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Design Your Dream Bespoke Man-Pad

When planning your ultimate man-pad you probably have some idea of your dream requirements. Widescreen or Projected TV? Check. Xbox or PlayStation? Check. Surround Sound System. Check. Pool Table. Check. Universal Control from an iPad? Check. Room design like something out of Alien? Double Check.

Alien Themed Cinema
Alien Themed Cinema

Perhaps the reality may end-up being something a little more budget conscious for most of us but for those who can dream big UK-based bespoke home automation company “The Private Cinema Company” are ready to turn those dreams into a reality.

Alien Themed Cinema
Alien Themed Cinema

One of the latest installation designs for the company has been an Alien themed cinema room complete with alien eggs, shadowy lighting, leather seats, surround sound, movie projection, and all the dramatic intensity of the movie the room is based upon.

The images are pretty impressive and really capture the essence of a bespoke installation. We’re big fans of science fiction movies so this design really gets us wanting to fetch the cat and load in the Blu-ray Alien Anthology set. For those for whom Alien holds little appeal the company say installations are not just limited to the man-pad as home automation can be styled into the lounge, bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and even the swimming pool if you have one.

For us, it’s grab the snacks, lights out, start the movie, and make sure there is someone to cling tightly onto. I’ll bring the popcorn, you bring the Xenomorph.

To learn more head over to the The Private Cinema Company website.

AutoChron Offers Smart Home for $30

Autochron Wall Switch TimerOne of the things I feel is holding back the ‘smart house’ revolution is that (many times) to install all the proper gadgetry you would need to get your house rewired and re-plastered – not a cheap option by all means!

AutoChron seems to have come up with a solution to this by offering an automatic and programmable timer that can be slipped on over your existing wall switches and be used to control them without having to do any messy and invasive work to your walls. You can therefore use this piece of hardware to control anything with a switch from your lights to your fan. …

Black & Decker Revinvents the Shredder with the iShred Vertical Shredder

Black & Decker iShred Vertical ShredderShredding your sensitive documents is always the best thing you can do, and a large proportion of households invest in shredders to help reduce the risk of identity theft in this modern world. The only problem with shredders is that their design hasn’t really altered from when they were first brought to the personal and home office markets many years ago; no one ever thought that shredders could ever become anything beautiful – they were always destined to get shoved under a desk, all alone. …

RedAlert motion-sensitive recorder captures video and images

Here is another security monitor for your home – the RedAlert by Swann which is primarily a motion-sensitive video recorder. It records either JPEG photos or AVI videos when motion is selected. It can record from 1 camera at a time, although you can hook up a wired camera to it as well and switch between that and the included wireless camera. There’s a PIP feature that lets you watch both simultaneously.

The included 128MB SD card can record 250 10 second videos, and the wireless camera can ‘see in the dark’ up to 16ft away. Connects to your TV for viewing the photos and video. What’s really missing is a network capability so you can monitor your cameras remotely.

Buy now!
Price: $199.99
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Protection One’s eSecure lets you control your home alarm system from your iPhone

esecure iphone appHome security comes to the iPhone from security company, Protection One. eSecure is a Web-based home security system that also features an iPhone app.

The Web app lets you monitor in real-time your cameras at home as well as adjust your home alarm system. There is also an SMS text message-based system for controlling your Protection One alarm system.

The iPhone lets you turn your alarm system on and off and receive alerts. Reminds us a lot of what the remote home automation apps like iLinc can do.

Buy now!

Price: free with Protection One’s eSecure alarm system
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Dyson Air Multiplier – Fan Without Blades

dyson air multiplier fanIndustrial designer and inventor, James Dyson, is at it again. This time, he’s moved away from vacuum cleaners and onto fans. Fans, you ask? Yup, fans, but take a look at the photo. It doesn’t have any blades!

It just looks like a cylinder. What it does is pull in air and amplifies it 15 times. No wonder it’s called an ‘air multiplier’. It’s easy to clean, is safe with kids, has 90º oscillation and tilt.

Buy now!
More info from the manufacturer
Price: starts at $299.99
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

iTouchless Touch-free Paper Towel Dispenser

Ever have dirty hands while say cooking and need a quick paper towel to clean something up, and you end up doing all sorts of acrobatics with your arms and head and arms to either get a paper towel or need to wash your hands first?

Well those days are over. The Towel-Matic Sensor Paper Towel Dispenser senses when your hand is near and auto-rotates a paper towel your way. Once the paper towel is rotated into position, it locks it in place so you don’t get the runaway effect you normally do with your traditional holder.

Prevent wasted paper towels, save time, and stop spreading germs with this sanitary gadget. Operates on 4 D batteries.

Buy now!
Price: $50
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Lacie’s Lacinema Black – Home Entertainment System

Lacinema Black

LaCie have released their new sleek multimedia entertainment system – LaCinema Black – a system that allows you to play movies, photos and music on your HDTV, play media from networked computers and generally just have a bit of fun with your multimedia. This comes in 2 versions – PLAY or RECORD. PLAY can simply play your movies whereas RECORD enables you to record, pause, rewind live TV. They both feature 1080i upscaling. The 500GB model comes in at $400 for the Play and $450 for the Record, and the 1TB comes in at $450 and $500 respectively (probably worth just buying the RECORD for the extra $50). If 1TB just isn’t going to be enough, both devices can be expanded via an external USB hard drive to give almost unlimited storage.

Buy now!
More info from the manufacturer

Price: $499.99 (1TB RECORD), $400 for 500GB RECORD
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Black & Decker TLD100 Thermal Leak Detector

If you care about energy efficiency, saving money, the environment or just plain have a drafty house, then take a look at this handheld gadget. The B&D Thermal Leak Detector uses infrared sensors to measure surface temperatures to show you where there are temp differences and hence leaks.

The TLD100 is easy to use: just set the tolerance level, point it at the area you want to check and read the LCD display.

Just imagine saving 20% on your heating and cooling bills and having a nice toasty/cool home. The TLD100 also comes with a booklet that describes how to plug leaks.

Buy now!

Price: $54.99
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Magnetic Paintbrush Holder

Another gadget that you take one look at and say to yourself “Why didn’t I think of that?” followed closely by “I need to get one of those!” Pretty simply, the magnetic paintbrush holder keeps your paintbrush from falling into your can of paint.

Simply clip it to the side of the paint can and place the (commonly) metallic part of the paintbrush on of the two magnetic strips. Voila! No more paint messing up the handle and then your hands. Love it.

Buy now!
Price: $3.50
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

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