Friday, March 27, 2026
System Engineer
Tech CENTRAL
No commentsWe may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.
If you're eyeing a new pair of over the ear headphones, you have no shortage of options. But if you're looking for something that fits neatly into the Apple ecosystem without costing the same as a MacBook Neo (looking at you, AirPods Max), your best bet might just be the Beats Studio Pro. Right now, they're up to 35% off for Amazon's Big Spring Sale—so long as you don't mind the color grey.
Beats Studio Pro come with features you'd expect from headphones with "Pro" in the name. That includes Active Noise Cancelling, of course, a must for over-the-ear headphones, but also Transparency mode, which pumps in external sounds so you don't need to take off your headphones to hear what people are saying to you. Beats says the Studio Pro have up to 40 hours of battery life, and reduce distortion by up to 80% when compared to Beats Studio. The headphones have a built in DAC, which makes them a great for listening to lossless music when connected via USB-C.
While all Beats are designed to work with both iOS and Android, Apple users will find the experience more ideal. Apple owns Beats, and, as such, integrates the headphones into their ecosystem just as they do with their own AirPods. When you turn on Beats Studio Pro, it will automatically pair with the first Apple device you have open—say, your iPhone. Once paired, it'll be able to automatically connect to any other Apple device you have under that iCloud account. You can switch to your Mac, play something in Apple Music, and hear it in your Beats, without having to manually pair them first. They even work with Find My, so you can locate your Beats with your Apple device if you misplace them.
As of now, the only color that gets Amazon's Big Spring Sale deal is Sand Gray. Amazon has discounts on the other colors as well, but they'll run you $199.95. If you aren't married to a particular color, Sand Gray is the best value as of this writing.
Thursday, March 26, 2026LiveStream My Favorite JBL Over-Ear Headphones Are $100 Off During Amazon's Big Spring Sale, LifehackerNo commentsWe may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.
If you're a music aficionado looking for a deal during Amazon's Big Spring Sale, these JBL Tour One M3 headphones might change your relationship with sound like they changed mine. And!—they're on sale for the lowest price Amazon has ever offered, a neat $100 off off the full retail price of $449.95.
Here are only some of the ways these JBL cans are better than my previous pair of over-ear headphones:
Excellent sound quality: That's the point, right? JBL's high-res audio is top-notch, especially for bluetooth headphones.
JBL Smart Tx: A separate unit that lets you connect to just about any audio source, including analog sources and non-bluetooth sources, and listen. It's also a touch screen controller so you can access all the controls without pulling out your phone.
8-Mic True Adaptive Noise Cancelling 2.0: These things do a great job cancelling noise of all kinds, whether you want to fully focus on music or just have blessed silence at will. I had no idea how much ambient sound I'd been swimming in all day—the fridge running, the cars on the road, the wind—all gone in an instant.
Head-tracking spatial audio: JBL's spatial audio is just excellent, whether you use it for music, movies, or gaming.
High quality microphone: If you take calls with these, your voice will sound like a face-to-face conversation.
Battery life: They stay charged forever—up to 70 hours of music on a single charge.
It's not just me who thinks so: PCMag gave these four stars. Amazon's reviewers give them 4.4 stars. They're a great buy, especially right now.
Thursday, March 26, 2026LiveStreamTechnical storiesNo commentsFor as long as we've known that soil bacteria manufacture molecular weapons to fight each other, we've been swiping their battle plans. In clinics and hospitals, those turf-war weapons have become miraculous drugs of modern medicine—antibiotics—that blow away otherwise deadly infections.
But, of course, there's a dark side of mimicking microbial munitions—bacteria have defenses, too, namely antibiotic resistance. You're probably aware that we're facing a rising threat of drug resistance among disease-causing bacteria, one that is rendering much of our stolen weaponry obsolete and making infections harder to defeat.
Often, this growing crisis is framed as a clinical failure: We're overusing and misusing antibiotics, hastening our bacterial foes' natural ability to develop and spread resistance. While this is certainly true, a new study in Nature Microbiology this week identifies a potentially new driver of rising antibiotic resistance—and we're at least partly to blame for this one, too.
