STACK #180 Oct 2019

visit stack.com.au

THE SMART HOME

HUB IS WHERE THE HEART IS: While your entertainment devices can be controlled via an app, once all your scenes are set in stone, using a voice-activated smart hub just makes life a lot easier. We centred on three smart display options for this write-up: the Google Nest Hub Max, the Amazon Echo, and the Lenovo Smart Clock. Recently released, the Nest Hub Max features a 10-inch touchscreen, an excellent using a voice- activated smart hub just makes life a lot easier speaker, and a face-tracking camera. The camera can be set up to recognise different members of the family and display information relevant to them, such as personal messages, calendar appointments and meetings, and will follow and track a face with its pivoting camera to keep it in frame during video calls (made through Google Duo). There’s a switch on the back to disable the camera for those concerned with privacy issues. The display is useful for streaming videos (Peppa Pig at breakfast to keep the house from melting down) and whatever you’re watching onscreen can be paused; great for cookery guides. It’s a good place to gallery photos, check the weather, and the local news when travelling. The Nest Cam can also be used as a motion-activated security camera.

Another smart display with a solid all round speaker to boot is the Amazon Echo Show. Like the Nest Hub Max, the Echo Show has a 10-inch touchscreen. It works alongside Apple, Microsoft and even Google, increasing the range of products that can be added at a later date. Syncing to your smart home products is easy, and for video calls where the popular app Skype is used, a digital shutter blocks the camera. Finally, we take a look at the Lenovo Smart Clock – a device designed to keep you smart in the bedroom (although it doesn’t have a camera). You can stream music but you can’t stream video content. With inbuilt Google Assistant, the Lenovo Smart Clock will also give you control of your smart tech. HARMONIOUS CONTROL: The Logitech Harmony Elite remote is the ultimate entertainment solution contained within one handy remote, so you can effectively throw out – if you haven’t already lost them – all the others lying around the house. Using a hub, the remote connects all of your entertainment devices using infrared, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. All of these devices are added via a smartphone app that connects all of your hardware to the

one remote. Similarly, the Harmony Elite can control every smart device you have connected in the house.

68

OCTOBER 2019

jbhifi.com.au