it in time: Go digital. Provide a gift card for an established streaming service subscription, for example, or gift a year's worth of access to a workout site or fitness app. Most smart home companies don't provide an easy way to do this, so your best bet is to provide the recipient with a Visa or Mastercard gift card in the appropriate amount with a note explaining what it's for (if the person isn't interested, they can just take the card and buy whatever they want.) To make it feel a little less like you're handing over cash, you can package your gift card with a small related accessory, such as a bag of popcorn with a streaming service gift card or a water bottle with a fitness app gift card. If you want to buy someone Alexa Guard or a Nest Aware subscription, package it with an ornament or a nice-smelling candle for the home. — Stacey Higginbotham |
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More gift ideas, from Kevin |
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After warming up to color-capable connected lights over the past few years, I can easily recommend the new $199.99 Nanoleaf Lines as a gift for nearly anyone. The starter pack includes nine of the 1-foot-long but thin lights along with everything else you need: connectors, adhesive for attaching them to the wall, a built-in microphone, and the power cord. Just add inspiration for a creative layout of the light bars and use the Nanoleaf app (Android or iOS) to customize the colors. Music support sets the lights pulsing to the beat, so these have some fun functionality. Yet they can also double as conversation-starting ambient artwork or as a way to provide background color to the content on a television or a computer monitor. Image courtesy of Nanoleaf. — Kevin C. Tofel |
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This is the first year I’m recommending a book, but only because it’s just that good. “Androids: The Team That Built the Android Operating System” by Chet Haase ($9.99 Kindle, $14.99 paperback) is a highly detailed account of how Android 1.0 came to be. Haase spent an enormous amount of time interviewing the whole cast of characters, which makes it feel like you’re right there next to the people who made Android a reality. You’ll have to keep up with them, though; this was a super small team of people with insanely challenging deadlines back in 2008. Interestingly, before coming to Google, most of them worked together at various points in their careers at three main companies, none of which are around any longer. Not a developer? No worries. Haase makes this story accessible to non-coders by explaining many of the technical details in a vast number of footnotes. This story of how the world’s biggest mobile operating system emerged is simply fascinating. Image courtesy of Dan Sandler, who also illustrated the cover. — Kevin C. Tofel
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Got family members that keep losing things? If they carry iPhones, then I can’t recommend Apple’s AirTags highly enough. These small, button-like devices have both Bluetooth and ultrawideband radios inside; just tuck them in a wallet or a bag or attach them to keys and their location will appear in Apple’s FindMy app. The Bluetooth radio provides a general location of the tagged lost item, but the magic happens as you get closer to it. That’s when the FindMy app shows a directional arrow and exact distance between you and your missing object, courtesy of the ultrawideband chip. And if you’re nowhere close to what you lost, other iPhone users connected to the FindMy network report where the tag is. Apple’s AirTags are $29.99 each, but a 4-pack at $100 saves you a little money while ensuring everyone who needs one, gets one. Note that the Bluetooth functionality works with any iPhone; the precise location feature is supported on iPhone 11 and up. — Kevin C. Tofel
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If the last 18 months have taught me anything, it’s to be prepared for anything. So I invested in a rechargeable portable battery that’s capable of powering my small gadgets, multiple computers, and even my refrigerator in a pinch. Priced at $349.99, the EcoFlow River is a great gift for any homeowner who isn’t ready for the next power outage. This 6.3-pound battery has 288Wh of power capacity and easily provides between 600 to 1200 watts of juice for devices and appliances. You can recharge it in 90 minutes simply by plugging it in (when your power is back, of course), or supplement it like I did with a small solar panel. I bought this folding 110W panel and use it exclusively to recharge my EcoFlow River, but any small solar panel would be a nice related gift. For an additional $249.99, you can double the River’s capacity with an easy-to-attach second battery. Aside from multiple USB ports and three AC outlets for output, this battery bank also has Wi-Fi built in. With EcoFlow’s mobile app, you can turn the battery off or on and monitor charging or discharging rates from a phone. Image courtesy of KC Tofel. — Kevin C. Tofel
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Tired of hearing from friends or family that their home wireless network is less than stellar? Consider dropping $60 on a Vilo Mesh Wi-Fi System as a gift for both them and you. While this 3-pack of devices doesn’t support the newest and fastest Wi-Fi 6 standard, it actually works really well. And you won’t hear complaints about the setup process, either, because it’s quick and easy. Best of all, if your gift recipient ever needs to expand the reach of their wireless network, it will only cost them $20 to add another Vilo access point. Chances are that won’t happen, though; this mesh Wi-Fi system already covers 4,500 square feet. Although this is less expensive than a lot of other mesh wireless gear, it still comes with some nice features, such as parental controls and guest network support. So if you do give it as a gift, make sure your recipient gives you that guest network password as a thank-you. Then again, never hearing them complain again about slow Wi-Fi is probably thanks enough. Image courtesy of Vilo. — Kevin C. Tofel |
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Episode 345: Ecobee’s big deal and climate-friendly chips |
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The big news in IoT this week was the announced acquisition of Ecobee by Generac, so Kevin and I share our thoughts on the deal and what it means for the smart home. After that, we were excited to see Amazon launching a smart air quality monitoring device for $70 as well as publicly state its support for Matter. We also cover Facebook’s decision to stop using facial recognition and believe that more companies will seek to prove they are trustworthy in hopes of getting even closer to us as consumers. Then we talk about the EU’s addition of new categories to its cybersecurity rules, the new Flic Twist campaign, Tempo’s smaller, cheaper home gym, ADT’s security service for DoorDashers, and a $500 kid’s toy that I really want. We also note that the Espresif ESP32s now formally support the Zephyr RTOS.
