Networking

A friend of mine recently told me that while he appreciated that I could actually use the incredible speed of the Netgear Orbi Wi-Fi 6E, he could never justify buying it. I get that. The top-end Orbi (see my review) is for people who must have the fastest possible Wi-Fi. For everyone else, there’s the much more affordable Motorola MH7603 mesh router.The three-unit MH7603 mesh router uses Wi-Fi 6, aka 802.11ax, to deliver 692 Mbps speeds in the same room. At a range of 10 yards and through a wall, it delivered an honest 287 Mbps. Jaw-dropping? No. Pretty darn good? You bet.

LikePriceSpeedRange

Don’t LikeNo WPA3 securityNot enough administration control for small business use

To test it, I used Ixia’s IxChariot networking benchmark and my Galaxy S21 Ultra smartphone. This was backed up by my 1 Gigabit Charter cable internet connection. Now, in theory, this dual-band 2.4 and 5GHz AX1800 system can reach speeds of up to 574Mbps on 2.4GHz and up to 1,200Mbps on 5GHz. In practice, no one ever reaches those speeds on any Wi-Fi hardware. It supports most Wi-Fi 6 technologies, hence its speed. However, it doesn’t have WPA3 encryption or 160MHz channels support. For home users that’s not a big problem. The mesh network also has good range and penetration. That’s a must for me. I have both a historic home, with 3,000 square feet and the thick walls that come with an early 1900 house, and a modern 1,000 square foot office. The MH7603 can cover up to 5,000 square feet. The main router can cover 2,000 square feet, while each mesh node can handle 1,500 square feet. It took some positioning, but the Motorola unit was able to cover both buildings when I was done. If you don’t need that kind of coverage, you can buy a single router node for $129.99.

Underneath the hood, there’s a 1.5GHz quad-core ARM CPU, 256MB of DDR3 RAM, and 128MB of flash memory. Each unit also has a pair of internal antennas.  Now, the MH7603 isn’t going to win any design awards from Jony Ive. They’re three identical white boxes, standing 2.6 inches tall and 5 inches wide. Within are two internal antennas. On the top, there’s a Motorola “M” logo. To indicate what’s going on in the box is a single small LED indicator on the front. When all’s well it shows solid white light. When there’s a poor connection, it shows amber. If you see a slowly blinking blue indicator it’s in setup mode. Rapid blue blinks? The unit’s upgrading its firmware. But, while it may not be pretty, it works well, and when it comes to Wi-Fi units that’s all I want.The units come with two gigabit Ethernet ports. You can use both ports as LAN ports, or you can use one for gigabit Ethernet backhaul. Personally, I always use cable for my backhaul whenever possible. Wi-Fi is getting faster, but you still can’t beat cable for sheer speed and low latency. Unlike higher-end mesh Wi-Fi gear, MH7603 doesn’t have either a web management user interface or a command-line interface. Instead, you must use an Android or iOS motosync mobile app. It’s a very simple app. It starts with a Network screen that shows icons for each node, and their connected devices. Tapping the icons enables you to see which devices are connected, their signal strength, and bandwidth usage. You can also reboot units and run a speed test. It’s as simple a network interface as you’ll ever see.On it, you’ll also find as you scroll down panels for Security, Full Home Filter, Connection, and Top Data Use. Again, they’re all very simple. The Security panel tells you if your network is secure, while the Full Home Filter panel blocks adult and malicious websites for all or some users. It also comes with adblocking. Now, for me, a former NASA network administrator, that’s nothing like enough control. But, this mesh network isn’t for me or anyone running even a basic business network. It’s for someone who needs a good, reliable home Wi-Fi network, and for those people, it does just fine.Setting it up is also mindlessly easy. You plug them in, create an account, and click “Set Up a New Device” on the Get Started screen. That’s pretty much it. You just follow the instructions. The most “technical” thing you’ll need to do is scan the QR code on the node’s base. Conclusions  The best news? For this, easy-to-use, solid, fast Wi-Fi mesh the MH7603 will cost you 238.97. You aren’t going to find its equal for cheaper.

