Enough Bandwidth to do Anything

Balancing Tech for Kids: A Modern Parent’s Dilemma

Warren Buffet famously said, “A very rich person should leave his kids enough to do anything, but not enough to do nothing.”

I think the same can be said for tech. Kids need access so they can learn to use it effectively, but if we drown our kids’ brains in screen time, they’ll lose creativity and become addicted to the quick dopamine hits their iPads offer.

Finding a balance while making it fun is the goal of this newsletter.

Why Listen to Me?

Why should you listen to me? I eat and breath this stuff. I’m not an incredible reviewer like MKBHD or as experienced as Leo Laporte, but I have young kids and I spend most of my free time looking for new ways to improve my smart home, entertain my kids and save money along the way.

An Amusing Anecdote

A few days ago a Verizon tech came to my house to upgrade our internet from 1 gigabit per second (gbps) to 2.5 gbps. Wow! More than a 2x increase! I had been checking Verizon’s website every few weeks to see if I qualified ever since they first launched 2.5 gig in New York City. (I don’t live in the city, but I’m not super far away.) In late June, I finally got the opportunity to upgrade. The telecom gods were smiling upon me.

The issue? Due to my incessant website checking, I was a little early. All the equipment was at the hub in my town, but no one had bothered to hook it up. So my poor family will have to deal with gigabit fiber like it’s 2017 for a few more weeks.

The next time my wife goes back to download every season of One Tree Hill and The O.C. to her iPad, she’ll just have to wait twice as long as she would have had to with the upgrade.

Today’s deals and news

Deals

Echo Spot (Just Released) $44

Amazon cut the price of their latest Echo in half ahead of Prime Day. You might remember the Spot as the creepy bedside camera Echo from a few years ago. Fortunately, Amazon has taken the camera out of this one. It’s a friendly alarm clock that can also manage your smart home and play music and podcasts.

Alternatively, you can use it like we use our Echos - as clocks and speakers that play the one song our kids are dancing to that week.

Verizon is offering a 5-year $50/month Price Guarantee via Total Wireless

Just to confuse people (I assume?) Verizon has 5+ sub-brands that let you access its network. This week one of those brands, Total Wireless, is letting you lock in a $50/month 5G UW plan (the good one) at $50 for 5 years and if you need 4 lines, it’s $27/line/month. The cheapest 5G UW plan Verizon offers as Verizon is $55/month.

I will write a much longer post on these sub-brands at a later date. For now, suffice it to say the network is the network and these sub-brands are to Verizon as generic grocery store ketchup is to Heinz.

Lease an F-150 Lightning for $1/month more than a Ranger

You can crazily lease an F-150 lightning for just a buck more than a Maverick this month. (A much bigger truck that is ELECTRIC). It’s still $452 per month, but if you’re a truck person, it’s hard to beat the 9/10 the Lightning received from Car and Driver.

News Highlights

Electrek: Kia Passes Hyundai in Electric Vehicle Sales

Kia’s designers really knocked it out of the park with the EV9. It’s not ugly, and it’s not missing any of the features you would expect in a new car (wireless Carplay, heated and cooled seats, panoramic roof). As someone who is getting closer and closer to needing more space in my car while being completely opposed to the idea of a van, this thing looks…nice. Really enjoyed MKBHD's walkthrough of the car here.

9to5Mac: 1Password adds the ability to share Wi-Fi password using a QR Code

This isn’t a major feature, but it’s a very welcome party trick. The next time someone (or someone’s kids) ask you for your wifi password, you can just take out your phone and tell them to open the camera app. No more “lowercase L, like the kind of L you take when you lose a bet. Then, because we’re super excited about it, throw in an exclamation mark! Next up, we get fancy with an uppercase V, because this password is verrrry important.”

The Verge: Southwest Airlines and Archer Struck a deal for an Electric Air Taxi Network

Honestly, I’ll be surprised if anyone is riding in one of these things before 2040, but they’re really cool to watch taking off like a helicopter and flying like a plane. CNET’s review here. I suppose Blade offers a similar service between a few locations already, but they use helicopters, which use one blade and I don’t trust.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll be back on Thursday!