Articles by Nick Greene

Tri-band Wi-Fi 6

Eero Pro 6

From $229 on Amazon

Pros

Tri-band Wi-Fi for greater consistency and speed
Wi-Fi 6 offers greater speeds
Excellent support for Amazon Alexa
Easy setup
Lots of expansion options

Cons

More expensive
Requires a subscription fee for some features

Eero Pro 6 takes speed to the next level with an AX4200 connection. Its tri-band Wi-Fi 6 hardware means more consistent speeds throughout your home, it integrates very readily with Alexa, and eero’s subscription service offers many neat features. You can also extend your mesh with any generation or model Eero.

Simple and powerful

Nest Wifi Router

$169 on Amazon

Pros

Integrates seamlessly with Google Home and Google Wifi
Nest Points double as smart speakers
Powerful onboard hardware
Easy setup
Easy expansion options

Cons

Dual-band only
No support for Wi-Fi 6

There’s a lot to love about the Nest Wifi Router. It’s both powerful and easy to use, offering fast and seamless connectivity throu…

There are many smart devices under Samsung’s SmartThings ecosystem, like connected doorbells and locks. It even has a Find feature that can help you locate a misplaced Galaxy device. With SmartThings, you can use a motion sensor to keep watch over areas of your home, allowing you to receive alerts, sound an alarm, unlock a door, or even just turn on a light. Not all Samsung SmartThings motion sensors are created equal, however. So we compiled a list that leaves out the headaches like our favorite option, the Ecolink Z-Wave Plus Motion Detector, so you can monitor your home no matter where you are.

Top Pick

Ecolink Z-Wave PIR Motion Detector – Pet Immune

Staff Pick

This great detector from Ecolink offers a five-year battery life (the best of the bunch) and flush or corner mount options. It can be set to ignore pets up to 55 pounds and is the best option of quality and price.

$39 at Amazon

Small, but mighty

Centralite Micro Motion Sensor

Centralite’s tiny offering is one of…

Our Recommendation

Nest Wifi Router

$169 on Amazon

Pros

Integrates seamlessly with Google Home and Google Wifi
Nest Points double as smart speakers
Powerful onboard hardware
Easy setup
Easy expansion options

Cons

Dual-band only
No support for Wi-Fi 6

There’s a lot to love about the Nest Wifi Router. It’s both powerful and easy to use, offering fast and seamless connectivity throughout the home. Nest Wifi is limited by its Wi-Fi 5, and the Nest Wifi points are much slower than the main router. Luckily, you can expand your Nest Wifi mesh with more routers.

Tri-band Wi-Fi

Eero Pro 6

From $229 on Amazon

Pros

Tri-band Wi-Fi for greater consistency and speed
Wi-Fi 6 offers greater speeds
Excellent support for Amazon Alexa
Easy setup
Lots of expansion options

Cons

More expensive
Requires a subscription fee for some features

Eero Pro 6 takes speed to the next level with an AX4200 connection. Its tri-band Wi-Fi 6 hardware means more consistent speeds throughou…

Whether you just picked up the iPhone 12 or plan to swap to a new operating system, there’s probably something about the purchase that you’re dreading, even as exciting as it is. It’s inarguably the worst thing about purchasing a new device. A cumbersome, frustrating process that could potentially take hours.

We’re speaking, of course, about getting your new device set up with all the stuff you had on your old one.

Unless you intend to start fresh, it’s unavoidable. You need more than just your photos and contacts. You need your messages and apps, too.

Unfortunately, transferring these is often easier said than done. Although both Apple and Google have provided several tools to facilitate migration from one device to another, these are partial solutions at best. You’re still going to have to do a lot of legwork — from re-downloading software to manually transferring your WhatsApp messages and contacts.

At least, you’ll have to if you just stick to the standard tools provided by y…

Recently at Songshan Lake, leading multinational technology and electronics manufacturer Huawei kicked off its annual developer conference. The Huawei DEVELOPER CONFERENCE 2020 (Together) gave the company’s development community a compelling look at the road ahead, revealing major updates across its developer ecosystem and unveiling several exciting new products.

