Hello Non-Luddites!  It’s been a while!

We have a lot of catching up to do, but let’s start with me new favorite assistant.  The Google Smart Display….. by Leonvo.

Okay, Lenovo you say?  Yes, Google has gone the Google route and developed a smart display operating system for other manufacturers to use (Lenovo was the first to market, Google themselves, JBC and others are following).

What? Why and Why Bother?

Well to now, I’ve been an Alexa fan.  I still think her (1st gen) tall round speakers are some of the best speaker quality speakers on the market, the Amazon ecology is simply the defacto standard… she’s even popping up in cars (oh, what a screaming fit we can have whilst driving along at 90 miles an hour!).

However, strangely enough, the primary reason for having such a contraption is search.  Watch any of the commercials for Amazon and eventually they’ll have her do something that’s search related, whether it’s searching for grandma to connect to her, searching for something in the Amazon store to buy (which was probably the original brain child), or searching for music to play, it really is about search.

Amazon has good voice recognition and basic search.  Ask it to find the last battery order and you’re golden.  Ask it to play the last golden girls and not quite so much (largely because Google has cut off you-tube from the only Amazon video Alexa models).  Ask it to play Janet Jackson and she’ll go into your Amazon music purchases or offer up Amazon music.

Cut and dry searches work, albeit with fair to good voice recognition.  However get into fancy smancy or compound questions and Amazon falls flat.  A conversationalist she ain’t ever going to be.

That’s where Google shines.  Ask her to play the newest Janet Jackson album, she knows what you mean (that’s the power of search), ask her to play something on youtube and since that’s a Google service, you have at least a shot at it (though I find something in the results returned quarrelsome, as if from week to week re-ranking search results gets you a different result… for the life of me I can no longer ask for Star Boy by the Weeknd and get the right video, I get some other star boy video). But ask her to replay that last song as she understands the conversational context and replays the last song — this is a trick that Alexa will never learn because it requires a significant different approach then just voice recognition.  It requires the type of AI that Google has been perfecting for years (by the way which is on amble display as you watch Google try to figure out what you just asked her).

Other integrations are what really makes Google shine. She does talk with most of the major things you’d expect, from Philips Hue lighting to Z-Wave components. From Kasa cameras to Sensibo air conditioning controls.

But she also integrates with your Google Photos — which means every single display in your home is now a smart photo display.  You can place pictures from your phone into albums and have them instantly appear on your Google displays throughout your house!  Having a Birthday party?  Those candid shots can start to stream to the displays for oooooo’s and ahhhhhh’s while the party is still happening.

Want to keep grandma in the loop?  Install a Google display and remote control her album feed and she can see the latest pictures of the grandchildren without doing anything!

In an age where people buy electronic picture frames for the same cost as these devices, this is the way to go!

Other smarts built in that make her a real assistant:

She can perform “routines”. For example when I say goodnight to her, she asks what I want my alarm set too, turns off the A/C in each of the other rooms, shuts off all of the lights in the other rooms, sets her volume to 4 and begins playing white-noise for the next 2 hours.   Wow.  Now that’s really an assistant, right?  Not Siri where’s the nearest Star Bucks….!

She also shines on things like showing a recipe and then going through each step.  You say next step when you’re done adding in the eggs or setting the oven to 350 and she just leads you through a recipe without you having to touch a recipe book or screen with dirty hands.

And I can’t forget one of my favorites as a news junkie, I say PLAY NEWS in the morning and my bathroom screen goes to the latest CNN and Reuters 5 minute run downs of the news (even at midnight I’m usually getting a broadcast that is only 10 minutes old) — the Alexa version of this always requires me to remember is it CNN VIDEO NEWS or VIDEO CNN NEWS or something else and then I end up with a update that’s a day old.  Definitely PRO news junkie.

Music is also fun, though here she could use some improvements. Back to my first comment, Alexa simply has one of the best speakers for an assistant (and Sonos has the best speakers for WiFi HiFI). But Lenovo has done a pretty good job, a definite strong 8 on music quality and volume, however a total miss for all room playing.  For some reason thought google home has released an update that allows you to “group speakers” together for music playing, Google apparently doesn’t consider these screens as speakers.  Major bummer!!

Google also delights with letting you change her voice between 4 female and male voices.  Almost eerily stranger after expecting a very monotone woman’s voice.

Move over Alexa, there’s a new lady in my life and she thinks she’s a know-it-all — and that’s just fine!

PROS

Multi-talented: Music player, video music player, youtub player, video news player, calendar or clock display, picture display

Good to great voice recognition including different speakers for access control to calendars and monetary routines (e.g. ordering, etc.)

Solid speaker, tight integration into main stream 3rd party devices

Innovative “next step” use of technology: routines (sets of steps and instructions)

Intuitive and conversational search and actions: play latest janet jackson, replay that last sound, go to sleep

CONS

Not the best speaker, darn, they just should have nailed this

Settings can be buried deep in a phone UI (User Interface) that is far from intuitive (though the latest release is much better) — Google needs to hire some Microsoft UI designers

Deep search integration can mean that some youtube results that worked last week work differently the next (since it just returns the top “guess”)

No music groups (darn!) even though the HOME app supports tying Google speakers together

Google routes you to Lenovo support about feature settings, even though you’re using a Google app (Home).  That implies a possible repeat of the Android fractured ecosystem with each manufacturer tweaking stuff in a way that Google doesn’t know about

Nowhere near the number of Alexa integrations (though I’m not sure I can even remember the 50 new integrations a week that Amazon releases or if I want it in my car)

As usual, please post questions or comments

-The Z Man

CHICAGO –  It’s been awhile since my last post, and I have lots of technology things to catch my followers up on!

