Turning your home into a smart home doesn’t have to break the bank if you know what to look for. One of the easiest and most affordable ways to get started is with Amazon Smart Plugs, especially now that you can grab one for just $12.99 on sale. That’s a massive 48% off!

So, what exactly can you do with one of these smart plugs? It’s a small device that plugs into any regular outlet, instantly transforming it into one you can control using a phone app or Amazon Alexa. Instead of buying something like a smart lamp, you can just get this and plug your regular lamp into it, then control your lamp via the smart plug.

This is absolutely perfect for all those times when you’ve already gotten cozy in bed but forgot to turn off that one light downstairs. With this smart plug, you can just say “Alexa, turn off the living room lamp” and Alexa will do its magic and handle it for you. With the holidays coming up, you could also use these plugs with Halloween and Christmas lights. Your imagination is the limit!

Normally $24.99 each, this Amazon Smart Plug is now just $12.99. That’s a darn good deal, if you ask me. And if you plan on grabbing multiple, consider getting the 2-pack for $23.98 to save even more!

Save 48% on Amazon's convenient little smart plug for beginners

A great soundbar can significantly improve your TV experience, especially if voices are difficult to comprehend or if you feel like movies and series sound weak on your current speakers. That’s exactly where Amazon’s Fire TV Soundbar Plus comes in, bringing a complete audio package into your living room with 3.1 sound, integrated bass, and support for Dolby Atmos and DTS:X.

The Fire TV Soundbar Plus is currently on sale for just $149.99 (was $249.99) with this amazing 40% discount. That’s the absolute lowest price it’s ever been by a mile! With an average rating of 4.4 with close to a thousand reviews and over 3,000 units sold in the last month, this model is one of the most popular in this category.

We all think of wireless when it comes to smart home and home entertainment—Wi-Fi, Zigbee, Bluetooth, Thread, Z-Wave, and what have you—but a surprising number of smart devices depend on good, old-fashioned wired ethernet for the best performance. 

The Philips Hue Bridge? Needs an ethernet cable. Got an Apple TV streaming box? It does Wi-Fi, but ethernet makes it better. That smart hub? An ethernet cable would certainly boost its reliability. Running a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X? A respectable K/D ratio demands ethernet. 

All those ethernet cables and ports will add up, though, and most Wi-Fi and mesh routers only serve up a handful of ethernet connections—or, most likely, only a single extra port.  

That’s why I’ve been investing in ethernet switches, and my favorite—this unmanaged 5-port gigabit ethernet bridge from TP-Link—is just $13 during the runup to Amazon’s October Prime Day, good for a 35% savings. If you’re looking for more ports, this 8-port configuration is selling for $29.99, or 25% off the list price.

I have three of the 5-port TP-Link bridges in my smart home: one sits under my desk, connected to my PC, my Philips Hue Bridge, and my HDHomeRun over-the-air TV tuner. The link port is connected to my mesh Wi-Fi router, and the fifth port is connecting to… yes, another ethernet bridge. 

My second bridge lives in a steel cabinet in the corner of the office, and it’s all about the Raspberry Pi’s–four of them, to be exact. Those Raspberry Pi boards run a series of locally hosted applications, including HomeBridge, an app that lets me bring non-HomeKit smart devices into the Apple Home app; Home Assistant, an open-source smart home platform I’ve been tinkering with; and Plex, a self-hosted media server and DVR that works with my HDHomeRun TV tuner. My Raspberry Pi systems will work just fine over Wi-Fi, but a rock-solid ethernet connection makes them far more reliable, especially for streaming media. 

Finally, my third TP-Link ethernet switch sits in the living room behind my TV, where it’s connected to my Apple TV 4K, my PlayStation 5, and my Denon AVR-x1600H, ensuring perfectly smooth streaming video, cutting down on gaming latency, and preventing audio dropouts when streaming tunes via AirPlay. 

Setting up these TP-Link ethernet bridges is a snap; because they’re unmanaged (meaning they can’t assign IP addresses on their own), it’s really just a matter of connecting the link port to a nearby Wi-Fi router or mesh hub and then plugging in your ethernet devices. You can have multiple ethernet switches downstream, meaning you can daisy-chain them if necessary. An AC adapter with a small wall wart supplies the power. 

I’ve been rocking these particular TP-Link switches for years now and have never had any problems. I highly recommend them if you’re running out of ethernet ports in your smart home or home theater setup—the more the merrier. 

Snag a TP-Link TL-SG105 5-port gigabit ethernet switch for $12.99

The major TV manufacturers use their devices to collect data on viewers’ viewing behavior. The technology behind this is called Automatic Content Recognition (ACR). The televisions generate hash values at regular intervals from the visible and audible content that is currently running on the sets. These values are also known as fingerprints.

A study by universities in England, Spain, and California has analyzed these data collections on Samsung and LG devices in particular. However, this does not mean that other manufacturers do not do the same. Samsung even uses its data collection to attract advertising customers and refers to it as Samsung Ads on its website.

According to the information there, Samsung televisions take a screenshot of the current image every 500 milliseconds. LG models even save a new hash value every 10 milliseconds. Samsung televisions forward this data to the company’s servers in a bundle once a minute, while LG televisions do this every 15 seconds.

On the company’s servers, this data is then compared with a database containing films, series, and games. If the server registers a match, the manufacturer knows what the viewer is currently watching. This allows companies to display suitable adverts themselves, but they can also sell the data on to advertising companies.

As the aforementioned study showed, these televisions not only create fingerprints of the current television program, but also of all content that is fed in via HDMI, including console games or DVDs, even if they contain private recordings.

However, you can refuse to consent to Automatic Content Recognition. On Samsung televisions, this is done in the settings via “Terms & Conditions & Privacy -> I agree to the display information services on this device”. Delete the tick in front of “I agree”.

The display information services may also be called “Viewing Information Services” at this point. LG calls its data collection “Live Plus”. For other manufacturers, it is best to take a look at the manual.