At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Remarkably full featured for a first-generation device Can be wired to analog or digital doorbell chimes Supports Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit, Google Home, and Samsung SmartThings Ecobee has one of the most affordable security plans that includes professional monitoring Cons No battery backup for power outages Subscription required to unlock entire feature set Doesn’t support Apple’s HomeKit Secure Video Ecobee’s home security ecosystem lacks an outdoor camera Our Verdict The Ecobee Smart Doorbell (wired) is a reliable, easy-to-use, high-end video doorbell. It depends on hardwired power, but it can trigger a homeowner’s existing chimes. As with many of its competitors, you’ll need to pay for a subscription to unlock all its features, but it can be incorporated into a robust home security system with professional monitoring at a very reasonable price. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today If you’re already using one of Ecobee’s smart home thermostats or security systems—or you’re thinking about installing one—you’ll want to consider the company’s first video doorbell. The Ecobee Smart Doorbell Camera (wired) doesn’t just compete with category leaders Ring, Nest, and Arlo, it also brings a few smart ideas of its own—and it plays especially well within Ecobee’s larger smart home/home security ecosystem. There is no battery-powered version of this product, but its $160 price tag puts it in the sweet spot for high-end video doorbells. The unit records in 1080p resolution with HDR, capturing a tall (175 degrees vertical, 115 degrees horizontal) field of view with no fisheye distortion. That framing gives you a head-to-toe view of visitors and lets you see packages dropped flush against the door. The doorbell delivers a clear, bright image, day or night. The Ecobee Smart Doorbell Camera can be integrated into a comprehensive, self-installed, professionally monitored home security system. The upside of being entirely reliant on hardwired power means no downtime when a battery needs to be recharged. On the other hand, you can’t install this doorbell unless you either already have the infrastructure in place or you’re willing to run wire to the location you want to install it. If you don’t want to do that yourself, Ecobee offers professional installation for a reasonable $150 (not including the power transformer, if needed). Specifications The Ecobee Smart Doorbell Camera (wired) comes with everything you need to install it, including a wedge mount, extension wires at the doorbell end, an adapter at the chime/transformer end, wire nuts and screws. Ecobee The Ecobee Smart Doorbell boasts IP65 weatherization, which means it’ll stand up to dust, rain, and snow, which—as TechHive’s IP code decoder tells us—means it’s impervious to dust and that it can withstand water jets projected from any direction. What’s more, it can operate in temperatures from ranging from a frigid -13 degrees Fahrenheit to a broiling 113 F (-25 to 45 C). In other words, it’s built to last without the remove-recharge-reinstall routine a solely battery-powered doorbell requires. That said, a hybrid wired/battery solution would keep the camera operational during a power outage. Being a division of Generac, perhaps Ecobee would suggest homeowners invest in a backup generator to keep your home security system powered up. In any event, I’d been using a Ring Battery Doorbell connected to a Ring Alarm base station, and I never liked the synthesized electronic ring it delivered when a visitor rang. It was loud enough to be heard throughout the house, but I really preferred my old-school analog chimes, and the Ecobee made it possible to return those to use. Ring has other wired models that can do this as well, but the one I have doesn’t. Installation and setup The Ecobee Smart Doorbell (wired) fit in the narrow space next to my door, but I needed to use the provided extension wires to connect it to my existing transfomer.James Barber/Foundry The Ecobee Smart Doorbell can be installed flat, with its camera lens facing straight out, or attached to a wedge that angles its lens by 15 degrees to better capture a view of a person standing at your door. At my home, there’s a very narrow gap between the front door frame and the brick surrounding it. The Ring doorbell I’d been using wouldn’t fit in the space, and while the Ecobee and its wedge did fit, the angled camera stuck out so that my storm door wouldn’t fully close. I ended up removing the wedge and the reinstalling Ecobee’s doorbell, and it worked perfectly in that very cramped space. That wasn’t the end of my challenges, however; Ecobee’s app displayed a “low power” warning when I connected it to my existing doorbell transformer, so Ecobee recommended that I upgrade to a 24 Volt, 40 VA AC model. The low-power warning continued to show up for a few days after I upgraded the transformer, but it eventually disappeared. Despite the low-power warning, Ecobee’s doorbell operated as expected during my entire review period. I’ve since replaced the outlet the original transformer was plugged into because it showed some wear-and-tear. In retrospect, I suspect the old outlet was the true cause of the low-power warnings, and buying a new transformer was probably unnecessary. Ecobee’s chime adapter allowed me to connect its Smart Doorbell to my lovely old-school chime.James Barber/Foundry The wiring for the original doorbell button was cut to an exact length, so there was no extra wire tucked into the wall. That makes sense. An electrician in 1967 couldn’t have dreamed that a homeowner would want to replace a doorbell button with a magic camera more than 50 years down the