Wednesday, March 25, 2026System EngineerregisterNo commentsAI isn't killing jobs wholesale – it's quietly chipping away at them, one task at a time.…
Wednesday, March 25, 2026LiveStream and More New Features Apple Just Released in iOS 26.4, Apple Music Upgrades, Keyboard Fixes, LifehackerNo commentsWe may earn a commission from links on this page.
iOS 26.3 was a decidedly small update. It introduced a new tool to transfer data to Android, and gave some iPhones the ability to hide precise location data from cellular networks. But beyond some other small changes and security patches, that's all there was to write home about. iOS 26.4 is a different story. The update, which Apple dropped on Tuesday, adds a number of interesting new features to compatible iPhones, especially if you're an Apple Music user. Here's what's new:
While this isn't a "major feature," new emojis are always fun when we can get them. In this case, Apple is taking iOS 26.4 as an opportunity to roll out its take on the Unicode 17 standard, which includes eight new emoji. That includes "Distorted Face," "Fight Cloud," "Ballet Dancer," "Orca," "Hairy Creature," "Trombone," "Landslide," and "Treasure Chest."
The latest trend in streaming services seems to be AI-generated playlists. YouTube Music recently rolled out the option, while Spotify offers a couple different takes on the feature. The idea is to tell the AI what type of music you want to listen to, whether that be a specific artist or genre, or just a concept or mood (e.g., "Make me a playlist for drinking coffee on a lazy Sunday morning").
Now Apple Music is the latest service to introduce such a feature. iOS 26.4 comes with "Playlist Playground," which works about how you'd expect. You tell Apple Music's AI what you want to hear, and it generates a playlist with 25 different songs. You can adjust the playlist if you don't like the result, as well as edit the title, cover image, and description.
In addition to Playlist Playground, Apple Music's UI is also changing in iOS 26.4. You'll see new full-page artwork when listening to music, as well as redesigned albums and playlists that adjust their colors based on the artwork. Plus, there's now a "Concerts Near You" feature that helps you find shows in your area, based on the music you like to listen to.
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You can now use Offline Music Recognition in Control Center to identify songs you hear out and about, even when you don't have an internet connection. You'll get the results when your iPhone connects back to cellular or wifi. You'll have to wait for your answer, but at least you'll get one.
Once you update your iPhone to iOS 26.4, you can add the new Ambient Music widget to your Home Screen. It comes with options for Sleep, Chill, Productivity, and Wellbeing playlists you can launch without opening the Music app.
If you've been having trouble typing on your iPhone's keyboard recently, you're not alone. Many users have been complaining online about inaccurate typing since iOS 26 dropped in the fall. Apple's latest update might just fix that: In the release notes for iOS 26.4, Apple says it has "improved keyboard accuracy when typing quickly." Hopefully, that's the end of everyone’s issues with the iPhone’s keyboard, though somehow I doubt it—users have been complaining about it for years at this point.
With iOS 26.4, Apple changed the Wallpapers settings menu. Before, you could select from pre-downloaded wallpaper packs on your iPhone; now, you can choose which packs you want to download instead. It's a small change, but an interesting one. It seems Apple doesn't want to assume you're interested in all of its wallpaper options anymore, and instead would rather pick and choose the ones you want to try. Apple also made similar changes to picking watch faces in the Apple Watch app.
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If you ever label reminders as "urgent" on your iPhone, you'll find them in a new location. Now, when you open Reminders, you'll find an Urgent section, alongside other options like Today, All, and Scheduled.
Apple changed the name of its "Reduce Highlight Effects Accessibility" setting to "Reduce Bright Effects." Now, it comes with a description: "Minimize highlighting and flashing when interacting with onscreen elements, such as buttons or the keyboard." The is particularly an "issue" with iOS 26, which includes more lighting effects with its Liquid Glass design.
iOS 26.4 also gives "Reduce Motion" an update: Now, the Accessibility feature "more reliably" reduces Liquid Glass animations, according to Apple. This builds on some of the other ways Apple has allowed users to tone-down iOS 26's visual overhaul, while stopping short of letting users turn it off entirely.
