Reviews related to : Home products

896433 Tapo Matter Smart Mini Wi Fi Plu

TAPO Wi-Fi Plug P110M

This item can help you discover why you electricity bill is so high. If you have a Smart Metre all it tells you is how much you are using and how much you have spent. It does not tell you what item is using what, this plug from TAPO will tell you what is using what over a given time period.
It is no bigger than most plugs so can fit in beside others on a dual socket or gang lead. It is a little taller as the plug from whatever you want to find out the hourly or daily cost from fits onto its back. There is an LED it shows green once linked and green and orange towards the rear of its top when being setup. You may need access to its left side so on a dual socket plug it into the left one so you are able to complete its setup.
Do you have hard water from your tap? It is especially hard in the area I live in. So being able to filter the water you drink is important. The filter removes lots of different items that arrive in your cup/glass if you drink direct from the tap.
The unit is 26cm tall, 25cm from front to back and 11cm wide. It can hold up to 5 pints (2.8 litres) of water. When you open the box you have the main unit, the top, the lid and the filter. There is a ‘Quick Guide’ but the assembly guide could be better and I tried – unsuccessfully – to put the top in the wrong way but this would mean that water would take many hours to get into the unit instead of a few minutes.
895528 WiZ Mobile Portable Table Lam

Wiz Lights

Here I am looking at two new lights from WIZ. They are both mains powered but the control can be by an App or a remote control. The first a 30cm bar light described as the way to light up small spaces with ease. The second 10.5cm round and 18cm tall with a leather handle, when first powered on both start out and white but by using the App or the optional remote control they can be any colour you like and that is just the start there are more options.
As mentioned above this 30cm long and triangular in shape so can sit anywhere it comes with an adapter that can fit in either end of the bar, the lead is 1.50 metres long ending in a three pin plug. Out of the box the light is white and you can control the brightness by pressing a tiny nipple on the back of the light. Once connected by Wi-Fi or the optional remote control you can then really see what it can do, it can have warm or cool light to suit both your mood and the situation.
I do not sleep well so when I get a chance to review items that might improve my sleep I take them. This tool is speech and music and while I have managed to fall asleep in a boring presentation in the past this is something new to me.
The  is round at 8cm and 6cm tall without its wooden lid in place, I used it with its built in speaker but if you need more volume then use its 3.5mm socket to connect to external offerings. There are eight subjects and eight different items on each subject, there is a male and a female voice and there should be 8 minute and 20 minute versions of each offering; however despite my best endeavours I was only able to access the 20 minute versions.
Over the years I have had the chance to try several vacuum cleaners and carpet washers both big and small from VAX. The more recent carpet washers are great in that they make the decisions, move forward and wash and move backwards to dry. These however have one drawback space, by that I mean you need to empty the room and in today’s cluttered world that is not easy and that is where the Spot Washer comes in.
The VAX Spot Wash Duo is 40cm tall, 17cm wide and 32cm deep, the fitted hose is 1.5metres long. The cleaning solution goes into an area in the centre of the unit under the carrying handle, at the front is the clean water tank and at the back the dirty water tank. On one side is where you insert the end of the hose to run a cleaning cycle on the hose and beside this is a wrap area for the hard wired power lead. There are four heads to attach to the end of the hose.
894784 Pawbby Smart Bow

