Home Home and Kitchen

The EyeVac Touchless Vacuum makes using dirty dustpans a thing of the past

NEWS – Tired of bending over a dirty dustpan to pick up swept up messes? The EyeVac Home Touchless Vacuum is here to take care of that. It’s a low-profile stationary vacuum that’s always on and always ready. All you have to do is sweep debris to the EyeVac. Infrared sensors detect the sweeping motion, and the powerful 1000 watt vacuum automatically sucks up the mess. It easily picks up things like pet hair, cat litter, dirt, mud, dust bunnies, and is even powerful enough to pull in paper clips and screws.

The EyeVac doesn’t require bags, so it’s easy to clean. The debris that’s vacuumed up is deposited into a roomy canister that you empty when it gets full.

The unit not only cleans the floor it even uses washable filters to clean the air that is exhausted out of the device and back into the room.

The EyeVac Touchless Vacuum is available in four colors to match decor in any room; matte black, black, silver, and white.

You can purchase the EyeVac from Amazon for $99.

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The EyeVac Touchless Vacuum makes using dirty dustpans a thing of the past originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on February 14, 2019 at 10:00 am.

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KitchenAid Cook Processor Connect: Everything you need to make a meal in one appliance

NEWS – Are you looking to replace a multitude of single use appliances that are sitting either on or under your counter? Is an InstaPot not exciting enough? Well then, the KitchenAid Cook Processor Connect might be for you. As the main cook in our house, I have an almost visceral reaction to gadgets lying around the kitchen that only do one thing, especially if they are large and need to be plugged in. The Cook Processor Connect goes one step further than simple appliance replacement, however, having the potential to replace smaller items as well such as bowls, scrapers, knives and a hotplate.

The Cook Processor comes with a 4.5L stainless steel bowl which fits into a base that houses the cooking controls. A number of attachments are included and can be used with the bowl to stir, chop, whip, emulsify, and knead. There’s also an insert for all of your steaming needs. Finally, a mini-bowl and blade are included for jobs that are too small for the main bowl.


The control base allows you to select what type of cooking you want to do, from frying, boiling, stewing, pureeing, sautéing and the aforementioned steaming. There’s also a built in scale that allows you to weigh ingredients right in the cooking bowl. Then, after you’ve added your carrots, celery and whatever else, inserting the stir assist attachment into the Cook Processor Connect will stir your ingredients while they are cooking.

In addition to being able to manually select all of the cooking functions that you want to use, the Cook Processor comes with an app that allows you to access recipes with step-by-step guidance .


The KitchenAid Cook Processor Connect will be available in Red and Black at an approximate price of $1,500. At the moment it’s only available in Australia but KitchenAid expects to release it in the US later this year. You can go to KitchenAid Australia to see all of its features in much more depth.

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KitchenAid Cook Processor Connect: Everything you need to make a meal in one appliance originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on February 12, 2019 at 8:00 am.

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KitchenAid Cook Processor Connect: Everything you need to make a meal in one appliance

NEWS – Are you looking to replace a multitude of single use appliances that are sitting either on or under your counter? Is an InstaPot not exciting enough? Well then, the KitchenAid Cook Processor Connect might be for you. As the main cook in our house, I have an almost visceral reaction to gadgets lying around the kitchen that only do one thing, especially if they are large and need to be plugged in. The Cook Processor Connect goes one step further than simple appliance replacement, however, having the potential to replace smaller items as well such as bowls, scrapers, knives and a hotplate.

The Cook Processor comes with a 4.5L stainless steel bowl which fits into a base that houses the cooking controls. A number of attachments are included and can be used with the bowl to stir, chop, whip, emulsify, and knead. There’s also an insert for all of your steaming needs. Finally, a mini-bowl and blade are included for jobs that are too small for the main bowl.


The control base allows you to select what type of cooking you want to do, from frying, boiling, stewing, pureeing, sautéing and the aforementioned steaming. There’s also a built in scale that allows you to weigh ingredients right in the cooking bowl. Then, after you’ve added your carrots, celery and whatever else, inserting the stir assist attachment into the Cook Processor Connect will stir your ingredients while they are cooking.

In addition to being able to manually select all of the cooking functions that you want to use, the Cook Processor comes with an app that allows you to access recipes with step-by-step guidance .