Here's a small but meaningful change for families: All adults in a Family Sharing group can now choose their own payment method for Purchase Sharing. Previously, you needed to go through the payment option set up by the family organizer. This frees up members to make their own purchases to share with the group, without only going through one card.
Freeform, Apple's "whiteboard" app, is getting an Apple Creator Studio upgrade with iOS 26.4. The app is still free for all users, but if you subscribe to Apple Creator Studio, you get "advanced image creation and editing tools," as well as access to Apple's "premium content library."
This is a small but necessary addition to iOS: The latest update supports Apple's AirPods Max 2, which will be available to preorder starting Wednesday, March 25. The newest AirPods Max look the same as always, but come with some key features that Apple's earbuds have had for years. They still cost $549 though, which means if you want a pair of AirPods Max for less than the cost of a MacBook Neo, consider picking up the previous generation at a discount.
Tuesday, March 24, 2026LiveStreamTechnical storiesNo commentsGenerally, when you hear “water use” and “sustainability,” you expect those words to be followed by some bad news. Humanity’s enduring ability to ignore the math of declining water supplies is almost impressive. But there are cases where actions have successfully reversed our loss of water resources. A new paper in Science by Scott Jasechko of the University of California, Santa Barbara, examines documented cases of groundwater recovery around the world to identify which strategies have worked.
Groundwater is invaluable for many reasons. For one, it’s (usually) cleaner than surface water. It’s also right under your feet and often close enough to the surface that it doesn’t take much energy to pump it up. And there’s loads of it down there, no matter the season. Because of this, humans use a lot of it for drinking water, agriculture, and every other use you can think of.
Unfortunately, in many places, the rate of groundwater use has grown to exceed the rate at which precipitation soaks into the ground to replenish it.
Monday, March 23, 2026LiveStream but Only for These Devices, Samsung Now Officially Supports AirDrop, LifehackerNo commentsWe may earn a commission from links on this page.
Back in November, Google made a stunning announcement: Quick Share was suddenly compatible with Apple's AirDrop. At the time, the compatibility was limited to the Pixel 10, but no matter: Google had just made history, transforming the sharing features from platform-specific to cross-platform.
While AirDrop and Quick Share have long been the most convenient ways to share large files between devices, it only worked if you and your friend were on the same OS. That limitation introduces some inconvenient friction, but, as support cross-platform expands, that friction is easing up. Google first announced plans for greater AirDrop compatibility in Quick Share last month, when Android Vice President of Engineering Eric Kay noted, "[i]n 2026, we're going to be expanding [Airdrop support] to a lot more devices."
While there's no official timeline on which devices will gain support and when, Nothing has said it is "exploring" adding it, while Qualcomm "can't wait" to add the feature to its Snapdragon chips. However, we do now know one Android device that will support AirDrop very soon: the Samsung Galaxy S26.
Samsung made the news official on March 22 (technically Monday, March 23 in Korea). At launch, AirDrop support will only work on the Galaxy S26 series, including the Galaxy S26, Galaxy S26 Plus, and Galaxy S26 Ultra. That's a bummer for Galaxy S25 users and earlier, but it is possible Samsung will expand support in time. After all, Google started rolling out AirDrop support for Pixel 9 devices late last month.
If you do have a Galaxy S26 device, this feature is live right now—if you live in Korea. Samsung says the feature will be rolling out to the U.S. later this week, but as of this writing, the update is only available to Galaxy users in Korea. (I'll update this piece when Samsung releases the update for those of us in the U.S.)
If you have an S26, and the update has rolled out to you, you just need to head to Settings > Software update (or System updates), then hit "Download and install," "Check for system updates," or "Check for software updates," depending on your device.
Then, once your phone has the update, you'll need to manually enable AirDrop support for Quick Share—it won't just appear on your phone. To do so, head to Settings > Connected devices > Quick Share, then toggle on the new "Share with Apple devices" option.
If you tap the option itself, you'll find a full description of the feature, which you may or may not already know: The recipient needs to have their iPhone's AirDrop settings set to "Everyone," and when you want to receive a file, you need to open Quick Share on your end. Samsung says your phone may temporarily disconnect from wifi when looking for or sharing to other iPhones.