Pawbby Smart Pet Bowl

If your dog is just 10% overweight it can reduce its life expectancy by up to 30%. So feeding it the correct amount can save you money not only in food but also in vet’s bills. This offering from Pawbby is a pets bowl with a scale built in so that you only feed your dog the exact amount. While I have mentioned dogs it could equally well work for a cat.
The food bowl fits in the scale and is made of stainless steel so is easily removed for cleaning and it fits in such a way that it is tilted by 7% towards your dog this I am told is the amount required to help the dogs spine when bending its neck to the bowl. Yes it links to an App via Bluetooth so you know everything you need to. This offers feeding instructions and hints and tips. The scale in the bowl can weigh in 1 gram increments up to 2kilos.
Sometimes the appearance of clothes can be deceptive, you know you wore it yesterday but it still looks pristine, so will you wear it again, perhaps your nose has the answer if that says no you probably do not. However there is something that could turn that no into a yes.
The FreshUp by Bosche is an item to remove smells and odors from your clothes. Not just personal odors but also smoke and food smells. It is 16x6.5x3.5cm and comes with what looks like a slip in glasses case, charging is by USB but for those without a USB port there is also a mains plug front supplied in the box. A full charge of the internal battery is around three hours, while charging a very bright white LED flashes on top of the unit, the on/off button is beside the LED.
While there is plenty of publicity and action regarding the food we eat, there seems to be less concerns about the water we intake.
Turn on the tap in your kitchen and you should receive, unless there is a blockage somewhere in your pipes, an output of sparkling water.  This liquid can then be used for a variety of tasks including providing the body with an important element for a healthy existence.  However, while the water you receive from a tap might have the appearance of a clear water, it is not always the pure liquid we think it is despite the efforts that have been made to remove impurities by suppliers.
As far as I know this is the first Wash and Dry unit, earlier units shampooed and then washed drying often meant that that room was out of bounds for a good length of time. Here this unit automatically washes on the forward stroke and dry’s on the back stroke, for even quicker results there is a dry only mode.
The VAX Platinum Smart Wash comes in a 60x50x36cm box and the main installation is placing the handle into the base unit, having done that the water container fit in, everything is well documented in the instructions. It is 107cm tall, 42cm deep at the foot and 33cm wide. Total assembly time is less than fifteen minutes and involves fitting the top tank and the handle that just clips in.
This is the latest offering from Ring, the Ring Video Doorbell 4. As far as I remember this is the smallest ever box yet it still has everything required in it. Dependent on where you live a problem could well be false positives which may be generated by field of view, it is possible to limit certain factors in what the camera sees however bushes and trees may still be a problem, but there is a solution with ‘People only Mode’.
The Ring Video Doorbell 4 unit measures 12x6x2.5cm and this only increases should you use the angled slice device that is provided for those on hills or where fitting the unit flat is impractical. Having reviewed earlier Ring devices I had an idea of what to do, here however the setup is even simpler as is linking to your Wi-Fi that could previously be a little problematic. Providing you have charged the units battery and you have a drill everything else is in the 13.5x8x6.5cm box.
Do you fancy waking up in the morning with sunlight streaming through your bedroom window as your curtains open automatically?
Over the past few years many homes have undergone a make-over.  I should point out that I am not referring to decorative make-overs, however expensive or inexpensive they may be, but those of a technology kind which turn our places of residence into a smart home through the addition of a device or several devices.  You may have one or even a number of these devices controlling different aspects of your home.
891129 debenhamssho

