NiniaPimp Magazine

MikeBoston from Fort Lauderdale, FL on Sep.302011

I purchased 2 Ecobee thermostats for my home in FL. I travel a great deal and the home is often empty for weeks at a time.

I installed both units myself (two stage cooling, auxilliary electric heat, dehumidifier). The first took about an hour and a half, the second took 30 – 40 minutes. The toughest part was determining what type of heating/cooling equipment I had as it all came with a new home purchase.

Both units fired up immediately and had no trouble connecting to the Ecobee servers. The web interface is great for changing settings and montioring usage.

The best is the iPhone/iPad app. Now I can adjust the thermostat while I’m still on the plane flying into FLL. No more walking into a stuffy hot house.

It has been 4 months since installation and my utility bills have dropped about 6 – 7%.

Originally posted at Buzzillions.com (legalese)

Ecobee Internet Enabled Smart Thermostat – EB-STAT-02
CLICK HERE TO SEE PRODUCT DEMO Ecobee Internet Enabled Smart Thermostat – EB-STAT-02 Ecobee helps homeowners conserve energy, save money and reduce their environmental impact. Our green automation platform sits at the convergence of energy conservation, green technology, the networked home and …

Submitted by:

csamayoa

Incorrect source or offensive?

• ‘); return false;” href=”http://www.smiletagth.is”Tag This With Your Smile
• Copy paste this:
  a href=”http://failblog.org/2011/08/19/epic-fail-photos-iphone-5gs-fail/?utm_source=embedutm_medium=webutm_campaign=sharewidget”img class=’event-item-lol-image’ src=’http://ninjapimp.com/wp-content/plugins/rss-poster/cache/209f8_epic-fail-photos-iphone-gs-fail.jpg’ alt=”epic fail photos – iPhone 5GS FAIL” title=”epic fail photos – iPhone 5GS FAIL” height=”610px” width=”460px” //abr /see more a href=”http://failblog.org?utm_source=embedutm_medium=webutm_campaign=sharewidget”funny videos, and check out our Yo Dawg lols!/a

This fail picture or video was posted on Friday, August 19th, 2011 at 9:00 am

All in all, the picture was satisfactory for casual viewing and significantly better and brighter than what you get from many smaller pico projectors, which simply don’t offer the same brightness capabilities. However, because the resolution isn’t all that high, the picture was definitely soft compared with what you’d get from even an entry-level 720p LCD TV. (The problem with a projector–especially non-HD ones–is that the larger the image you project, the softer the image gets).

Another caveat: the Neo-i doesn’t support 1080p input. However, 480i, 480p, 720p, and 1080i will work just fine. (It’s not a big deal for a non-HD projector, but it did cause us some confusion when we first hooked up our Blu-ray player, which had been set at 1080p.)

The Blu-ray image we projected was sharper than the picture from the digital copies we had on our iPhone. But though the difference was noticeable, it wasn’t huge. To be clear, when you project a Blu-ray disc with this projector, you are not projecting an HD image. It’s more like watching a DVD or perhaps a slight step down, especially as you go bigger with your image.

We didn’t expect the world from the built-in speakers and we can’t say they sound all that great (most TV speakers will deliver superior sound). But the speakers played loud enough to hear dialogue clearly enough, which is important–and a big step up from the muted sound you get from virtually all pico projectors.

Conclusion
In the end, we came away liking the Neo-i, and appreciated the convenience of the iPod/iPhone dock integrated into the unit, which is a big plus and the future of these types of “portable” projectors.

As for its value, the key question is how you plan on using it. Optoma sees it as an entertainment projector rather than a business projector, and it might have some appeal for dorm room use and trips with the kids to spots where you don’t have access to a TV but do have access to power. You could potentially use this as a bedroom or playroom projector, but with LCD TVs coming down in price, you’d get a better picture for the money from a 37- or 40-inch LCD set.

For those trying to choose between this model and Optoma’s PK301–which we consider one of the best pico projectors out there right now–that projector is obviously much smaller and is truly a pocket projector. We also like its simple, black design better.

Those pluses aside, the PK301′s built-in speakers are really tiny and don’t output nearly as much sound as the Neo-i’s speakers do. Also, to hook up your iPhone or iPod, you have to attach an optional AV cable, which is kind of pain (the PK301 has a microSD card slot and built-in media software, so it’s better to play your content off a memory card).

In the final analysis, the Neo-i clearly delivers a better projection experience than the PK301, but it is more of a full-size projector that doesn’t include a battery-powered option right out of the box.

Before buying this, I’d say you really should think about how you might use it. You can connect a computer to it, but it’s really designed first and foremost to be used with an iPhone or iPod. It won’t replace the picture quality of an LCD TV, but it is an acceptable substitute–at least on a temporary basis.

Previous page

Design and features
The Jays A-Jays Four headphones are almost the exact same design as the A-Jays Three set we gave a positive review last year, but the $70 Four pair adds a remote on the cord that gives you the power to skip, change, stop, and play tracks on your iOS device. They’re $10 cheaper than the flimsy Apple In-Ears and we recommend the A-Jays Fours to anyone shopping for a replacement.