The KitchenAid Cook Processor Connect will be available in Red and Black at an approximate price of $1,500. At the moment it’s only available in Australia but KitchenAid expects to release it in the US later this year. You can go to KitchenAid Australia to see all of its features in much more depth.

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KitchenAid Cook Processor Connect: Everything you need to make a meal in one appliance originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on February 12, 2019 at 8:00 am.

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Cuisinart Compact Automatic bread maker review

REVIEW – I owned my first and only bread maker about 20-years ago, I loved it, but it got lost somewhere along the way. Since then I’ve told anyone who would listen how much I missed it and that I needed to buy another one, but of course, I never did. So when I received an offer to review the Cuisinart compact automatic bread maker, I couldn’t pass it up. Time to see if the Cuisinart compact bread maker can rekindle my love for making homemade bread.

What is it?

The Cuisinart compact automatic bread maker is a compact automatic vertical bread maker that offers a variety of crust colors and loaf sizes, as well as 12 preprogrammed menu options.

What’s in the box?

  • Bread maker
  • Bread pan
  • Kneading paddle
  • Pan hook
  • Quick reference guide
  • Instruction booklet/recipe booklet

Design and features

The first thing you notice about the bread maker is how light and compact it is. It only weighs 10.75-lbs and has a very small footprint (10.25″ x 13.25″ x 11.25″). The size is perfect for me as I don’t have a whole lot of counter space in my kitchen.

I also liked the look of the bread makers contemporary brushed stainless steel exterior.

On top of the unit, there’s a bread door with a viewing window and a control panel with an LCD display.

The control panel has buttons for programming, crust color, bread size/light, and stop/start. Plus/minus buttons let you adjust the time for the bake only program and delay start timer. 

The easy to read LCD display shows program, crust color, and loaf size selections. You can also view cycle and delay start timing.

Features

Even though the bread machine is compact in size, it doesn’t lack in functionality.

To start with it has 12 different pre-programmed menu options to choose from, all fully automatic.

  1. White
  2. French
  3. Whole Wheat
  4. Ultra-fast
  5. Sweet
  6. Gluten-free
  7. Artisan dough
  8. Dough
  9. Jam
  10. Packaged mix
  11. Cake
  12. Bake only

Other features include your choice of crust color: light, medium, or dark and loaf size: 1-lb., 11/2-lb., or 2-lb. loaf.

A 13-hour delay start timer allows you to program the bread maker up to 13 hours in advance.

The included recipe guide has several foolproof recipes to get you started. Everything from gluten-free and artisan bread options to jam and sauce recipes. I found the recipes to be concise and easy to follow.

Let’s make some bread!

Making bread in this machine couldn’t be easier. All you have to do is add your ingredients, and the bread maker does the rest.

To start out I wanted to make something easy, that didn’t call for a lot of ingredients. I chose to make the French bread recipe from the included booklet.

I added the ingredients to the bread pan and placed it into the unit. I then chose the French program option and my loaf size. I chose to make the 2lb loaf because I wanted to see what this bread machine could really do. Because I was making French bread, I didn’t have the option to choose the crust color.

After selecting my preferences, I pushed the start button and let the machine do its thing. The unit automatically takes care of each step of the process until the loaf is done. An indicator on the LCD display shows the current function: Knead, Rise, Bake, or Keep Warm.

Before the bread begins baking, you have the option to remove the kneading paddle which I did. There’s a signal of 10 short beeps to let you know when it can be removed. If you miss the initial beeps, the display will show “paddle” for one minute.

Being as curious and impatient as I am I really liked having the ability to check in on the bread as it went through the process. The viewing window and built-in light made that very easy.

As the bread was baking, I remembered why I loved making homemade bread so much. The AROMA! The entire house was filled with the wonderful smell of fresh baking bread.

After the bread is done baking the unit beeps 10 times, and the LCD display window will read 00:00. There is a keep warm cycle that will keep your bread warm for 60 minutes. At the end of the keep warm cycle, the unit will emit one long beep and then it will shut off.

When the bread was finished I took the bread pan out of the machine and gripping the bottom turned it over, my finished loaf slid right out. I then placed it on a wire rack to cool. As you can see from the pic below my French bread loaf turned out fantastic.