Shoes from Debenhams

I am not a huge fan of buying shoes online, but with no sign of the lockdown ending I bit the bullet and checked a few sites. I ended up with Debenhams – yes I know they will not reopen but any purchase with a Credit/Debit card should be safe – simply because of the price.
As the only way anyone can get around safely is by walking my shoes have taken a fair amount of punishment and with the cost of repairs such as ‘sole and heal’ being astronomical these days it becomes pointless to do so, it may not be good for the planet but when repairs are twice the price of a new pair it’s a no brainer. There is a good amount of information about the shoe and also several images available so if you are sure of your size it becomes easy.
When normality returns, and we can move about at will, the next product could be a useful aid.
TCP. with more than 25 years of experience in the production of lighting products, has released its Smart Wi-Fi Multicoloured LED bulb.
Brightening up the home environment, especially important as we are spending more time at home due to the restriction enforced during lockdown, is the task of TCP's latest product.  Available as either a bayonet (my choice) or screw-type 60W product, this bulb could, at first sight, easily be mistaken for a regular dumb bulb device.  However. once inserted in an appropriate light socket, the bulb reveals its true colours (pun intended) in the form of additional features.
With all of us spending more time in our ‘bubbles’ clean air is vital as otherwise if one gets a cold – or worse – we all get it. So this device from Philips could well help. It is rare that I quote the top of the box in this introduction but here it seems appropriate ‘removes 99.97% of airborne allergens’ is the claim.
The claims are that it removes Pollen, Pet Danger, Household Dust, Outdoor Pollution, Gas, Dust Mite Allergens, Bacteria and Virus. You can track everything via the Philips Clean Home App. The Philips Air Purifier 3000i AC3033 measures 64.5cm tall and round at 27.5cm, it comes fully assembled but you have to remove the lower back half to remove the packaging from the filter which is already in place. It has a 1.8 metre hard wired mains lead that emerges from the base at the back.
Normally I get a lot of ideas from ‘Christmas In July’ events, of course with the Pandemic there were none but one clever PR company sent links in a very large PDF file with some of the items available to review during what is normally a quiet month August and here is the first of those offerings a pair of pocket pruners that are also a multi-tool.
I am certainly not a gardener and I am sure anyone who spends hours in their garden everyday will have several pairs of secateurs of different sizes. However someone who has a few plants may think this is a great set of tools as it not just a collapsible pair of pruners but also a total of thirteen tools in the arms of the pruners. On day one I was cooking a tinned pie the sort you get from Poundland and my can opener would not go through three points on the tin lid.
The Neos Indoor Camera was developed in association with an insurance company and their clients were the first to benefit from it. Here are two more items that can save the householders money by avoiding water damage problems and the second a sensor kit so you can know when a door or window is opened or movement is detected.
Both of these items are add-ons that also require you to have a Neos camera installed as they link into your Wi-Fi and then give you push notifications via the camera. However it is possible to have the camera unarmed with the Neos App open on your phone and get notified of an open door or window that the sensor is attached to.
I never sleep well, for a while now I have been looking for a new mattress; then the problem is what to do with the old one. This all became worse now the Pandemic is here with no courier or delivery driver coming further than the front doorstep. The solution I hit upon was to try a memory foam mattress topper on top of the mattress that I already have.
It arrived via Amazon three days after ordering. Packed in a large blue outer bag and then the inner bag with the mattress topper rolled inside, there is also a supplied cover. It has an A5 ‘Care Instructions’ sheet saying that there will be a residual smell that will disappear after a period of time and that the mattress will expand to original shape in around 8-10 hours.
With the nights now longer than the day’s most of us need to get up before the sun and that means we are far more likely to be woken unnaturally with the result that we feel – at the very least – less charitable towards others and therefore unhappy. This light from Philips can wake you with a gradually brightening light and for the heavy sleeper even bird song.
When the other end of the day arrives our sleep pattern can be out of sync and a red light can pulse to get up ready to sleep, this offering from Philips has both and it even has a built in radio. It is 22cm tall, 22cm wide and a maximum of 11cm deep at the base and less than 2cm deep at the top. The light unit is circular within those measurements. There is a line of four ports at the back towards the base, USB for charging only, a Reset button, DC power in and finally Aux in.
885910 Pokemon Eevee 3D Alarm and Lam

Pokémon Lamp Alarm Clock

This is ideal for a first alarm clock for a child; it can also act as a night light. Dependent on the child’s age it can be powered by ‘AAA’ batteries or USB. It also has a built in sensor so you can even check the room’s temperature.
The Pokémon Lamp Alarm Clock has a rectangular base unit measuring 11x4x5cm with a rabbit – the light – on top that is 13cm tall to the tips of its ears; however the light is from its feet to its head just under 10cm. The display is around 6x2.5cm which means you get 2cm high digits for the clock; easily seen even the child has less than perfect sight. The clock shows hours and minutes in either twelve or twenty four hour format with the day of the week above the minutes.