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Damage caused by advanced exploits, such as Log4Shell and Spring4Shell, has been widely documented. These came out of nowhere and seemingly crippled many organizations. This happened despite record cybersecurity industry budgets that will clear $146B in 2022. This post from Palo Alto Networks highlights that, based on telemetry, the company observed more than 125 million hits that had the associated packet capture that triggered the signature. It certainly begs the question of why breaches are becoming more common and more damaging despite security spending at an all-time high. The answer to this lies in the approach many businesses have taken to threat protection. Traditional security is based on perceived best-of-breed products being used for specific functions. For example, firewalls protect the network, EDR protects endpoints, CASB protects the cloud, and so on. Most of these tools do a great job within their domains, but the reality is that exploits are not limited to one specific domain, so the silo-like nature of security creates many blind spots.Point products can’t see the end-to-end threat landscapeFor example, EDR tools are meant to find threats on endpoints, and they are effective at that specific task but have no visibility outside the endpoint. So if the breach occurred elsewhere, there is no way of knowing where and when. This is why so many EDR tools are excellent at detection but poor in response. The same can be said with firewalls that generally know everything that’s happening on a network but have no insight into an endpoint or many cloud services.Solving this problem lies in embracing the concept of XDR. Definitionally, I want to be clear that the X in XDR means “all” versus “eXtended,” the latter of which has been pushed by many of the point product vendors. Security pros need to understand that an upgraded EDR or SIEM tool is not XDR; it is merely a legacy tool with a little more visibility. XDR is the way forward for security True XDR is about taking data across the end-to-end infrastructure and correlating the information to find exploits and threats. This would allow for an exploit to be quickly identified and tracked across the infrastructure so all infected devices can be identified. While it’s impractical to assume that an organization would purchase all its infrastructure from a single vendor, I do believe that organizations should look to consolidate a minimum of network, endpoint and cloud security from a single vendor and treat that as the foundational platform for XDR. This would ensure that the vendor interoperates with other security providers to ingest the necessary data. Another benefit of XDR is that it provides a single source of truth across all security functions, which is vastly different from traditional security – where the security team has multiple tools, each with its own set of data and insights. The only way one could correlate the information is to do it manually, which is impossible today, given the massive amount of security data being collected. People can’t work fast enough, but an XDR solution, powered by artificial intelligence, can provide insights to a range of security analysts.XDR meets the needs of different security roles A good visualization of the value of XDR is depicted on Palo Alto Networks’ Log4j Incident Response Simulation page. It features three different SOC roles and how XDR can aid their jobs.  Specifically, the site does a deep dive on the following functions: Guy, the Threat Hunter: His job is to hunt for sophisticated attacks and those difficult to find low, slow threats that fly under the radar of traditional security tools. His job is to find unusual activities and other anomalies that are indicators of compromise. Cortex XDR makes threat hunting easier as it correlates data across endpoints, network, cloud and identity. Guy can then use an advanced XQL query language to aggregate, visualize and filter results that can quickly identify affected assets. Peter, the Tier 2 SOC Analyst: His function is to monitor, prioritize and investigate alerts. His work is used to resolve incidents and remediate threats. The problem is that most SOC tools provide far too many false positives making the information useless. This is why it’s my belief that the traditional SIEM needs a major overhaul. XDR uses machine learning and behavioral analytics to uncover advanced zero-day threats. Many SIEMS claim to do this, but most are just basic rules-based engines that need continual updating. With XDR, the investigation of the threats is accelerated by grouping-related alerts into incidents, and then the root cause is revealed through cross-data insights. Kasey, Director of Vulnerability Management: Her job is to discover, analyze the application, system, network and other IT vulnerabilities, and then assess and prioritize risk. Once that analysis is done, patching and resolving vulnerabilities can be performed. This is difficult, if not impossible, to do with point products because there is no way to understand the impact of a threat across systems. XDR can be combined with other tools, such as attack-surface management (ASM), to find and mitigate software vulnerable to Log4J and other exploits across the organization.In summary, I’ll go back to a conversation I had with a CISO a few months ago who told me that he finally understood that best of breed everywhere does not lead to best-in-class threat protection. In fact, the average of 30+ security vendors that businesses use today creates a management mess and leads to suboptimal protection. The path forward must be XDR, because it’s the only way to correlate historically siloed data to find threats and quickly remediate them before they cripple the business. 

A good resource for security professionals, particularly Palo Alto Networks customers, is the upcoming Palo Alto Networks Symphony 2022, on May 18 and 19. While this is a vendor event, it’s filled with information on how to revamp security operations to keep them in line with current trends. More

on May 2, 2022

| Topic: Web3

In its quest to make “Web3 available to everyone,” the Core team behind the newly-formed Cortex App said Monday that it’s introducing a new Web3 content network for launch in June. It will “bring Web2 functionality, such as social posts and blogs, into a decentralized and user-owned Web3.” This is the same group who launched free “.hmn” domain names on the Polygon protocol earlier this year.

Cortex Network, according to the release on Monday, will afford users new levels of control and privacy for themselves and their content. What’s more, the network will enable new ways to collaborate and define payment models for NFTs and content. “In the Cortex Network, each page (URL), will be a wallet address where a user could receive tokens for their content, or send out tokens as well,” Leonard Kish, co-founder of Cortex App told ZDNet. “Each page will essentially be a store for data and a store for NFTs or other tokens,” he said.How it worksThe Cortex Network will act like a proof-of-stake blockchain, whereby publishers stake so-called CRTX tokens to validate user updates and then publish them over the Polygon network. A new kind of index, known as HDIndex, will create a hash that will act as an on-chain proof and a lookup to content updates. The press release claims that “when publishing on the Cortex Network, users will own their content as they control updates with their keys.”The goal for the Cortex Network is to simplify Web3 publishing, making it easier for current Web2 publishers to migrate to a user-owned Web3 content network.

Networking

The Network is based on a network architecture in which batches of updates (known as “commits”) contribute to a local state of content which, in turn, becomes part of the globally verifiable localized consensus. What all that means is that each commit contributes to a globally verifiable state for content with a complete history of the content at a particular web address. “In the Cortex system, URLs and crypto addresses are nearly synonymous as part of a human-readable namespace for keys that act as lookups to content,” according to the press release. Kish notes that when it comes to new ways to collaborate and define payment models for NFTs, the NFT domains (such as “kish.hmn”) and subdomains (“leo.kish.hmn”) on where the content lives are fully transferable, so an NFT can have a full story. And when transferred, that story (the content) can move with the NFT domain as well. “We are working on several ways to expand how NFTs work and the kinds of value they can transmit, and this is one,” Kish said. “Others are coming as well.”Barriers to break downPrice, complexity, scalability and consistency are four obstacles in the Web3 publishing progress, and the Cortex Content Network intends to overcome them. The Network will act as a “complete stack to enable not only a fast and reliable decentralized content environment for Web3, but scalable as well,” according to the Cortex App blog.  Further work is needed before the Network is ready for prime time. “We are working with partners now on testing elements of the network, but we don’t have an exact date,” Kish said. “We do expect to be able to provide an exact date for launch in the month of June.” More

Written by

Jason Perlow, Senior Technology Editor

Jason Perlow
Senior Technology Editor

Jason Perlow is a technologist with over two decades of experience integrating large heterogeneous multi-vendor computing environments in Fortune 500 companies. His expressed views do not necessarily represent those of his employer, The Linux Foundation.

Full Bio

While on vacation, I considered my response to Elon Musk buying Twitter and whether it would differ from the kneejerk analysis we already have. As a general rule, when I write about subjects related to technology, I try to take a different angle than what is already covered. So I’m not going to take the “Let’s all quit Twitter” viewpoint, or “Elon Musk should be prohibited from buying Twitter” standpoint, or even the “Twitter is going to hell in a neoconservative handbasket” perspective.But we should examine why we care about Twitter at all. It serves an important function, as an instantaneous publicly viewable broadcast message bus, for individuals, brands, governments, and everything in-between. But it also has many weaknesses, including that it is not a public good — it is a corporation, and if Elon Musk gets his way, it will be again a privately owned one.

