Home Automation

Ok, ‘fess up – how many times have you forgotten to close your garage door? Too many times, eh? Well, worry no more about luring thieves into your home by getting the automatic garage door closer. It might sound funny, (right out of the Jetsons maybe), but this is no joke. The closer automatically closes the door after a user-specified amount of time. It’s that simple. It’s not that tough to install either: mount a small sensor on your garage door. The sensor talks to a receiver on a wall console, which is hooked into your garage door switch. Since the wall console already accepts commands wirelessly, it can also commands from a keychain remote.

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Automatic Garage Door CloserRead More »

A picture is worth a thousand words. I love the look of this thing, plus everytime I think of going to the pool to fish the thermometer out of the side to check the temperature, I figure I really need this gadget. This waterproof thermometer floats in your pool (or a pond, lake, spa, even your bathtub if you’d like), and has a nice large display for quickly seeing the current temp. But it gets better – it has a wireless transmitter that pushes the info to any receiver that uses 433 MHz-frequency sensors. The Waterproof Floating Thermometer has three selectable channels, so it can be used in conjunction with other 433 MHz-frequency sensors. At $39.99, it’s a steal.

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Wireless Thermometer Floats in PoolsRead More »

The Remote-Control Camera adds panning ability to any camera (wired or wireless). This gizmo can pan your cameras up to 370 degrees and you can remotely control the movement from up to 150 feet away.

Too bad the camera base cannot be controlled from a web site. There are several products that have that ability, but pricing is a little spooky on them.

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Remote-Control Camera Pan BaseRead More »

What’s this? The Gizmo of the Day is a light switch?

We’re not being anti-climatic… actually, the Gizmo of the Day is perhaps the smartest toggle style dimmer switch because it is INSTEON-enabled. Smarthome finally released the toggle-style dimmer a couple days ago for purchase and the Geeks decided to feature even though it’s still a pre-order item (we tend to wait until you can get your hands on a gizmo before featuring). Personally, I’m still a fan INSTEON SwitchLinc V2 Dimmer fan.

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INSTEON ToggleLinc V2 DimmerRead More »

Being a huge fan of HAI and needing a whole-house audio solution, I was excited to run across this 6-source, 6-zone Nuvo amplifier that allows you to control your music through any HAI touchscreen in your house. 6-source means you can connect up to 6 different audio inputs and 6-zone refers to the ability for 6 different zones and 6 different musical tastes to coexist in one house!

The NuVo Essentia Audio Distribution System can also be purchased as a kit with six in-wall keypads for local room control without using an HAI system.

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Nuvo Essentia 6-Source 6-Zone AmplifierRead More »