Whether or not you agree with Black Friday is not what’s up for discussion here… The fact that you can get some serious price reductions, however, is! Here’s a very quick round-up of the top 5 deals we think are great!!
1. Black Friday Amazon Echo Devices
2nd Gen Echo Show - £169.99 (was £219.99)
Echo Spot - £89.99 (was £139.99)
All-new Echo Dot - £24.99 (was £49.99)
Some really serious savings here on all their devices. Go check them out!
2. LG (at John Lewis)
Save £2,000 on this insane television. I’ve seen one of these in action and they are incredible. Flexible and thinner than a table mat it really does feel like you have an extra window in your wall.
- LG OLED65W8PLA Signature OLED HDR 4K Ultra HD Smart TV, 65" with Freeview Play/Freesat HD, Picture-On-Wall Design & Dolby Atmos Sound Base Unit, Ultra HD Certified, Black. -
Now - £3,999.00 (was £5,999)
4 grand is a lot to spend on a new TV sure, but with manufacturers starting to release 8K TVs (I know, I know, ridiculous!), some great deals on the ‘older’ 4K top of the pile lot can be found.
Head over to John Lewis for this one.
3. Black Friday at Sonos
Some pretty decent savings here if you’re in the market for some new Sonos equipment. They’re obviously aiming at someone who’s putting together a home cinema set up here…
Sonos One - £174 (was £199)
Beam - £349 (was £399)
Sub - £599 (was £699)
Check it out here.
3. Lakeland KitchenAid Black Friday Deal
For any keen cook who wants to keep the retro good looks and solid reliability of KitchenAid’s Artisan 4.8 Litre Stand Mixer, but not has it dominate the room, this Matte Grey version is ideal. And so is the current price!
KitchenAid Artisan 4.8L Stand Mixer - £299 (was £499)
For all the best Lakeland deals click here.
4. HTC Vive
For gamers and VR enthusiasts, this HTC Vive deal is up there with the best. Save £100 on this puppy, if you have the computer to run it...
If you don't... see No. 4 below!
HTC Vive - £499 (was £599)
4. Scan Computers
If you’re keen on the above HTC Vive but have an aging computer, head over to Scan Computers and take advantage of their huge sale on everything from graphics cards to full desktops and laptops. Some very good savings here!
So that's it for this brief round-up. Happy shopping!!
Visit our website lamedia.co.uk and if you have any questions or simply want to let us know what we missed... e-mail us at louise@lamedia.co.uk or give us a call on 0131 622 0220.
It’s considerably easier nowadays to find some pretty useful kit to make your smart home dream come true. And the great thing is, a lot of it actually works. With these smart home articles, I will try and identify what, in my opinion, are the best smart options for your home as of this year (2018).
The most recognised brands in the smart home market include; Amazon, Google, Philips, Nest, and Tado but there are many many more. The first thing to think about when creating your smart home is what will make your life easier. What will improve things rather than make things more complicated and thus defeat the point of the exercise! You should also consider, and this IS important, what ecosystem you’re entering into. By that, I mean are your devices going to all talk to each other. Will they be compatible and work WITH each other rather than having to use five third-party Apps… Which can be frustrating.
So what’s the best smart home ecosystem? We’ll start with ‘Works with Nest’.
Works with Nest
Nest has been in the smart home business since 2010, with the company’s first product – the original Nest Learning Thermostat – which hit the shops in late 2011. Since then, Nest Labs has expanded into multiple smart home categories and there is now a range of slick, well-designed connected devices on sale carrying the Nest name.
Nest Labs is owned by Alphabet (who owns Google) with the Mountain View giant splashing out over $3 billion for Tony Fadell's company back in 2014. The nest is now actually being rolled back into Google, so expect higher integration with Google Assistant. The nest is a huge player in the smart home market and a good place to start your smart home.
Nest smart home products
Nest Thermostat
Nests' first product which hit the shelves in late 2011, was the Nest Learning Thermostat. Marketed as the first actually ‘smart’ thermostat, its selling point was that it could learn your behaviour and then base your heating needs around you.
A very nice-looking device that connects to your boiler via the Heat-link, which arrives in the box. It controls your central heating and now (with the 3rd generation) control your hot water too. For the most part, it works very well. I still find the Auto Scheduling a little bit random, but I’m sure that will improve over time.
It’s incredibly convenient and works very well when connected to voice assistants such as Alexa and Google. There are also separate temperature sensors available in the US but unfortunately for us Brits, they have yet to make their way across the pond.