The A-Jays Four headphones are the ideal marriage of sartorial design and executive professionalism, so they don’t scream for attention like the multicolored Radius Atomic Bass buds. Instead, the silver and black color scheme matches the iPhone 4 and the “fettuccine”-style flat cable is coated in rubber to prevent it from tangling in your pocket or purse.

The headphone cord is longer than average and measures 45 inches, or slightly more than 3 inches longer than the cord on the stock Apple earbuds. The extra material means less drag if you decide to leave your player in your pocket, purse, or backpack. Finally, the A-Jays Fours feature a new silver-plated L-shaped plug reinforced in rubber that puts less stress on the plug and prevents bending.

The in-line remote control sits almost 6 inches down from the right earbud and we appreciate its unobtrusive, lightweight design since we often complain about bulky remotes that pull and create tension on the bud. One side of the remote has three buttons that you can use for a variety of features–we assume most of you will press them once or twice to play, pause, advance, rewind, and control the volume levels, but you can also fast-forward and perform in-call commands. The complete set of controls works flawlessly with an iPhone 4, but 3G users can only play, pause, and rewind with no volume manipulation.

The iPhone 4 also lets you use the A-Jays Fours to call contacts and access your music with voice commands; click to the Jays remote instructions for more detailed controls.

The back of the remote has a small hole that houses the silicon microphone that picks up your voice when you use the headphones for voice calls or commands, but the 360-degree pickup means you don’t need to hold the piece up to your mouth to isolate the sound of your voice. Call quality is standard for a pair of wired headphones, and our test call recipient reported no problem maintaining a conversation, even on a busy avenue in New York.

The A-Jays Four headphones come with a hard case that slides out to reveal a detailed instruction manual and four sets of silicone sleeves, making five total earbud covers including the pair that comes already installed. The A-Jays Fours are just earbuds like the ones that come with your iOS device, so the rubbery silicone sleeves are supposed to sit snugly inside your ears. If you want a more isolating listening experience and are comfortable with rubber inserts deep in your canal, check out the Etymotic hf5 series, but keep in mind you’ll also pay double the price.

Performance
That said, we continue to experience the same fit issues with the awkward circular shape of the A-Jays earbud covers that we did with the A-Jays Three headphones. We found ourselves constantly switching between the sizes, which range from XXS to L, and still couldn’t find a comfortable option. We also couldn’t wear them for more than half an hour before experiencing discomfort that required slight adjustments. Additionally, the earpieces themselves aren’t very wide and sit almost flush with your outer ear flange, so you may experience additional discomfort depending on your ear shape.

If you experience such discomfort with the A-Jays Four earphones, we recommend the Monster Cable Gel and Foam SuperTips that we tested with the Monster Mobile Jamz; they’re compatible and provide a better overall fit. As always, we strongly advocate an oval tip like the ones included with the Klipsch Image S4i earphones, although the price jump is significant.

We tested the sound quality of the A-Jays Fours with an iPhone 4 and a variety of different MP3s and came away merely satisfied with the sound quality. As stated earlier, you can get a much more powerful upgrade in fidelity with a pair of in-ear canal earbuds, but the A-Jays Threes are slightly lacking in bass boost. With the iPhone equalizer turned off, the sound design is more suited for loud music like hip-hop, rock, and club hits, whereas jazz and classical fans may be disappointed by its lack of aural definition. That said, the A-Jays Four earphones are certainly an upgrade from the stock pair included with all the iOS devices, and you won’t be disappointed if you’re making that jump here.

Hide Review

The LG HBM-235 doesn’t have that many features. You get the usual answering, ending, and rejecting calls, and there’s also last-number redial, call-waiting support, auto reconnect, battery status alert, and the ability to transfer calls from the headset to the phone and vice versa. For such a cheap headset, we’re happy to see that the HBM-235 has multipoint, which lets it connect to two devices simultaneously.

We paired the LG HBM-235 with the Apple iPhone 4. Call quality was acceptable at best, but that’s normal for such an affordable headset. Callers sounded all right, with decent clarity and volume. However, we detected quite a bit of static hiss on our end. Callers also had no problems hearing us, as long as we were in a relatively quiet environment. The HBM-235 doesn’t perform very well in environments with even the slightest bit of noise. For example, we tried it out in the CNET office, and callers could clearly detect the clacking of keyboards in the background. Callers also said our voice quality was rather harsh, hollow, and not as natural as they would have liked.

The HBM-235 has a rated battery life of 8 hours of talk time and 12.5 days of standby time.

Previous page

   Want to become a nudist? There’s an app for that.

   The American Association of Nude Recreation in Kissimmee has a free “Nakation” app on iPhone as part of a social-media push to keep nearly 50,000 members connected and to share news, OrlandoSentinel.com reports.

   So far, it’s been downloaded 800 times since it debuted a month ago. However, anyone looking for nudity via the app is going to be disappointed. “Almost anything we do that goes out to the general public, including brochures. … We do not want to offend anyone by using full-frontal nudity,” said a representative of the group.