It’s holiday decorating season and as I do every year, I was keeping my eye out for interesting outdoor lights. I’ve been quite happy with connected lights like the Philips Hue series and when we saw the AppLights Projection Spotlight at Home Depot, we thought we’d give it a try to supplement our usual assortment of LED Christmas lights. Here’s how it’s worked out.
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Keep your tablet or phone charged up with these battery options for boosting power on the go.
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I bit the bullet and bought a Philips Hue connected LED light starter pack back in November of last year. At the time, with a ton of favorable buzz and availability exclusively through Apple (you can now buy Hue gear through Amazon), the bulbs were in short supply. Online lead times quickly stretched into the two month range. My local Apple Store have two kits on the shelf, so I hustled down, pushed through the people standing in line for the iPad Mini launch and snagged a starter pack. I haven’t reviewed the Hue system until now for two reasons. First, there’s a lot of technology packed in one of those bulbs and I wanted to have some sense of durability and reliability — I’ve had more than my share of cool gear that packs it in after a few weeks of use. Second, I wanted to see how a Hue bulb performed under extreme conditions, namely being installed in an outdoor light fixture through a Canadian winter. The verdict? A few quibbles such as price and current availability limited to a single bulb form factor aside, Philips Hue is a showcase for what LED technology and home automation can offer.
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Energizer releases a line of compact flashlights that deliver uniform, bright light and long battery life, perfect for camping season or lighting your house when the power goes out.
Continue ReadingWith three kids in their prime Lego years, we have amassed a considerable collection of bricks. However, while we do have some motorized components, we don’t have any illuminated gear. I know Lego does sell an LED kit, but we …
Continue ReadingAbout this time last year I tested and reviewed an M-Edge e-Luminator 2 book light. It wasn’t bad, but suffered from some issues common to portable book lights: illumination wasn’t uniform (i.e., areas of the display remained in shadow) and …
Continue ReadingJust in time for the release of Tron: Legacy, a British firm is gearing up to release a bicycle tire embedded with LED bulbs. While these lighted rubber tubes won’t lay down trails for your opponents to crash into, they …
Continue ReadingThough I wouldn’t consider my dad to be the stereotypical Mr. Fix-It, I do have a distinct memory from my childhood of building a radio with him from scratch. I was probably nine or ten. He had gotten a kit, …
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