Time to taste my creation(s)

After cooling and slicing my French bread loaf, it was time to give it a taste. It tasted great! The bread was soft on the inside, and the crust had that perfect French bread crunch. Needless to say, I was pleased with my first loaf of bread from the Cuisinart compact bread maker.

Since then I’ve made two other loaves, jalapeño cheddar, and cinnamon swirl. The jalapeño cheddar recipe called for ingredients to be added during the kneading process. The unit lets you know when it’s time to add them with an audible signal of 4 sets of 5 long beeps. Then you just lift the lid and add your additional ingredients.

Like the French bread loaf, both loaves turned out perfect and tasted wonderful.

I found that the 2-pound loaf was too much for just myself, so when I made the cinnamon swirl bread, I opted for the 1-pound loaf which turned out to be a perfect size (see the pic below).

What I like

  • Compact size
  • Easy to use
  • Can make up to a 2lb. Loaf
  • Easy to clean
  • The included recipe booklet

What needs to be improved

  • Nothing

Final thoughts

The Cuisinart compact automatic bread maker is easy to use, doesn’t take up a lot of space, and produces perfectly baked great tasting bread. It does everything larger bread makers do and for a fraction of the price. In my book that makes it a winner. And more importantly, it rekindled my love for making homemade bread.

Price: $99.95
Where to buy: Amazon, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Home Depot.
Source: The sample for this review was provided by Cuisinart.

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Cuisinart Compact Automatic bread maker review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on February 11, 2019 at 9:00 am.

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Bond smart Wi-Fi ceiling fan remote hub review

REVIEW – If your home is anything like mine, remotes rule your life, especially for your home audio/video. If you have ceiling fans with wireless control, it only adds to the clutter.

I have been searching for a solution to both eliminate my remote clutter and also add voice control to my four ceiling fans. Olibra has a solution. Enter Bond. Bond Home.

What is it?

Bond is a hub that adds remote control for wireless ceiling fans, both from Android or Apple devices and from Amazon Echo or Google Assistant.

What’s in the box?

Bond comes with the hub itself, a micro USB cable, wall plug, a very basic setup guide, and a future feature card.

Hardware specs

  • Width: 3.75″
  • Height: 1.1″
  • Network connectivity: Wi-Fi only
  • Power: micro USB
  • Remotes supported: Radio frequency (RF) and infrared (IR)

There is no network port on the Bond. It connects to your network via Wi-Fi.

Design and features

The design is fairly typical for a device hub. It is glossy black plastic and feels sturdy in the hand. The top center ring lights up various colors, depending on the mode. It shines white when first plugged in, flashes green when ready, shines blue when online, flashes blue in learning mode, flickers blue when learning a remote and shines red when there is a problem.

The hub itself doesn’t really do anything but send out signals. The real magic is in the Bond app. Available from both iTunes and the Google Play store for no cost, the Bond app drives all the functions.

Setup and installation

First, connect the Bond hub to the network. If you have ever added any type of hub to your network, you already know the drill. Install the app, set up an account, connect the hub to your network by providing your network name and Wi-Fi password in the Bond app. Once you do that, the hub indicator ring will change from green to blue, indicating that the hub is online. This is where the fun begins.

Click “Add a Device” in the Bond app. The app prompts for the type of device to add.

Currently, Bond supports ceiling fans, some electronic fireplaces and is in beta for some air conditioners. If the app is to be believed, support for a bunch of other devices is in the works.

After choosing Ceiling Fan, the app prompts to choose a specific button on the remote and press it while holding the remote within a few inches of the Bond hub. The indicator flashes blue to indicate it is ready to learn.

The indicator will flicker as it reads the wireless signal from the remote and then flashes green to acknowledge it read it correctly. Bond maintains an extensive database of fan remotes and their associated signals. Once the hub reads the signal and the app looks up the specifics in the database, it will return a list of functions it thinks the remote has. Confirm that by testing the fan functions by hitting the remote button icons in the app. The app supports multi-speed fans and fans with upward and downward facing lights, with or without dimmers. Once the functions are confirmed, provide a name for the device and it is ready to be controlled from the app.

In this screenshot, “Living Room” is the name of the Bond Hub. I have four devices added to that hub, my four fans.

Bond can control up to six devices per hub. You can add as many hubs as needed and switch between hubs in the app.

