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Tech News and Commentary
Dave and the team discuss attempts to force Elon Musk to buy Twitter, and more.
Brian in Scotland listens to the podcast and is participating with the App and asked: “As I’m well into my seventies, my hearing isn’t so good. My daughter, when she comes around to visit, tells me to turn the TV down because well… it’s a little bit loud. She says it’s blaring, but I think it’s okay. She said I can get some kind of Bluetooth buds or headphones or something that should be able to connect to my TV so I could listen independent of her – I can listen on them and she could listen on the normal speakers. But I’m not sure how to do this, so do you have any ideas about the best way to do this?”
Brian, unfortunately that will depend more on your TV rather than external devices.
Most TVs will shut off the internal speakers when theyre provided with a Bluetooth audio output and they will pipe all of the audio to the Bluetooth speakers or headphones.
If your TV allows you to, there will be an option to pair a Bluetooth device in its settings menu and an option to keep the speakers working, but thats fairly rare.
If youre not watching over the air or cable TV your options may improve. For example, you could get an Apple TV, which does allow you to output the audio to both the TV speakers and a Bluetooth headphone and it will take care of the audio synching for you.
That audio sync is a big part of the reason why this is rare, Bluetooth needs more of a buffer than a wired speaker, so putting a system together that allows you to keep both sources in sync takes work and there just isnt enough demand for manufacturers to bother building that into every set.
If you happen to have a Samsung TV, look under its accessibility features on the menu. They do support dual audio streams, specifically to cover your use case of a person having poorer hearing than others in the household, requiring audio streams at different volumes via a Bluetooth device. Some more expensive Sony sets do as well.
Youll likely have better luck finding this feature if your TV cost you more to buy.
Lex in Bossier City, Louisiana listens on 710 KEEL – used the AskDave button at IntoTomorrow.com and asked: “I have Alexa in my home and it works well. But I bought an air conditioner system, a window unit, and inside the box – Lo and behold, there was a Google Home device that came with it. And I’m wondering, are these two things compatible with Alexa or would they work even in the same house, or do I need to be in separate rooms? What’s going on there?”
Lex, no theyre not compatible with Alexa. Google Home is a direct competitor to Alexa. Its basically Google creating a database on you rather than Amazon creating a database on you.
You can run them both in the same house and they will for the most part stay out of each others way since they respond to different triggers, but you could potentially start having issues with them in the future as trigger words start going away.
If you just want to use it for your air conditioning, then you can just plug it in and pretend that your A/C has its own voice assistant and only ask Google to deal with it and keep using Alexa as you are now.
At least right now, you shouldnt have any issues at all using both in the same room.
Janet in Mississippi listens on SuperTalk Mississippi and asked: “I have a question about travel cameras. I have gotten three or four in the last couple of years and every one of them seems to break. It’s working… I put another card in it, and it won’t work… the batteries run down quickly… but the main thing is they just quit working. Can you tell me the very best camera I can get? I’ll pay the money if I know it will last a very long time.”
Janet, honestly unless you have specific needs these days your best bet for a travel camera is a smartphone. They have solid cameras, theyre reliable, and you will already be carrying them.
If you want a standalone camera and youve had issues with cameras breaking, you can look at ruggedized cameras. The Nikon Coolpix W300 has been around for a very long time and its waterproof, and shockproof, the newer versions of it have been updated to be able to do 4K video and take big pictures.
Panasonics Lumix DC-TS7 is their equivalent offering, if you like them better, but the cameras themselves will be about as good as each other.
Both of those are specialty products these days, since most people just use their phones. So theyll both cost you roughly $550 which place them in line with entry level DSLRs and mirrorless cameras.
DSLRs and mirrorless cameras will usually be more versatile since they typically offer interchangeable lenses and are built for better optical quality.
The catch here is that if you can take off a lens, then the camera is not dustproof or waterproof, so they may be too delicate for your use.
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