When it comes to brightness, the key ingredient for punchy HDR, Vizio’s P65-F1 smart TV nearly matches Samsung’s QN65Q9F, a TV that costs nearly three times as much. And yes, I said TV. Unlike last year’s P-Series displays, this year’s have over-the-air tuners onboard.

This year’s models also feature a slightly wider color palette and brighter array backlighting. What seemingly hasn’t changed is the image processing. Add new backlighting artifacts to some holdover issues with moiré and anti-aliasing, and one might argue that last year’s picture was actually better.

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Vacuum bags, containers, and dustbins share a common flaw: They tend to release dirt and dust into the air when you detach and empty them. Much of that dirt and dust settles back on the surfaces you just cleaned. For allergy and asthma sufferers, this is more than an annoyance—it can trigger an attack that can make performing this household chore a risky proposition.

Oreck’s POD Technology addresses this problem with a self-sealing and disposable container that locks in dust and debris, so it doesn’t escape into the air when you remove it from the cordless vacuum. Instead of emptying the pod into the trash can, you drop the whole thing in and replace it with a fresh one for your next vacuuming. Oreck sells a pack of five refill PODs for $15.

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I'm always skeptical about nostalgia-branded products, including Bluetooth speakers modeled after famous guitar amps. But I found myself quite liking the $300 Marshall Kilburn II. I like its simplicity; I like its sound, which is well above average; I like its rugged construction; and I like the comfortable carrying handle. All that said, I'd like it more if it were a bit cheaper.

Down memory lane

The Marshall Kilburn II measures approximately 10 inches wide, 6 inches high, and 5 inches deep, and it weighs around 5.5 pounds. It differs a bit in appearance from its predecessor. The first Kilburn's tweed speaker cover goes hand in hand with the Marshall image, where the Kilburn II has a more practical metal grill. I think the new model looks even better. And in the end, the Tolex covering, the protective corner pieces, and the Marshall logo do the trick. The speaker fairly shouts Marshall stack! Okay, Marshall combo amp.

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My first impression on taking delivery of the iMovR ZipLift Patriot standing desk converter was “Yay! I don’t have to put it together!” Assembling the Evodesk XE Pro desk that I reviewed early this year was a genuine pain in the neck. But after living with the Patriot for several weeks, I’ve concluded that it’s no better—or worse—than the Evodesk, it’s just different.

The biggest difference, and I consider it to be in favor of the Evodesk, is that the Patriot operates on a mechanical lift where the Evodesk has a motorized lift. The Evodesk’s motor not only makes it easy to position the desk at a precise height, it also enables the desk to reach a lower position on your existing desk. That’s important, because you can’t adjust the height of that surface. 

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As the seasons change, there's no better time to add some convenience to your home's temperature control. But smart thermostats can be pricy, with our top pick, the Ecobee4, coming in at well over $200. Today, though, you can get similar model for a lot less: the Ecobee3 Lite is just $139, down from a list price of $169Remove non-product link and an all-time low.

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Even if you’re the most well-informed cord-cutter, you’ve probably never heard of Omniverse One World Television.

This Kansas City-based company appears to be behind a wave of little-known streaming TV services, including SkyStream, VivaLive TV, TikiLive TV, NKT.TV, ExchangeVue, Flixon TV, and Milo TV. These services all cost between $30 and $35 per month, they all stream similar lineups of live cable channels—among them ESPN, HGTV, FX, and CNN—onto a variety of devices, and in some cases, their sign-up sites are nearly identical.

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Canadian manufacturer Bluesound makes some big audiophile claims for its Pulse Soundbar and Pulse Sub. Based on my experience with these speakers, those claims are valid. With all due respect to the competition, the build quality for both speakers is head and shoulders above average. Think high-performance luxury car versus run-of-the-mill econobox. 

The Pulse Soundbar is among the beefiest soundbars I’ve reviewed. The 42.25 x 5.5 x 2.75-inch speaker weighs in at a hefty 15 pounds. Furthermore, there’s a noticeably dense feel to the soundbar when you hold it, thanks to an aluminum enclosure and a metal grille that’s in stark contrast to the plastic shells gracing much of the competition. The speaker is available in black (as my review unit was) or white, but the white finish will cost you another C-note.