Bond supports voice control via both Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. I integrated with Alexa for this review. Alexa supports Bond via an Alexa skill that needs to be added in the Alexa app. The skill needs your Bond username and password. Once linked, have the Alexa app discovers devices and the Bond devices show up in Alexa. With my four fans, each with a light, eight new devices showed up as expected. Once they were there, I could turn my fans on and off, change speed, and turn the associated light on and off by voice.

One of the issues with a device like this is that many ceiling fans remotes toggle the lights on and off. What this means is that the remote doesn’t know if the light is on or off, it just sends a “change state” command to the fan and the fan changes the state of the light. If it is off, it turns on and if it is on, it turns off. Since the app functions essentially like a remote, that isn’t an issue. But, if you add voice control, Alexa or Google Assistant won’t know if the light is on or off, so a voice command to turn it on or off, may not work.

Bond has a solution for that with Light State Tracking.

Basically, the Bond app remembers the state of any light. So, when you tell Alexa to turn on the light and Bond thinks it is on, it does nothing. The caveat here is that if you use the physical remote, Bond has no knowledge of that. So, if you turn a light on or off with the physical remote, be sure to change it back again, also with the remote, or Bond will be out of sync and think on is off and off is on.

All my fans are three-speed fans. The app says that I should be able to control the speed by saying, “Alexa, turn on central fan, speed <1, 2 or 3>”. That has never worked. Alexa acknowledges the request, but the hub does nothing. Instead, I have to say, “Alexa, turn on central fan <33%, 66%, 100%>”, for low, medium or high speeds, respectively. It’s a minor quibble, but “…speed <1,2,3>” makes more sense to me than “speed <x>%”.

One ongoing issue is that Alexa and the hub seem to have occasional spats where they aren’t talking to each other. I can’t identify any cause or repeatable series of events that cause it. Eventually, they kiss and make up and everything works as designed.

All my fans are RF devices, meaning that the remote uses radio signals for communication. My Bond device is in the living room, near both the central fan and piano fan. It works perfectly with the bedroom fan and bathroom fan that are in different rooms. Bond also supports infrared (IR) devices. Of course, this means that the Bond device has to be able to physically see the device to be controlled, as IR signals are light and require a line of sight from the hub to the device.

Another nice app feature, at least on Android devices, is widget support.

You can add one widget for each fan, including one or more buttons on the widget.  If you include a single button, the widget shows that one function button.  I chose to add most of the features – light on/off, fan power and all three-speed settings.  The widget produced is a clever scrolling widget, allowing access to all the buttons from a single, scrollable widget.  Pretty slick.

Finally, Bond supports IFTTT (If This Then That). I set up automations with my Ecobee 4 thermostat. If the temperature in the living room is under 75 degrees, IFTTT has Bond set the fan to low (30% is IFTTT’s speed 1). IFTTT triggers Bond to bump the central fan to 50% (speed 2) if the living room hits 77 degrees and 100% (speed 3) at 79 degrees.

What I like

  • Attractive design
  • Easy setup
  • Alexa & Google Assistant support
  • Wide range of supported remotes
  • Widget support for one-touch control from my phone

What needs to be improved

  • Limiting the hub to six devices seems short-sighted, but the app does support multiple hubs
  • Minor usability issues with fan speed voice commands
  • Occasional Alexa/hub communication failures

Final thoughts

This was the only solution of this type that I could find. It brought voice and/or phone control to my fans, and eliminated clutter in the living room and on the nightstands. Sitting in the chair after playing a couple hours of pickleball and being able to say, “Alexa, turn central fan on, 100%” is a real asset to my automated house lifestyle. Having the fan automatically speed up and slow down with the temperature when we have the windows open is a real plus as well.

Lutron has just announced a potential competitor in this space, the Caséta speed controller, although Lutron’s website makes it look like the fan needs to have a wired controller. That doesn’t help me as my fans are all wireless. We shall see once more details are released.

Overall, I really like the Bond hub and what it has added to my automated home. It is a bargain for the price.

Price: $99.99
Where to buy: Bond, Amazon or Home Depot
Source: I purchased Bond with my own funds.

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Bond smart Wi-Fi ceiling fan remote hub review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on February 5, 2019 at 11:00 am.

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