Let’s talk TV.

Like many of you I’ve watched in dismay as my cable TV bill has crept up and up.  First the taxes, then the cost to rent the box from my provider, than the inevitable end of my “special rate” and the hour long call to trim costs which end up causing me to sign-up for a phone or other services I don’t want just so I can get some discounted bundle.

Enough!

About a year ago I decided to explore something new.  No first of all, I want to be clear. I think TV should be watched the old fashioned way; sitting on the couch, popcorn falling on the floor, dogs starting at you to give you “the hint” while you mindless flip through channels.

I don’t buy into an app for one channel, and another app for another, and another for movies that are new, and another to rent movies that are old.  That all requires too much thinking…. too much action.  And after all, TV, if anything, is a non-action sport!

So my first try was with a service called Layer3 TV. Picture cable TV sans cable. Basically these guys install a cable box that works over the internet (IPTV for those technical folks in the audience). Fine idea, painfully executed. The installer was here for about 4 hours.  Really nice guy, took him that long to translate to me (largely through sign language) that the box required a DHCP server and my cable modem wasn’t set that way.  That’s because I have a real network. A man’s network.  With a FIREWALL.  Unfortunately Layer3 TV requires Comcast.  And not the piddly 15mg connection I ordered (per Layer3 TV’s customer service department) but a blazing 50mg or better.

Since my Firewall was serving up a different carrier we ended up taking an old wifi router and setting it up. Baam. Finally. TV. And a cable strung out down the hall to my telephone closet (but I fixed that after the guy left and I could reverse engineer what the connection was looking for).  Too much work for ordinary volken.

However pretty cool too if I might say.  Resembled basically every other cable TV provider except a few extra bells and whistles.  You could download YouTube videos and watch them (of course you had to use the clicker to p-a-i-n-f-u-l-l-y—s-l-o-w-l-y spell each title out…I think I tried it all of once) and also could look at an endless twitter feed of …. well whatever was hottest in the twitter world.

The service was about the same cost as cable but…. NO TAXES (because it’s not cable, get it??).  As the months went by I started to feel some of the pain of being on the bleeding edge.  After all, TV time is DUMB time.  I don’t want to put on my little technician’s hat to find the news.  Updates brought new features and stability, but also an extremely annoying tendency to get stuck while fast forwarding and then hitting the end of the recording and starting over, causing minutes of fast forwarding and rewinding to figure out where I had left off (all the while already now knowing the ending of whatever I was watching) — and me almost letting sail the remote control towards said new television service box.

Enough.  There has to be a better way.

Alas, unlike the Millennials I just don’t have it in me to pick a show and find it on an app. I WANT TO SURF.

Just in time to save the day a bunch of new cut-the-cord services are appearing.  Direct(ionless)TV, Hulu TV, Sling(Slang)TV and the like promise to deliver a cable TV like experience without the cord.

But, alas, they fail!  I don’t want to learn a new interface (see earlier in my article). I want to be a far, dumb, popcorn-consuming, series-watching, drool-stupid TV watcher.  Don’t try and make me think!

DirectTV had a horrible premier of technical glitches and Hulu TV while fairly decent hasn’t rolled out to many “devices”. The last thing I want is an app that runs on a device like my tablet that I now have to run another app on top of to “cast” to my TV.

Why can’t I just have my TV on my FireTV or AppleTV or Roku?  These are devices that good or bad have been around for years, are very stable and just work.

In comes PlayStation Vue.  I know, right, who wants to buy a PlayStation just to watch TV. But (wait for it)…. Playstation Vue is actually an app.  It can run on Playstation, or on an Android tablet or FireTV or Roku.

And unlike all of the competitors, the cut-the-cord-products, the let-me-learn-what-you-like-netflixers, it actually has A TV GUIDE.

For $40/month I get all my local stations and most of my non-local. HGTV (so I can see everyone living better than me), SciFi (so I can see everyone getting blown up in spectacular ways) and CNN (which kind of ties the two back together again).  Setting up recordings is as easy as saying as show is my “favorite” and most importantly…. I have a remote control and a guide to surf the airwaves.

Ahhh Nirvana. The cord has been cut,  and yet I am fulfilled.

So here’s my wrap:

PlayStation VUE (on FireTV): Better than Layer3 TV, Hulu TV, SlingTV, standalone apps (like ABC, CBS, NBC), ChromeCast, Roku and Amazon’s prime … simply the most TV like non-TV experience.

