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I don’t have much tech at home.
You read that right – the guy who has carved out a career reviewing tech lives in a house that is about as technologically advanced as a fence panel.
There’s no home automation. I don’t have a garage door I can open with my smartwatch. Our kettle does not connect to the WiFi.
Even the vacuum cleaner needs to be pushed around by a human.
Yes, we’re that behind the times.
I’m fond of this. Despite my love of tech, I have neither the time nor inclination to fall down the rabbit hole of filling our house with the stuff. Instead, I’d rather rely on devices and services that can be adopted quickly and that provide a measurable quality of life improvement every single day.
As it turns out, there are only four of those things in our house, but they’re all vitally important.
1. Eight Sleep
Did you know that temperature is one of the most important factors when it comes to improving your sleep quality?
If you didn’t know that I bet you’re aware of the arguments that can break out between loved ones over how hot or cold the bed should be. One wants it at a temperature that would make a sauna sweat, while the other would prefer to sleep in a bed of which only the Night King would approve.
There is, happily, a solution to this. It’s not cheap, and it requires some adjusted thinking in terms of what’s good for you at night, but my experience with Eight Sleep has been nothing but positive thus far.
Eight Sleep is basically a cover that is placed over your mattress and then plugged into a ‘Pod’. That pod (which resembles a smart-looking desktop PC) contains a water reservoir and some very clever tech that’s designed to give you the best night’s sleep possible.
And save your marriage.
It does this by turning the aforementioned mattress cover into a soft radiator, the temperature of which can be controlled via the Eight Sleep app and an ‘Autopilot’ feature that learns your preferred sleeping temperature. Your vital metrics are also tracked (including your heart rate, HRV, sleep stages, and sleep time) and Eight Sleep will even wake you up with a gentle increase in temperature and gentle chest-level vibration.
Oh, and as you might guess, you can set different temperatures for each side of the bed.
Eight Sleep is one of those rare products that immediately has a positive impact on your life. The independent temperature feature alone is devilishly smart but the way the whole system works with you to give you the best night’s sleep possible is genuinely life-changing.
2. Google Pixel Tablet
Regular readers will know that we recently switched our home digital assistant from Amazon Alexa to Apple’s HomePod and Siri.
It was an unmitigated disaster.
As lovely as that HomePod sounds, Siri remains a complete pain in the backside to work with. However, while typing that last sentence, I realised that it really shouldn’t feel like work when it comes to asking for an egg timer.
It does with Siri. We reached the point where my girlfriend begged for Apple’s assistant to be shown the backdoor. So, I obliged, and that’s when we welcomed Google Assistant into our home.
My vehicle of choice for Google’s Siri competitor is the Pixel Tablet. This is Google’s attempt at finally making a serious name for itself in the tablet-at-home market.
Research conducted by the big ‘G’ suggests that most people neglect their iPads because they’re usually out of battery and too much of a faff to charge when there’s a perfectly good smartphone already in their pocket. The solution is, apparently, a tablet that is forever charged thanks to a magnetic dock that doubles as a speaker. The fact it consequently turns into a home assistant with an 11-inch display is the icing on the cake.
I’ll level with you – we’ve barely used the Pixel Tablet as a tablet; it has purely been used as the aforementioned be-screened digital assistant. And you know what? I absolutely love it.
The ability to see the answers to your commands without any Siri-like delay or failure to comply is a joy. Want to check the three timers you set a while ago? Just look at the thing!
We also love the rolling carousel of images that have been nestled within my Google Photos library. Surfacing old memories in this way is the best part about any home assistant with a display and it’s why Apple needs to do something along these lines – after Siri has been fixed.
3. Apple TV 4K
When we decided to completely drop Sky TV last year, I was nervous. The thought of never again having access to that admittedly fantastic planner and the superb integration of recording, live rewind, and series linking was rather unpalatable.
It was also getting unjustifiably expensive. So, it had to go.
Enter the Apple TV 4K, which has been our only source of living room televisual entertainment for nearly 18 months.
Do we miss Sky? Well, I certainly don’t miss those bills. I occasionally yearn for the ability to easily channel hop without heading in and out of multiple apps – but there’s actually something to be said for the absence of such a waste of your time. I also wish the Now TV app was better (this is what we’ve used to retain access to the likes of Sky Sports at a much-reduced rate).
But that’s it. The Apple TV delivers the best image I’ve seen from a set-top box, tvOS is a joy to use, and the 4K drone screensavers are a beautiful addition to our living room when it’s not in use.
I once claimed that Apple should cancel the Apple TV. That was utterly stupid of me – it’s easily one of the most impressive pieces of tech in our house.
4. Hisense 55U7 4K TV
The Apple TV 4K needs connecting to something, and last year I was lucky enough for Hisense to send me the 55U7 to review and keep.
Back then, I claimed that it was one of the best budget TVs on the market, and having used it daily since November last year, I stand by that.
The version I have features a 55-inch QLED panel with full array local dimming and Dolby Vision IQ support. The latter has been a revelation for someone who used to trawl through forum posts whenever he got a new TV to find the optimal settings. Granted, we’re a long way from all content conforming to that standard, but a lot of the streamed shows we watch are, and they look utterly wonderful.
To put some context around this, the TV we were watching before the Hisense made its debut was a Samsung 55-inch curved unit (remember those?) that was about six years old. These two TVs feel like many, many generations apart; the step-up in picture quality has been astounding – and you can still buy the 55U7 for a very attractive price.
Wrap up
There you go – I’ve let you into my unspectacular but highly functional and enjoyable tech home.
I have no doubt I’ll add to it over the next few years, but I wouldn’t expect any big updates. As much as I love covering tech for a living, it’s the simple things at home that impress me the most.
Let me know what your favourite piece of home tech is in the comments section, below.
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1 Comment
Home tech really does earn its place when it makes daily life feel smoother without demanding attention. The best gadgets are not always the flashiest ones, they are the ones you quietly rely on every single day. I have a few like that myself, and it is funny how quickly they become part of the routine, like morning coffee or checking the weather. Once something saves time or removes a small annoyance, you really notice when it is gone. It is the same reason people keep practical details like a hisense phone number nearby, just in case. Useful tech is not about showing off, it is about making home feel easier, calmer, and better.