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— The Alexa air quality monitor will cost $70 and ship in December. Image courtesy of Amazon. |
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Our guest this week is Sri Samavedam, who is the senior vice president of semiconductor technologies at imec, a semiconductor R&D consortium. We discuss imec’s new effort to research sustainability in chip manufacturing. You’ll learn how chips are made and why manufacturing integrated circuits delivers such a blow to the environment. Samavedum explains why Apple has joined its efforts and how it plans to measure the carbon footprint of chip-making. He also offers some advice for product manufacturers and consumers on how they can use chips more responsibly given how much they cost (in terms of environmental damage) to make. There’s no sugar-coating it; we need more data on this and we also need to think about using silicon for longer than we do today.
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This week on the IoT Podcast Hotline, we answer a question about whether or not you need the device app to update HomeKit-compatible products.
The hotline is brought to you by Blues Wireless. Blues Wireless provides the Notecard, a cellular and GPS-enabled device-to-cloud data system-on-a-module. Each Notecard comes packaged with 500MB of data usable over 10 years for $69 or less. Connectivity is globally available in 136+ countries. Learn more. |
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With Wi-Fi HaLow, Wi-Fi adapts to the needs of the IoT |
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The Wi-Fi Alliance has certified Wi-Fi HaLow, a new standard for bringing Wi-Fi to the internet of things. Wi-Fi HaLow supports ranges up to 1 km and sips power. In this story, I ask if we need another low-power, long-range wireless option and explain how it might work. |
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News of the Week |
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Phyn launches a smaller, cheaper leak detection system: Phyn, which makes devices that can scan for leaks and even shut off water in case of leak detection, has launched a new product. The Phyn Plus, Smart Water Assistant + Shutoff, is a smaller, cheaper version of the original Phyn water monitor and shutoff device that sold for $699. The new product still requires a plumber for the installation, but at $499 is less of a punch to the wallet. I have a Phyn device that simply attaches to an indoor pipe and monitors my home for leaks, but it does not include the ability to automatically shut off the water if a leak is detected. Given the correlation between climate emergencies and water leaks, there is definitely more interest in devices like Phyn's products these days. (Phyn)
Generac buys Ecobee because energy management needs to be smarter: This week, Generac, which makes generators and energy storage devices, said it would buy Ecobee in a deal worth $770 million. There are a lot of angles to this deal, but the two most interesting are what it says about the business opportunities available for smart home products and what it says about the future of energy consumption and use in an era of unrestrained climate change. Both are depressing. The fact that Ecobee sold at a price that's only about 5x what it raised is bad news for the few remaining stranded smart home companies building dedicated devices that also haven't found an exit. Ecobee was being pushed hard by competition from Amazon, one of its investors, which just launched a $60 thermostat. Ecobee also struggled to get a subscription business off the ground and branch out into new hardware. As for the future of energy and the smart home, Generac's decision to buy the maker of a device that controls the largest consumer of electricity in most North American homes (HVAC) offers it an interesting opportunity to build a smarter, more resilient home energy management service or system. (Generac)
Senet and Thingy will work together to expand LoRaWan coverage and services: Senet, a company that provides LoRaWAN gateways and coverage, has signed a partnership with Thingy, an environmental sensor company. Through the deal, Senet will provide coverage for and certify Thingy's AQ Wildfire and Air Quality Monitoring Systems. Thingy will also share its coverage with other LoRa-capable sensors that want to use its network. The Thingy wildfire monitoring network will be deployed across the Western U.S. to help monitor for wildfires. (Senet)
Enjoy this profile of a scientist trying to remove batteries from the IoT: I loved this profile of Josiah Hester, a computer scientist working on ways to reduce the IoT's reliance on batteries. Most of the research focuses on energy harvesting, but the article also covers the idea of "intermittent computing," where computer scientists build computers that can survive small, unexpected fluctuations in power. The article is packed full of cool computing ideas, such as a privacy-centric device to track smoking that can "film" and transmit data constantly for 20 hours on a single charge. What's nice isn't just the science, but the focus on the ethics and impacts of the various research projects. (The Bulletin)
Amazon makes it easier for dev teams to deploy Lambda functions to containers: This is a small announcement that's likely of interest to IoT developers, simply because so many IoT companies rely on AWS Lambda functions and containers. Basically, developers might use several different AWS accounts for building their software, but they tend to centralize their container images to a single account. But previously, if they did that, any Lambda function used by that software had to reside in the same account as the one that owned the container image. It was a bit of a pain. Now developers no longer have to do it. (AWS blog)
Software PLCs beckon to the industrial IoT: Right now, companies managing industrial processes such as making food or refining gas rely on hardware-based programmable logic controllers (PLCs) to literally monitor and control their manufacturing processes. Large vendors such as Rockwell Automation, Siemens, Honeywell, and others sell the PLCs and add on software and monitoring sensors. It's a big business, but much like virtualization has disrupted other hardware-centric companies in the networking and computing sector, it's coming for industrial controls. And the question is how the biggest players plan to respond and what smaller upstarts might get in their way. This report outlines the topic and name-drops startups to keep an eye on; it also explains the strategy that bigger vendors are using to ease their way into software PLCs. (IoT Analytics)
Rockwell Automation buys Avata for deeper systems integration: When a company is in the midst of a digital transformation effort, one of the bigger challenges on the tech side is connecting industrial systems (OT systems) to IT systems. With this acquisition, Rockwell Automation, which makes tons of software and equipment for the OT world, gains a systems integrator and software expertise that can tie the OT data into Oracle's cloud and other IT software. The two companies had started working together through a formal partnership back in March, and apparently the results were good enough that Rockwell decided to bring the team in-house. (TEDMagazine)
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