Five Technologies I’m Thankful For

technologies I am thankful forAs we wind down the year and enter into the holiday season, I figured that in honor of Thanksgiving I would share five technologies I’m thankful for this year. I’d love to hear what you think so comment below with your thoughts and any technologies you are thankful for.

Virtual Assistants: Technologies like Apple Siri, Amazon Alexa, and Google Home are becoming quite mature and robust when it comes to controlling various Internet of Thing devices such as home automation systems and smart appliances. I personally have all three types of virtual assistants in my home because 1) I’m a big geek, and 2) because I want to test them all to be familiar with them. They all work well with the fairly simple home automation setup I currently have and I honestly appreciate how they make my home life easier and more comfortable. Virtual assistant technologies will only continue to grow and evolve in the near future so you may want to begin investigating them if you haven’t already.

Streaming Live TV: This is the year that will go down as the emergence of streaming “live tv” services such as Hulu with Live TV, Sling TV, DirecTV Now, Playstation Vue, and YouTube TV. I can virtually see the crumbling of the old world of broadcast and cable TV before my eyes as I am now able to watch almost all my local channels, the sports teams I care about, and traditional TV channels streaming over the Internet, along with libraries of on-demand movies and TV shows. I will be cancelling my cable TV service shortly and I know other people who are doing the same with their cable or satellite services. The future of video content is streaming and we are seeing it take shape now.

Robot Vacuums: Last summer we got new hardwood floors. We have two cats. Without our trusty Roomba I know our dark hardwood floors would show a ton of cat hair. It runs faithfully every day, keeping the overflow of feline fuzziness under control along with sweeping up the random junk that life brings in the house. Seriously, It does an amazing job of keeping our entire first floor clean and sparkly! I would really miss our Roomba if we didn’t have it.

iPhone X: I honestly didn’t expect to like my new iPhone so much. After all, I’ve seen a lot of technologies in my life and just how different could another iPhone be? Yet I have been pleasantly surprised at just how smooth and seamless my experience has been with the iPhone X. I really enjoy the fact that the phone is not much bigger than a standard size iPhone 6/7/8 but the screen is just as big as a plus sized iPhone (technically slightly bigger) because the screen is edge-to-edge. Face ID works nearly flawlessly for me, the screen is bright, crisp, and richly colored, apps are highly responsive, the phone feels balanced and solid in the hand, and the new button-less interface is surprisingly intuitive. Kudos to Apple for pushing forward the smartphone game, setting the bar everyone else is trying to reach even higher … again.

Wireless Mesh Networks: I’ve only have the opportunity to deploy a few of these new types of wireless network systems this year, but so far the results have been impressive. Basically, a wireless mesh network is just a Wi-Fi network but instead of one access point putting out a signal, they are multiple wireless devices (typically 2 or 3) that are specially designed to work with each other to cover an area as one big seamless wireless network. They are not your ordinary wireless “booster” that often seems to cause more headaches than they solve. With wireless mesh networks Wi-Fi dead zones may be a thing of the past soon, so if you have a troublesome Wi-Fi installation in your home or business let me know and we can discuss a if a wireless mesh system is right for you.

Again, I’d love to read your thoughts on these technologies and any technologies you personally are thankful for, so add your comments below! As well, if you need help or have questions about these or any other technologies, please feel free to contact me or post your question in my Q&A section.