road. Anyway, I needed to use the extension wires and wire nuts that Ecobee included in the box to make my connection. The cavity in the wall behind the doorbell was a bit tight with the extra wire and wire nuts stuffed inside, but everything worked as expected. Ecobee’s receiver unit can connect to your home’s previously installed doorbell chime. My mid-century chime box is built like a tank and has a wonderfully musical tone when the hammer strikes the tone bar. There’s no way I could buy a unit of this quality today at any price, and it’s a welcome contrast to all the other electronic sounds generated by the modern TV, audio, and smart home gear in my home. You can also configure the doorbell to ring a chime on an Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium or an Ecobee SmartCamera. Like Ecobee’s higher-end smart thermostats, the Ecobee Smart Doorbell sports a dual-band (2.4-/5GHz) Wi-Fi adapter. Performance Ecobee’s approach to visitor detection is another feature that differentiates this doorbell from the competition. The unit’s camera has a radar sensor that cuts down on false alerts. That means fewer notifications triggered by wind-blown leaves or passing cars. Smart Focus automatically pans and zooms to keep people centered in the frame, a feature that’s usually only seen on more expensive models. As with many video doorbells and security cameras, you’ll need a subscription to get the full value from an Ecobee Smart Doorbell Camera. But even without a sub, Ecobee delivers more features than most manufacturers do when you don’t pay up, including person detection, two-way talk (between the doorbell and the Ecobee app on your smartphone or an Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium), live video viewing on your smartphone or that thermostat, and 30 days of video snapshots (not video clips) from a single Ecobee camera. Stepping up to Ecobee’s Smart Security Standard subscription ($5 per month or $50 per year) adds package detection, 30 days of video recordings, and rich push notifications (all three of those features are for a single Ecobee camera). You can also pair the doorbell camera with a Yale or August smart lock and gain the ability to lock and unlock those locks from within the Ecobee app, making it easy to open your door for a visitor you see on the camera. You’ll get a 30-day free trial to Ecobee Smart Security when you buy a Smart Doorbell Cam, but you’ll need to pay at least $5 per month after that to continue being able to store video recordings and receive smart alerts. James Barber The Ecobee Smart Doorbell Camera can also be integrated into a comprehensive, self-installed, professionally monitored home security system in which the fabulous Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium serves as the central hub. Ecobee makes excellent door/window sensors ($80 for a 2-pack) and occupancy/temperature sensors ($100 for a 2-pack), and the indoor Ecobee SmartCamera is very good as well. Currently missing from Ecobee’s home security portfolio: an outdoor security camera—apart from this doorbell camera, that is. The top-tier Ecobee Complete subscription is one of the least expensive professional monitoring plans on the market at just $10 per month or $100 per year. You’ll also get 30 days of video storage for an unlimited number of Ecobee cameras and doorbell cameras. With professional monitoring, an agent can dispatch the police in the event of a break-in or the fire department if your Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium or Ecobee SmartCamera detects the sound of a smoke alarm sounding off. Ecobee’s top-tier plan is a rare bargain for that level of service. After a recent price increase, Ring charges at least $20 a month—$30 a month if you want to enable all the features of its Ring Alarm Pro security system. The Ecobee Smart Doorbell Camera can be integrated with Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit, Google Home, and Samsung SmartThings smart home ecosystems. When a visitor rings the doorbell, you’ll get an alert on your Amazon Echo, Apple HomePod, or Google smart speaker. Unlike Ecobee’s SmartCamera, however, this doorbell camera does not support Apple’s excellent HomeKit Secure Video, which stores encrypted video recordings to an Apple user’s iCloud account. Should you buy the Ecobee Smart Doorbell (wired)? The Ecobee Smart Doorbell Camera (wired) doesn’t capture 2K or 4K video like some competitors, but its image quality is solid, and the radar-assisted motion detection is ahead of the curve. The Ecobee app is easy to understand and its connections to the doorbell camera have proved reliable during my testing. Two-way communication with visitors at the door was clear with almost zero lag. The Ring doorbell I replaced touts is hi-res (1536 x 1536 pixels) resolution, but I haven’t noticed a significant downgrade in video quality with the Ecobee’s 1080p resolution. That seems more than adequate for this camera’s purposes, but some users may want a unit that offers a sharper image. It’s an unfortunate fact of life that in today’s smart home security environment, you generally need to pick an ecosystem and stay in it. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself juggling apps on your phone to get a complete picture of what’s going on. The good news for Ecobee is that its video doorbell, indoor camera, smart thermostat/home security hub, and its sensor suite are all excellent. The company even has a smart light switch. Add in its highly affordable professional monitoring service plan and you have a 95 percent winner. The remaining 5 percent deficit comes from Ecobee not having an outdoor security camera—or anything battery powered (apart from its sensors, that is). Read...