Therefore, short of government policies limiting its powers, how Twitter is run, its overall technology vision and its enforced policies will always reflect its ownership and designated management. This is also true of Facebook and its various internet properties, although their basic functionality is different and much broader in scope than Twitter.If Twitter is to be owned by Elon Musk, there will be a change of leadership and potentially ethical direction in terms of what content and what influencing entities will be permitted on the platform. We can debate endlessly about what systemic changes will occur under Musk and whether they will be good or bad. But the world outside Twitter will always be in a state of flux, as governments and leaders come and go, as does what the public feels is ethically permissible to be broadcasted versus what is unethical or repugnant.This is why I believe that microblogging – the generic term for the type of service that Twitter is — needs to be a fundamental part of the Internet’s infrastructure, much in the same way that SMTP email, DNS, and the Web are. And in the same way that those services are standardized, from a protocol standpoint, via organizations such as the ISO, ANSI, Ecma, and IEC.I don’t know how many Twitter-like services we need, whether it is a dozen, a hundred, or a thousand. Or tens of thousands. But is clear that there are many types of voices on Twitter, all of which are competing to be heard and are subject to unknown algorithms that determine whose voices are surfaced and when. But suppose a community of voices is vocal enough or wants to amplify itself. In that case, it should be able to host its own microblogging platform if it is permitted in the country where it chooses to home itself and has the resources to do so. Also: Forget the algorithm: Here’s what really makes Twitter uniqueIt doesn’t matter whether it is a government entity, the academic and scientific community, a vertical industry, or any group of people that decides it wants its own platform — a reason to form a microblogging community requires a viewpoint, a common objective, what have you.Assume that we can create an international standard for a microblogging protocol and API, which determines client/server connectivity. Assume the open source community can create microblogging server infrastructure, clients, and APIs. How do we get them the needed visibility?I believe it is possible to have directory and federation services that would allow all of these to be registered, much like we have registrars for domains. This would allow microblogging clients or systems that can connect to the API to have unified “feeds” of these platforms, including exchanging posts and conversations, much like discussion threads that cross-post within USENET.This is not to say that all microblogging platforms will have an intelligent or thoughtful conversation — but rather, it would be easier to find the ones that do if they are federated under a common set of protocols. This would have the effect of, over time, evening out the “signal to noise ratio” as more and more microblogging platforms emerge and become discoverable. The quality of conversation would increase, while the insanity that often takes over Twitter would be reduced.This is a vision for how we can create a more decentralized (and therefore less susceptible to capture by any one entity, government, or otherwise) social media platform. A platform where people can voluntarily associate themselves with like-minded individuals.Blockchain technologies and other content provenance and authentication technologies, such as C2PA, could ensure transactional and referential integrity between systems and prove ownership of posted content. Various open authentication mechanisms, which have already been standardized on other platforms, such as Google ID, Microsoft ID, Facebook, and yes, Apple, Amazon, and Twitter, could be used for single sign-on. Accounts could be created and consolidated on these platforms, including allowing accounts from one system to participate in another via trust relationships. This is possible, but it requires a community of people who see value in decentralization. Who will build this? I don’t know. But if we don’t, somebody else will, and they may not have our best interests in mind.Also: No, Elon, Twitter will never be a platform for ‘Free Speech’Having a distributed network of dozens, thousands, and tens of thousands of microblogging platforms raises its own issues. How a platform or an individual gets “canceled” from another and which platforms continue to allow such objectionable content will be endlessly debated. A new form of politics will be involved when a specific group or account engages in behavior another community finds objectionable.Will offending accounts and platforms be suspended, with trust relationships severed? Will the platforms change their terms of service to disallow certain speech or behavior not in line with their values? If we don’t start down this path towards decentralization and alternative networks for communication, we will never find out.The benefits here outweigh the negatives, as again, we would not depend on the whims of a single entity as to how it adjudicates conflict. Nor are we limiting ourselves to a single nation, company, or even a single management philosophy. We take back control of the internet from those few who wish to manipulate us and hold the keys to our platforms. We would get to run our communities the way we want — and we will fail quickly when we create environments that do not provide the functionality, atmosphere, and value sets that its users want and succeed when we do.I believe that this is the next step in the evolution of the internet, and it starts with you. You can be part of the solution by helping to create these communities or platform providers. You can use your skills in software development, system administration, design, user experience, or business to make this happen.The time is now. Let’s build a better internet together.

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Do you find yourself constantly tweaking your thermostat to find a temperature that you’re comfortable at? Does the prospect of coming home to a sweltering house make you keep the air conditioner running all day long? Are you dreading your monthly energy bill because you know that you’re spending more than you need to be? There are lots of reasons to get a smart thermostat, from comfort to control to conservation. They are great tools for keeping your home at the ideal temperature for you and anyone else who occupies your home. They are also an ideal option to help cut down on your monthly energy bill by operating more efficiently and energy-saving. Take a look at your newsfeed, or just take a look outside, and you’ll notice that the weather is getting more and more extreme. Hotter summer days, colder winter nights, and lots of wild swings and waves of weather can throw your day and your thermostat for a loop. You can’t control the weather outside your walls, but you sure can manage how it feels inside. Smart thermostats make that possible. So what is the best smart thermostat for you? Well, that all depends on what kind of features you’re looking for, what kind of control you prefer, and what your smart home ecosystem already has. We’ve compiled some of the best smart thermostats on the market, and we’ll walk you through which will suit your home.

