Garry Kolb

After a successful 35-year career in information technology in mid-Michigan, I am now happily retired and living the dream life in The Villages, Florida with my fun-loving and very tolerant wife of 39 years. When not playing golf, pickleball, or water volleyball, I like amazing our neighbors with our automated home and fiddling with new gadgets.

Golf and drones collide at The Grove XXIII

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NEWS – Drones are invading the golfing world!  Michael Jordan, arguably the greatest basketball player of all time, is also an avid golfer.  Jordan opened a new golf course,  The Grove XXIII golf course in Hobe Sound, Florida.  Being “Air Jordan”, you wouldn’t expect to have to stop at the clubhouse at the turn or […]

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Hear audio without wires or headphones with SoundBeamer 1.0

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NEWS – What’s the worst part of listening to personal audio?  The wires?  What if you’re wireless?  Then, it could be clamping headphones or uncomfortable earbuds.  What if you could listen to your audio – music, conferencing, GPS directions – whatever – all without anything in or around your ears?  That’s precisely what the Israeli

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Twinkly Music review – Animates your holiday lights to music

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REVIEW – Last holiday season, I had the opportunity to review Twinkly Strings – controllable holiday lights. I really liked them and they became a prominent feature in our holiday display. This year, Twinkly is back with Twinkly Music – a wireless controller for Twinkly lights that adds audio reactivity to your Twinkly lights. Let’s

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Need to nail some storage? Seagate is bringing the HAMR!

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NEWS – Gadgeteers keep a lot of stuff, and much of that is digital stuff.  Photos, videos, miscellaneous files – they all take up storage space.  For business, it’s even worse as all employees have that “can’t get rid of it” mentality. Seagate is bringing the HAMR down with their brand new Exos 20+ series

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IFTTT goes “Pro” adding multi-triggers and actions – sort of

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NEWS – If you’re into home automation, you’re probably familiar with If This Then Then (IFTTT), the multi-platform cloud-based automation tool.  With IFTTT, you can tie together disparate systems and make them work together.  For example, if my Ambient Weather weather station registers rain falling at 0.1″ per hour or greater, it will trigger my

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Hydaway collapsible insulated tumbler review

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CROWDFUNDING REVIEW – Here at The Gadgeteer, we’re all about reusability and environmental friendliness.  In fact, we’re all about friendliness in general, but that’s for another article.  Hydaway is a maker of reusable, collapsable, portable, water bottles.  In fact, we’ve reviewed the original Hydaway bottle, their H2.O version, and their 25-ounce model. Hydaway is moving

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AUTO-VOX V5 mirror dual dash cam review

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REVIEW – Today’s newer vehicles have those spiffy rear cameras that you can use when backing up.  Some vehicles also have review mirrors that are display screens, showing realtime video from a read-facing camera instead of a reflection.  Auto-Vox has combined both of those features with a forward-facing camera and recording capabilities and created the

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Ecovacs auto-emptying charging base review – Make the OZMO T8 vacs even better

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REVIEW – I love my robot vacuum.  Specifically, it is an Ecovacs Deebot OZMO T8 AIVI that I reviewed in June 2020. What I don’t like is how often I have to empty the teeny, tiny dustbin that all robot vacuums have. If only there was a way to not have to empty that dustbin

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Ecovacs OZMO Pro electrically oscillating mop attachment review

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REVIEW – If you’re a regular reader, you already know that I love my Ecovacs Deebot OZMO T8 AIVI robot vacuum, even though it’s named like a Terminator and comes with lasers.  I love how well it vacuums and while I wasn’t initially impressed with the mopping, after using it for a while, I’ve determined

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Always have a carry bag handy with Nanobag 4.0

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CROWDFUNDING NEWS – Everyone knows that reusable shopping bags are better for the environment than those disposable plastic bags that wind up in landfills or floating in the ocean.  In 2018, we featured the Nanobag 2.0 Kickstarter campaign. The Nanobag folks haven’t just been sitting around.  They are now funding their Nanobag 4.0 series of

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Orvibo Smart Universal Remote Control Home Automation Hub review – Take control of your devices

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REVIEW – If you’re of a certain age, like me, you remember the first TV remote control – it was you. Your parent would tell you to get up and go change the channel to one of the other two that your TV received.  Then, TVs started coming with Infrared (IR) remote controls, giving you

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Yardian Pro smart sprinkler controller review

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REVIEW – If you’re a regular reader of The Gadgeteer, and have suffered through some of my previous reviews, you’ll already know that I hate mundane tasks, like anything related to home maintenance. Watering the lawn falls into that category, so I was thrilled when I had the opportunity to review the Yardian smart sprinkler

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