February 2024

Someone has to be first in line for every iPhone or the latest wearable tech, and that job generally falls to early adopters—the overly enthusiastic among us who are willing to take a chance on technology before anyone else. Sometimes it pays off; sometimes you have an expensive pair of Google Glass in a box somewhere in a drawer.

But when you buy into new technology before anyone else, it also means you might not notice that the technology upgrades dramatically over time. As you watch friends acquire the tech you’ve had a long time already, you might not take note of the new features or benefits coming out, and thus, you’re likely missing out.

If you’re hanging onto Sonos Play speakers, you’re missing out on Sonos Era and Arcs

I was stubborn and tried to avoid paying the steep price of a Sonos Playbar and speakers. I was sure there was another solution for wifi-connected speakers, but Sonos was the only game in town almost 10 years ago so I finally acquiesced. While I’m happy with my system, I recently upgraded from a Playbar and two Play 3 speakers to an Arc and two Era 300 speakers for my TV surround. The difference is immediately noticeable. Put aside the fact that all the new speakers are voice-responsive, which is a huge upgrade. The bass of the Era 300s results in such a richer sound, and this may be because there’s just more hardware tucked inside, you gain better spatial sound.

While I thought, all this time, the Playbar provided spectacular sound, particularly over my television speakers, I spent a few days in awe of how much clearer dialogue was with the Arc soundbar. This might be because the Arc supports Dolby Atmos and eArc. Even before I set up the Eras as the rear surrounds, the Arc alone provides an almost surround experience on its own, with its curved design. When I flip the surround to music, even in the absence of a subwoofer, I hear each note more distinctively. (I spent three days listening to The Mountain Goats ad nauseam—they just sounded so good on this setup). With the upgrade came the ability to use Trueplay, a tuning application previously unavailable for Android.

The Era and Arcs are expensive, no doubt, but I can’t overstate how much better they make TV dialogue, action and music sound. While Sonos is no longer the only wifi speaker game in town (Samsung has a line as well), it’s hard to imagine better sound than what the Era/Arc surround combo offers.

Three new Sonos speakers to consider:

It might be time to upgrade your doorbell

In the last few months, I’ve tested doorbells from Aqara, Google Nest, Blink and Wyze and one thing is for sure: Universally, doorbells got a lot better in the last 10 years. The resolution difference alone is worth the upgrade. If you’ve ever felt, as I did, that the video quality on the camera wouldn’t be worth much in the case of a house or car break-in, the latest high-resolution options could change your mind. Particularly at night, newer cameras, universally, have much better night vision and generally don’t even come in versions lower than 1080p, with capability for much higher resolutions, too. In the case of Eufy, you get two lenses for the ability to get real detail.

Video doorbells have also become much less expensive, with models starting under 50 dollars. Sure, there are still expensive doorbells to be had—Ring, for instance, has a brand-new offering I’ve yet to test. While these lower-priced doorbells don’t have the design details of a Ring, they get the job done and in some cases, don’t involve subscription fees—a huge bonus. Additionally, newer cameras might offer AI features like package detection, and, in limited cases, face detection.

Video doorbells with high resolution:

Your robot vacuum was cool—but these robot vacuums are cooler

In the last few months I’ve tested five floorbots, and each of them so handily put to shame my Roomba, I was able to give away the robot I’d named and jokingly referred to as my autonomous child without a second glance. I thought my Roomba was fun. I didn’t understand the paths it took across the floor, and it annoyed me how often I’d have to untangle something from its brushes or replace them altogether. It would often get stuck under a couch and I’d leave it for a few days until I felt like dealing with it.

It was replaced with a series of robots that vacuum and mop, and not in the way that the Braava, Roomba’s pal, does, like a Swiffer. New floorbots never put dirty water on the floor; they constantly clean the mop pad, and store dirty water until they’re ready to empty it into the dock. The floorbot empties the dustbin so you’ll almost never have to deal with it, but also refills the mop from the clean water, and empties the dirty water into a separate station, all of which you only change every week or so. The station then scrubs the mop pad clean and dries it.

