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Set Up a Smart Home on a Budget: Beginner’s Guide

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smarthome beginner

Want to make your home smarter without draining your wallet? You don’t need to spend thousands on high-end gadgets to enjoy the convenience of a smart home. With the right approach, you can automate everyday tasks, enhance security, and improve energy efficiency—all on a budget.

Whether you’re looking to control your lights with a simple voice command, adjust your thermostat remotely, or set up a DIY home security system, this guide will show you how to build a smart home that’s both practical and affordable.

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Amazon Patents “Return-to-Sender” System

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bad presentChristmas is the time to give, but some people have a knack for giving inappropriate gifts. Inappropriate may be a relative label, but we know just how many people return unwanted Christmas gifts. We also know that this period after Christmas is the busiest time of the year for retailers when it comes to returning/exchanging items that are unwanted.

Now, personally, I don’t believe in returning gifts. I am a firm believer in the thought being more important than the actual gift, but apparently, not everyone thinks the same way; and due to this, shops such as Amazon have to deal with tons of requests after Christmas. In order to avoid this, the online superstore has reportedly come up with a system – patented, of course – that will avoid people having to return gifts (and Amazon having to deal with the issues).

The idea is simple: users can label people who have a knack for sending “bad” gifts. If these people send the user gifts, Amazon takes care of the “problem” even before it crops up. It does so by NOT sending the gift at all. More so, users will have options to customize the parameters as to what is a “bad” gift. For example, keywords such as “Hello Kitty” can be used – anything with this tag will not be sent to the user.

Now how do you deal with the sender who might get offended? It seems that Amazon has thought about this as well – users still know that they have “received” a gift and can thank the sender, without the latter knowing that the gift has not been delivered. (With everyone knowing about the system, though, wouldn’t paranoia just make things worse?)

I say it’s a nifty idea, technically, but poses a whole lot of potential complications (relationship-wise) that it simply isn’t worth it. If this thing pushes through, however, the face of online shopping might just change.

Photo via wfnx

Brits to Enjoy Amazon’s Black Friday Sale

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Black Friday is something that practically every American looks forward to. And, why wouldn’t you look forward to this day? All sorts of gadgets and other items can be had for ridiculously low prices – if you have the patience and energy to battle it out with countless other shoppers looking for a good deal. So yeah, every year, on the day after Thanksgiving, everyone goes nuts, and stores – both online and offline – have to deal with massive amounts of transactions.

This year, the “guys across the pond” are going to have taste of what their American cousins consider a normal experience. The UK branch of Amazon is holding a five-day sale dubbed Black Friday Deals Week. That’s pretty much self-explanatory, but you have to be ready to get drooling once you visit the online shopping site for good deals.

What do you think of newly-released CDs that are worth only 1 GBP? How about video game consoles with severely slashed prices? (That’s something that no one can say no to!)

In order to be able to take advantage of the deals, though, you have to keep your eyes peeled – the deals run throughout this week, but each specific deal only stays up for a limited period of time. The reason for this is, according to Richard Dodd (British Retail Consortium spokesman):

This move is a reflection of how tough trading conditions are, even in the run up to Christmas, and more evidence of how retail competition benefits customers. But, over a period, all retailers have to cover their costs – premises, staff, buying in stock and a reasonable return for investors – so there will always be a limit to the depth and duration of discounts.

Limited or not limited, you’ll have to at least give this a look. Don’t expect to easily find a Kindle for less than 100 GBP, though. Yeah, I checked. 😉

e-Lending on Kindle Soon Available

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Well, it is not really called e-Lending – I just made that up.  Think about it this way, though – when you buy “real” books, you may end up lending them to your friends.  If you are the kind of person who does not let other people touch their precious books, then forget about it.  However, if you are like me, and you have borrowed or lost many a book along the way, then you’ll get the implications of this development.

Last week, Amazon made two announcements:

  1. Kindle newspapers and magazines can be read on Kindle apps.  This means that even if you do not own a Kindle, you can read these materials on your device that has a Kindle app (which can be acquired for free).
  2. Kindle e-books can be lent to others who have a Kindle or who have access to Kindle apps.

Here is a snippet of that announcement:

“…we will be introducing lending for Kindle, a new feature that lets you loan your Kindle books to other Kindle device or Kindle app users. Each book can be lent once for a loan period of 14-days and the lender cannot read the book during the loan period. Additionally, not all e-books will be lendable – this is solely up to the publisher or rights holder, who determines which titles are enabled for lending.”

Interesting concept, isn’t it?  I know that there are individuals who freely share their e-books (which are acquired via other means), and this development probably does not concern them.  For those who take copyright seriously, though, the lending feature will certainly be welcome.  I don’t know what to think about the idea of not having access to your e-book while it is on loan, though.  True, if we’re talking about physical books then there is no question about it, but why does this have to apply to e-books?  Another thing – we already know that many publishers just might provide lending rights.

Nothing is set in stone, though.  Amazon says they will let us know more when the features are available.  Till then, we just have to wait.

Amazon Launches Kindle DX

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So you thought the wars were limited to computers, gaming consoles, and mobile phones only. If so, you are wrong. It looks like there is a war between e-book readers going on, and it is getting exciting.

Three years ago, this wouldn’t have been happening. With the onslaught of various e-book readers in the market, it is not surprising that manufacturers are trying to outdo one another now. Amazon just announced that it’s souped up Kindle is going to be available on the 7th of this month – that’s today!

The new Kindle is called Kindle DX and it is supposed to be the high end version of the original. What can the Kindle DX offer avid e-book readers out there?

One, it has a lower price. It’s still several hundred dollars at $379, but that’s a considerable drop from the original. Then again, that’s still almost $200 more than the standard version.

Two, it has better screen contrast. Figures say that this has been upped by 50 percent.

Three, documents in PDF may now be zoomed in and out.

Four, users can now share selections from books and periodicals via 3G. This comes free with the unit.

Five, the software that comes with the Kindle DX has also been improved, allowing for better organization of one’s collection.

Is all that worth it for the relatively high price of the new Kindle? Perhaps. In any case, head on over to Amazon to check it out.

E-Reader Owners Are Satisfied with their Device but Want More Features

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The NPD Group has released a new report entitled “e-Reader Owners: Attitudes and Usage” and this could very well be used by Amazon in its drive to develop the Kindle into a more powerful and interesting ebook reading device.

Based on the report 93% of e-reader owners were found to be either “very satisfied” or “somewhat satisfied” with their device. A mere 2% expressed their dissatisfaction.

Additionally, 60% of the respondents said that the wireless feature of their e-Reader device was their favorite feature. The second most favorited feature was touch-capability with 23% of  the respondents saying so. Interestingly, among the many e-readers available in the market today, Amazon seems to be the one with the most stable wireless feature. So, does this mean that most of the respondents have the Kindle as their e-reader? While the 23% may not be Kindle users since only the Kindle DX has the touchscreen feature. Unfortunately, the report did not specify what are the respondents e-readers.

Another interesting finding of the report was that e-Reader owners are still looking for more features for the e-reader. Among those features that they are looking for include longer battery life, more book titles and color screens.

As we all know, Kindle doesn’t have a color screen, so Amazon is probably looking into developing a new Kindle that will support this feature.  And what great timing it is that Amazon was reportedly eyeing to buy a start up called Touchco. This company, as you may have guessed specializes in touch-screen technology. Some analysts say that Amazon is preparing its e-readers  for the entry of the Apple iPad by March.