PLUS

• Basic $40 package has pretty much all the basic channels
  You can stream on multiple devices at once (TV in the bathroom on your tablet, anyone?)
• Sensible, normal interface (they’re not trying to change everything we’re used too)
• Great fast forward (traditional fast forward, or click the ring on your FireTV and each click is 10 seconds — you learn pretty quick how many clicks to get past the commercial break)
• Quality — pretty high def, though we can argue that one on another article.
• Smooth Streaming – through I’m new to this particular app, seems to work seamlessly

SUBTRACTS

• Sports, HBO, Cinemax and other packages can add up really quickly and aren’t much cheaper than cable
• Some channels are missing — if you have a specific channel you love that’s specific like BET, Nickelodeon, Logo you might not see it.  Or if you see it, it might be subject to annual renegotiation.
• Activation — a little more painful then it should be.  Didn’t think I was in the U.S. when I signed up for the free trial (the trick was to log back into my account, complete the setup with my address then go back and re-try the free trial).
• Less than seamless install on mobile devices (due to licensing constraints, and some channels simply can’t be watched on tablets — you’ll have to find which the hard way)
• Doesn’t appear to support Dolby output (just stereo) — however in fairness, most house rocking movies are going to be rentals (albeit digital ones)
• And while I haven’t experienced it, technical support from Sony is supposed to be a somewhat dismal experience making your local cable provider look like a star

Hope this helps!  Feel free to let me know your most economical way of watching “the tube” so we can continue to compare notes.

I’m a mouse user.  From my original Macintosh (we didn’t abbreviate it when it first came out) to even my laptops today, I disown the track pads and always cart a mouse around with me.

That’s always led me to a conundrum, almost from the get go all laptops have had bluetooth — yet few bluetooth mice have existed, and fewer still are what I would want to use on a day-to-date basis (I mean after all, if I’m moving from a track pad I want to go to something … better, right?).

Enter Microsoft.  As a hardware designer and builder of last resort Microsoft has always played this chicken-and-the-egg role of creating software that uses hardware that doesn’t exist and hoping that the industry will come running to fulfill the space.  In many if not most cases that hasn’t been the case (other than perhaps the original PC and Laptops).

Microsoft has designed Video Conference Gear, Tablets, Phones (although one might think Nokia designed the Windows Phones Microsoft in reality greatly subsided the manufacturer of these devices through generous O/S rebate programs) and even…. the lowly mouse.

Microsoft has released many mice (meece?) over the years but perhaps my favorite was the Arc mouse.

Beautiful in its simplicity the Arc mouse (available in both dongle connect as well as a pure bluetooth model) solves multiple problems that you might not even have known you had!  The mouse itself is arc shaped except when you push down on it hard it flattens out and turns off.  Thus finally we have a mouse that both travels well in laptop cases (no bulge, it’s flat) and also is smart enough to “turn off” when you flatten it.

The bluetooth version connects upon bending it back into an Arc and let’s face it;  after a long day nothing is more satisfying than putting the laptop away and “smashing” a mouse with one’s fist!

Another amazing engineering design add is replacing the normal mouse roller with a tactile oblong square that emulates the best feature of a track pad, you simply scroll your finger along this small surface and you get instant scrolling — but more refined and controlled then through a roller.  And let’s face it, more cool and more fun. This truly is a flat mouse — no balls at all!

The Arc mouse is available in bluetooth and dongle varieties so make sure you order right.  At around $30 (you pay around a $10 premium for the bluetooth version at $42)  it’s a cheap way to upgrade your PC or Laptop  and make it more fun.

Dongle Version

Bluetooth Version

But what happens when the manufacturing industry finally grabs on to a good idea and starts to make their own versions?  Well, it’s taken a long time but finally the Arc has a competitor.  It may not at first seem quite as, well, beautiful but while a little more “square” it has some amazing extras that take the engineering feat Microsoft originally dictated to the the next level.

Welcome to the Lenovo Dual Mode Touch Mouse (N700).  An interesting take on the mouse that I must say — I love.

This device has a simple switch (thank you, no programming, no secret patterns of click this hold that) to switch between the enclosed dongle or Bluetooth mode.  Right now I’m using this in dongle mode and haven’t used it yet as a Bluetooth mouse (some bluetooth pairings can be awfully tricky with Windows 8.1 or Windows 10, look for future comments on whether this is as seamless as the dongle).

So you plug in the dongle, put two batteries in the mouse (included) and what do you get?  A rival in accuracy to the Microsoft Arc.

Alas you can’t just smack this flat (I really hope I remember this), instead you twist the body to flatten it for travel).  While distinctly bulkier than the Microsoft mouse in thickness it appears to be as if not more accurate and is actually a little smaller overall.  On today’s desktops that are pressed for every inch of space, much less while traveling, this is probably a good trade-off.

Featuring the same track pad center scroll as well as the left and right buttons as the Microsoft Arc, it also features a Windows key built into the track pad.

Just click the track pad and you instantly are brought to the Windows 10 (or 8.1) menu — just like clicking the Windows key on your keyboard.

Way cool!  Instead of pausing and looking for a key that no one has quite memorized on the kayboard, you have your finger resting on the menu control all the time.

So far this mouse works as well as the Microsoft version and I’m looking forward to clicking a switch to bluetooth and tossing this in my laptop bag for my first road trip with it.

Look for updates and let me know your experiences and favorite mice too.

Price:  At $30 as well as including FREE 1-day shipping from Amazon (if ordered with another product) this mouse is a steal.

Rating:   I’d give this 5 stars, maybe a slight ding for not looking as beautiful as the standard set by Microsoft but a extra bonus right back on for being dual purpose, slightly smaller and having the built-in windows key.

