When smart home device started the march from curiosity to appliance, communication devices led the way. But, in truth, that market has stagnated somewhat. Blame the ubiquity of phones or the market dynamics during Covid, but the we haven’t gotten a holographic party device or a truly great co-op gaming system that doesn’t involve pretending to shoot people.
Still, there are a few new pieces of communication tech that absolutely stand out.
Samsung SmartThings Station
We’re Raving About: It’s more than just another wireless charging pad, it’s a smart home automations creator.
If you’re like us and have a multitude of smart home gadgets, trying to get Alexa compatible devices with Google Assistant is usually out of the question. But the Samsung SmartThings Station is breaking down those barriers.
Part wireless charger, we’d like to classify it more as an automations hub that allowed us to set a bunch of routines to control different gadgets. That’s important because it achieved the holy grail of letting us create an automation that involved a door sensor connected to Google Home with a Ring home security camera. We’ll admit that the combinations are endless, but we love how these automations are made simple through Samsung’s SmartThings app.
Right before hitting bed, it was really useful to set an automation that turned off all the lights in our home when we placed our smartphone to charge overnight on the Samsung SmartThings Station.
Insta360 Link
We’re Raving About: Staying in frame during conference calls with its rock steady tracking and steady movement.
Webcams shouldn’t be static, they need to be dynamic. The Insta360 Link is a webcam like no other, since it looks like they took a camera and strapped it onto a gimbal. For sure, it’s an odd looking fixture at first glance, but we soon found out how it became one of the most versatile webcams we’ve come across.
We really enjoyed how it was able to track our movement during conference calls. Whether we stood up, or moved off frame a bit, the Insta360 Link kept us in center frame at all times because its 4K camera is perched on a gimbal. That gimbal gave it smooth, steady movements as it panned to follow us. Smaller details, like its ability to auto-focus whenever we brought something close to the camera, really showed us the incredible utility of this webcam. It can also be articulated downwards to make it the perfect unboxing video camera with its wide coverage area.
Insta360 took all the knowledge they had creating some of the best action cameras and stuffed some of the tech into a dynamic webcam that is also a great gadget for anyone looking to up their content creation game.