There are 3 cool ideas here, especially if you’re a gadget freak cum couch potato like me. From left to right there is:

• A remote control that doesn’t need a battery – very friendly to the environment.

• A voice-activated remote control, because I’m too lazy to pick the thing up and press the button.

• A universal remote control because I have six different remotes in the living room and they make the place look untidy.

I’m not sure about the universal remote control though; I had a really bad experience with one a few years ago…..

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Did you ever leave for the office in a hurry wondering if you left the iron on or a window open, or even forgotten your rich auntie’s birthday card? Well with a Home Heartbeat system, you needn’t have any more panic attacks because you can just call home to find out the status of every item in the home you hook up to the system. This gadget won a Consumer Electronic Association Innovations Award, and I’m not at all surprised.

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This is a “green” gadget; a multi-way adaptor that acts as a surge protector, but at the same time automatically switches off devices that have been left in standby mode for a pre-determined time.

Most people think that when they put an electrical appliance into standby mode, the only energy used is to light up the red LED. Searching around the net for material for this article, I was shocked by some of the reported statistics on the energy wasted by devices left in this mode.

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