Monday, March 23, 2026System EngineerregisterNo commentsInfosec In Brief Russian intelligence-affiliated parties are posing as customer support services on commercial messaging applications such as Signal to compromise accounts and conduct phishing attacks, the FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) warned last Friday.…
Monday, March 23, 2026LiveStreamTechNo commentsMonday, March 23, 2026System EngineerTech CENTRALNo commentsSunday, March 22, 2026System EngineerregisterNo commentsfeature CERN is nothing like today's agentic AI jockeys, who mostly rely on pre-set weights and generic TPUs and GPUs to generate their slop. CERN burns custom nanosecond-speed AI into the silicon itself just to eliminate excess data.…
Sunday, March 22, 2026LiveStreamTechnical storiesNo commentsMore than 13,000 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, a more-than-70-ton machine trundled like a tank on its caterpillar tracks for a tenth of a mile—sucking up potato-sized nodules of rock packed with copper, manganese, cobalt, and nickel. It was 2022, and that pilot run of a subsea harvester by a Canadian business, The Metals Company, was pronounced a success.
The company is working to get a green light to deploy similar machines for commercial harvesting over an area of 65,000 square kilometers, to extract over 600 million metric tons of nodules.
There are riches on the ocean floor—round deposits made up of tightly packed layers of critical minerals that have long been out of reach. But not anymore. The pursuits of The Metals Company are among 31 initiatives by companies, governments and state-owned enterprises—including China, India, and the Republic of Nauru, a tiny island nation in the southwestern Pacific Ocean—to collect nodules for analysis and to test mining equipment.
Sunday, March 22, 2026System EngineerTech CENTRALNo commentsSunday, March 22, 2026LiveStreamTechNo commentsSaturday, March 21, 2026System EngineerbleepingcomputerNo commentsSaturday, March 21, 2026LiveStream 15 Hacks Every iPhone User Should Know, LifehackerNo commentsI'm routinely surprised by just how much technology Apple has managed to pack into the iPhone that I can carry in the palm of my hand. What's even more surprising is that there's even more to it than meets the eye. There's a better, faster way to use the keyboard and a faster way to select unread emails to archive. There are better ways to browse the web than just the usual Safari experience, and you can get way better photos out of the iPhone Pro cameras than what the stock Camera app shows you.
The iPhone has become such a default product in all our lives that we just take it for granted. Yes, it's a great way to stay in touch with friends and coworkers, to capture moments, and to doomscroll the night away. But spend some more time, and there's a whole new iPhone experience just waiting for you that will truly transform how your iPhone looks and works.
Apple installs the Shortcuts app on every device and even offers pre-built shortcut automations that you can install from the Gallery. But the fun starts when you explore the very active Shortcuts community online and start to integrate Automations into the mix.
Apple’s Shortcuts app lets you create automations that automatically follow pre-defined steps. They can be used to resize images, compress files, convert data, and even control aspects of your smartphone. For example, you can create an automation that automatically enables a VPN when you step out of your home, or sends a message to your partner when you leave work. Looking to get started? We have a list of seven automations that I feel every iPhone user should install.
I’m a huge fan of custom widgets. Whenever someone picks up my iPhone, the response is usually something like, "Your iPhone doesn’t look like a regular iPhone." That’s down to custom widgets that show the time, day, my appointments, the weather, my tasks, and more. The world of custom iPhone widgets is huge, and if you just want to dip your toes in, I would suggest you start with the Widgetsmith app, which lets you customize multiple widgets with the same theme and fonts. All together, it looks really aesthetically pleasing. When you’re ready, you can dive in with the Widgy app, where you can import and customize thousands of interactive widgets.
While we're on the home screen, here's another time-saving hack. If you've been using your iPhone for years, your home screen might be cluttered with apps. You can go to Settings > Home Screen & App Library and choose the App Library Only option in the Newly Downloaded Apps section to make sure that newly downloaded apps don't show up on your home screen by default.
But what about the dozens of apps already there? Well, you can quickly hide them in bulk. The iPhone has a hidden manager for home screen pages. Tap and hold on any empty part of the home screen, tap the Edit button from the top-left, and choose the Edit Pages option. You will now see a list of all your home screen pages at once. Simply uncheck the pages that you want to hide. If you would like to delete the page (along with all the apps and widgets in it), tap the Minus button in the top-left corner of the screen review, and from the popup, tap on Remove. Then tap Done to save your setup. Ah, see, much cleaner!