Would I buy again:  Yes!

note I am not compensated for any of the products I reviewed or endorse, and any products that I receive at no cost for review are either returned or purchased at the normal retail price

Looking for a great gift idea (for that special someone — or maybe just yourself)? Delve into TheZLetter’s latest products review for some exciting gift ideas — and remember for this Holiday, you’ve been good too!

Read on for reviews on…..

– Philips Hue Lighting Systems
– OptiGrill for that perfect indoor grilling experience
– Echo or HAL comes home (I’m afraid I can’t do that….)
– Neato BotVac (model 70e)

Philips Hue (5 stars)

Let’s start with the basics — Lights. Who could have thought that the light bulb could be exciting or even be anything new. Starting out on the Apple site but now available to all of us, Philips brings us their most advanced lighting concept to date. Hue.

Who are you Hue?

Combining two elements that no one would ever think there’s a reason to combine; WiFi and LED light bulbs, Philips Hue lights replace normal ~100 watt screw type bulbs with a lighting experience. By their nature, LED lights are much more energy efficient than old Edison Bulbs. In fact, 80 to 100 watts of lighting can be had for about 12 to 20 watts of electricity — or to put that in perspective, 5 LED lights put out the same amount of light but only at the cost of about 1 old fashioned bulb! And note, most LED lighting gives off little waste heat so it’s a double plus in the hot summer months.

So what’s with the WiFi?

Philips brings something new to the technology isle by letting normal folk have sophisticated lighting without the hassles of most of the older systems. No codes to program. No switches to install. No worry about interference from the washing machine (seriously!). Philips has created a system that is easy and pretty much just works, especially for any home that already has WiFi.

When you get your first Philips kit it comes with 3 bulbs and a hub. By using your Android, Apple or Windows computer and the Philips app (you easily “find” the bulb and create a Philips account).

Then the magic happens.

Anyone can turn on a bulb and let the blaring white shine through out the house, but what happens if you want a more soothing sunset hue, or a downright adventurous sea blue hue — see where I’m going? By adding more bulbs to your hue hub you can create scenes and color setups to go with any mood or look. At first a green living room may seem abnormal, but after you get over that it’s kind of cool.

For those that have Logitech Home Theatre controllers such as HarmonyOne there’s an added advantage that not only can all of your components be set to “Movie Night” at a click of a button, but now your lighting can too.

What’s more cool is that you can control your lights not just through your computer, but through your phone — or now that there are (kinetically powered) wall switches you can control them without your phone. Just come in, push the pre-programmed scene switch and you have a green house. Or red. Or blue. Or just plain old white.

To add on to the excitement, Hue works with IFTTT which is a web site (If this this then that) that allows you to setup easy rules for the non programmer. So you can have the bulb by the front door go red if the weather’s going to be rainy, or the bulb at your reading table blink if someone tags you in a facebook post — or how about saving energy by all lights off at 10:30? Or vacation settings with lights on and off at preset times or based on sunrise and sunset. All is simple to do with Hue.

While a little pricey (we’re talking $65 bulbs here) Hue is not your grandfather’s light bulb.

Would Buy: Strong Yes
Pros: Redecorate your room with light, relatively easy to set up, unlike previous wireless lighting systems very dependable
Cons: Cost, software built around hue can make it a little difficult to get that exact color you want (too many choices), strangely no true dark green, until recently no “wall switches” the rest of the occupants can control the lights — the one switch that’s available works quite well but is, like Hue, different

OptiGrill (4 stars)

A surprise quiet entrant to the world of small appliances for this Holiday Season is the OptiGrill from T-fal. T-fal is pretty known for the quality of their kitchen products, but after George Foreman what kind of excitement can you garner from an electric grill?

Well, a lot apparently. Constructed of quality materials, the grill is both well designed, easy to use AND really easy to clean. Both grilling plates remove at the push of the button for dishwasher cleaning, and a plastic grease collector readily snaps into place and back out for cleaning (again, in the dishwasher if you wish).

So that just makes it an indoor grill.

What really makes this special is this is the grill with smarts. Turn it on, select what you’re grilling (meat, burger, poultry, fish, etc.) and this grill can tell you when your food is done the way you want it done. Want a juicy rare steak with those nice grill marks? Done. Want it more medium well? Well, that’s done too!

See the OptiGrill actually optically watches your food and tells you when it’s at the temperature and cooking level that you want. So no more dry as a bone steals over overcooked burgers. This is done JUST right, every time.

At $200 for a grill this baby is a little pricey, but with beef going up it will probably save you in the end and definitely satisfy that inner foodie.

Would Buy Again: Yes
Pros: Grill comes apart phenomenally easy for dishwasher cleaning, stainless steel look fits into any kitchen, easy to use
Cons: Controls may be counter-intuitive (you need to remember that Blue is Cold, Red is Hot; got that — but Red is NOT rare, Red means maximum done-ness or well done), didn’t seem to do want to do fish in the automatic mode despite the manual saying otherwise

Amazon Echo (echo echo echo) (4.5 Stars)

New on the scene — if you can get one — is the Amazon Echo. As much as the Amazon FirePhone was a fail; Echo seems to be a hit. Unfortunately once burned Amazon’s inventory and ordering of these is behind. Good news is the normal $199 item is available to Prime members (limited quantity) for $99.