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You don’t need to live in a smart home to benefit from a Wi-Fi-connected smart speaker. Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri, Cortana, and other digital assistants can help you in dozens of ways, and you don’t have to lift a finger to summon them—just speak their names. If you already know you want a smart speaker, scroll down for our top recommendations. 

But consider your decision carefully. In a perfect world, these devices would be interoperable, so you could buy one brand because it’s better for music, another brand because it’s the best for smart home control, and a third because it’s superior for retrieving general information from the internet. That’s not how it works in the real world. Once you commit to one platform, you’ll want to stick with it.

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Google surprised everyone at CES last January when it announced partnerships with various companies, including computer builder Lenovo and home-audio stalwart JBL, to build Google Assistant-powered smart speakers with touchscreens. Lenovo, a company with no real experience building home audio gear, came to market first with the Lenovo Smart Display (we reviewed the 10-inch model and liked it—a lot). The JBL Link View is even better—at least from an audio perspective.

The JBL Link View competes more directly with the 8-inch Lenovo Smart Display, which Lenovo was kind enough to loan for a look-see. It should come as no surprise that the biggest difference between the two speakers is that JBL provides true stereo drivers and a 5-inch, rear-mounted passive radiator that pumps the bass even when the speaker isn’t placed against a wall (the better to bounce sound back toward you). Lenovo uses a single monophonic driver, and while its designers did put two front-mounted passive radiators in the Smart Display, that speaker doesn’t deliver quite the same low-end impact.

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Vacuuming is one of the most loathed household chores. While it doesn’t come with the ick factor of cleaning the toilet or the tedium of dusting, pushing and dragging a noisy, cumbersome vacuum is its own kind of torture. No wonder most of us only break it out the bare-minimum-recommended once a week.

It’s no shocker, then, that robot vacuums are all the rage. There are no unwieldy cords or hoses to contend with, and they require little effort from you: You can run one from your couch using a physical remote or smartphone app. They easily dispose of the most common household detritus—food crumbs, pet hair, dust—making them ideal for routine maintenance and quick cleanings when you’re expecting company.

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Major League Baseball has placed more hurdles in front of cord cutters than any of the four professional sports leagues. It has made baseball broadcasts the exclusive province of cable/satellite networks, even for your local teams. Add to that the league’s draconian blackout policies, and the prospect of watching the Grand Old Game without a pricey TV subscription seems as reachable as a Clayton Kershaw slider.

It doesn’t get much easier come October. This year’s postseason games will air nationally across five networks: Fox, Fox Sports 1 (FS1), ESPN, TBS, and Major League Baseball Network (MLBN); all but the first are cable/satellite channels you can’t tune into with a TV antenna. Fortunately, with some combination of over-the-air and over-the-top options, you can still watch virtually every at-bat from the Wild Card round to the World Series. Here’s how.

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Any new parent will tell you how important a video baby monitor is for keeping an eye on your child when you're in another room. The choices can be overwhelming, however, but we've already done all of the testing for you and our top pick, the Arlo Baby smart video monitor, is on sale today for $170Remove non-product link, $30 off and the lowest price we've seen.

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Roku is expanding its streaming video player line up with a 4K player that is half the price of its current 4K offering. The Roku Premiere will launch ahead of the year-end shopping season when 4K TVs are likely to be big sellers.

Despite consumer adoption of 4K screens, over-the-air, cable, and satellite 4K TV channels are still few and far between. Roku's device will enable users to stream the increasing amount of 4K video that's available online. Earlier this year, for example, Fubo TV streamed World Cup games in 4K.

Roku Premiere

The Premiere is a small unit designed to sit alongside a television. It supports 4K and 4K HDR content (in HDR-10 format; there's no support for Dolby Vision).

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Robot vacuums equipped with mapping offer a host of advantages over sensor-driven models. Their high price tags, however, can be a deterrent, especially if you’re not yet sold on automating this household chore. Enter the Ecovacs Deebot 901, which fills a needed niche. It's a robot vacuum with premium features like floor mapping and Google Home and Amazon Alexa voice control, yet it's priced for more modest budgets.

