I’ve been playing with a cool smart lighting accessory over the past few weeks called the LED IQ Strip by Satechi. It’s a roughly 5-foot strand of multicolor LED lights that can be remotely controlled by virtually any Bluetooth 4.0 device.
Obviously this isn’t a groundbreaking product. There are several “smart” LED strips available these days—most notably the Philips Hue Lighstrip—I think its low price and ease-of-use make Satechi’s LED IQ Strip worth talking about.
I'll be the first to admit that my initial knee-jerk reaction to the iPhone 6s Smart Battery Case wasn't good. The peripheral, which was basically the butt of jokes all morning on Twitter, seemingly came out of nowhere to the feigned horror of many.
You'd be hard-pressed to identify another company whose products are subject to such intense scrutiny like Apple. Even when you have a low key release like the Smart Battery Case, it's bound to make a splashy first impression for better or for worse.
The good news is that the $99 iPhone 6s Smart Battery Case isn't half as bad as it looks. In fact, after a few hours of usage, I can say that I kind of like it.
Is the design peculiar? Indeed. Is it weird that Apple is jumping into the battery case game? Sort of. But overall, this is a product that I think many will like if they only give it a chance.
Apple on Tuesday released its very first battery pack, dubbed the Smart Battery Case and designed for the iPhone 6s and the previous-generation iPhone 6.
The $99 accessory provides device protection and offers even longer battery life: up to 25 hours of talk time, eighteen hours of Internet use on LTE (ten hours without the case) and twenty hours of video playback versus eleven hours provided by the iPhone 6s.
The built-in battery rests on the backside, beneath the credit card-sized protruding bulge. Passthrough and crossover designs permit users to connect Lightning accessories whilst the case is in use and let the case charge itself and the iPhone at the same time.
This accessory joins Apple's existing lineup of $35 Silicone Cases for the iPhone 6s and the recently launched $49 iPhone Lightning Dock and is available starting today from the Apple Online Store and Apple retail stores.
We've mentioned before that, although every new car still includes a CD player, many of us have moved on to a more convenient method of listening to music. So, that dashboard CD player just sits there getting dusty. Well, maybe not for everyone.
The Koomas CD-Air mount slips into your car's CD player, so you can keep your iPhone 6s at arms-reach without getting in the way of your windshield or air conditioner. Plus, it has the unintentional bonus of allowing you to still use the CD player to play music.
Since the iPad Pro debuted, I’ve been a little obsessed with trying to find the right microphone for recording on the go. I’ve tried a handful of microphones thus far in an effort to find a good balance of portability, ease of use, and sound quality.
The Blue Spark Digital is a very good microphone for general purpose use, but when it comes to portability and versatility, there are other microphones that I wish to check out.
The Shure MV5 ($99 on Amazon) is a super-portable digital condenser microphone with a low profile, lots of options, and sound quality that’s good enough. It’s a much smaller package and setup when compared with the Blue Spark Digital, and a good choice for podcasting, Skype calls, and more.
Most of us have had that dreaded moment when our iPhone slips out of our hands and goes flying across the room, crash-landing on the ground. If we're lucky, the worst damage is a small ding on one of the corners. But, we're not usually that lucky.
Urban Armor Gear makes a rugged case for the iPhone 6s with high-level drop protection and reinforced corners for added safety when trying to avoid the unavoidable.
Around the holidays, we find ourselves using our tech gadgets even more than normal. Whether we are taking photos and videos of the kids, trying to find Aunt Linda's new house with Google Maps, or simply trying to pretend we are somewhere else while Cousin Bob repeats that same story about the time he hand-fed a squirrel for the fifth time, our iPhones are getting a workout. Which also means our batteries are getting a workout, too.
The Alpatronix BX140 is an iPhone 6s case with a 3100 mAh battery pack that will juice up your device while you are on the go. It is fairly thin, as battery cases go, and comes with a separate bumper cover, so you don't have to keep the charger case on all of the time.
House of Marley, a music electronics brand deeply rooted in Bob Marley’s vision of consciousness, upliftment and change, today launched the Rebel, an inexpensive on-ear wireless headphones. Featuring power-efficient Bluetooth networking and priced at just $69.99, this headset is a viable option for those who can't stand wires and value crisp sound and sustainable craftsmanship.
With up to eight hours of continuous play, courtesy of a built-in rechargeable battery, along with an integrated microphone, A2DP stereo profile and 40mm moving coil drivers, the Rebel is the perfect alternative to the much costlier Apple-owned Beats audio accessories.
With the hundreds of leather wallet cases on the market, the biggest decision you have to make is how many credit card slots you want. If you want your wallet case to stand out in a crowd, try covering it in Twelve South's BookBook case.
Today, we are spotlighting the BookBook case to provide our readers with options for the type of case they may want to invest in to protect their iPhone 6s. We have not recently reviewed the case (we did a couple times in the past for other devices) and are unable to attest to its quality, but chose to spotlight it because of its high rating on Amazon.
If you want to do serious gaming on the Apple TV, then using a wireless Bluetooth controller isn’t an option, it’s a necessity. Yes, Apple controversially made it a requirement for all games on its platform to support the Siri Remote, but that’s not going to cut it for any game with an even mildly complex control scheme.
Games like Alto’s Adventure and Mr. Jump play perfectly fine, and are even suited for the Siri Remote, but in most cases, you’re definitely going to want a controller as an option.
Unfortunately, there is no Apple-branded controller to speak of, but Apple did co-design a controller with the help of SteelSeries. The result of that partnership is the SteelSeries Nimbus, and Apple is promoting this controller as the de facto standard alternative input device for the Apple TV.
All of that considered, while there are other 3rd-party Bluetooth controllers that work with the Apple TV, the most obvious choice is the SteelSeries Nimbus.
I purchased a Nimbus on day one, and have been playing with it for weeks. Is the $49.99 controller worth your time and hard-earned money? Is it really the best way to control games on the Apple TV?
We've been working hard all year to track down popular and usefull accessories for your iPhone 6s (we started on the iPhone 6). The reason we provide these spotlight posts is to give you a better breadth of knowledge of the types of accessories that are out there for you to choose from.
Today, we've got an accessory roundup of what we think are some of the best charging docks for your iPhone 6s from the products we've spotlighted over the past year. If you don't see your charging dock of choice on our list, please feel free to let us know in the comments.
The smell is what first grabs you. After receiving several Nodus items since their inception in 2013, it is the smell, every time, that first catches my senses. Maybe, it is the long trip across the pond from the UK that lets the leather scent build up in the box. Cracking open the package on any Nodus Collection item springs forth the best premium leather smell you will find on an iPhone case.
Certainly, there are many other things that make the Nodus line exceptional, but you can tell the attention to detail by smelling the quality of leather. It is something that should not be overlooked, when investing in a nice case.
Having attended CES for the last three years and milling over case after case, this is truly something incredible. It is leaps and bounds above Apple's similar leather cases. Step inside for your next iPhone case purchase and a great Black Friday special discount.