That being said, even at $199 the Echo is an amazing beast. Whether you’re a news junkie, music fan, wikipedia page turned or just want an expensive alarm clock, Echo is downright amazing.

Echo “listens” for an activation word (right now that’s either Alexia or Amazon) and then obeys your command. Simple voice recognition that works… simply great. Want to listen to jazz? Say “Alexia, play jazz”. Want the weather “Alexia what’s the weather” or “Alexia what’s the 7 day forecast”. Want to listen to local stations? Alexia does that too. And finally, want to know the meaning of Life? Echo will quick as a rabbit tell you it’s “42” and then add “but it’s a bit more complicated than that”.

Echo; definitely the life of the party and the first techy toy that my non techy friends have fallen in love with.

Would Buy Again: Yes
Pros: Ties to your Amazon Prime music collection and free Amazon prime music, utilizes TuneIn to obtain access to most if not all radio stations, can read you the news briefs (and does just about as good as the blond on the evening news), alarm clock and weather station as well as infinite wikipedia all in hand

Cons: Has trouble hearing you over the alarm clock (e.g. “Alexia, snooze…Alexia!!! Snooze!!!”) — on the other hand you do wake up! Sounds gets muddled when up high, and Echo definitely has trouble hearing you to tell her to turn it down when your pumping maximum jams. Limited other movie service tie ins at this point.

Neato BotVac 3 stars

Wandering like a drunk man around my living room, Neato’s 3rd major product release has many features that well compensate for it’s small demeanor. Supposedly the strongest vacuum in it’s class (and it sounds like it, you’d think a jet plane was taking off) and utilizing laser vision to actually map the room and thereby intelligently clean it (versus the Roomba method of bouncing across the room for a set time and overlapping enough to guarantee a good cleaning), I found the Neato BotVac picked up an amazing amount of dirt off of a supposedly clean floor.

Having two small dogs, its always a contest of between the clean and the hairy; with frankly the hairy usually winning. Other than that quiet few minutes after a fresh vacuum your pet filled home never truly seems clean.

In comes the BotVac 70e, one of about 4 new models from Neato all having minor embellishments to improve the cleaning experience I found the 70e comparable to other similar systems from different manufacturers.

While my first BotVac was D.O.A. (defective bumper) the replacement purred right into service after the mandatory overnight charging (bubble burst: all of the vacuums use NiCad batteries and require at least a 12 hour charge before you can play, no cheating or you’ll shorten your batteries run-time life).

After programming the time and finding a place for the station (Neato recommends a space with 3 feet of clearance on either side so the Botvac can “see” where home is for when it’s done), charging and then coming home to a green light I excitedly pressed GO.

The robot moved gently forward, something akin to an airplane at takeoff started revving up (boy has this got something under the hood) and the Bot began to move forward. At first it seemed to pause to do a mini scan and then it lurched to the left and started walking the perimeter of the room where, of course, most of the obstacles are. Unlike other vacuums that got hung up on the large and steep bases off of floor lamps, BotVac navigated this without getting stuck (not with any level of grace mind you, with it’s butt half way up in the air).

Surprisingly while there are front bumpers to prevent it from crashing into anything too hard, there don’t appear to be corresponding rear bumpers. Every now and then BotVac would half wedge itself in between some furnishings and then by appearances ram it’s way out backwards. It didn’t appear to cause any damage, but it sure made everyone wince who was watching. After disappearing under the sofa — a no man’s land if there ever was one — and some mysterious ticking, scrapping and bumping noises BotVac eventually came shooting out the other side, apparently as happy to see the light of day as I was to avoid moving the couch to find the dang thing.

After about 35 minutes of going back and forth over the wood floor and area rug of the living room BotVac decided it was done, quieted down it’s airflow intimidator engines and then quietly headed towards it’s charging doc. When it reached it, it did a turn around and gently backed it’s rear against the docking station and after a few adjustments to get just right, Tweedledeed a little tune of happiness that it was done.

BotVac can be set on a schedule to clean your home (when you’re away, you wouldn’t want this thing bumping around at night unless you have great soundproofing). Only appears to mildly alarm the dogs, individual dog mileage will probably vary. Does a very superb job of vacuuming. Navigation doesn’t appear to be on the leading edge where NASA is going to be scouting for this puppy anytime however. Most returns to base end up with the unit somewhat helplessly unsure how to actually dock. Typical geek!

Would Buy Again: Probably Not
Pros: Great for keep a certain level of constant cleanliness, nice big collection bin doesn’t need to be cleaned every day, does a very good job with mixed surfaces, short enough to get under most furniture

Cons: Still not real mapping navigation, it’s a bit better than Roomba but so is my drunk uncle and a vacuum, expensive for what you get, like all of these units they seem to have a short life span as compared to normal vacuum cleaners

Okay so I got my 6-month itch when I saw the HTC M8 Windows Dot Case finally had been released.  For those of you who have paid attention to the minuscule Windows hardware market it’s been pretty much all Nokia ala Microsoft (with their purchase). While some of the other hardware companies had Windows phones out there, with the anemic sales (as compared to Android) not many were willing to continue the R&D budget of developing Windows Phones.

In comes HTC with a new idea.  HTC has always been an innovator and much like Samsung (albeit without the sheer breath of models) has produced many exemplary phones. What HTC has done different is they’ve taken a hardware platform they developed for Android and made sure that it would run Windows too — so now, a few (many) months since the HTC One’s release with Android,  it’s now available on most if not all carriers with Windows.

