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Another grill, another planet
WEBER GENESIS II EX-335 GBS
Some people will tell you a barbecue isn’t a real barbecue unless you
start your own fire and hunt all the meat you put on it yourself, but gas
canisters and supermarkets exist for a reason – and so does Weber’s
Genesis II EX-335 GBS. As well as your steaks, sausages and burgers,
this three-burner grill has Wi-Fi and a whole load of sensors on board,
so it’ll tell you when things need flipping and when they’re ready to
serve, either through audible notifications on the barbie itself or via
the Weber smartphone app. That means you can leave it to do its
thing while you sup a nice cold beer in front of the telly. Now that’s
real barbecuing.
£1773 / weber.comEr, don’t they mean pavement?
Normally we’d agree... but as Amazon’s
misdemeanours go, using an Americanism
is fairly minor – especially considering it’s
a US company and the feature in question
is currently only available to American
users. Sidewalk is a new wireless tech
that could turn a street full of separate
smart homes into a more unified smart
neighbourhood – and if you’ve bought
yourself a new spherical Echo or Echo
Show 10 (see p25), you’ve already got
what you need to make the most of it.OK, but what does it actually do?
It’s designed to fill in the gap between your
Wi-Fi and a cellular network like 4G. It uses
a fairly old-fashioned chunk of the radio
spectrum, which has been reserved in
the past for walkie-talkies and pagers,
to share a tiny portion of your internet
connection with other kit up to half a mile
away. The idea isn’t to replace Wi-Fi but to
provide a signal to stuff that’s a long way
from the router, such as security cameras
and other IoT sensors – or things that
sometimes stray out of its reach, like Tile’s
tracking tags, which until now have had to
rely on Bluetooth.What if I don’t want to share?
Then you need to learn to be less selfish.
Besides, Sidewalk can only send 80Kbps
and the total bandwidth is capped at
500MB a month – we’re not streaming
4K films here. You can also turn it off
completely if you’re determined to be
stingy. If you do want to use Sidewalk’s
900MHz network, though, you’ll need to
wait. Tile has some compatible trackers in
the pipeline and Ring’s not-yet-available
Car Alarm and Fetch pet tag will also use
it... but of course, they’ll still need Amazon
to flick the big Sidewalk switch for the
UK first.WTF IS
AMAZON
SIDEWALK?
The birdie throng
BIRD BUDDY
Tweet tweet, who’s there? The Bird Buddy is like a Ring doorbell
for your flappy friends. Every time a hungry beak approaches, the
motion-activated camera captures 5MP photos and 720p video, with
a 120° lens ensuring it can fit every feather in shot (unless you often
get ostriches or albatrosses in your garden). The app then uses AI to
identify each one and create a rogues’ gallery of winged visitors, so you
know exactly which species are stopping by and when, plus it’ll give you
tips on what to fill the feeder with to attract each one. The 6040mAh
battery lasts about a month between charges and you can add a
wall-mount or fence-mount when it goes on sale in October.
£145 / mybirdbuddy.com