Quick Links Home Assistant is a powerful open-source smart home platform out of the box, but it gets even better with the right add-ons. Here are several essential Home Assistant add-ons that will help you level up your smart home, and how to get started with using them. 1HACS(Home Assistant Community Store) HACS(Home Assistant Community Store) is a game-changer for Home Assistant enthusiasts. This community-driven store offers a vast repository of custom Home Assistant integrations, plugins, and themes that can be easily installed on your Home Assistant system....

Quick Links Netflix brought the entire Studio Ghibli collection to its library of animated films in 2020, but if you live in the US, this collection is unavailable to stream. But not to fret, you can find this entire list of movies on HBO Max instead. While the Ghibli collection is extensive (with new movies such as The Boy and the Heron), there are some classics that rise above the rest....

Quick Links Summary If your iPhone isn’t ringing you should first check it’s not muted and that the ringtone volume is loud enough. It’s also worth exploring whether you have Focus enabled, if you have reception, and if your mobile plan is working. You can further diagnose by disabling features like forwarding, filtering, handoff, and blocking. If all else fails, restart your iPhone. Your iPhone can do a lot more than take calls, but good old-fashioned phone calls are central to the smartphone experience....

Quick Links ChatGPT is arguably one of themost hyped pieces of tech in history. Users can create stories, scripts, poems, and songs – or just talk to the highly advanced AI powering it. While ChatGPT is free, there’s a “Plus” version available – but is it worth the $20 a month OpenAI is asking? To find out, I decided to give it a go myself. I was also working on an article aboutthe possibility of writing a novel with AI— and that would probably require a “professional” version of ChatGPT if such a thing existed, so it seemed like an ideal reason to part with $20 of my own hard-earned money....

Quick Links Summary Does your mouse cursor move on its own? Don’t worry, it’s not possessed by a computer ghost! This issue usually happens if you have an outdated mouse driver or a game controller connected to your computer. Luckily, it’s a very common problem, and we’ll show you how to fix it. Update the Mouse Driver If your cursor is moving by itself with a new mouse, it’s likely a driver issue....

Password manager LastPass has been embroiled in a data-leak scandal, with each update worsening the situation. In itsmost recent post, the company assured users their passwords were safe so long as they followed LastPass’s guidelines. Today, competitor1Passwordreleased a scathing rebuttal. To summarize the data-breach scandal,back in August, LastPass informed users that it suffered a data breach, but that customer data and accounts were safe. However, at thebeginning of December, the company admitted that the hackers were “able to gain access to certain elements of customer information” but didn’t specify what kind of information that might be....

Quick Links Summary The Lenovo Legion Pro 5i Gen 8 is a very powerful high-end gaming laptop. As with other gaming laptops, some compromises have to be made. It’s heavy, battery life isn’t great, and more RAM would have also been nice. Still, the laptop performs its main function exceptionally well and can take just about anything you can throw at it. Lenovo’s Legion line is one of the most prominent names in the world of gaming laptops....

Summary Do you move the mouse or slide your finger on the touchpad, but the cursor is nowhere to be seen on your screen? Issues such as outdated mouse or display drivers, interference from other apps, misconfigured mouse settings, or accidentally enabling the tablet mode could be the cause. Don’t worry; we have some simple solutions to help you resolve this problem. If the mouse cursor isn’t showing up on the screen when moving your fingers on the touchpad, ensure thetouchpad isn’t disabled....

Summary My handheld PC has been giving me thermal headaches for a while now, but when things finally came to a head, the cause was predictable in retrospect, but surprising in reality. My Handheld PC Was Running Worse Every Day I bought my current handheld PC, theLenovo Legion Go, used from someone onFacebook Marketplace. Less than a year old, and completely spotless upon inspection, it was a pretty good deal. The machine ran like a dream for months, but then about three weeks before sitting down to write this, my Legion Go started ramping up its fan, and soon would thermal throttle and turn itself off even in its normal performance mode, much less its maximum TDP mode....

Summary Wouldn’t it be great if the same app and platform you use to open the garage door also worked with security cameras and video doorbells? Well, we have good news if you have a garage door from myQ or another company under the Chamberlain Group. Today, myQ announced its first-ever Video Doorbell and an all-new Outdoor battery-powered security camera. Like many of you, I control my garage door with a smart home app, but I also have amyQ Smart Garage Video Keypad....

ASUS has sold many Chromebooks over the years, including some of the best models, and the company is continuing that trend at Computex 2025. ASUS just revealed four budget Chromebooks with 14 and 15.6-inch screens, as well as a 14-inch Chromebook Plus model. Chromebook CX14/CX15 First up is the 2025 Chromebook CX14 and CX15, which are mostly identical except for the screen size. The CX14 has a 14-inch 1920x1080 display, while the CX15 has a 15....

Plex’s new mobile apps for iPhone, iPad, and Android have more than a few problems. Thankfully, the company is working on fixing many of the reported issues, and one update has already been released to fix some bugs. Plex startedrolling out its rewritten and redesigned appsfor Android, iPhone, and iPad at the end of March, with a new unified codebase that will eventually roll out to TV platforms as well. The update was in public beta testing for several months, and even though many bugs and missing features were fixed during that period, the version that started rolling out to regular Plex users was still not finished....

Read update Quick Links Meta’s new Quest Pro promises to cram the best tech currently available into an AR/VR headset that can be used for gaming and revolutionize the way we work. The premium product comes with a premium price tag, but the retail price may be the least of the Quest Pro’s problems. UPDATE: 6/6/23 Six months after publishing this review, werevisited the Meta Quest Proto see if it improved....