So what do you get?  I’m not going to go into the exacting technical specs other than to say the screen is gorgeous and bright and when you compare it side by side to other phones the colors are sharp and the text and pictures are even sharper (other phones go from looking vibrant to looking washed out when you hold them side-by-side).  This has got to be simply one of the best 5″ phones out there.  Created in gunmetal gray it’s both the right size and weight for one handed use.  The phone simply exudes quality.

The Windows Metro interface has never looked better, flashy vibrant and fast, this phone has clear quality calls, nice panache in the looks department and some of the best speakers for listening to music (if that’s what you want to do on a $700 phone) of any phone out there.

So what’s this dot case?  Well, it’s an attempt to add a little retro look and interest to a phone that probably doesn’t need it. Similar to the Samsung window cases, this case protects the phone but displays information through it in a useful manner.  If the phone rights you can swipe and answer it, want to talk to Window’s siri-like assistant?  Just swipe down.

However unlike the Samsung case which is additive to the phone — it looks like it belongs with a case that matches the phones native back of stitched (albeit plastic) leather —  the dot case just feels…. cheap,  It takes a beautifully crisp screen and let’s you see through pin prick holes in the cover images designed to look retro (think block-style clock display).

But where you once had smooth brushed gunmetal sheathed device you now have cheap, smooth plastic.  It just really kind of ruins the otherwise subliminally classic look and feel of an otherwise spectacular phone.

You might get some interest or raised eyebrows when a phone call comes in or it lights up with the time, but past that it’s kind of blase and ‘has-been’.

So if you want the most beautiful, functional phone in the 5″ range running Windows then go out and upgrade to the HTC One.  But, like a date with a tacky coat on, loose the case.

So back in November I told you that I was suffering app withdrawal and between the new Galaxy watches and Note 3 I had switched to Android.  Well, the fortunes have turned.  I’m tired of iffy performance (apps crash, I swear there’s a countdown timer that takes a small bit of performance off the phone every day).  Battery life is just abysmal, and not entirely the fault of the hardware — the carriers have to get their bloatware off of these phones, it’s just ridiculous to punish the consumer.

And lastly, I just find myself spending an inordinate amount of time fining apps, widgets, widgeapps, and whatever to make my phone do the the things that Windows just does…. out of the box.

From the standpoint of imparting information at a glance it’s night and day.  Microsoft has all other vendors beat.  Sure the original Windows phones were a joke.  I mean clicking start and then running apps with a little pen?  Try to do that while you’re driving! (just kidding). Apple started the revolution with the clean interface with … <gasp>  … little numbers to tell you the number of phone calls you missed or messages begging to be read. But after years of tweaking icons and color schemes, the 4 x whatever rows of icons marching on the iPhones screen just seem so….. bland.

So let’s look at what Windows has done.  In Windows phone 8.1 they pretty much have pulled all of the must have features from their competitors (now that they have a true notification center).  And what do they do different?  Well how many of you have email and when you look at the icon it says 99+.  I mean how useful is that?  I *do not* want my phone to force me to read junk mail so I can luxuriate in a new email counter that tells me how many new messages I have.  When I look at my Windows phone and it says “34” I know I have 34 new messages.  When I click on the message icon, and swipe through the messages Windows *brilliantly* — yes I dare say it — resets the counter so when I go back to my main screen (desktop???) the counter is now zero.  Is Microsoft the only company that’s figured out how people work?

I mean Apple introduced the little pop-up number concept (I know there’s a technical name for the bubble but it escapes me and frankly I care little). But at the same fell swoop that they introduced it, and hundreds if not thousands of developers copied it to their apps, they also missed a critical point.  As a user I want to know what’s NEW.  Not what’s unread (“hello thank you for checking into your voice mail, you have 999 new messages — all marked URGENT”).  

This one paradigm captures the essences of usability versus mere prettiness.  In the end Microsoft has garnered onto the fact (I’m sure by accident) that most people utilize their phone in productivity like “use cases” and where that process flow can be assisted in a normal humanesque manner it should be.  My phone shouldn’t make me change how I work.  When I get home and toss a stack of mail onto the other stack of mail waiting to be opened, my “house” shouldn’t force me to look at all of the old mail too. I look at the mail under the door slot and say “that’s new”.  That’s how I work.  That’s how my phone should work.

If that were the only difference then I wouldn’t be writing this today.  Microsoft still suffers from a lack of key apps.  Many of the big players have released apps but many more have not.  I love my Sonos music system but I’m relegated to a look-a-like app called Phonos (which interestingly enough seems less buggy than the official Sonos app … take note million dollar companies!!!). And in many cases there simply isn’t an app.  No more taking pictures of my deposits with USBank (though USAA who invented that concept does have a Windows app — thanks guys!).

So what drives me back to Windows phone?  Two things.  Number One: live tiles.  

Now if you look at the history of Microsoft they’ve been trying to figure out how to spoon feed live information to us over, well, decades.  Remember active desktop?  Other than a few RSS feeds and a gazillion different clocks it never worked out (and it dragged the system performance into the gutter too) – total fail.  There have been as many live feed widgets for windows as their are apps for Android and they’ve all suffered from the same illness — they are at best add ons, at worst critical eaters of screen real estate.  And nary a one has done what it’s supposed to which is to unobtrusively provide information to the user. Unobtrusively. 