The iPhone has a hidden button, and it’s on the back of your iPhone. It’s an accessibility feature that you can access via Settings > Accessibility > Touch > Back Tap. You can then assign any app, shortcut, or action to either the Double Tap or Triple Tap gesture. It’s a great way to trigger Shortcuts automations, or to simply bring up the selfie camera. I, personally, find that the double-tap gesture has a tendency to misfire sometimes, and the triple-tap gesture is a lot more reliable.
If you live in a noisy city, or if you take calls during your commute, you'll appreciate this hidden feature. Voice Isolation is one of those features that Apple chooses to bury that, honestly, should be better placed. As the name suggests, Voice Isolation works in the background during calls (and when recording audio in Voice Memos, and some third-party apps), methodically removing distracting and loud background noises, and ambient noise. It can cancel out construction noise, or a loud hum of an AC unit. It works on any iPhone starting with iPhone X, but the best way to use it might be with the AirPods. The combination of the noise-canceling mode, with the boost of Voice Isolation leads to some of the clearest call quality you can get, especially when paired with the FaceTime Audio call.
When you're on a call, open the Control Center, tap the Phone Controls button up top to reveal all options. Here, switch to Voice Isolation mode.
If you don’t use Safari extensions, you’re sleeping on unrealized potential. Just like on the Mac, the Safari browser on the iPhone also supports extensions. And you can use extensions to do some really cool things, like blocking all ads and trackers (of course), but also to force every website to be in dark mode, all the time. You’ll also find extensions to improve the Reddit browsing experience and to take complete control of all the elements on the websites you use frequently.
The iPad popularized the drag and drop gesture that lets you transfer multiple items from one app to another with just one swipe. But here's the secret: it's not limited to the iPad. Even though you can't have two apps open at the same time on iPhone, you can still use iPhone's clever multitasking features to drag and drop anything between two apps. Things come in super handy when you want to drag multiple photos to the Files app, or to an email. First, select the files or photos you need. Select one file first, and move your finger to "pick" it up. Then use another finger to add more files or photos to the pile. It will all stay planted underneath your finger. Don't let go of it just yet. Use your other hand to go back to the Home screen and open the app where you want to drop it off. Open the email, or the notes, and simply release your finger. The data will end up right where you let go of your finger.
Using a third-party browser, like Vivaldi, is a very power-user move. All third-party browsers on iOS are technically variations of Safari, as Apple forces developers to build their browsers on Safari's WebKit platform. However, these third-party browsers can include unique features that Safari doesn't. Vivaldi, for example, offers desktop-class tab browsing, including tab groups and pinned tabs. Then there’s Orion, which can run desktop-class extensions from Firefox and Chrome Web Store on your iPhone (something that Safari can’t do). And if you don’t like Safari’s new interface, try out Quiche, which is a completely customizable browser.
Focuses have the potential to transform how your iPhone looks and works, based on your location, time, day, or the task at hand. It’s time to go beyond Do Not Disturb and embrace everything that Apple's Focuses can do.
It would be a good idea for you to set up Focuses for Work, Personal Time, and Sleep. In each Focus, you can decide which apps can send notifications, and which friends or family members can contact you. You can even choose which home screens to show in particular Focus, choosing to hide widgets and apps depending on the Focus (no work stuff at all in Personal Time Focus, for example). Focus also integrates with Shortcuts and Automations, so you can trigger a Focus when you start a video call on your Mac or reach a particular location (like your workplace). Go to Settings > Focus to get started.
The iPhone has a built-in OCR technology (Apple calls it Live Text) that lets you copy text from an image, but you can also use it to take actions with that text—whether it's captured from an image, in a video, or out in the real world. When you're viewing an image with text on it in the Photos app, you'll see a little "Text" icon in the bottom-right corner. Tap on it, and all the text will be highlighted. If there's a phone number in there, or an address, you can tap on it to directly place a call, or open the location in Apple Maps. This also works in the Camera app: Just point the camera towards the text, and tap the "Text" button in the bottom-right corner.
