All Apple All Day

This blog is about "building an iOS home". That's literally our mission statement. So, Apple's HomeKit would appear to be a necessary building block. Right? Right?

We spent the Thanksgiving holiday with my family in Iowa. Back in Chicagoland, however, things were not going well.

As I wrote in my last post, we recently added MyQ functionality to our Raynor garage door. A week later, the verdict is in - it's great. But not for the reasons you might expect.

I can be a forgetful guy. The good news is, I'm aware of that fact, and can compensate. Most of the time, that just means that I have to be extra-vigilant. Which means I'm constantly checking and re-checking to make sure the doors are locked, that there's nothing left on my schedule for the day, and so on. But I'm tired of checking the garage door. It's time to get a MyQ iOS garage door control.

I know it's been a while since we posted - in large part, that's because our projects have been decidedly low-tech. They've been pretty great, though! We built a craftsman-style shed that rivals our neighbors' garages!

I've always been an early adopter of new tech. But at the same time, I still have a landline. How? Why? Well, the answer's pretty simple.

Tomorrow morning, Tim Cook will introduce the iPhone 6. Maybe even 2 of them. Maybe even an iWatch or something like that. Is there any chance that we're going to hear more about HomeKit?

Hope you had a great weekend. It was quiet at the AAAD house - not only was Saturday our first day in nearly 2 weeks with no houseguests, and the baby slept almost all the way through the night. Which meant that Sunday was a good day for some home projects!  Until I tried to disconnect my ADT Pulse Gateway, got careless, and crashed the whole system....

We have a long-standing tradition here at AAAD of talking about projects for a LONG time before we actually get started. I first started talking about a "gut rehab" for my 2007 Weber Genesis E-310 back in March of 2013. 16 months later, we finally did it. Here's how. 

At my last job, one of our clients was a manufacturer of baby products. Strollers, highchairs, and swings. Some of their most-heated litigation involved baby swings - because there have been some real leaps forward in design in that area. The "open top swing" didn't exist a decade and a half ago, and now it's all you see. And believe me, the fight over who came up with that innovation was rough. The last couple of years have seen some new advances in baby swings. Like the Momaroo , which is less of a "swing", and more of a "robot that gently rocks your baby to sleep". It's awesome.

That headline is a bit misleading - the Withings Smart Body Analyzer isn't going to change the world. It's a wi-fi connected scale. But I'm hoping that the Withings Smart Body Analyzer changes everything about me . It's off to a good start.

I've wanted a Nest Thermostat for years. Really, since before the first-generation Nest was available.  I read an article on the NY Times about it, and I was completely hooked.  It was sleek. Immediately understandable. Perfect.   Of course, it was several years before I actually pulled the trigger and bought one.  One month later, this is our AAAD review. 

I've been talking about Apple creating an "iRemote" platform for quite a while. Back in March of 2013, when Apple was still in the doldrums, AAAD discussed the potential for Apple to create a home automation standard .  This "iRemote" platform would control all compatible third-party devices (lighting, music, TV) from a single screen, and in turn, would drive third-party device makers away from proprietary apps and formats, and toward a single, synthesized standard. Today, Gizmodo (citing Financial Times), reported that Apple might be doing EXACTLY that . Awesome.

I spent the better part of the 2000's trying to banish IR blasters from our living room. They managed to combine poor form and poor function. Wires running under and around our components, IR emitters affixed to the front of our components, messing up the whole look of our living room. And they didn't always work! It was an exercise in frustration.  With our new built-in home theater cabinets, our components are tucked away out of sight. So it looked like we were headed back to IR blasters.  Until DirecTV stepped in to save the day.

Finally, we have some real news! (Actually, quite a bit of it. More on that later.) Let's start with the exciting conclusion of the original PROJECT #1 from AAAD - the Home Theater Remodel .

iOS 7.1 was unveiled a month or so back, and its centerpiece was Apple's CarPlay, which promises to finally deliver a safe, hands-free (and eyes-free) iOS experience for drivers. Unfortunately, CarPlay won't be available for a while, and I need a new car now . On the plus side, there have never been more high-tech, high mileage hybrid vehicles available. So which car is the best fit for a tech lover with a long commute?

ADT stopped by our house on Friday to upgrade our Brinks security system to an ADT Pulse system.  There was nothing wrong with our old Belkin system - but we're ditching our AT&T landline, so we were going to need a security system that ran on cellular communications.  And ADT Pulse definitely fits the bill. There's just one thing I wish was different.

As you may recall, we spent quite a bit of time and energy bundling and unbundling our TV, internet and phone services. And we're not done yet.

I haven't been to Phoenix for a few years. (Granted, this polar vortex has me rethinking that course of action.) My grandmother spends her winters down there (and statistically speaking, so does yours), and millions flock to the area in February/March for MLB Spring Training. And now, two of my favorite companies in the world - Apple and the Chicago Cubs - call the same Phoenix suburb their year-round home. That Phoenix suburb - Mesa - recently invested heavily in both entities. Here's why.

It's no secret that we're huge Nest fans here at AAAD. We're also, obviously, huge Apple fans.  So when word got out last week that Google was paying three and a half BILLION dollars for Nest, the AAAD household had to deal with some cognitive dissonance.  How can we love Apple *and* the Google-ified Nest? Turns out it's easy. Read on. 

When it comes to iPhone cases, you can usually go in one of two directions - plastic and a bit gaudy, or elegant, but unbelievably expensive. Occasionally, we see cases that are gaudy AND unbelievably expensive.  Apple's new iPhone 5S case splits the difference. It is elegant, minimalist, and priced in line with the competition.