Choosing the home audio system that's right for you

Great sound is a key part of any decent home entertainment setup, and these days it's pretty easy to find various systems that will give you fuller range and more volume than your TV's speakers or your phone's headset.

But if you're looking to kick it up a few notches and go for higher-quality audio, there are some important points to consider.

First and most importantly, is your top priority music or home theatre? You might think, "Hey, sound is sound, right?" But the sonic demands of music and movies are quite different.

Smart alarms provide connectivity and peace of mind 

A smart home needs to be a connected home, but the fact that a home is connected doesn't necessarily make it smart. When it comes to safety, though, there really is a new level of intelligent connectedness available in today's generation of smart smoke alarms.

At their most basic, and cheapest, they can alert you remotely via a mobile app when an alarm is activated. In fact, a device like the Roost Smart Battery can smarten up any standard, functioning smoke detector – as long as it's battery-powered or has a battery backup – for about $60. This deceptively simple device is a lithium nine-volt battery with a Wi-Fi chip and a microphone that "hears" your alarm.

Not only will you get an alert when the alarm is activated, you'll also get one when the battery needs replacing. No more annoying low-battery chirps, and yes, you can just swap in any standard 9-volt cell when it's time.

Devices that allow you to monitor everything, from cooking progress in your Crock-Pot down to the forkful of food you just ate

Chances are at some point in the past five or six years you've heard the phrase, "the Internet of things." In some industrial tech circles it's even being shortened to "IoT" these days.

Sounds cool and acronym-y, right? And like a lot of the buzzwords that propagate online today, you have to wonder sometimes if the people using it even know what it means.

I'm going to talk about kitchen appliances in a minute here, but because connected appliances are prime examples of the Internet of things in action, let's get clear on the term first.

More Canadian homes are abandoning conventional TV services

If you're the New Year's resolution-making type — and more than half of us are, statistically speaking — it's likely that better financial decision-making is one of your goals for 2017.

You're not alone; spending less money was one of the top three resolutions in a survey done earlier this month by the Statistic Brain Research Institute in the U.S.

So it follows that you'd be interested in saving anywhere from around $50 to $100-plus a month by making a simple change that would have virtually no impact on your quality of life, right?

New programs could see homeowners coming out ahead

If 2007 was the year of the smartphone, then 2017 might be the year of the smart home.

Before 2007, there were cellphones that connected to the Internet, sure. But that year, Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone. It was the company's biggest innovation since 1984's launch of the original Macintosh, and its ripple effect on the entire technology sector continues.

Enthusiasts waited in line all night to get an iPhone and for a tremendous number of people, seeing one was wanting one (although the initial high price tag held a lot of us back until the next year).

Hands-free camera technology offers applications for homeowners

If you had a camera that was always on, aimed and focused on whatever you're looking at, ready to shoot a photo, would you take more — and better — pictures?

Shota Takase is betting you would. That's why the young entrepreneur invented Blincam, a small, glasses-mounted camera that will photograph anything you're looking at, literally in the blink of an eye.

And it's completely hands-free, meaning you can take photos while riding a bike, carrying groceries, cooking or doing just about anything else you can think of.

Speech-recognition tech offers in-home potential. But beware



As speech-recognition technology becomes increasingly reliable, it has the potential to become the interface of choice for just about every device we use.

On the surface, it makes sense. After all, people speak at an average of 150 words per minute, while most of us can barely type 40 on a good day.

But as convenient and novel as being able to talk to your computer, thermostat, lights and appliances might be, it comes with a few cautions.

Appliances and automation solutions that can save homeowners money

"It's cool, yeah. But will it save me money?"

For most of us, that's the obvious question when it comes to technology products for the home.

The answer may very well be yes. If you are a homeowner, a little research will show you that spending a little up front can reduce energy bills, insurance premiums and hassles down the road.

Making a case against Wi-Fi in today's homes



It's a typical evening at home. Netflix is streaming on the big screen; the kids are downstairs playing on online game while blasting tunes from Spotify or Apple Music.

Mom is at her laptop catching up on some work through a VPN connection to her company's internal network, while dad's watching YouTube on his smartphone. Someone's probably checking Facebook, too.

And most, maybe all, of this is happening without a wired connection.

Wireless Internet is everywhere in our homes, but homeowners may rely in it more than they need to, say industry experts.