Here’s what yesterday had to show us.

HarmonyOS 2.0: Now Open-Source, Now On Smartphones

First announced back in 2019, HarmonyOS was initially conceived as an all-scenario, free operating system intended to support an entire Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem. Today, Huawei announced a huge step forward for the software. First and foremost, HarmonyOS 2.0 brings with it significant upgrades to the platform’s data management, software bus, and security, while also introducing an adaptive user interface framework for developers, which we’ll detail more in a moment.

Speaking of security, HarmonyOS 2.0 includes a number of …

Whether you’re leery of Google’s data collection practices, fed up with Nest Wifi’s lack of advanced functionality, or simply browsing the market for something better, we’ve rounded up some of the best alternatives to Nest Wifi. Check them out below — there should be something for everyone!

Best overall

eero Pro with two Beacons

Staff pick

The eero Pro offers incredible speed, consistency, and range, outperforming Nest Wifi in a lot of areas. Plus, with Eero Secure, you gain access to a ton of advanced security features, and the option for a password manager, premium antivirus, and VPN — all at a reasonable price point.

$399 at Amazon

$399 at Best Buy

$399 at B&H

Premium and powerful

Netgear Orbi RBK752

Netgear has been in the home networking game for a long time, and it shows. With Wi-Fi 6 support and a fast AX4200 tri-band connection, this system should be able to keep up with just about any family’s needs. You even get three Ethernet ports on the main r…

The biggest bang for your buck

Roborock E4

$270 at Amazon

Pros

Incredible price
Fast navigation and excellent cleaning performance
Huge dustbin for easier upkeep

Cons

Lack of smart mapping functionality in the app
Mop must be purchased separately
No object recognition or onboard AI

The Roborock E4 is not only one of the most affordable robot vacuums on the market, it’s also one of the best. With excellent suction and navigation plus integrated mopping, it’ll keep your house efficiently clean. The trade-off is that there are no bells and whistles like virtual boundaries or onboard AI.

A bit of added smarts

Roborock S4

$400 at Amazon

Pros

Extremely effective on non-carpeted floors
Intelligent navigation and high-powered drivetrain to avoid getting stuck
Selective room scheduling and virtual barriers

Cons

A little bulkier than most robot vacuums
No mopping capabilities
Not great on carpet

The Roborock S4 has a lot in common with the Roborock E4. They bot…

Generally speaking, robot vacuums aren’t a cheap investment. Good ones, anyway. Most of the time, if you want to purchase a model that actually cleans, you’re looking at five hundred dollars minimum.

Roborock is breaking that mold with the Roborock E4. Methodical and efficient, it features both integrated vacuuming and mopping. With 2000Pa of suction and carpet boost, it’s capable of competing with all but the most powerful vacuums on the market.

Better yet, thanks to improved internals, the Roborock E4 is up to 10% faster than its predecessors. It also sports a large dustbin, with 640ml of space, and a 28% larger optional mopping system for greater coverage (sold separately). And with intelligent gyroscopes and OpticEye motion tracking, the Roborock E4 can navigate past all but the most complicated obstacles, while its Z-shape route allows it to clean with much greater efficiency.

Roborock E4

$269.99 at Amazon

Capable of quickly and efficiently cleaning homes of up to 2,152…

Telecommuting is officially the new normal. People are now working from home with greater frequency than ever, dialing-in to the office from their living rooms, dining rooms, and computer rooms. For some, this shift to remote work comes as naturally as breathing, and they wonder how they ever lived without it.

For others, calling it a challenge would be putting it lightly.

They struggle to complete even simple tasks, wrestling with the constant urge to distract themselves online. They procrastinate endlessly, creating for themselves an unsustainable level of stress. They struggle with hardware and equipment that was never made for getting work done.

The truth is that if you’re working from home, it’s usually not as easy as booting up a laptop and diving in. You need an office space, and one with a good layout and setup. Here’s where HP comes in.

From now until May 3, they’re offering an extra 10% off select monitors and 20% off select accessories with the purchase of consumer PCs…