Ecobee SmartThermostat with Voice Control

Best smart themostat

Amazon

Specs: 3.5-inch full-color LCD touchscreen | Voice support (Alexa) | Works with Apple HomeKit, Amazon Alexa, Samsung SmartThings, IFTTT | It might not be the brand name or product that you most associate with smart thermostats, but there is no question that the Ecobee SmartThermostat with Voice Control is one of the best smart thermostats available. A big reason for that is the ease and simplicity with which this smart thermostat integrates into your home. Lots of smart thermostats offer some form of voice control through apps or other devices, but the Ecobee SmartThermostat with Voice Control offers it right out of the box and right from the thermostat itself. Amazon Alexa is built-in and equipped to handle all kinds of commands to adjust your heating and air conditioning. It can also handle commands for reading the news, playing music, or making calls. The Ecobee SmartThermostat with Voice Control can be a true hub of your home. Then there is the ability to manage your home’s environment, which is the most important aspect of any thermostat. Ecobee estimates that with energy-efficient features like its eco+ mode, along with the ability to schedule heating and cooling cycles, you’ll be able to save as much as 26% of your standard energy costs. This thermostat is also compatible with up to 32 smart sensors that can automatically gauge conditions around the house and tell if you’re home, and adjust the temperature based on that information. It would be nice if other voice control options like Apple’s Siri or Google Assistant were built into this smart speaker, but they are supported through app-based interfaces. You only get one sensor included with this thermostat, but that will be more than enough to get you started and save you money. Pros: Amazon Alexa built-inSmart scheduling featuresExpandable with sensorsCons:Only one sensor comes with the thermostatSupport for other voice assistants through app only

Google Nest Learning Thermostat

The best-known smart thermostat

Google

Specs: 3.3-inch full-color display | Voice support (Google Assistant) | Works with IFTTT, Amazon Alexa, Samsung SmartThingsWithout question, the Google Nest is the most well-known smart thermostat. It’s not hard to see why. It has an unmistakable design that you would recognize anywhere and is easy to interact with. It’s one of the most essential tools of a smart home, and it more than gets the job done for most people.The latest offering, the Google Nest Learning Thermostat, goes heavy on the smart learning features to help you save money while controlling the temperature in your home. According to Google, the thermostat can pay for itself in under two years simply by tweaking the way that you heat and cool your house. That’s good, as it’s one of the more expensive smart thermostats in terms of up-front cost — but if you can swing it, you’ll get your money back on the back end.The Nest Learning thermostats offer some nice touches that make you both feel at home and in total control. It lights up when you walk into the room and gives you pertinent information about the current conditions. But it’s doing more than just greeting you — it’s learning your schedule. The Nest Learning Thermostat can start to automatically adapt to your life, knowing when you’re home and when you’re away and modifying the temperatures in the house based on the season. Google claims that after a week, it should be able to program itself to your personal schedule.You’ll be able to control your Google Nest Learning Thermostat from anywhere using the Nest app. You’ll also be able to integrate it into your smart home and communicate with it using voice commands by setting up the Google Home app. The lack of direct voice control is a bit disappointing, but the Google Nest’s interface is intuitive and easy to use. The fact that you can largely go hands-off in setting up a schedule as it learns your routine makes it even better.Pros:Intuitive controlsAutomatically learns your scheduleControl with Nest app or Google HomeCons:No direct voice control on the deviceExpensive up-front cost

Honeywell Home T5 Smart Thermostat

Best budget option

Amazon

Specs: 3.5-inch touchscreen display | Voice support (Siri) | Works with Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit, Google Assistant, IFTTT | Smart thermostats have a reputation for being expensive. They don’t have to break your bank, though. The Honeywell Home T5 Smart Thermostat proves that. It’s a budget-friendly option, but it doesn’t skimp on the features that you would expect out of high-end smart thermostats.The Honeywell Home T5 Smart Thermostat integrates easily into basically any smart home platform. This means it will work with your favorite voice assistant, whether it is through a smart home app or a smart speaker. You’ll just have to set it up. It also can become a part of your routines. Do you have smart lights that turn on before you get in the door? The Honeywell Home T5 Smart Thermostat can be set to change the temperature before you arrive, as well.This smart thermostat isn’t quite as smart as others that learn your schedule — instead, you’ll have to set it up manually, though geofencing technology does know when you’re coming and going, so it can adjust based on what you tell it to do if you’re out of the house. You can also maintain control at all times over the device through your smart home app of choice. The Honeywell Home T5 Smart Thermostat is not the most stylish smart thermostat on the market and visually leaves a bit to be desired. But if you’re more interested in function than aesthetics and you’re on a budget, you won’t be disappointed by how well this smart thermostat gets the job done.Pros:Works with most smart home platformsGeofencing knows when you come and goAffordableCons:Doesn’t learn your scheduleIt is not the most visually appealing

Honeywell Home T9 Smart Thermostat

Best for total control

Amazon

Specs: 3.5-inch color touchscreen display | Voice support (Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Microsoft Cortana) | Works with Samsung SmartThings, Vera, Amazon Alexa, Google Home | Think of the Honeywell Home T9 Smart Thermostat as the smarter upgrade to the budget-friendly T5 model. It’s a bit more expensive, but it gets upgrades across the board when it comes to automation, function, and visual appeal.The Honeywell Home T9 Smart Thermostat extends its understanding of what is happening in your home by introducing sensors that you can place around your home. These sensors detect all kinds of information that help to inform the device. They can detect motion, temperature, and humidity. All the data that these sensors gather help to inform the thermostat, adjusting the temperature in your home and working to make sure that each room is set to the ideal conditions.In terms of integrating into your existing smart home ecosystem, the Honeywell Home T9 Smart Thermostat offers plenty of variety — though surprisingly less than the T5 provides. There is no Apple HomeKit support, so you won’t be able to use Siri or control this device through your Apple HomeKit app. But there is support for Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, along with Microsoft Cortana.The Honeywell Home T9 Smart Thermostat still isn’t quite as smart as other thermostats on the market, as it doesn’t pick up on your schedule over time. But the sensors help, and it comes with one in the box to get you started. Pros:Expandable sensorsIntegrates into a smart homeGeofencing knows when you come and leaveCons:It doesn’t work with Apple HomeKitDoesn’t learn your schedule over time

Wyze Thermostat

Most intuitive option

Wyze

Specs: 2.5-inch display | Voice support (Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant) | Works with Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, Samsung SmartThings, IFTTT |If simplicity is a priority for you, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a more suitable option than the Wyze Thermostat. One of the newer devices on the market, this smart thermostat puts a premium on intuitive features while keeping much of the automated functionality you’d expect from a smart thermostat.The Wyze Thermostat features a built-in motion sensor that knows when you’re home and when you go, so it can adjust the temperature for you. On top of that, it’ll track your comings and goings and make recommendations in the accompanying Wyze app that will help you with energy-saving. While you can make changes from the app from anywhere, a simple dial on the device also lets you make immediate changes in the home.This thermostat also includes the ability to set a seven-day schedule, so each day reflects your day-to-day life. While it doesn’t necessarily do the kind of automating that other alternatives do, it does give you plenty of control that reflects your schedule. This smart thermostat integrates into smart homes, is compatible with Google Home and Amazon Alexa, and you’ll be able to use voice controls to manage your home that way. It lacks Apple HomeKit support, but if you use any other smart home ecosystem, you should be able to make it work.Pros:Simple designRecommendations for energy savingSeven-day schedulingCons:Light on automationNo Apple HomeKit support

What is the best smart thermostat?

