Review: Lutron Caséta In-Wall Dimming Kit is the most elegant HomeKit lighting solution
Apple’s HomeKit feature lets you control “smart” lights with Siri or Apple’s new Home app on iOS 10, and there are generally two ways to make your home lighting more intelligent. You can change your light bulbs to “connected” bulbs that talk to a bridge over Wi-Fi, or you can replace your light switches with “connected” switches that take the same bridge approach.
The Lutron Caséta kit takes the latter approach by replacing your existing light switches with smart switches that make your traditional light bulbs work with Siri. There are notable differences between both approaches including cost and ease-of-setup which I’ll unpack below. And if bells and whistles don’t impress you, Lutron takes the crown for having the most elegant solution to HomeKit lighting with one exception…
Filed under: Apple
Apple will begin selling Sonos wireless speakers online starting today, in stores next month
Sonos wireless speakers have touted Apple Music compatibility in beta since last year and officially since this year, and now Apple is selling Sonos speakers for the first time. Apple’s online store will begin selling the Play:1 ($199) and Play:5 ($499, reviewed) later today, and Apple’s physical stores will carry the two speakers starting October 5.
Filed under: Apple
9to5Toys Lunch Break: APC 6-Outlet UPS System $30, 21-inch Lenovo 1080p Monitor $85, Bluetooth Earbuds $13, more
Keep up with the best gear and deals on the web by signing up for the 9to5Toys Newsletter. Also, be sure to check us out on: Twitter, RSS Feed, Facebook, Google+ and Safari push notifications.
TODAY’S CAN’T MISS DEALS:
APC Gold Box: $30 to backup power your Wifi network during blackouts + $11 high capacity surge protectors
For $85, you can pick up a 21-inch ultra-thin 1080p Lenovo Monitor w/ HDMI input (Reg. $110+)
Smartphone Accessories: Mpow Swift Bluetooth 4.0 Wireless Earbuds $13 Prime shipped (Reg. $18), more
Get Anker’s new Self-Docking Eufy RoboVac 20 for $249 (Reg. $299) + deals on Eufy Air humidifier & desk lamps
Your kid’s first iPhone or for emergencies: New iPhone 5s 16GB Unlocked (OS 10 compatible): $280 shipped
Roundup: The best ultra-thin iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus cases
App Store Free App of the Week: AG Drive racer goes free for the first time (Reg. up to $4)
Apple Store app is your key to the award-winning iOS game INKS for free
Deus Ex Go gets its very first drop on iOS/Android: $2 (Reg. $5)
The Best Console Game Releases for September: BioShock Collection, NBA 2K17, and more
Review: This is Ground’s Mod 3 carries your iPad and accessories in a luxurious leather wrapping [Video]
MORE NEW GEAR FROM TODAY:
Kick the week off with 8TB of Seagate External USB 3.0 Storage for $180 shipped (Reg. $220)
Daily Deals: Toshiba Canvio AeroCast 1TB Wireless Hard Drive $50, Foscam Wireless IP Camera (Refurb) $53, more
- TiVo’s BOLT DVR is arguably the best way to enjoy your shows: 500GB $170, 1TB $244
- Today’s the day to get Red Cross Emergency Lighting/Charger: starting at $15
- Games/Apps: Mirror’s Edge Catalyst $30, Battleborn $20 or less, Osmos $1, more
- Buy a $60 Gift Card for Netflix and get $10 in free Best Buy money
- Best Buy will sell you an Motorola Moto X Pure 32GB Smartphone for $250 (Reg. $330)
- Office Supplies: 36-Pack BIC Round Stic Grip Ball Pens from $3.50, more
MORE DEALS STILL LIVE:
Give your new Apple Watch a Milanese Loop band for a fraction of Apple’s price tag: $8 Prime shipped (Reg. $13)
Twelve South’s TimePorter is the ultimate Apple Watch carrying case, buy it today for $40 Prime shipped (Reg. $50)
Filed under: Apple
Comment: Differential privacy and data collection is still not clearly defined as opt-in on iOS 10
When Apple originally announced the use of differential privacy in iOS 10, it was not without a little controversy. Skeptics from all corners began wondering how private differential privacy could really be when used in a mass deployment in the way that iOS 10 was going to use it.
Apple clarified that the use of differential privacy to collect user data would be opt-in, meaning if a user didn’t want to give into the system they didn’t have to. What Apple never indicated was where this opt-in area would be and what would happen if you decided against it…
Filed under: Apple
Hands-on with the new ceramic Apple Watch Edition Series 2 – unboxing and review [Video]
Today we’re taking a look at the new Apple Watch Edition. This year, Apple switched it up and ditched the all gold models in favor of ceramic. Why ceramic you might ask? Well first off, it’s a heck of a lot cheaper than solid gold, but it’s also four times stronger than stainless steel, which makes it the most scratch resistant Apple Watch available…
Filed under: Apple
Feature Request: Siri’s arrival on Mac makes it all the more important for it to be bilingual
Now that Siri has finally arrived on the Mac, Apple’s intelligent assistant just got a whole lot more useful. But some users are finding that this has only increased their frustration – because the service is unable to cope with more than one language.
Making Siri bilingual might, at first glance, seem an unreasonable request. After all, it’s taken speech recognition a very long time indeed to reliably understand one language at a time. I first tried a prototype system way back in the 1980s, when it was utterly hopeless. I’d try another one every few years, but it’s only in the past seven or eight years that it’s been any good.
But there are many places in the world where it’s extremely common to speak more than one language. In particular, speaking English and a local language is the norm in many countries. Which means that you may well be speaking to Siri in English but asking it to find, for example, a German place. Or speaking to Siri in Dutch but asking it to call someone with an English name …
Filed under: Apple
Plex Cloud beta puts your media server in the cloud using unlimited Amazon Drive storage
Apple developing new Apple Watch sleep tracking and heart rate apps, expansion of HealthKit
Apple has said many times that it sees medical and health initiatives as a big area for expansion in the future. Some of these plans are now actively being developed, according to Bloomberg. Firstly, Apple is working on new sleep tracking and fitness apps for Apple Watch that take advantage of the heart rate sensor for insight.
Apple is yet to offer sleep analysis of any kind in its wearable and its current Heart Rate app in watchOS 3 is very limited. The report says the new heart rate app will be more advanced, measuring a person’s fitness by observing the amount of time it takes for a heartbeat to fall from a peak to resting rate. The company is also apparently exploring ways to dramatically expand the functionality of HealthKit and the Health app …
Filed under: Apple
How to watch and stream tonight’s Clinton/Trump 2016 Presidential debate on Apple TV, iPhone, iPad, Mac & the web
Tonight’s debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump is likely to be the most-watched presidential debate in history. A little background:
The first debate for the 1960 election drew over 66 million viewers out of a population of 179 million, making it one of the most-watched broadcasts in U.S. television history. The 1980 debates drew 80 million viewers out of a 226 million. Recent debates have drawn decidedly smaller audiences, ranging from 46 million for the first 2000 debate to a high of over 67 million for the first debate in 2012.
There’s no shortage of ways to watch the debate, whether that’s on broadcast TV, Apple TV, Mac, iPad or iPhone – here are just a few of them …
Filed under: Apple
Apple’s lack of lobbying presence in Europe left it in dark over tax investigation for two years – WSJ
Apple’s lack of lobbying presence in Europe left in largely in the dark about the long-running investigation into its Irish tax arrangements, argues the WSJ. It has been ruled that Apple underpaid tax in Europe to the tune of €13B ($15B).
Filed under: Apple