This isn’t the only improvement. The floors get cleaner, and new machines get closer to the wall when they clean. New machines have better navigation around objects, so they aren’t completely put off when you leave a dog toy (or your dog) in the living room. Almost no machine uses bump-and-go guidance anymore; they all use Lidar, mapping an entire room in a matter of seconds. New machines have joystick capabilities, so you can guide your bot out of a jam. Some even have onboard video, so you can watch what your floorbot is cleaning.

The most important thing is that the bots need less maintenance. They generally get lost less often and get things stuck in them less often. While I felt strongly that my original Roomba wasn’t worth the work it involved, newer floorbots absolutely alleviate the workload around my home.

Two floorbots I’m impressed by:

Roborock S8 Pro Ultra: $1999.99
Switchbot k10: $499.99

Splitwise has long been my favorite app for splitting expenses. The app makes it easy to figure out who owes who, and even works well across multiple currencies. It was amazing until recently, when Splitwise hobbled its free tier to the point of making it a lot less useful: The first couple of expenses can be added for free, but the app now asks you to wait for 10 seconds to add more entries (no big deal), and after four entries, you can’t add more for 24 hours (a bigger deal).

It’s another example of apps limiting basic, free features to bring in more revenue. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with a $5/month premium subscription for additional features, but you might not want to pay that for the basic feature of adding a few expenses per day. Fortunately, there are still other expense-tracking apps that let you log entries for free.

Tricount lets you split expenses without creating an account

Credit: Tricount

Tricount allows you to keep a tab on who owes who without even creating an account. You can create two buckets of expenses, such as for two separate trips or projects. For more trips, you can create an account and continue logging expenses. The app is easy to use and the free tier is good enough to cover the bases for people looking to split costs. The premium tier is at $3/month and adds advanced export features, the ability to save your preferred mode of splitting costs, and charts.

You can find Tricount here: Tricount (Android, iPhone)

Settle Up is a reliable alternative to Splitwise

Credit: Settle Up

Settle Up is a good expense-splitting app for those who want to add multiple expense groups without paying. Its free tier offers a lot of what Splitwise used to do, but you might run into ads. The premium subscription costs $4/month or $20/year, which would get rid of the ads and include the ability to upload receipt photos. It’s a solid Splitwise alternative at a reasonable price.

You can find Settle Up here: Settle Up (Android, iPhone)

Venmo includes expense splitting now

Credit: Venmo

Venmo is obviously popular to send money to friends but it also recently added a bill-splitting feature. The advantage is that payments are also in the same app, which makes it easier to check how much you owe and to pay. Venmo is a great alternative to Splitwise so long as most of your friends also use Venmo, but not so much if you’re on an international trip with friends from regions where Venmo doesn’t work.

You can find Venmo here: Venmo (Android, iPhone)

Splid is an expense-splitter app without a subscription

Credit: Splid

Splid is a good expense-splitting app for people who hate recurring payments. The app allows you to log expenses in one group for free, and you’re free to keep deleting or editing that group for free, but adding more groups costs a one-time fee of $4 to unlock unlimited groups or $3 for a limit of two groups.

You can find Splid here: Splid (Android, iPhone)

SplitMyExpenses is no-frills web-based Splitwise alternative

Credit: SplitMyExpenses

If you don’t like Google Sheets’ UI for expense tracking, you can also consider SplitMyExpenses. It’s a great web-based expense splitter that supports multiple currencies. You can add as many expense entries as you like and set up a custom split percentage based on who owes how much. It has paid tiers that let you automatically scan receipts and add credit cards or bank accounts to log your spending. Its biggest flaw at the moment is a lack of mobile apps, which might be a dealbreaker.

You can find SplitMyExpenses here: SplitMyExpenses

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If you’re hanging onto Sonos Play speakers, you’re missing out on Sonos Era and Arcs

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Tricount lets you split expenses without creating an account

Settle Up is a reliable alternative to Splitwise

Venmo includes expense splitting now

Splid is an expense-splitter app without a subscription

SplitMyExpenses is no-frills web-based Splitwise alternative

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