The Sonos Beam is a smart Sonos soundbar designed to provide beautiful sound when connected to your TV, but it also doubles as a music system to play streaming music though the speaker. One of the best features of the Sonos Beam is that it has Alexa built in so you can directly talk to your Sonos Beam with Alexa commands. When you use Alexa commands you can control your music, control connected light switches or connected smart plugs when using your voice.

Podcast Review of the Sonos Beam soundbar

• Features of the Sonos Beam soundbar.

• How Alexa works with the Sonos Beam

• How to setup the Sonos Beam for your home

• Comparison of the Sonos Beam vs Sonos Playbar

I’ve been getting a lot of questions from friends, family and listeners about using smart home technology for their elderly parents or grandparents to help make things a little easier as they age.

The biggest concern people seem to have about implementing smart home technology for their grandparents is that it will be complicated to use or that it won’t work as intended. The reality is that if you choose the right devices and keep the system simple it can be easy for your grandparent to use and make their life and yours a little easier.

In this smart home podcast episode we focus on simple technologies that are easy to use for elderly people to help them stay independent, prevent falls and stay safe.

In this episode we review the Ring Smart Home Security System. I’ve tested some of the most popular smart home security systems on the market and I finally got around to testing the Ring Security System. I was originally skeptical of the Ring Security System because I didn’t think it would be as capable as some of the more expensive smart home security systems. However I was pleasantly surprised by the Ring Security System after I installed it.

In fact the Ring Security System preformed so well that I decided to replace my current security system and stick with the Ring Security System because of it’s low cost and no contract approach to home security.