In comes Microsoft with tiles.  Who would have thunk it?  Such a simple — one might say elegant — interface.  Square blocks.  Each block representing an app and giving rise to a bit of space to share live data.  But that’s not all folks … the block… okay tile… can FLIP to reveal other info, or scores of pieces of info. And in this A.D.D. world of ours what’s more attractive then a phone face with many, many tiles all flipping in random yet synchronized dance and imparting tons of information to us.  And flick of a finger takes us straight to that relevant information.

And the Microsoft native apps?  They … just…. work.  Arguably the out-of-the-box Windows mail app is hands down the best I’ve ever used on a phone. It works against every mail provider I’ve tried and manages to have a clean simple workable interface.  Amazingly I who utterly loathe (I mean HATE) the concept of grouped conversations and I actually like it…. okay, I’ll say it… LOVE it … under Windows Phone.  They’ve made the conversation flow seem so natural.  Their phone app…their message app — they all are robust, clean and make me happy to use them.

And the new Cortana?  Who would have thought that stodgy Microsoft could one up Apple and Siri.  But out of the box it just blows Siri away.  I mean “remind me to pickup my dry cleaners when I get home” means something to Cortana… with the additive of location awareness, the *tight* integration into calendaring and the speech recognition engine that’s as good as anything Google or Apple put out I finally have a P.A. that’s actually useful and that I use (and not just to show off that hey, my phone can understand me).  Also not to be understated, the talking text when I’m driving in my car via bluetooth where I can reply by talking is literally a life saver and is done better than anyone elses I’ve seen (or rather heard).

But I said there were two main reasons (and I gave you a bunch of small ones which I all group together as “1”).  The other main reason is that Windows Phone just works.  

I don’t believe I’ve ever had the phone crash, and while some knock off third party apps may abruptly close, I never feel the need to reboot my phone to fix anything.  It…. just…. works.  And it’s rock solid.  Apple might have held that torch for awhile but I think Microsoft figured it out better; set strict interface standards and acceptable hardware and stick to your guns.

Microsoft over the last few years has ‘bet the house’ on the cloud and making all end point devices (desktop, tablet and phone) try to look the same.  They’ve utterly failed time and time again to do this.  As I previously remarked in other blogs, I don’t want my phone to run a desktop and I don’t want my desktop to run a phone.  But I think with Windows Tablet and the metro interface as well as Windows Phone they’ve come the closest.  Oh, metro will fail.  You can’t convince millions of business users to relearn an interface just so they can get to their same old productivity app, but the seed’s been planted and Microsoft can use their juggernaut of being on most everyone’s business computer to continue to carry the flag to ever device we use. Eventually we will all be in an applet world and the interfaces on phones, tablets and desktops will be similar enough for someone to say they’re the same.

Will Microsoft succeed finally where they’ve failed so many times before?  I don’t know. But as a betting man I’m convinced, Microsoft has become cool — and that, my dear Apple, should make you quake in your boots like nothing else.

So after about a year experiment with the Windows ecosystem (Windows Phone, Surface) I’m moving back to Android for my phone. Not because Android is better (it’s not) and not because I don’t love Windows (I do), but because I’m suffering from app withdrawal.

Let me elaborate. The Windows ecosystem is definitely getting to the right place. Despite the nay-sayers over Windows 8 (and let’s be honest, it is a jarring interface change) the resultant interface once you learn it is pretty similar to most tablets with the added advantage of being a business computer. The only business computer. Sorry, an iPad just doesn’t do what 90% of us business people do — write email, read email, create power points, create spreadsheets and word docs — well. Close but no cigar.

If you need Office; Word, Excel, Outlook then any of the competing tablets just don’t stack up. Period. You’ll end up with a laptop + an iPad, or a home computer AND office computer AND Android Tab. The Surface is the first computer (and there are many — and probably better — similar Win 8 tablets) that let you use the same device for home, work AND play.

So what does this have to do with my Windows Phone? For the same reason that I like my Windows Phone — integration with Microsoft Products, back end storage and one of the cleanest phone interfaces that is both active and fun, as well as a stable it-just-works-out-of-the-box (my new Android had an app that kept crashing every few hours, and this was brand new!) I also don’t like it; e.g. it’s platform that’s new and that apps just aren’t available for yet.

Sure, you can find knock-offs; instead of Sonos there was Phonos, instead of Hue there was Litewave, but in the end the apps that are written for iJobsMachine or Android are more refined, more plentiful and more capable. They’re the standard that everyone else is measured against. And Windows just doesn’t measure up…. yet.

So when the Note 3 came out — with the accompanying watch — I jumped on board and left my Windows Phone sitting in the dust. Sadly as I really did like the interface, the heft of the Nokia, the built in wireless charging, the smoothly integrated crystal clear bluetooth and all of the other bells and whistles that Microsoft forces out of a hardware manufacturer. And even though I have a super bright responsive huge screen phone, I look at the just released Nokia 1520 Windows phone with sadness and yes, a little bit of envy.

That being said, since I’m a box.com user my back-end isn’t really Windows specific and since I have no intention of ever writing a Word Doc or Power Point on my phone I’m not married to the Windows ecosystem in the phone space (I can still OPEN all of these docs, and that’s good enough for me).

