If you’re on vacation, the last thing you want is to find out that someone broke into your house. There’s really not much you can do about it if you’re halfway around the world, but if you have a trusted neighbor and a SmartThings setup, you can automatically notify them if someone tried to break into your home.
RELATED ARTICLESHow to Set Up the SmartThings Home Monitoring KitHow to Add Third-Party Devices to SmartThings
Using SmartThings’ Multipurpose open/close sensors, you can receive alerts whenever a door or window is opened. However, you can also send that same alert to any phone number that you want, including a neighbor. Here’s how to set it up.
If you set up the SmartThings Smart Home Monitor feature in the past, then you’ll be familiar with most of the screens you’ll be going through. If you haven’t yet set up Smart Home Monitor, you’ll need to before you can continue, so be sure to check out our guide on how to set up SmartThings first.
First off, open up the SmartThings app on your phone and tap on the gear icon in the top-right corner of the screen.
Tap on “Security”.
Tap “Next”.
Tap “Next” again.
Select ” Text & Push Notifications”.
If you don’t want to receive any alerts while you’re away, be sure to turn off “Send push notifications”.
Next, tap on “Phone number?”.
Enter in your neighbor’s phone number.
Tap on “Done” in the top-right corner.
Tap on “Done” again.
Tap on “Done” a final time to save the changes and go back to the main screen.
From there, whenever your SmartThings system detects a possible intrusion, your neighbor will receive an SMS text message on their phone.
Cortana is one of Windows 10’s most visible new features. Microsoft’s virtual assistant makes the leap from Windows Phone to the desktop, and there’s a lot you can do with it. It isn’t just a voice assistant either — you can also type commands and questions
The new Copyright Alert System, also known as the “Six Strikes” system, marks the beginning of ISPs in the USA attempting to police their subscribers’ Internet usage. The “punishments” include increasingly harsh alerts, bandwidth throttling, and restricting browsing activity.
Put your Chromebook into “Developer Mode” and you’ll get full root access, including the ability to modify your Chromebook’s system files. This is often used to install a full Linux system with something like Crouton.
Microsoft recently launched Office 2013 as well as Office 365, a subscription service. Office 365 will cost you $9.99 per month or $99 a year, while Office 2013 will cost you $219.99 for the Home and Business edition, which can only be used on one PC at a time.
One of the best things about geek culture is that you’re never too old to play with toys big and small. Read on as we highlight great picks from the toy aisle for geeks of all ages on your holiday gift list.
Wireless charging is overrated — at least in its current form. The dream of wireless power sounds great, but current wireless charging technologies are more “plugless” than “wireless.” They’re also less convenient, slower, and less-efficient than just plugging your phone in.
The best note-taking programs, like Evernote, sync your notes to all your other devices, so you have them wherever you go. If you have some OneNote 2016 notes that are stored locally on your computer, you can sync them to your other devices using OneDrive.
Windows 8 and 10 both allow you to set certain types of connections as metered so that you can limit the amount of data Windows (and certain apps) can use without asking. You can use the regular Settings interface to set mobile and Wi-Fi connections as metered, but for some reason Windows assumes
Windows 10 includes an underlying “Windows Subsystem for Linux” to run Linux applications, but it’s only accessible via the Bash shell. However, there is a way to run Linux applications without first launching a Bash window.
Sometimes you need to get stuff from your computer to your phone—pictures, files, links, text, etc. And most of the time, that’s way more of a pain than it should be. If you’re tired of uploading files to Dropbox or Drive, emailing links to yourself, or—worst of all—plugging your phone into your
How to Set Up the SmartThings Home Monitoring Kit
How to Add Third-Party Devices to SmartThings