The Deebot 901 sports the same circular design and black-and-gray color scheme as virtually every other robot vacuum. It measures 13.9 x 13.9 x 3.3 inches, with about an inch or   so of its overall height coming from the LDS (laser distance sensor) turret that sits atop the vacuum’s rear. A lid on the vacuum’s surface flips up to reveal an on/off switch, reset button, and the 901’s dustbin.

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Apple is dropping the Back To My Mac remote access feature, and in a recent support document they urge you to be prepared by looking for alternatives.

RemotePC by iDrive is a full-featured remote access solution that lets you connect to your work or office computer securely from anywhere, and from any iOS or Android device. Right now, their 50 computer package is 90% off or just $6.95 for your 1st year. So if you need an alternative to Back To My Mac, or have been thinking about remote access, now is a good time to consider RemotePC. Learn more about it here.

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Some speakers are criticized for their overt personality, for exaggerated (or undernourished) tonal characteristics that can misrepresent the music. But it’s hard to imagine anyone taking Q Acoustics to task for what they’ve wrought with the personable 3020i bookshelf speakers. These speakers' special distinction is a focus on soundstage optimization and unwavering clarity that serves almost every musical master exceedingly well, from classical to folk, rock to hip hop to jazz.

These speakers will send you running for your favorite recordings, so you can hear what nuances will be revealed. They imbue studio performances with such presence, depth, and bounce as to create a sort of sonic hologram that pinpoints musicians’ spatial placement in the mix, not just in the horizontal plane but also forward and aft, high and low. And it all comes from an attractive package that positively oozes quality at an almost unbelievably low price: Just $299. For the pair.

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The last month has been interesting for cord-cutters who want to combine free over-the-air broadcasts with live streaming cable channels.

First, SiliconDust launched a $35-per-month bundle of channels that integrate with its HDHomeRun tuner box and DVR service. And now, AirTV has added DVR support to its own $120 networked tuner box, which streams over-the-air channels into the existing Sling TV app on devices like Roku and Amazon Fire TV. Because Sling TV has not aggressively pursued live local broadcasts in its Sling Orange or Sling Blue streaming packages (both $25 per month), using an antenna fills in the gaps while keeping costs down.

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Everyone has their own morning routine. Some of us go for a run, others get the kids ready for school, some just want to know if it will be smooth sailing during their rush-hour commute. The weather can throw a monkey wrench into any of those plans.

Owning a personal weather station is one way to stay on top of mother nature. Yes, you can open an app, but the information there is from a remote station miles away and up to an hour old. With a home weather station, you get up-to-minute information on what she’s up to doing right outside your door.

We've performed extensive evaluations on a number of home weather stations and picked our favorites. We'll also discuss the features you should look for when shopping for one of these systems. 

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The first locks date back more than a thousand years, and while traditional lock-and-key systems have improved over time, the basic mechanism hasn’t really changed: A piece of metal that is just the right shape pushes pins inside a lock into the proper position, allowing the lock mechanism to turn. As a society, it’s been tough to replace a system that has worked reasonably reliably for literally a millennium.

Are smart locks really better?

You can thank the hospitality industry for finally pushing locks into the digital age. Hotels learned long ago that keys are easily lost, expensive to replace, and simple to bypass, as thieves can pick locks or simply make copies of a key to allow for unfettered future access. On the flipside, hotel guests have readily accepted key cards (and in some cases, smartphone-based solutions) as the primary means of getting into their room. The electronic solution is just so much simpler. Lost hotel key card? Replacing it is no big deal.

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Amazon's Fire 7 tablet is just $35 for Prime members today—$15 off its list price and the lowest it's been since last holiday season. It's a killer deal on one of the most popular tablets out there. If you're not a Prime member, you can sign up for a free trial here.

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Technology has enabled TVs to become ever flatter, thinner, and lighter, but it can’t overcome the laws of physics when it comes to audio. Filling a room with sound requires substantial speakers that can move a lot of air, and those types of speakers just won’t fit inside a thin TV chassis. That’s where soundbars come in.

We’ll explain all the latest soundbar technology, show you the most important features you should look for, and name our top picks in budget, mid-range, and high-end categories. We’ll also provide links to all our reviews of soundbars currently on the market, so you can find exactly the right one for your needs.