The Ecobee SmartThermostat with Voice Control is the best smart thermostat due to its voice compatibility, usability, and features.

How to pick the best smart thermostat for you?

Picking the best smart thermostat for you is going to depend on what you need in your home. If you’d like to go hands-off and let the thermostat learn your routine and automate the heating and cooling situation, go with a solution like the Google Nest Learning Thermostat or the Ecobee SmartThermostat with Voice Control. If automation is less important than total control, then you may be better off going with a simpler smart thermostat. A solution like the Wyze Thermostat or the Honeywell Home T5 Smart Thermostat lets you maintain total control over your home environment, even when you’re away from home.If you want control over every element of your home, consider the Honeywell Home T9 Smart Thermostat. With its expandable sensor system, including one that comes with the device, it gives you even more information about your home and lets you control every element of it in nearly every room.

Is a smart thermostat worth the price?

Yes, in most situations, a smart thermostat is worth the price. While the upfront investment can feel steep, even the most basic automation features will often end up saving you a considerable amount of money in the long run. It will pay for itself over time by reducing energy costs.

What is the difference between a smart thermostat and a Wi-Fi thermostat?

A smart thermostat has automation features that help you manage your energy consumption, typically by reducing your energy usage when you are away. A Wi-Fi thermostat is internet-connected and may give you the ability to control it from your phone, but it often lacks automated tools and can’t always be controlled when you are away from home.

Can I install a smart thermostat in my home?

Most home heating and cooling systems are compatible with smart thermostats. In some cases, you may have to purchase an adapter or kit to install it. This is especially true of older homes. Check the compatibility of the thermostat to make sure it will work with your home before you purchase it.

Are there alternatives worth considering?

There are many smart thermostats on the market, so there is almost certainly one that will work best for your home. Consider these alternatives:

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When cord-cutting became a thing, it was all about saving money. Now, cord-cutting costs are catching up with cable.  Just Disney Plus is $13 a month with its must-watch package of Marvel Universe, Star Wars, and Disney films. Netflix is $13 a month, too. Plus, with internet TV streaming services such as AT&T TV Now, which costs $55 a month, your streaming bill can quickly get up to $80 or more, which is within spitting distance of a cable TV bill. You can save some money by going with an inexpensive TV-bundling service like Philo TV. At $20 a month for up to five simultaneous streams of 58 popular channels — including AMC, Comedy Central, Food Network, IFC, Nickelodeon, Science, and The History Channel — it’s a steal.  There are currently 11 good free services to try, and good old-fashioned over-the-air (OTA) antenna TV. Yes, you do have to put up with commercials on all of these — and there’s not a DVR features to be seen —  but they are free. With so many selections to choose from, I can guarantee you’ll find something to watch that won’t hurt your pocketbook by even a single penny.

Antennas: Cord-cutting the old fashioned way

There’s a lot of good TV flying over the airwaves.

CNET

Of course, the cheapest way of all to get TV is with an old-school antenna for Over-The-Air (OTA) TV. If you’ve been using cable or satellite for the last few years, you may have missed that there are more OTA channels than ever.Today, most OTA TV stations actually offer two or three different “channels.” In addition, most stations broadcast at least their network programs in HDTV. In most places to use OTA, you still need antennas. If you’re lucky you can still get a decent selection of channels with good old rabbit-ears. If not, towers and antennas are still available.To find out what’s available OTA in your neighborhood, start by going to a site like AntennaWeb or AntennaPoint. With their interactive tools, you can see what OTA channels are available to you. These sites will also guide you to the best antennas for your area. Before buying one, though, you should know there’s no such thing as an HDTV antenna. An antenna is an antenna is an antenna. Now there are differences between antennas. There is no one-size-fits-all antenna — nor is there one antenna type that’s better than any other. You need to look at what signals you can expect to get in your location and then look for the antenna that best fits your needs. For reviews see, CNET, AntennaWeb, and TechHive. In my experience, I’ve done well with Channel Master and Winegard antennas.

Roku: Cord-cutting on the cheap

A Roku gives you more than any other streaming hardware.

Roku

To access most of these streaming services, you’ll need an up-to-date Roku streaming device. A big reason why I recommend Roku is it gives you access to more online streaming services than any of the others. To find these, check out the Roku Channel Store. For example, if you can’t put up a TV antenna for OTA shows, many stations have their own local news Roku apps. These include FOX25 Boston, WSB Atlanta, and WGN Chicago.In addition, there are literally hundreds of more obscure channels. Want to stream stuff for your cat? Your dog? Want to watch 50s TV shows? Practice yoga? Follow technology news with CNET? It’s all there — and it’s all free.There are also private Roku channels, which are not listed on the Roku Channel Store. To add these, you must manually enter their channel access codes. The best of these lets you watch The Internet Archive’s public domain videos. The best known of the private channels had been Nowhere TV with a hodgepodge of content, but it’s no longer available.While private channels can be fun, be wary of them. Roku doesn’t support or vet these networks. Some content may be pirated, or they may disappear from one day to another. Still, it’s fun just to explore, and you can find some great stuff you’ll never see anywhere else. 