You’ll be familiar with all the usual iPhone gestures, like swiping up from the Home bar, or tapping the top edge of the iPhone to instantly scroll to the top. But the iPhone has a lot more hidden gestures that can really speed things up, and they work throughout the operating system. If you see a long list, try to swipe down with two fingers to instantly start selecting items. This works really well in Mail, Phone, and other Apple apps, but is also supported by third-party apps. Next, in iOS 26, Apple added back gesture support—just swipe in from anywhere on the left edge of the screen to quickly go back. You can also cut, copy, and paste with a three-finger gesture. To copy something, pinch it with three fingers. To cut, do it twice. To paste something, do a three-finger spread gesture (opposite of the pinch).
The iPhone keyboard is hiding some robust functionality under the hood, including a built-in Slide to Type feature where you can glide your finger over the keys to type words. It works really well, especially when using the phone one-handed. There’s a virtual trackpad built in, too—just tap and hold the Space bar and move your finger to move the cursor around.
If you find your keyboard too large to type on, you can also enable the one-handed keyboard from the Keyboard Settings button (tap and hold the Globe icon). From here, you can go to Keyboard Settings to try out Text Replacement, where you can create shortcuts for expanding your frequently used text snippets. For example, you can type “adrs” to expand to your full home address. You can set these sorts of text shortcuts for any oft-types phrase—for example, you can set "@@@" to auto-populate your email address.
If you've been relying on third-party document scanning apps, it's worth knowing that there’s a really neat document scanner built into both the Notes app and the Files app on your iPhone. I prefer to use the Files app for this because it allows me to quickly save a PDF directly in the folder that I want. Here's how to do it: pen the Files app, go to any folder, tap the three-dotted Menu icon, and choose the Scan Documents feature. There’s an Auto Shutter feature, enabled by default, that will automatically scan each new page you put in front of your camera (if you find this annoying, you can disable it as well). Scan as many pages as you want, and tap the Done button. Then, give the document a name and it will be stored as a PDF in the folder. You can now send it to where it needs to go, or back it up using iCloud Drive.
If you're handing over your iPhone to a family member for playing a game or to watch some YouTube, iyou might not want them browsing your other apps. You can stop them from doing so using your iPhone's Guided Access feature. When activated, it locks a user in the app that's currently open, unless you press the Side button three times and you enter your passcode.
To set this up, go to Settings > Accessibility > Guided Access and enable the Guided Access option from the top. From Passcode Settings, you can either enable Face ID lock or set a custom passcode. Now that the feature is enabled, open the app that you want to lock and press the Side button three times. From the popup, choose Guided Access. You can draw over part of the screen to disable the functionality. The Session Settings button will give you options to disable access to keyboard, touch, or volume buttons. You can also set up an automatic time limit here. When you're ready, tap Start and enter your passcode. You can now hand over your phone to anyone, without stressing about your private data. When you're done, press the Side button thrice, and enter the passcode to disable the feature.
The cameras on the iPhone Pro are truly stellar. But the Camera app is not. The default Camera app does too much computational photography for my taste, and has trouble focusing on elements exactly when I need to capture something small. Plus, the Pro cameras can shoot in Log in ProRes, and to fully take control of the visuals from your iPhone, you’ll need to step out of the Camera app.
For shooting video in the best light, Blackmagic is a great choice. Here, you get full manual control over both photos and videos, with film-grade presets (including the ability to create your own custom ones).
If that feels a bit too Pro, try using a third-party app to capture much better photos. My colleague Pranay has highlighted a couple of great options, with Halide Mark II topping the list (I agree, as well). Halide gives you a lot more control over the look of your photos. There’s also a Process Zero feature that removes all of Apple’s computational processes from the photos.
