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This Old House: From a low-tech flue damper to a high-tech HD video doorbell, these 14 products put you in control of your environment
6 comments:
Daniel S
said...
There are some very interesting and some not so interesting tools featured in this article. The three that I think are the most intriguing and interesting are the battery powered nailer, the smart measure smart phone thing, and the collapsible work table. Starting with the battery powered nailer. If they can function as well as their air powered equivalents, I’m all for it. The most important feature of these new tools is that they accept batteries from other cordless tool systems. I’m not sure how much use I would the Smart Measure Pro for theater applications, but I think it is a great idea. On a site survey, it could quickly give you a somewhat accurate picture of a space and how much flooring and other materials you would need. I think the portable worktable is a fantastic idea if it works as well as advertised. This would be a great addition to any outdoor theater, summer stock theater, or any shop with limited space. Hell, I might buy one for myself.
I have read an article like this before and it really isn’t anything new. I’m sure Brinno has improved on the durability and the quality of the picture. But other than that this isn’t really anything to spectacular. $264 is really steep for a product like this and I would like to see something that is a little more portable. For that kind of money I would rather but a go pro and mount it to my wall. The configuration looks very permanent and I don’t think I would have a need for constant surveillance. One little thing that I really don’t like about the product is the fish eye that is put on the lens, I know there are programs that can take out that element but I really think it manipulates in a poor way and it is impossible to completely remove it. Again this product is not for me but that doesn’t mean you won’t see people rolling through Home Depot with these things in their carts.
If there is a This Old House article you know I will read it. I love This Old House, there is so much to learn from the guys and their website has almost every piece of information you could ever need. I love their lists too. From Tom Silva’s must have tools to the top 10 things to maximize storage in your home. This list is no exception. Every product on this list is super cool. Are a lot of them unnecessary in my opinion? Sure. But they are still cool. I was surprised at how air purifiers are becoming a big thing. That kind of scares me because for air purifiers to be becoming a big thing, our air must be getting less pure. I do not know if this is true but I hope air purifiers do not become a necessity. There is also a new (for the past year) rise in “smart” devices or things that connect to and can be controlled by your cell phone.
Im going to rant for a minute about commercials and advertisements that take advantage of peoples lack of scientific and technical knowledge. Specifically in the commercial for the tank-less water heater. It talks about using grapheme electrodes to heat the water immediately using the resistance properties of water. It seems like the point of these commercials isnt to educate people about how the product actually works, but to say “LOOK, are product has science, and it sciences harder than our competitors product can science.” It’s a legitimate marketing strategy, but do we really need to market to the lowest common denominator, shouldn’t things that we present to the word be candid and something we can possibly learn from? Graphene isnt some magical substance that is going to fix all our problems, at the moment, it just seems to be a hot buzzword. We have known about grapheme and its cool semi-conducting properties for a long time now, but in 2010 a team of scientists was awarded the nobel prize in physics for developing a new way to make it. This commercial has told me as much about how their product actually works and why its better than other products as if they had said “It runs on magic”.
While some of these products seem useful (mainly the battery that sends your phone an alert when its low and the outlet cover that has a USB port) most of them seem kind of gimmicky. For example, the wifi router thing, if you follow the link it gives you to buy it you end up on a Walmart page that tells you very little useful information about it. The majority of what they tell you is that it can be set up in 3 minutes because of how easy to use its touch screen is. Great, that’s much less time than it takes to set up a normal router. In addition to this its not a very good wireless router in the first place, for the same price (or less) you can get traditional routers that are significantly faster and that use up to date internet protocols. But no according to this company those are far too hard for people to set up. I think that’s my main issue with this article, too many of the products fall into the category of things that act as if people couldn’t possibly understand how they work and so they can jack up the price just because its simple and easy to use and not because its actually any good.
That Door-knob Camera/Lock is pretty creepy. I don't really want my house to be able to recognize my face/judge whether people should/should not be let in but I watch too much television and am a little worried about a) cyber-savvy serial killers hacking it or b) a "Smart House" style housekeeper who falls in love with my dad and won't let us leave.
The LED bulb/Wireless repeater is pretty cool, but at $50 each, which is almost twice the cost of a normal LED bulb, it's kind of hard to justify more than one, and then your lightbulbs aren't all the same, which, unless carefully color-temperature controlled, would drive me insane. The fan is cool because hiding fan motors between floor joists is a genius idea, but the fan itself is ugly as sin. And having a flue-blocker that is made of wool sounds like a horrendously unsafe idea. I was kind of unclear as to whether you were supposed to take the blocker out of the chimney every time you lit the fire, but even then, it would be supremely easy to forget to take it out. I know wool is harder to burn than cotton, but still....