Tubi TV

Best free streaming service

Tubi TV is one of the better free VoD services. It comes with perhaps the biggest video library of any of the free services, with over 20,000 titles. That’s thanks to its access to Lionsgate, MGM, Paramount Pictures, and Starz Digital’s libraries. Recent selections include Cloud Atlas, All the Pretty Horses, and FoxCatcher. If you register, which I recommend you do, you can resume play from where you stopped to let in the cat. For a free service, where you often don’t have control over the stream, that’s a nice benefit.

Crackle

Crackle mostly offers older, mainstream TV shows and movies.

Crackle is perhaps the best-known free streaming TV and movie service. Crackle boasts TV shows and movies from the 80s through the 00s. Some recent selections include Bewitched, My Favorite Martian, and What’s Happening. You’ll also find newer films on it sometimes. It also has a bit of original content such as StartUp, a dark show about technology companies. Call it organized crime 2.0. It’s a hidden gem of a show with actors such as Martin Freedman, Ronald Perlman, and Adam Brody. Give Crackle and StartUp a try.

IMDb TV

IMDb offers a wide variety of older TV shows and movies.

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Everyone knows about Amazon Prime Video. It’s a great add-on if you’re already an Amazon Prime customer. But did you know Amazon also offers a commercial-driven free video service? Well, now you do. It’s IMDb TV. This is a video-on-demand (VoD) service. It features older TV shows such as Boston Legal, Malcolm in the Middle, and Little House on the Prairie. And, since the M stands for movies, it also includes films such as Paddington, Spider-Man (the 2002 version), and Elf.IMDb TV is only available in the US. It’s also the only free channel not available on Roku. You can either watch it on your computer or with an Amazon Fire TV device.

Pluto TV

Large collection of obscure networks, plus mainstream VoD selections.

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You may already know about Pluto TV. It offers access to dozens of other streaming networks with a single interface. Some of these “channels” aren’t that interesting, but then there are others, like the classic Dr. Who, Mystery Science Theater 3000 (classic MST3K shows), and RiffTrax, which bring a smile to my face. Since ViacomCBS bought Pluto, it also includes live TV shows such as CBS News and CNET. (ViacomCBS is the parent company of Pluto TV, CNET, and ZDNet). It also now includes free on-demand movies and TV shows. As of June 2020, these include Shaft (2019), Flashdance, and The Last Action Show. Give it a look. Odds are you’ll find something you like.

The Roku Channel

Roku now offers its own mix of free TV shows and movies.

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Roku is also offering its own network now: The Roku Channel. It borrows free movies and TV shows from other streaming networks and its own free content. It offers a mix of older and current TV shows and films. Some recent selections include Growing Pains, Trouble with the Curve, and The Beverly Hillbillies. One interesting twist is you can watch these not only with your Roku but on the web via The Roku Channel for the web.

Plex

Stream selections from your own video library and online shows.

Last, but not least, Plex is best known for its software, Plex Media Server. You can use this partially open-source program to stream movies and TV shows from your own home video library.  But, starting in 2019, you can now use its internet service, without installing a thing, to stream TV shows and movies from its site. It’s still putting together its video library, but thanks to a partnership with Crackle and others, it now offers a good collection of TV shows and movies from that service and others. As a longtime Plex user, I welcome this ability to both stream movies from the net and my own video collection.

What is the best free streaming service?

The best free streaming service is Tubi TV, due to its large selection of TV shows and movies.

ZDNet Recommends More

Discover the best 4G mobile broadband service providers with our in-depth reviews of four of the most highly rated and common carriers in the country. We looked at AT&T, Cricket, T-Mobile, and Verizon and ranked them on four main criteria: price, speeds, data caps, and customer service. The results reveal several options regardless of what’s important to you in your 4G mobile plan and mobile internet service.  

See at Verizon

Verizon

Best 4G mobile network

Provider score: 5/5Verizon performs strongly across the board, securing our No. 1 spot for 4G mobile broadband service. It offers unlimited data with the option for premium data during high traffic periods, which is ideal for customers requiring large data usage.Its lowest-ranking category was pricing compared to the competition, although Verizon does have a range of options for different budgets. Best for:  Heavy data usersNot for:  Tight budgetsPricing4th place: Plans start at $35 per month, but go up to $55 for one line, which is about average compared to its competitors.Download/Upload Speeds2nd place: Verizon download speeds start at five Mbps and go up from there. While you won’t be able to stream 4K, you’ll definitely meet the three Mbps required for regularly streaming.Data Cap1st place: The highest plan comes with unlimited data, plus 75GB of premium data gets you faster speeds during peak traffic hours.Customer Service2nd place: Verizon ties for second place with a four out of five rating from J.D. Power.

See at AT&T

AT&T

Best Variety

Provider score: 2/5With the exception of low 4G plan prices, AT&T ranks at a mediocre level in the other categories. Download speeds start at the cusp of streaming capabilities and while data caps are unlimited, you’ll notice a slowing between 50GB and 100GB (depending on your plan).While providing lower-priced plans can appeal to customers, the potential for slower download speeds and negative customer service rankings may be off-putting for some.Best for: Budget-friendly options Not for: Exceptional servicePricing2nd place: Plans range from $35 to $50, making AT&T a lowered-priced option for consumers in need of low-budget plans.Download/Upload Speeds4th place: 4G uploads go up to a maximum of 7.1Mbps, although you’ll experience faster speeds if you upgrade to the 4G LTE network.Data Cap4th place: Unlimited data is great, but users in need of constant and high-performing speeds can find the data caps frustrating.  Customer Service4th place: AT&T has one of the lowest customer service scores from J.D. Power, so if you’re unhappy with your plan, you may not receive a lot of help in solving your issues.