My mail works just as well, and I finally have a real calendar (hello Microsoft, why can’t you have a clean day/week/month calendar that’s actually USABLE on your phone — real miss, that).

So let’s check back in a year. Maybe I’ll be back in love again with Windows Phone.

So Google has decided to enter the TV delivery era. Again. That being said, it looks — to me — like they have a winner.

So let’s step back, Television of old, where things were pushed to us by the producers of a show (or the advertisers that supported the producers) is dying. Just like Cable took over from Broadcast TV, the idea of “pull TV” is settling in and becoming an accepted — and profitable — alternative.

The DVR has helped us moved into this new space, no longer do we consider ourselves married to our regular Monday night show being seen on, well, on Monday night. We expect to “DVR it” and see it when we like.

Now comes the next generation, with the Hulus and NetFlix (who is producing it’s own TV shoes) we now expect to be able to sit down and watch an episode, or a season, when we want.

Okay, so back to Google. Google tried it before with a bulky and rather painful device that acted like a poorly programmed cable box, now comes ChromeCast. At $35 expectations can’t be too high. But ChromeCast exceeds those expectations by getting out of the way of the content. Instead of trying to force feed you a poorly emulated 500-channel cable experience, ChromeCast instead acts as an entertainment hub that works pretty flawlessly with any TV that has an HDMI port.

When you open the ChromeCast box it’s a simple well designed install, just plug in the ChromeCast and if you have the latest of TVs where the HDMI port supplies power you’re set. Otherwise you need to plug in the supplied USB power cable to the ChromeCast dongle and then watch the lights start blinking.

Assuming you have wireless (and if you don’t forget it, that’s what you need) you simple go to any wireless computer within about 30 feet of your TV, go to the install URL and your PC searches the airwaves for any non-configured dongles. When it finds one it asks you if the number it’s showing on your computer is the same as what’s being seen on your TV, you say yes and then provided it with your WiFi information.

And you’re done. You’re now ready to “cast”.

So the beauty behind ChromeCast is unlike similar types of technologies the programming that you want to see doesn’t have to be running on your phone and tablet and then re-broadcast to your TV. Instead, once you’ve updated a couple of the apps you probably already have (such as Chrome, YouTube or NetFlix) you simply select and play your favorite episode as you normally would and then press the CAST button to have it transferred from your device to the TV. At this point you can deep six your device, Google has taken over your TV and the video stream is now coming directly from the internet to your television (or rather the ChromeCast dongle).

If you choose to leave your device on you can easily skip forward or back or even turn down the volume coming out of your TV. You now have the coolest remote control, as you drag the “you are here” button on the play bar you see a little window that shows you what’s playing at that time mark. You can skip over sequences you don’t want to watch, like credits or opening spiels and just watch what you want to watch.

Right now the number of apps that are “ChromeCast” enabled are fairly small, but expect that to change.

And hey, for $35 what can you loose?

For more info go to: http://www.google.com/chromecast or order this on Amazon and see for yourself.

Okay, this might be a little bit off of the beaten path for a tech blog — but it gets there.  I live in the City.  So do a few million people.  And thousands of cars.  And hundreds of buses and trains.  And it all makes for a lot of dirt & dust and bad air quality.  You dust the house and even with the windows shut, there’s a thin layer of dust on everything the next day.  Yuck!

I’ve tried air cleaner after air cleaner.  From the ones that (apparently) can even detect when you fart (and suddenly turn on in a roaring rush of whirling fans to add to your embarrassment) to ones that lite up different colors to assure you that they’re doing something to your air — I’ve tried them all.  Read articles.  Changed filters.  All pretty much to no avail.  Oh sure, the air would smell a little cleaner (or just different) but it still seemed dirty as the dust bunnies would attest too.

Well, I can now truly say … success.  I gave it one more chance and I have to say I found a winner.  It ain’t the most beautiful of air cleaners (that would probably go to my Kenmore with sleek lines, ultra modern control panel, but ridiculously expensive replacement filters and a very large foot print).

The iLiving ILG938 Air Purifier lives up to it’s name.  Available through Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003VFGX6Q/ref=oh_details_o04_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) it not only clears air of particulate matter like many of the good air cleaners, but it actually seems to clean the air.  Dust simply seems to be … .gone (oh, you still need to dust, but gone are the next day thin layer of stuff on all of your belongings).  The unit itself is pretty small and (if you actually read the manual) should be mounted on something that’s a few feet off of the floor.  The HEPA filter is washable.  Let me repeat.  It’s washable.  For those of you who actually replace these buggers as they get dirty, you’ll understand what a $50-$75 filter cost savings that is right there.  It also includes the standard UV lamp sterilizer that you can get on high end units as well as Ionization (and mind you, this isn’t the girlie after-a-summers-rain ionization that you get on some of those units, this is a shut-the-door-turn-it-on-and-stay out of the room industrial hotel smoke cleaning ionization that actually cleans the air).  The Photo Catalytic filter I think is the one that helps keep the dust-be-gone (at least this is the one I’ve never heard of and this unit is absolutely great).  I just bought my second one of these for the other part of my house (the first is in my bedroom) and am looking forward to a nice, clean, good smelling, allergy avoiding, dust & mite free summer…. I highly recommend you consider the same!