Do you live in the noisiest part of the U.S.? A map shows the country’s loud and quiet spots
It's no secret that cities are nosier than national parks, but many are significantly louder. This map shows the decibel levels in areas across the U.S., with dark blue being the quietest and yellow being the loudest.
What’s your heating budget? Plug it into this thermostat, and it won’t go over the limit
If you lower your thermostat by two degrees, how much money will that save you on your next energy bill? Thermoneystat is a smart thermostat that doesn't show you the temperature; it heats and cools your home based on your budget.
When everything is connected, how will we keep creeps out and private data in?
Do you trust app creators and device makers with your private data? Do you even know what they're doing with it? Security experts say consumers need to catch up to their "smart" devices.
This Smart Jar keeps track of your food so you never have a baking emergency
Smart fridges will one day keep track of everything inside them and order replacements before you run out. But what about things you don't keep in the fridge? These smart jars do the same thing for any food you can imagine.
Mychai is a device to heat and brew your tea, one cup at a time
Some people like a lot of pomp and circumstance around making a cup of tea, but a prototype for a new device promises to simply heat your water and steep the leaves in a couple minutes.
Hey, baby, what’s your size? A smart tape measure promises you’ll always know
Clothing sizes are far from universal. If you want to ensure you're buying a shirt that fits, you have to know your measurements and check the online retailer's chart. This smart tape measure wants to make the process easier.
Mitsubishi wants its smart home to sense your health and mood
Mitsubishi wants to design a smart home that will be able to tell all that and more about you then have its appliances offer recommendations.
Nest User posts video of his frustrating experience with un-silence-able Protect
"Can't be hushed here. Can't be hushed here," repeats one Nest Protect owner's devices as they continually sound false alarms in a video he posted on YouTube. He also happens to be a Google employee.
Want to live in a gumdrop house on Lollipop Lane? Buy the Enchanted Forest
Always dreamed of living in a fairytale? Now you can. The Enchanted Forest in British Columbia can be yours for $2.7 million. It comes with a Candy Cane House and amazing treehouse.
Cookie time all the time: This (toy) oven lets you make Girl Scout cookies at home
The Girl Scouts could just start selling their cookies year-round, but instead, Wicked Cool Toys has created an oven that makes you bake your own. Homemade Girl Scout cookies? The dream is real.
ArcSoft Simplicam review
ArcSoft’s simplicam is a nice, little home security camera. Does its facial recognition capability set it apart?
Ikea wants you to use its emoticons so you don’t break up in its store
It's a pretty well-worn joke that shopping at Ikea destroys relationships. You'd think Swedish meatballs could heal everything, but instead the furniture-maker just released relationship-saving emoticons.
Swedish fish have it good! Check out this Scandinavian 3D-printable aquarium
If you think traditional, rectangular fish tanks are square, check out the Norrom Aquarium. It looks like a pice of art, and you can even 3D-print the lids and bases to customize them to fit your decor.
Why eat chocolate when you can snort it? A Belgian chocolatier invented a way
Chocolate is so tasty, but one chocolatier thinks you can get just as good of a choco-buzz from snorting the stuff in cocoa-powder form. Sound a little cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs? Check out the video.
Take a look in this book, and it turns into a stool
The problem with keeping a few folding chairs around for random guests is that they take up a lot of space. Bookniture is a stool or table that folds up into a book but is still sturdy enough to support hundreds of pounds.
A karaoke shower and microwave that freezes food win the Odd Invention Challenge
It all started with a dream and a prayer, but the inventor of a microwave that quickly freezes food and drinks won the Odd Invention Challenge. She won £5,001, so don't expect it to go into production any time soon.
Avoid an empty keg with a brilliant beer tap that knows what’s left, and more
If you own a beer fridge and constantly feel at a loss about what's going with your keg, you might want to Kickstart the KegSmarts smart craft beer kegerator. It can give you all kinds of information about your brew.
Paragon is a portable, affordable induction cooktop
You don't need to install FirstBuild's Paragon. It's an induction cooktop you plug in, then you can use it to sous vide, poach, braise ... basically it does lots of fancy cooking techniques.
This polite, drink-fetching robot may one day be a grandparent’s best friend
In an effort to help senior citizens be able to stay in their own homes, British and European researchers created the Care-O-bot 3, a robot that helps around the house and acts as a companion.
Disaster strikes when woman falls asleep on the floor near her robot vacuum
Danger, Will Robinson! A woman's robot vacuum sucked up her hair and was such an ordeal, she ended up calling the fire department. To be fair, if we were being attacked by a robot, we'd do the same thing.
SmartThings joins Z-Wave Alliance’s board of directors, so what does that mean?
Samsung acquired smart-home-kit maker SmartThings recently, and now the company is joining the Z-Wave Alliance board of directors. Don't worry; we'll explain what that means.
How funky is your chicken? This device detects if your meat is decaying
Ever been to the store and been dubious of their "fresh" fish? Foodsniffer is a device that promises to analyze the air around meat and let you know if it's spoiled or not.
Orange Chef Prep Pad review
The Orange Chef Prep Pad promises to go beyond the nutrition label and give you an exact account of what you’re eating, everything from calories to protein amount to vitamin C levels, based on its weight.
Do you want vegan meals home delivered? What if they’re from Beyoncé?
If you want to eat better, there's good news: Beyoncé wants to help. She and her trainer started 22 Days Nutrition, a vegan meal home delivery service. Be warned: It costs more than our monthly food budget for 22 days of food.
Cover your stuff in Pixie Points for a digital map of everything you love to lose
It's 8:00 a.m. Do you know where your keys are? If you have a Pixie Point attached, you can pull out your smartphone and find them, even if they're in another room or you left them in the car.
Scrub up like a Mars-bound astronaut with this water-recycling shower
It's been a drought-heavy year for a sizable portion of the U.S. If your long showers are weighing on your conscience, you might want to check out the Shower of the Future, which uses 90 percent less water than a standard system.
Nest studied customers’ heating and cooling savings, and the results are in
Chances are, if you've had a Nest smart thermostat a while, you know whether or not it's saved you money and if so, how much. But if you're on the fence about whether to buy one, the company says its data proves the device saves you money.
This faucet that makes water look like latticework has ruined us for other sinks
Don't get too attached to this gorgeous faucet; it's just a concept design. Still, we're going to picture every sink we see with water flowing in intricate patterns from now on.
These sheets promise to keep you at the perfect temperature all night long
If you kick off the covers at night, you might want to try the 37.5 bedding system, which purports to regulate your temperature while you sleep, wicking away moisture to make you more comfortable.
Samsung DW80h9970US review
Samsung’s DW80H9970US dishwasher has a cleaning feature that could be revolutionary but isn’t quite there yet.
Yikes, people are charging a lot for Super Bowl home rentals
Hotel prices are soaring for rooms in Phoenix this weekend, so lots of people are turning to Airbnb to find a place. So how much does it cost to rent a place during Super Bowl weekend?
How do you brew? Brew-Boss automates the beer-making process so anyone can do it
Home brew is often disgusting, but it doesn't have to be. Brew-Boss takes the guesswork out of the process by automating everything for you, but you can still be creative if you want to be.
What’s the story, Wishbone? This smart thermometer takes temperatures touchlessly
Got a finicky baby? The Wishbone smart thermometer lets you take the child's temperature without touching. It only takes two seconds and works on other objects, so you can make sure the bathwater isn't too hot.
Spend the night dangling at 9,000 feet in this gondola turned Airbnb chalet
Anyone scared of heights will not be excited about Airbnb's new contest for a night in a cable car suspended 9,000 feet above the French Alps. Everyone else? Get those applications in!