T-Mobile

Fastest Speeds

Provider score: 4/5T-Mobile ranks first in three categories: price, speed, and customer service. The downside is its data caps, which can slow data speeds down after 50GB of use. As long as you pay attention to how much data you’re using, you’ll benefit from exceptional speeds for both downloading and uploading.Best for: Fast speeds Not for: Constant data usePricing1st place: At a minimum, you can spend just $30 on a T-Mobile plan with 4G. On the high end for a single line, the cost only jumps to $50.Download/Upload Speeds1st place:  Download speeds start at 9 Mbps and go up to 47Mbps — enough to stream in 4K.Data Cap5th place:  T-Mobile users get a max of uninterrupted 50GB of data included in plans, and while it does include hours of streaming video and music, your data prioritization could slow down speeds. Customer Service1st place:  J.D. Power ranks T-Mobile first among full-service carriers for service. If you have an issue with your account, you’ll be confident in the resolution process from T-Mobile.

Cricket

Best Flexible Plans

Cricket

Provider score: 3/5Cricket’s third-place ranking is strong, considering it’s the only no-contract carrier on our list. In addition to taking advantage of quality customer service and a high data cap, Cricket customers can sign up for month-to-month plans, which helps customers not interested in long-term plans.Best for: No-contract data plans Not for: Fast speeds Pricing3rd place: Cricket plans start at $30 per month and max out at $60 for unlimited data and a mobile hotspot. This range provides cheaper alternatives for unlimited data than other well-known carriers. Download/Upload Speeds5th place: Download speeds range between just one and 4Mbps, so you’ll only be able to stream video at the upper end of that range, likely outside of peak hours.Data Cap2nd place: Cricket offers unlimited data, so even though you may not be able to stream all the time simply based on speed, you at least don’t have to worry about your data running out.Customer Service1st place: Cricket ties for first in our customer service ranking and is J.D. Power’s top-rated carrier with no contracts. Knowing you have a reputable company providing solid customer service is a plus for new customers.

Guide to Mobile BroadbandBefore you pick a provider and a plan, it’s imperative to learn the differences between each type of mobile broadband service.3G vs. 4GGenerations of mobile data technology have progressed successively recently and the generational window may shrink even faster as technology improves. Simply put, the higher the number connection (3G vs. 4G), the faster and stronger you can expect your mobile data connection to be.As new mobile data networks emerge, older ones become obsolete. Today, 3G networks are rarely used and most new mobiles only provide 4G. Although no longer the fastest iteration, 4G networks are still common nationwide.LTELTE is the acronym for “long-term evolution.” It’s a version of 4G that is much faster than 3G, particularly when downloading media on your phone. While many networks carry LTE, it’s not as fast as pure 4G.5G5G mobile broadband is the latest network available — and consequently, the fastest. However, it hasn’t made its way into every locale yet. Verizon currently offers 5G in 31 cities in the U.S. and T-Mobile has extensive coverage nationwide, but it’s still not comprehensive. Consider fiber or cableFor fast data speeds and streaming capabilities at home from wireless internet providers, consider fiber or cable internet. You can still connect your smartphone to your home wi-fi network to use data from your internet plan rather than your mobile plan. While there may be geographic limitations in some rural areas, most places in the U.S. have internet service providers to compare.

How Did We Choose the Best?

 We looked at each carrier’s 4G mobile broadband offerings in terms of price, speed, data caps, and J.D. Power customer service rankings. Next, we ranked the carriers in each category and averaged the numbers.

What is the best 4G network?

Verizon is the best 4G network provider, with the highest overall scores for data limits, price, speeds, and customer service.

Will my 5G phone work on 4G/3G networks?

 Your 5G phone should automatically select the best signal according to your network, including 4G or 3G networks. 5G-capable phones are not strictly limited to the 5G signal. Your phone will automatically select a network according to what signal is available. If signals overlap, your phone will grasp the best signal and automatically change to the next best signal if the device travels beyond the network area.

How does 5G coverage compare to 4G?

 5G is still in its infancy, although the United States has installed numerous 5G towers over the last year. That being so, the coverage is still just a portion of the 4G coverage that currently exists. Metropolitan areas and their neighboring cities will likely be the first areas targeted, as was the case for 4G when it was first implemented.

Will 5G cost more than 4G?

 At this point, 5G will not cost more than a 4G plan. 5G is simply a more powerful, efficient radio transmission. What this means is more information can be broadcasted through 5G signals without interfering with other broadband signals. Ultimately, however, down the road, your network provider may adjust rates according to their infrastructure or signal quality.

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Written by

Tiernan Ray, Contributing Writer

Tiernan Ray
Contributing Writer

Tiernan Ray has been covering technology and business for 27 years. He was most recently technology editor for Barron’s where he wrote daily market coverage for the Tech Trader blog and wrote the weekly print column of that name.

Full Bio

Computer science classes “drove me crazy,” said Perlman. “Mathematical thinking is always very clear.”
Tiernan Ray for ZDNet
The computer network on which you’re working and playing functions because Radia Perlman figured out how to prevent computer network disasters. She did it in one afternoon.Nearly 40 ago, Perlman’s boss at Digital Equipment Corporation, then a titan of the computer world, challenged her to find a way that computer networks could scale across multiple network segments spanning offices, cities, and regions.