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LifeShield, which was part of DirecTV from 2013 to 2017, is now an independent operation. As such, it has gone all-in on home security as a service. You’re not buying a home security system here, you’re signing a term contract in which you agree to pay a monthly fee to use a professionally monitored home security system. This is intended to be a turnkey operation, so it’s best to consider carefully before you lock in to the three-year contract. That goes double since the equipment must be returned if you don’t renew the contract.

LifeShield offers two basic setups: a limited Security Essentials kit for $29.95 per month, and the more extensive kit reviewed here, called Security Advantage, for $39.95 per month. The main difference is that the Security Advantage kit includes cloud-based video monitoring, while the Security Essentials kit does not.

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Whether you rent or own, you want the best security camera system for keeping an eye on your home while you’re gone. That used to entail signing on with a professional—and pricey—security service like ADT. But a boom in consumer-level smart-home tech is putting indoor and outdoor home surveillance into our own hands.

These close cousins of webcams require minimal installation and offer flexible setups and a range of security features. Indeed, the offerings vary widely by camera, and deciding what to buy gets more daunting as this category grows ever more crowded. But whether you’re looking for an easy way to check on your kids and pets, or a full-service sentinel to monitor for intruders, we’ll help find the right product for your needs.

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Vizio’s Home Theater Sound System with Dolby Atmos, model number SB36512-F6,  is a high-value, high-tech soundbar that delivers a taste of immersive audio magic.

This is a 5.1.2 solution, meaning there are left, right, and center drivers--plus two front height channels--in the main speaker cabinet; two discrete surround speakers, and a (wireless) subwoofer. Vizio’s approach leans towards the pragmatic, not the aesthetic. The main speaker cabinet measures approximately 36-inches wide, 2.5-inches high, and 3.25-inches deep.

The left and right surround speakers deliver a genuine surround-sound experience that no virtual speakers can match. Measuring around 5.75-inches high, 2.75-inches wide, and 2.5-inches deep, they’re small enough to blend into any room’s décor or even sit on a window sill. These are passive drivers, so they aren’t wireless. You’ll need to connect them to the subwoofer using the RCA-terminated speaker cables Vizio provides. But there really is no such thing as a truly wireless speaker. Unless it runs on batteries, it will need at least a power cord.

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Not too big. Not too small. Just right. That’s a conclusion many shoppers will reach when spotting the JBL Link 300, the mid-range of JBL’s Google Assistant-powered Link smart speaker lineup. Its $250 price tag makes for a reasonable port of entry for anyone looking to build a voice-activated, multi-room audio and home-control system on a miserly budget.

And since this speaker also supports Google’s Chromecast audio technology, the Link 300—and any of its bigger or smaller siblings—can be paired with any other speaker that supports Chromecast. Delivering JBL’s signature “California studio monitor” sound—a warm, realistically fleshed out soundstage and presence with soul and the stamina to crank—the Link 300 outperformed the vaunted Sonos One in many of my listening tests.

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D-Link's Full HD Pan & Tilt Wi-Fi Camera (model DCS-8525LH) is the latest addition to the home networking company's growing stable of security cams. As we’ve come to expect from D-Link, this camera has a strong set of features, but is unfortunately hampered by an often overwhelming app experience.

Design-wise, the DCS-8525LH is a clone of the DCS-5030L pan-and-tilt camera we evaluated a couple of years ago. And like that model, this one’s bulky body and conspicuous antenna won’t blend easily into your home unless your design scheme takes its cues from cold retro-future technology.

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Portable Bluetooth speakers help you bring your tunes along wherever you go, and today you can get a popular option on the cheap. Anker’s SoundCore Bluetooth speaker is just $26Remove non-product link, down from a list price of $80. It’s not an all-time low, but it’s tantalizingly close.

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The best smart thermostat will have an outsize impact not only how comfortable you are in your home, but also on your household budget. Heating and cooling your home accounts for nearly half of the average home’s utility bills, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

A programmable thermostat can help reduce those costs by turning your HVAC system on when you anticipate being home, and off when you don’t think you’ll need indoor climate control. A smart thermostat goes far beyond relying on a simple schedule. It will not only enable you to create more sophisticated schedules for every day of the week, and give you complete control over your HVAC system, even when you’re away from home. We continually test and evaluate smart thermostats and can help you find the right one for your home.

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