Articles by Russell Holly

There’s a truly incredible number of things you can do with Amazon’s connected speakers, and ideally, a lot of these things will casually become a part of your daily routine over time. Here’s everything you need to know about getting started with your Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, or Echo Plus.

Connecting your Echo with the Amazon Alexa app

Amazon’s Alexa digital assistant forms the basis for one of the best smart speaker experiences you’ll find today, and the service is designed to be something you can rely on for just about every aspect of the connected home. To get the most out of this experience you want to start by setting it up correctly out of the box. While you don’t need your phone to do much with your Echo once it is set up, you will need the Alexa app to get there.

Every part of the setup and maintenance process goes through the app, so your first step is to install the Alexa app from the Play Store. While it is installing, connect the power supply to the port on the bottom of…

A great game gets an even better sequel, and you’re all going to love it.

Marvel’s Spider-Man dominated the gaming world in 2018. It was gorgeous, compelling, and had just about everything we wanted to see in a Spider-Man game. The cinematics and fluid gameplay helped spectators feel like they were watching a movie instead of a game, made all the more real by the most accurate representation of NYC ever experienced in a game like this. The story was amazing, the sidequests and accessory hunting was spectacular, and this Peter Parker was marvelous. (I will not be apologizing for that sentence, let’s move on.)

It was clear at the end of that game there was only one way to go for a sequel — both in terms of story and cultural trends. Marvel’s Spider-Man came out right next to the globally adored Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse movie, where we saw Miles Morales take center stage as the awkward teenage web-slinger for the first time. While the Miles in the animated movie and the Mil…

If you have an Alexa device, then you’ve probably wondered how to control your TV with your Amazon Echo speaker. As nice as it would be for every television to include a simple local network access function, most TVs still rely on good old-fashioned Infrared (IR) to receive commands. This isn’t the best news for someone looking to convert their living room into Smart Home 2.0, but there are some tools available that make this a little easier to deal with than you’d think. If you have a newer, smart TV, you may be able to enable an Alexa Skill to help control your device. In contrast, if your TV is a bit older or doesn’t support any Alexa Skills, there may be some hardware workarounds available. We’ll show you three tricks we’ve found to give you power over your TV with an Amazon Echo.

Products used in this guide

Perfect harmony: Logitech Harmony Hub ($90 at Amazon)
Master blaster: Fire TV Blaster ($35 at Amazon)
Alexa’s got skills: Vizio SmartCast (Free at Amazon)

How to control…

Amazon’s heavy hitter has been overhauled with a focus on quality and volume.

When people say they have an Amazon Echo, they almost always mean they have an Echo Dot. The cheapest of the Echo family regularly drops into stocking-stuffer price points, which allowed for these speakers to quickly rise in popularity over the last two years. But popularity doesn’t necessarily mean quality, and the competition quickly moved to make mini speakers with better speakers and a more visually pleasing design.

Amazon, now on the third generation of its Echo product line, has responded with a new Dot. And at first glance, it looks an awful lot like Amazon is reacting to the competition. After a few days of using it, and seeing how much better this new speaker is over its predecessor, I think the only company Amazon is competing with is itself.

Crank up the volume

Amazon Echo Dot (3rd Gen)

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If you’re shopping for someone who is a huge PlayStation 4 fan and you’re not entirely sure what that means, know that you are not alone. Shopping for a gamer isn’t always the easiest thing in the world. It’s doubly hard if they’re the type to go out and buy the latest game the first day it’s available. If your PlayStation 4 fan has switched to shopping digital, you may not even be able to see what games they have without tipping them off. So what do you do for gifts?

Custom comfort

Staff Pick

ASTRO Gaming C40 TR Controller

This controller is expensive, there is no denying that, but the Astro C40 TR is pretty amazing too. With the number of customizable parts on this controller, the c40 TR can be just about anything you want it to be. This flexibility is a massive boon considering how much personal preference comes into play on controller layouts. PlayStation opted for a symmetrical design on the DualShock, but most find asymmetrical to be more ergonomic. The C40 TR lets the …