Inspect a gadget: Check out these top home tech gift buys
The AirConsole.
Under-the-stairs is an office; the kitchen is a classroom; the spare bedroom is no longer "spare". The living room is a gym and the wardrobe is packed with all the crisp white shirts, office shoes and other gear we haven’t needed since working from home became the norm.
Space in our homes has been at a premium since lockdown began and all our lives became so much smaller.
Tech companies have been busy coming up with ways to occupy an increasingly larger part of our lives — and ironically one of the ways they do this is with space-saving products.
has just launched two new exciting PicoPix portable projectors.
Typical problems with older style projectors included slightly faded visuals and a fan that made its presence felt throughout a movie.
For these, Philips focused on four key elements for an immersive experience: ease of use from the initial setup to everyday use, minimal fan noise, a great image and perfect sound for an immersive experience.
They say: "The fan speed is now controlled by a special algorithm made to optimise the speed, reduce the noise by 20% and protect the projector's core components.
The image and sound have been fine-tuned by cinema professionals and acoustic engineers to deliver an immersive experience in a small and pocket-friendly design.”
The devices themselves are smaller than ever so streaming and gaming fans should be pleased — and they come in three colours, red, blue and black.
The PicoPix Max One has a five-hour battery so you could easily move from the bedroom to the living room for example if a "dance class" or Fortnite session has the space booked when you’re just halfway through a Netflix binge.
The PicoPix Max is €749.99 at stores such as DID Electrical and Harvey Norman.
is a cloud-based video game console that is accessible from through your home’s web browser or Android TV.
You use your smartphone as gamepads — no additional hardware is required. And there’s a library of 160 games across a variety of genres.
These include QuickMinds (Trivia), Silly Run Valley, YouTube Jukebox Party App, Tower of Babel, and Cards Against Humanity.
There’s a monthly or yearly subscription — but keep an eye out for free lockdown offers.
A decent pair of wireless headphones is a must for any workout.
These are a discreet and stylish option with a high waterproof rating, which means they should survive the most gruelling of regimes. They also feature active noise cancelling, with smart ambient technology available to keep wearers in the loop with their surroundings. Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa can also be called upon at the touch of a button.
These come in black, white, and an attractive deep blue colour.
From uk.jbl.com — and JBL products such as speakers and headphones generally available in [url=
https://www.currys.ie/ieen/index.html]Currys.ie[/url], at harveynorman.ie and at littlewoodsireland.ie
Whether you’re lifting weights in your home gym or just participating in a morning yoga session, a fitness tracker logging your data can be so handy.
Polar's Unite watch offers guided daily workouts, sleep and heart rate monitoring and sport-specific tracking for 100 different activities, including running, cycling, swimming and yoga.
Available in lime, blush, pink, plum, blue, black and white.
From around €150 from Polar.com or there is a range of fitness watches from stockists such as John Buckley Sports on Mulgrave Road in Cork or The Edge Sports.
don’t really come with the clunky motor any more.
These are more discreet and stylish so you save space and can still tackle a cycle commute with ease — whizz to meetings or simply potter to the shops without breaking into a sweat, and some of these latest models fold down too.
Check out the Raleigh, Gocycle and Kreidler ranges at places such as greenaer.ie in Dublin, Mullingar and Cork’s Monahan Road and City View Wheels cityviewwheels.com on Blarney Street in Cork.
Leaks — or 'escape of water' — account for more than 40% of all insurance claims in homes around the world and can cause catastrophic property damage and disruption.
The Smartzone Flowsafe Smart Water Valve is water monitoring technology.
The Smartzone Flowsafe Smart Water Valve is fully integrated as a part of their intelligent smart whole-home solution taking data not just from the Flowsafe, but also from all the other sensors in the home.
This Flowsafe Smart Water Valve enables advanced water analytics that will identify leaks in real-time, alert you immediately, and if necessary turn off the water to prevent water damage.
The high-tech part of it can be used obviously to monitor leaks if you're not home but it can also identify water usage rates and help you target usage peaks, allowing you cut down on water wastage — whether it's your luxury bath or the teenager 'forgetting' they're in the shower while gallons of hot water pump down the drain.
Actually, Smartzone chief executive, Justin McInerney has a theory about this — he reckons that music streaming apps (we won't name any in particular) are contributing to water wastage! It's easier to while away long periods in the shower if your favourite tunes are belting out.
There's also an optional security element to this product as an elderly or unwell relative's water usage could give a tip-off that they haven't been up and about yet today.
smartzone.ie is in Southside Business Park, Cork
There are plenty of households where pets are as, if not more, valued members as some humans.
But contrary to what we might have once thought, tail wagging doesn’t always guarantee that a dog is happy.
A Japanese startup called Langualess (the name comes from a merge of "language" and "less") has come up with a wearable harness that will indicate if they’re happy or sad by analysing variations in their heart rate.
Langualess CEO, Kana Yamairibata, says he wants a world where communication between humans and animals is more open, for example some signals, like tail wagging, can be interpreted as happiness but sometimes it’s just interest.
Apparently the harness can tell you if your dog is relaxed, excited, happy, interested or stressed. It changes colour based on their mood. And when you use the app, you can track your dog’s moods over time and watch for trends or you could compare with friends’ pets. The harness comes in a range of sizes and is charged using a micro USB. It is compatible with iOS and Android devices with Bluetooth 4.0 or higher.
Get this from inupathy.com/en/ if you literally have much money — or just take your dog for a brisk walk in a woods or on a beach and you'll know your pet is happy.
A happy owner might help make for a happy pet. And eliminating the chore of the litter tray might boost any cat owner’s happiness.
The Litter Robot 3 Connect could be a great, albeit pricey, addition to a cat lover's household. It’s a large orb-shaped litter tray which is loaded with sensors that automatically scoop and clean out dirty litter after it's been used by your cat. It's wifi enabled
The internal tray rotates after use — only coming to life when it senses your cat has left the tray — effectively sieving out dirty litter which is disposed into a box beneath the main tray, which can then be emptied out.
This is the most high-tech option and costs from €550 but there are also toys and cat pyramids and cat shelves.
Glossy hair on the wishlist? For yourself, not the pets this time, now.
Maybe the is the key — particularly if a hairdresser appointment is tricky to get at the moment.
If you’ve ever been in a hurry and wielded the hairdryer on full blast then the fluffy, dry mess that results will haunt you. The RevAir literally aims to put this problem in reverse. The science behind it is that too much heat can damage your hair in no time so this is a reverse air hairdryer. Basically, you feed your long hair into a long hose and the dryer uses ‘reverse air suction technology’ to suck the moisture out. Kind of a like a hoover for your hair.
It apparently uses less heat and energy than a standard hairdryer. It comes with a fair few extras too — hair ties, grips, a turban and a spray bottle, as well as a storage bag.
Pricey at approx €350 from myrevair.co.uk
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
