AUGUST 2015 - REAL ESTATE & HOME BUILDERS GUIDE - PAGE 5
Review: Household devices Amazon Echo,
D-Link Wi-Fi Smart Plug
Tribune Content Agency
-- July 2, 2015
By Ilyce Glink and
Samuel J. Tamkin,
Tribune Content Agency
With the many new household
devices coming on the market, we
thought our readers might be
interested in some that we have
come across. While we don’t
usually review new housewares,
these were too enticing to pass up.
Amazon Echo
If you’ve heard of it, you’re
probably a techy person. The Echo
is what we would call an
entertainment-information device.
Amazon might not agree with us in
our description, but the cylindrical
device is a combo music system
and computer wrapped up in one.
You can ask it questions (“Alexa,
how many people live in the world
today?”) and play your music from
the device (“Alexa, play jazz
music.”).
We feel that this device might be
best used in the kitchen, which is
where we’ve put ours. Why? If your
hands are full and you’re working
on other things, you can talk to
this device. Tell it what you want.
Ask it questions. Want to know the
time or the weather? Alexa will tell
you.
If you’re used to working on a
computer, the Echo might not be
as interesting, as you can get all
that information by typing. While
it can work as an alarm clock,
we’re not sure how many people
would be interested in telling a
device to wake them up at a
particular time over many other
devices where you simply input the
information.
Since the price for the Echo ranges
from $150 to $180 (depending on
whether you are an Amazon Prime
member), this device is either a toy
for you to play with or an elegant
or useful device to have, but may
not achieve the status of a
necessity.
The sound quality is quite good,
and the voice recognition software
works very well. But there are
limits to what you can do with it. If
you want to know when a flight
might be arriving, you probably
won’t get an answer to that
question. But asking to play a
specific artist’s song should give
you a positive result. Getting pre-
recorded news briefs from NPR or
the BBC is good, but you can’t ask
the device to tell you where the
stock market ended up on the day.
With all these limitations, there is a
market for the Echo but we think
it’s more of a luxury than a
necessity in the home.
D-Link Wi-Fi Smart Plug
This device plugs into the wall. You
then plug in a lamp or another
fixture that you want to program
or control remotely. We used the
plug for several weeks. The plug
was relatively easy to program and
set up, but we feel that you’ll need
some computer knowledge to
know how to get it to work. If
you’re a computer novice, you
might not want to touch it.
You can program a light to turn on
remotely or on a timer basis, but
the software lacks the basic ability
to have the light turn on at dusk
and go off a set time later or at
dawn. So if you’re planning to use
it as a timer, you might want to
stick with a traditional timer.
However, you do have the ability to
control the plug using your smart
phone. We suspect that you might
want to have a light on in your
house if you’re coming in late and
are unsure of what you may
encounter in your home. We think
that’s somewhat of a neat feature
but didn’t find it too useful. If you
are out of town and forget to leave
a light on in your home, you can
remotely turn it on.
At around $50, the device is pricey
for what it does and if you don’t
have a reliable connection to the
device or your Internet cuts in and
out, you’ll find yourself with
frequent messages on your phone
telling you that the device has been
disconnected.
Both the Echo and the Smart Plug
seem to operate by connecting you
to the Internet via your wireless
router. The Echo, too, has the
ability to connect to W-Fi-enabled
devices and turn lights on and off.
That sounds great, but in our
experience
we’ve
been
disappointed by the so-called
“revolutionary
smart
house
electronics” introduced over the
past 20 years. For example, we
tried to test the D-Link Motion
Sensor that sells for around $40,
but we couldn’t ever get it to work.
Even after Sam spent five hours on
the phone with someone from the
company (who was very good, but
still couldn’t get the device to
work), and went through two
devices. And so it goes.
(Ilyce Glink is the creator of an 18-
part webinar+ebook series called
“The Intentional Investor: How to
be wildly successful in real estate,”
as well as the author of many
books on real estate. She also hosts
the “Real Estate Minute,” on her
YouTube channel. Samuel J.
Tamkin is a Chicago-based real
estate attorney. Contact Ilyce and
Sam through her website,
ThinkGlink.com.)
(c) 2015 ILYCE R. GLINK AND
SAMUEL J. TAMKIN.
DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE
CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.