Google has a monopoly, and that’s the official line of the US federal government. In fact, it has two of them, losing two separate antitrust cases that threaten to cripple the tech giant. The Department of Justice has proposed forcing Google to sell or otherwise divest itself of the Chrome browser as its first and preferred remedy. But who would buy it? Unsurprisingly, there are beaucoup business beaus lining up around the block for this browser bachelorette. We’ve already heard that ChatGPT maker OpenAI is very interested, as testified in court by an executive. And another notable name in the AI space, search engine Perplexity, told a judge much the same thing. Bloomberg reports that Yahoo, which almost feels like legacy media at this point, would also be interested if Chrome becomes available. That’s three potential new homes for the world’s most popular browser. But it’s important to note that federal judge Amit Mehta hasn’t yet made a determination on how Google will be punished for violating the Sherman Antitrust Act. Just because prosecutors suggest breaking off Chrome doesn’t mean that he’ll agree it’s an appropriate end. And whatever happens, Google will certainly exhaust its legal options with enough money to make Solomon blush. Google losing control of Chrome is not a foregone conclusion, even if it feels that way from recent reports. But let’s proceed under the assumption that Google does have to sell off Chrome, along with the open-source Chromium project that underpins it. Who’s actually capable of buying it? Well, that first depends on the price. The value of Chrome—a free download for all desktop and mobile platforms—is hard to pin down to a dollar amount. I’m no business guru, but if you’d asked me a year ago, I would have guessed somewhere between 50 and 100 billion dollars. But that’s the value of Chrome to Google, incorporated with its search, advertising, and mobile properties, to say nothing of the entire Chromebook market segment, ancillary products like Google Maps and YouTube, etc. Divorced from all that, Chrome still has tons of value as the most popular browser on the planet (and the Chromium guts of many others, including Edge), but it’s undeniably less. For the sake of simplicity, let’s cut my conservative estimate in half and call it $25 billion USD. IDG / Ashley Biancuzzo Who could afford that? OpenAI could probably manage it, though it would be taking on a lot of debt to do so. The leading “AI” product maker is valued at over $150 billion, but that’s based on various investment rounds. The company has yet to turn a profit and doesn’t expect to for years (though that’s not necessarily a mark of shame in the tech world—just look at Amazon). And it’s undeniable that gaining billions of browser users would give ChatGPT an even bigger audience… and a massive treasure trove of data to train on. Perplexity is the newest player in this equation, officially releasing its large language model-powered search less than three years ago and using OpenAI’s GPT system. The latest valuation of Perplexity puts it at under $10 billion USD… which wouldn’t be enough to buy Chrome without huge debt. It would be more like Perplexity shifting its entire business model to browser-first instead of search. Not impossible, but considering that Perplexity has also made some overtures towards buying TikTok, it strikes me as a startup desperate for a new angle or identity. And Yahoo. Poor, poor Yahoo. Some of you reading this might not be able to remember when Yahoo was the dominant search engine before Google came along—it’s been that long since Yahoo was truly relevant. These days, Yahoo is more of a media amalgamation after being tossed around between several parent companies, and was most recently bought for $5 billion. Its most notable remaining products are probably sports news and fantasy sports platforms. The company still owns tech site Engadget and what remains of the AOL brand, but it sold the finance-focused TechCrunch to private equity firm Regent last month. (Full disclosure: Regent also bought PCWorld parent company Foundry the day before. Hi, business daddy!) Anyway, I don’t doubt Yahoo would love to get its hands on Chrome, if only to claw its way back into relevancy for a massive amount of internet users. But I simply don’t think it has the money, not when OpenAI is splashing around investor cash like it’s puttin’ on the Ritz. Microsoft makes the most sense to me as a new home for Chrome, as it’s been trying to regain browser dominance ever since Internet Explorer lost it two decades ago. The company has been so insistent that people switch to Edge that it’s been willing to engage in some, ahem, questionable activities to get them off Chrome. If Chrome was shifted into the “official” Windows browser—to say nothing of its dominance on other platforms—Microsoft would be pleased as punch. But Microsoft is no stranger to browser controversy or run-ins with monopoly regulation. That might be enough of an issue to keep the company at a safe distance from the proceedings, especially if it’s clear that the Department of Justice under a Trump administration isn’t afraid to swing a big stick against monopolies. Read...