“He asked me on a Friday, and right before he was going away on vacation for a week, so he would be unavailable, just to make it extra challenging,” recalled Perlman. Undaunted, Perlman hit upon a solution later the same day. “I realized that night, ‘Oh, my god, it’s trivial,'” said Perlman, who has a disarming way of turning complex achievements into no big deal. “Yeah, you just think about it the right way; I knew just how to do it.”By Tuesday, Perlman had finished writing up the technical details of the spec for what would come to be known as spanning tree protocol, or STP, a key “layer two” technology for local area networks. “I spent the remainder of the week working on the poem that goes along with it,” she said.Perlman put her ode to spanning tree, “Algorhyme” (which deftly reconstitutes Joyce Kilmer’s “Trees” in exact meter) on the front page of her spec:I think that I shall never seeA graph more lovely than a tree.A tree whose crucial propertyIs loop-free connectivity.A tree which must be sure to spanSo packets can reach every LAN.First the Root must be selected.By ID it is elected.Least cost paths from Root are traced.In the tree these paths are placed.A mesh is made by folks like meThen bridges find a spanning tree.Perlman recited the poem by heart to a group of reporters and admirers Thursday night in New York’s Meat Packing District, where she was honored as the subject of a multi-part series, “Hidden Heroes,” exploring the unsung innovators of computer technology. Published by the software development consultancy Netguru, the series is being compiled this year by noted technology reporter Steven Johnson, author of books such as Extra Life: A Short History of Living Longer and How We Got to Now. Johnson interviewed Perlman onstage. Johnson paid special thanks to the staff of Netguru, many of whom came to New York City this week from the company’s headquarters in Poznań, Poland. Netguru’s CEO, Marek Talarczyk, thanked the hidden heroes back home contending with the effects of Russia’s war in Ukraine, especially those who are helping over two million Ukrainian refugees who have entered Poland.Talarczyk explained the inspiration for Hidden Heroes as giving credit where credit is due. He related his own experience growing up enchanted by technologies that made the internet possible.”We honor business leaders such as Elon Musk, but we don’t always pay attention to those who started those technologies,” said Talarczyk.”Because innovation has generated such vast fortunes, when we think about world-changing ideas, our attention is drawn to the shiny objects of wealthy people,” said technology writer Steven Johnson. 
Tiernan Ray for ZDNet
“It’s high time we pay tribute to those software pioneers.”Johnson echoed the sentiment and said, “Because innovation has generated such vast fortunes, when we think about world-changing ideas, our attention is drawn to the shiny objects of wealthy people.” “Sometimes innovation happens at a lower level,” added Johnson, referencing a realm of almost invisible technology that “just works,” such as networking protocols underlying the internet. “We want to make those invisible breakthroughs visible, that’s the ambition.”  Perlman, who studied under AI pioneer Seymour Papert at MIT, first earning an undergraduate degree and later a PhD, is an unlikely computer science hero. “You hear about these engineers who grow up taking things apart, but I was never like that,” Perlman told the audience. “I never took anything apart because I was afraid I would break it.””But I was always the best in math and science,” she recalled. Perlman’s strategy early on was to take on the hardest science problems, starting with physics. “I got as far as quantum mechanics, and then I was out of there,” switching to mathematics and later to computer science. “That’s the usual path people take: physics, math, computer science, and then humanities.””[I had} no idea what I wanted to do, I was interested, kind of, in anything,” she said, “as long as it didn’t involve computers!””We honor business leaders such as Elon Musk, but we don’t always pay attention to those who started those technologies,” said Netguru CEO Marek Talarczyk.
Tiernan Ray for ZDNet
Mathematics thinking was “clear,” she said, but computer science classes never made any sense. “They would drive me crazy,” she said. “A professor would wax rhapsodic about object-oriented programming, and I didn’t understand, and then at some point, I’d realize, ‘Oh! You’re just saying the program should have a library!'”Perlman was drafted into programming by a teaching assistant at MIT who was eager to help a young person learn the art, given that an unskilled draftee would be cheaper to employ for programming tasks than a trained programmer. She was one of only a handful of women in the MIT dorms in an era of a one-to-fifteen gender ratio.”The school was full of these incredibly shy, awkward, sensitive boys who had never talked to a girl before,” said Perlman. “You would just say hello, and they would get all excited — “a girl talked to me” — and think they were going to get married. I felt so incredibly bad about that!”

As a reluctant computer programmer, Perlman nevertheless discovered an ability to cut through the complexity and find foundational solutions to computer science problems. “My superpower is that I have no memory,” she explained. “I have to understand things so deeply that I can figure them out from a couple of concepts, and I get rid of all irrelevant details.” Most programmers, she observed, would do something like the opposite; they’d just start coding, working out details first.Perlman, who wrote one of the foundational textbooks that is required reading in networking, observes the discipline with dry wit. At Digital Equipment, for example, the networking technology she helped create (DECNet) was deemed “boring” by customers.”I said, ‘I’ll put knobs on it to make it more exciting, and if you touch them, nothing bad happens because all the knobs have the same setting!'” Her impulse, she said, was always to simplify. “I hate gadgets,” said Perlman. “I want to design things for people like me; I wanted you to be able to just plug it together and it works.” In many of the emerging settings for technology among DEC’s customers, she noted, ordinary people had to be able to depend on the network. “When you have a network in a hospital, doctors shouldn’t have to be network people,” she said.”I’m proud of making networks much more self-configuring so you don’t have to worry about them.”Her crowning achievement, the spanning tree protocol, was an exercise in elegance, a distillation of the problem down to a single, eidetic concept. The problem was that early computer networks consisted of individual machines with no knowledge of how they were all connected to one another. To pass a message from one machine to another, all the machines in between the two would forward on the message. Sometimes, because they didn’t know much, a computer along the way would mistakenly re-direct the message back to its originator. That could happen repeatedly, resulting in a never-ending loop of data transmission that could bring down the network.A spanning tree is a form that takes shape inside a mesh, touching each vertex of the mesh only once.
David Eppstein
To end the loops, Perlman came up with the idea for a few computers along the way to have more knowledge about the total structure of the network. They could forward the message to certain computers that were best placed not to send the message back to its originator. The smarter software in practice made the network a structure with no loops, just a tree shape, a branching form leading ever outward. In mathematics, a single path that connects all the points in space of a grid once and only once is called a spanning tree, hence, the name.The software rules written by a programmer set up a grid, but it’s the software operating in real-time that identifies the smartest path within that grid. Hence, Perlman’s final stanza of her poem recapitulates the spirit of Kilmer’s final stanza:A mesh is made by folks like meThen bridges find a spanning tree.Perlman is a realist about the evolution of computer technology. Many times, the best approaches to a problem don’t win out, she said. “Spanning tree was not ideal by any means,” she told ZDNet following the onstage interview. And neither was the Internet Protocol technology that became the heart of the internet, she said. Perlman believes the computing standard called Connectionless-mode Network Protocol (CLNP) which she was championing in the early 1990s, was the best option. But it lost out to IP version 6. The two technologies were promoted by competing technology standards organizations, and that made all the difference, she explained.”A lot of the time, we like to think that standards bodies are composed of very smart people who are thinking about the best approach to deep technical problems,” Perlman told ZDNet. “In fact, they’re a lot more like drunken sports fans.”

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