Father’s Day is coming up quick! Luckily you have Tech2U here today to go over some of the summers hottest tech gadgets that dad will surely love.
The first gadget we have today is the Harmony Elite. The Harmony Elite is a remote that can do everything you have always wanted a remote to do. With one click buttons that can do tasks such as “Watch a Movie”, or “Play Xbox”, your pops will never have trouble setting up the evenings entertainment again. The Elite takes away any guess work out of controlling your devices and can control almost all smart devices such as your lights, windows, or thermostats. With customization options, you could make a button the “Party” button that will turn off all the lights, queue up the stereo, and turn on a the wall socket controlling the disco ball all in one button press.
With Bluetooth and Wi-Fi enabled, the Harmony Elite can fit into any home. It runs at a pricey $350 but is the most bang for your buck remote we have ever seen. If your dad doesn’t need as much horsepower as the Elite, Harmony has products that range from $100-$300.
If your father spends the precious time at your family BBQ’s constantly checking on the chicken temperature on the grill, then this next gadget is for him. The iGrill Mini is a thermometer with built in Bluetooth, designed to let you monitor the temperature of your food from a distance. So instead of slaving over a hot grill while the grand kids play, your dad can be in the action with the peace of mind and convenience of having the exact food temperature of the grill on an app on his phone. The best part, the app will even send you a text message when your phone has reached the desired temperature. The iGrill Mini goes for a modest $40 and has upgrade options available.
The Flic shown above is a cool little gadget aimed to control different devices in your house. It functions very similarly to the Harmony, but is made for quick convenience. The Flic is a little button that responds to a variety of taps including a tap, double tab, and tap and hold. Each tap can be programmed to do a variety of things in your house. For example, you could have a Flic in your bedroom where every time you tap it, the coffee machine starts up, smooth jazz plays over the speakers, and the blinds roll up. By being iOS and Android compatible, the sky is the limit with the Flic. The magic button runs for $34 and can be found at https://shop.flic.io/.
If your pops has trouble losing things than the Tile is the perfect gift for him this Father’s Day. Tile is a small gadget that can easily attach to your keys, wallet, dog’s collar, or bike, that will emit an audible noise if you activate it through the phones app. If you happen to lose your phone, than pressing the Tile will in turn make the phone play a ringtone. The tile does have range restrictions, but if you declare something as “lost” through the app, the tile will search for any other active users in the area and alert that tile user that someones lost belongings is near. The Tile goes for $25 dollar and is even cheaper if you buy it in multi-packs.
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Video Transcription:
Host: I went for golfing on Saturday, played like for five hours in Henderson. That was when it got up to, you know, around 107, 108. First thing I did, go straight to the pool afterwards. It’s such an amazing feeling when you golf in Vegas or anything outdoors, you got to get to a pool. That’s the truth. And, as we approach Father’s day what a better way to make sure that you let dad know that he is loved and getting him something cool and techie for this Father’s day. Ryan Eldridge from Tech2U here with some gifts, gift ideas. What are some of the things that a dad needs?
Ryan Eldridge: And if you are not a dad, this is all motivation to become a dad, because you are going to want some of this cool stuff. So, this first one is called the Harmony remote. This is the Harmony remote elite, this is their top-of-the-line product, this is a $350 remote control. Which seems kind of crazy but when you think about, remote controls are such a pain, you got to pick up one and turn up the volume, pick up another change the channel, pick up another…
Host: I’ve got two and I lose track of which one does what.
Ryan Eldridge: What this does is just you press one button and say watch a movie it turns on your DVD player or your VCR if you’re still that way. A DVD player, your TV and your stereo all puts it on the right channels, when you turn the volume, it turns up the volume on the device you need rather than having a mess around with switching all the time.
Host: So, this is like an advanced version of the universal remote control which came out like over ten years ago. It just it has more tricks.
Ryan Eldridge: But you program it on your computer so that we don’t have to sit there and press bunch of buttons to try to figure out. It’s really amazing. That they do have other options that are less expensive, they have about $100 remote control for something that if you just want to get something nice and easy. but this is pretty amazing also there’s smart home stuff too. So if you want to control your temperature and stuff.
Host: Speaking of smart home, the grill.
Ryan Eldridge: This is called the iGrill, and this is a little gadget that you plug into your meat and it will send your phone an alert that tells you when it’s ready, so you don’t have to sit there and mess with it all the time. Dad’s always tethered to the grill during the summer time. So you just give it to him, tells him when it’s the right temperature, take it off the grill. That’s by iGrill, it’s about 40 bucks.
Host: Plug it straight into your meat is what it said.
Ryan Eldridge: Yeah. Plug that prob right in there. So let’s move on. Sorry I don’t want to get you too distracted. So, this is called the Flick. This is just a smart little button you use to hook up to your phone and you can do three different things with it, is you light press, double tap or press and hold. And each one of those functions you can do three different things on your phone. So, here check this out. Let’s say you have got a smart home, you can press the button once it’ll turn off your alarm, turn on your coffee maker, turn your music on so you can jam while you’re getting ready for work. Then as you are leaving you could press it couple of more times, turns your coffee maker off, turns your thermostat up because you’re not going to be home all day and then turns your music off.
Host: And I’m sorry, where do I keep this button?
Ryan Eldridge: You just put it any where you want. You can also use it as a panic button, so if you’re in a parking lot, you’re not sure what’s going on, you can press it real quick. Or you can use it as a selfie…
Host: I just walk around doing this and changing stuff at home..
Ryan Eldridge: You can use as a remote control for your phone so you can take pictures, you know just kind of on the sly.
Host: This is smart.
Ryan Eldridge: It’s pretty cool, 34 bucks, it’s called the ‘Flic’, F-L-I-C, you can get it at Amazon.
Last but not the least, this is called the Tile, the Tile is really cool. Now, this happened to me the other day is, I lost my keys and I couldn’t find them so I got one of this tiles. And when you lose your keys, you press this little button on your phone and it’ll find it for you. It’ll make a little dinging noise.
Host: Hear that, hear that? Where are my keys? I got them right here. I’ve seen this is in some magazines and yeah this makes sense to have it.
Ryan Eldridge: It also works like a mesh network. So, let’s say you leave your keys some place and you can’t find them anywhere and you’re on your way and out of Bluetooth range. Anybody else that has a Tile that gets close to it, it’ll alert you from their phone where your Tile is.
Host: Really smart stuff. You always bring the goods. Thank you for coming on.
Ryan Eldridge: You’re welcome.
Host: We’ll be right back after the break.