The Selwyn District Council is creatively re purposing a miniature robot originally designed to mark lines on sports fields, to craft commemorative designs in honour of ANZAC Day. Read...

A joint iwi-council bid to build a community and sports centre at Manaia in coastal South Taranaki has fallen over. Read...

Roku is going small with its latest streaming players, unveiling a new pair of streaming sticks that are up to 35 percent smaller than its competitors, the company says. Revealed Wednesday during a press event in New York City, the Roku Streaming Stick and Streaming Stick Plus are designed for streamers on the move, with slimmed-down profiles that (hopefully) won’t block other HDMI ports. The players have also been optimized to run off a TV’s USB power port (a USB-C to USB-A cable is included). With each player measuring 3.7 x 0.8 x 0.45 inches and weighing in at just 0.9 ounces, the HD-only Streaming Stick ($29.95) and 4K-enabled Streaming Stick Plus ($39.99) replace the Roku Express and Roku Express 4K respectively. That leaves just five players in Roku’s streaming lineup, including the Streaming Stick 4K (which adds Dolby Vision HDR, as the newer Streaming Stick Plus supports only HDR10), the high-end Roku Ultra (which offers ethernet and a backlit remote), and the Streambar SE soundbar. Both the Streaming Stick and Streaming Stick Plus will ship with Roku’s Voice Remote, allowing you to navigate the players’ streaming interfaces as well as control basic TV functions with your voice. That’s a step up from Roku’s now-legacy Express player, which included just a standard Roku remote. The new Roku Streaming Stick and Streaming Stick Plus both ship with Roku’s Voice Remote.Ben Patterson/Foundry The new streaming players support dual-band Wi-Fi connectivity and Apple AirPlay casting, typical for Roku’s compact streaming sticks. Neither device offers native Dolby Atmos support, but they will pass through Dolby audio, including Atmos, to an Atmos-capable TV or A/V receiver. Both the Streaming Stick and Streaming Stick Plus are available for pre-order now, and are slated to ship May 6. Roku made some other home-entertainment announcements during its New York press event, including the introduction of mini-LED backlighting for its step-down Roku Plus Series TVs. The Plus Series is also getting the scene-by-scene Smart Picture Max image enhancement mode that previously debuted with its high-end Roku Pro Series TVs, along with an integrated remote finder button and cable management channels. Expect the new sets to arrive in the “coming months.” We can also expect Roku to land on even bigger screens, with the company announcing the release of a design specification that third-party manufacturers can use to build Roku-branded portable video projectors. More details on Roku’s projector plans will be coming soon, Roku said. This news story is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best media streamers. Meanwhile, the Roku OS is getting a “Coming Soon to Theaters” row featuring in-cinema releases that you can add to your “save” list, along with short-form content rows in the All Things Food and All Things Home hubs, plus “award-winning” badges for video titles. Also coming to the Roku OS is a personalized highlights row for sports fans as well as notifications for favorite teams. In the smart home arena, Roku unveiled a pair of new battery-powered security cameras. We’ll have a report on those shortly. Read...

A round-up of sports news from around the region, including Vanuatu football captain Brian Kaltak planning a move away from th A-League. Read...

The American gymnast won three gold medals and a silver at the Paris Olympics, while the Swedish pole vaulter won a second Olympic gold medal. Read...

Top-flight football matches in Italy and Argentina were postponed after the death of Pope Francis. Read...

News snippets from the Far North. Read...

Can you get a hat-trick? Read...