Friday, March 20, 2026System EngineerregisterNo commentsA lobbying trade body for smaller cloud providers is asking the European Commission to impose interim measures blocking Broadcom from terminating the VMware Cloud Service Provider program, calling the decision a death sentence for some tech suppliers and an illegal squeeze on customer choice.…
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Smart home technology has really changed the way we live and work in our homes, giving us more control over our environment and appliances. We can now adjust the climate, monitor our resource consumption, and stream our media anywhere in the house with a tap of the finger or a few spoken words. But that convenience and power has come with a cost, and that cost is the, well, aesthetic of some of that smart tech. Smart devices are often clunky plastic monstrosities that insist upon taking over more than their fair share of flat surfaces. If you’re hoping for a more elegant, analog look—while still enjoying the benefits of modern smart tech in the house—the good news is that there are a lot of options for smart home technology that can be easily hidden (or at least made less obvious).
Perhaps the ugliest device in your smart home is the most fundamental: Your router. You won’t get far with your smart home if your devices can’t connect to a robust network, but routers have become unattractive enough that people try hiding them in baskets or behind plants. Instead of hiding your router, try minimizing its visual presence. The eero Pro 7 is a solid WiFi 7 mesh router that not only has a sleeker look than most routers, it can be wall-mounted to get it off flat surfaces and out of the way. This isn’t exactly hidden, of course, but it’s a lot less noticeable and obtrusive than most routers.
Smart stuff like outlets, locks, dimmers, and security tools offer a lot of peace of mind and control over your house, but they can also be bulky, making the place look cluttered—not exactly the sleek, cutting-edge vibe a smart home should offer. You can eliminate the clunky, though, with these products:
The Level Lock Pro is a smart lock that looks like a traditional deadbolt and integrates inside your door, giving you a cleaner, more traditional look.
Smart outlets like the Kasa KP200 or the Eve Energy Outlet eliminate the need for a bulky adapter, and they look like every other outlet in your house (and it’s not hard to replace your outlets DIY).
The Lutron Diva Smart Dimmer works with Alexa, Apple Home, Google Assistant, Ring, and more, and offers a range of useful smart functions. But it also looks just like every other dimmer switch in the world, so you don’t have to worry about making your house look like the set of a bad sci-fi show.
Home security can be smart, too, and when it comes to exterior cameras you might actually want them to be obvious so they can act as a deterrent. Other security options, like motion detectors, can add to your sense of safety but are often unsightly. Instead, choose the Aqara Zigbee Vibration Sensor, which is a slim, easily hidden tab that detects motion and alerts you immediately.
Smart media devices let you take your entertaining to a whole new level and also make relaxing in your home more fun—but even the sleekest Bluetooth speaker can be an eyesore (and one more thing you have to keep track of). Products like the Sonos In-Ceiling speakers are installed flush with your ceiling and can be painted to match, making them all but invisible. Another option is in-wall speakers from Amina, which can be installed inside cabinets or covered by drywall, making them almost totally invisible.
Another smart device that sticks out in most homes is the television. There’s no shame in having a TV as the focal point of your living room, but if you’d rather not have an enormous hunk of plastic and glass dominate the room, modern frame TVs like the Samsung’s The Frame transform into framed art when not in use as a TV, so you won’t have an ominous black screen marring your next cocktail party.
Having a smart device in the bathroom is useful for checking the news and weather while you prep for your day, or jazzing up your bath time with some music or other media. But having a hunk of plastic on the limited counter space isn’t ideal, and wall-mounted TVs can be an eyesore in an otherwise clean and calming space. The Sylvox Magic Mirror TV, however, looks just like a bathroom mirror when not in active use, but blooms into a smart TV at the touch of a button, so you can play music, movies, live TV, or just get news and weather information.
Kitchens have always been magnets for clutter. Countertop appliances, groceries, junk mail—everything winds up sitting on the counters, and there’s never enough counter space. One solution is to install smarter countertops. Products like Invisicook install induction burners under your countertop, so you can use it as both prep space and cooking space—no separate burners needed. This creates an elegantly minimalist look and gives you extra prep space when you’re not cooking. These have to be installed by professionals, and you might need to replace your current countertops as they have specific thickness and material requirements.
Another way to make your kitchen invisibly smarter is the Freepower wireless charging countertops. This requires replacing your existing countertops with pieces that integrate the Freepower chargers, but once you do that, you can literally just drop your devices on the counter and they’ll charge—no bulky chargers or unsightly wires needed.