6 comments:
There are some very interesting and some not so interesting tools featured in this article. The three that I think are the most intriguing and interesting are the battery powered nailer, the smart measure smart phone thing, and the collapsible work table. Starting with the battery powered nailer. If they can function as well as their air powered equivalents, I’m all for it. The most important feature of these new tools is that they accept batteries from other cordless tool systems. I’m not sure how much use I would the Smart Measure Pro for theater applications, but I think it is a great idea. On a site survey, it could quickly give you a somewhat accurate picture of a space and how much flooring and other materials you would need. I think the portable worktable is a fantastic idea if it works as well as advertised. This would be a great addition to any outdoor theater, summer stock theater, or any shop with limited space. Hell, I might buy one for myself.
I have read an article like this before and it really isn’t anything new. I’m sure Brinno has improved on the durability and the quality of the picture. But other than that this isn’t really anything to spectacular. $264 is really steep for a product like this and I would like to see something that is a little more portable. For that kind of money I would rather but a go pro and mount it to my wall. The configuration looks very permanent and I don’t think I would have a need for constant surveillance. One little thing that I really don’t like about the product is the fish eye that is put on the lens, I know there are programs that can take out that element but I really think it manipulates in a poor way and it is impossible to completely remove it. Again this product is not for me but that doesn’t mean you won’t see people rolling through Home Depot with these things in their carts.
If there is a This Old House article you know I will read it. I love This Old House, there is so much to learn from the guys and their website has almost every piece of information you could ever need. I love their lists too. From Tom Silva’s must have tools to the top 10 things to maximize storage in your home. This list is no exception. Every product on this list is super cool. Are a lot of them unnecessary in my opinion? Sure. But they are still cool. I was surprised at how air purifiers are becoming a big thing. That kind of scares me because for air purifiers to be becoming a big thing, our air must be getting less pure. I do not know if this is true but I hope air purifiers do not become a necessity. There is also a new (for the past year) rise in “smart” devices or things that connect to and can be controlled by your cell phone.
Im going to rant for a minute about commercials and advertisements that take advantage of peoples lack of scientific and technical knowledge. Specifically in the commercial for the tank-less water heater. It talks about using grapheme electrodes to heat the water immediately using the resistance properties of water. It seems like the point of these commercials isnt to educate people about how the product actually works, but to say “LOOK, are product has science, and it sciences harder than our competitors product can science.” It’s a legitimate marketing strategy, but do we really need to market to the lowest common denominator, shouldn’t things that we present to the word be candid and something we can possibly learn from? Graphene isnt some magical substance that is going to fix all our problems, at the moment, it just seems to be a hot buzzword. We have known about grapheme and its cool semi-conducting properties for a long time now, but in 2010 a team of scientists was awarded the nobel prize in physics for developing a new way to make it. This commercial has told me as much about how their product actually works and why its better than other products as if they had said “It runs on magic”.
While some of these products seem useful (mainly the battery that sends your phone an alert when its low and the outlet cover that has a USB port) most of them seem kind of gimmicky. For example, the wifi router thing, if you follow the link it gives you to buy it you end up on a Walmart page that tells you very little useful information about it. The majority of what they tell you is that it can be set up in 3 minutes because of how easy to use its touch screen is. Great, that’s much less time than it takes to set up a normal router. In addition to this its not a very good wireless router in the first place, for the same price (or less) you can get traditional routers that are significantly faster and that use up to date internet protocols. But no according to this company those are far too hard for people to set up. I think that’s my main issue with this article, too many of the products fall into the category of things that act as if people couldn’t possibly understand how they work and so they can jack up the price just because its simple and easy to use and not because its actually any good.
That Door-knob Camera/Lock is pretty creepy. I don't really want my house to be able to recognize my face/judge whether people should/should not be let in but I watch too much television and am a little worried about a) cyber-savvy serial killers hacking it or b) a "Smart House" style housekeeper who falls in love with my dad and won't let us leave.
The LED bulb/Wireless repeater is pretty cool, but at $50 each, which is almost twice the cost of a normal LED bulb, it's kind of hard to justify more than one, and then your lightbulbs aren't all the same, which, unless carefully color-temperature controlled, would drive me insane. The fan is cool because hiding fan motors between floor joists is a genius idea, but the fan itself is ugly as sin. And having a flue-blocker that is made of wool sounds like a horrendously unsafe idea. I was kind of unclear as to whether you were supposed to take the blocker out of the chimney every time you lit the fire, but even then, it would be supremely easy to forget to take it out. I know wool is harder to burn than cotton, but still....
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