Nest Protect
The second-generation Nest Protect, the smart smoke, and CO detector boasts a spilled-spectrum smoke sensor to detect both fast and slow fires, and a feature called app silence, which allows you to silence the smoke alarm from your smartphone when you burn the toast. Amazing. New algorithms also help the alarm to tell the difference between steam, from the shower for instance, and actual smoke.
The new Nest Protect has a mic that turns on once a month to test the horn and the speaker in a soundcheck. It's also possible to do a manual check within the app. It lasts ten years, has a faster, brighter path light, is easier to mount on walls or ceiling, and is 11% smaller than the first-generation alarm. There are battery and wired versions – both cost £109.
Nest Security Cameras
Nest took-over Dropcam in 2014 and a year later the first Nest Cam went on sale – essentially a tweaked and rebranded version of the Drop. Since then, the Nest Cam has hit it's second-generation and we’ve seen two Nest Cam Outdoor versions hit the market as well.
That second-generation camera is still on sale and is now called the Nest Cam Indoor (£159). It, alongside the Nest Cam Outdoor (£179), offers a set of features you’ll find as standard on all Nest security cameras: 24/7 live streaming, 1080p videos, three-hour snapshot history, night vision, motion, and sound alerts, and a talk and listen to function.
The Nest Cam IQ Indoor (£299) and the Nest Cam IQ Outdoor (£329), Nest’s top of the range camera duo, add HD Talk and Listen to the mix for clearer two-way conversations, person alerts (with Familiar face tech learning people over time) and a supersight 4K sensor with HDR, for close-up tracking.
The Indoor version also has Google Assistant built-in – effectively turning it into a Google Home speaker. This feature, which is only in the US right now, takes advantage of the microphone and speaker that handles two-way audio to add Google Assistant functionality. If you subscribe to Nest Aware, the cloud-based service that adds a heft of smart monitoring skills to the mix, you can include stuff like 24/7 recording, sharing of clips and time-lapses, activity zones, and more intelligent alerts.
Nest Hello
Nest Hello is Nests answer to the video doorbell. Connected to your WiFi network, utilising existing doorbell wiring it acts as a normal doorbell but can show you who’s actually at the door via your smart device and now via the Google Smart Home Hub.
If you have a Nest IQ indoor cam, Google's smart assistant will announce any arrival through the camera speaker. Cool! Sadly Alexa wasn’t invited to this particular bit of the party… Not yet anyway. You can however ask Alexa to show you who's at the front door etc.. and, if you have an Echo Show, you will see the (by now slightly irritated) person in question standing waiting patiently for you.
The Nest Hello does require a professional installation and may not be suitable for all houses/flats. Living in Edinburgh, I’m on the 3rd floor of an old victorian block of flats. So unless I dangle a router or extender out the window, it’ll be unlikely that the wifi will stretch downstairs to the street. Although I have been assured that it’s possible to connect the Nest Hello into existing tenement intercom systems, this would be £150 on top of the £229 for the Doorbell itself.
Nest Secure
Nest Secure is a comprehensive alarm system, made up of four different components – Nest Guard, Nest Detect, Nest Tag, and the Nest app. Nest Guard is an alarm hub where you put in your security code, emitting a pleasant chime before your alarm goes off, turning to an ear-crunching siren when you need to be on alert. It works on your home Wi-Fi but also has backup cellular.
Nest Detect is a motion and door sensor you can place around your home, and Nest Tag is an NFC chip that you can use instead of your passcode to deactivate the system when you're leaving or coming home and can be given to trusted relatives. There's a button you can press to activate and deactivate individual Detects, so it won't turn off all the other Detects if the alarm is armed – handy if you just want to take the rubbish out the back door, for example.
You'll get a Nest Guard, two Nest Detects, and two Nest Tags in the Starter pack – $499 Stateside, not out in the UK yet – and you can buy additional Tags and Detects for $25 and $59 a pop.
The Nest app reminds you if you've forgotten to set the alarm when you left, or if you forgot to close a window or door. You can set the alarm to one of the three modes within the app, of course, and it integrates with the Nest Cam IQ Outdoor and Indoor.
Conclusion
So that’s Nest. Or Google.. no.. wait.. uh.. Anyway. Google do have their own ecosystem which, as you’d expect, integrates very nicely with all of the above. I’ve never had any problems with the Nest Protect and I have three of them but some people, particularly with the first generation models, found there were some false alarms. Not so with the current model.
The good thing about Nest as a whole, is that it plays nice with most of the major players, except Apple - Apple’s HomeKit app is terrible. Looks just as bad as it works, which it doesn’t - Rant over. I love Apple products, so don’t think I’m one of those Apple bashers, I’m not.
The Nest ecosystem is a fantastic way to start your smart home revolution. It works brilliantly with Philips Hue products, Belkin, Alexa, Logitech, and almost all other main brands. The home/away function is better than most, as it doesn’t just rely on geofencing. For example, if you have your Logitech Harmony Remote connected, it will use the gyro in the remote as another way of confirming that you’re home or not. Clever stuff.
I’m sure we will see much more from Nest in the future, but for now, it’s a big thumbs up from me.
Visit our website lamedia.co.uk and if you have any questions or simply want to let us know what we missed... e-mail us at louise@lamedia.co.uk or give us a call on 0131 622 0220.
Before we talk about the Amazon Echo Plus, a few words on the previous model. The original Amazon Echo was first introduced to Prime members in November of 2014 and came to everyone else in the UK in September 2016. The Echo Alexa was designed to answer your every beck and call. Whether providing information such as the latest news and weather, adjusting your heating, or controlling your AV system, Amazon’s Echo speaker promised to do it all. And it did. For the most part, but initially relied heavily on third-party apps and hardware for integration into your smart home. Now there is a new generation upon us.
As well as the Dot, there is now an Echo 2, Echo Plus, Echo Show, and Echo Spot. What we’ll focus on here is the Echo Plus. I actually originally got the Echo 2 but swapped it for the Echo Plus. I’ll explain my reasons later. Essentially the Echo Plus looks more or less the same as the original Echo. It now has a 3.5mm output on the back, however. This means you can plug it into more expansive audio systems and have Alexa controlling your existing speaker set-up.
Features
The main difference between the Echo Plus and the original is the built-in smart hub. This means you can connect your Philips Hue lights directly to the Echo Plus. Nice right? There are still some limitations, but I'm fairly sure these will be addressed soon. In fact, Amazon seems to update Alexa at an alarming rate… The dawn of Skynet perhaps?
I’ve already found a bath that will run itself... If you already have most of your smart devices set up (like I do) then you probably won’t benefit too much from the built-in Smart Hub. Apart from controlling your home, there are many other thing s Alexa will do for you. The new ‘Drop in’ feature is pretty cool and slightly freaky. When away from home or in the home you can connect to any Alexa device and speak to the (slightly terrified) person at the other end. There’s the music as well… Echo devices come with a limited, reduced price version of Amazon music. I’d recommend upgrading to Amazon Music Unlimited at least.
Sound Quality
This for me is a biggy. I originally bought the Echo 2, but having set it up and so on, wasn’t that impressed with the sound. Lacklustre bass and not very clear highs made this not very impressive to listen to. It was all midrange. I know the Echo range is primarily about Alexa, and that, they do very well. But I wanted at least the best sound I could get whilst enjoying the abilities of Alexa. So I upgraded to the Echo Plus. It’s definitely an improvement. A little more bass (depending on where you’re standing in the room) and much better clarity up high. Plus, I think it looks much better.
Verdict
So in summary… If you’re looking for a good speaker first and smart abilities second, this perhaps isn't for you. Sound quality is not nearly as good as a Sonos One for example. As much as you can plug it into an AV setup, you would be better off getting an Echo Dot for that, which is only £39 at the moment.
I think this makes the most sense in the kitchen. The sound is good enough for most, and the Alexa functionality and voice recognition works very well. Much better than the new Sonos One. Amazon is constantly updating their Alexa skills, so it’s more than likely that any smart devices you have, will work with Alexa. I have the TV/Apple TV - via Logitech's Harmony Hub and controller, Heating - via Nest, all the lights - Philips Hue and various Wemo smart plugs for power-hungry devices all working with Alexa. It takes a bit of faffing around with at the start, but now all works brilliantly.
Would I recommend this? Yes, I would. Great for the kitchen, and if this is your first foray into Alexa, you’ll have countless hours of enjoyment asking her ridiculous and useful things. At this point, Alexa is definitely the best smart assistant out there and in the Echo Plus, she is at her best.
Visit our website lamedia.co.uk and if you have any questions or think we got something wrong or simply want to let us know what we missed... e-mail us at louise@lamedia.co.uk or give us a call on 0131 622 0220