Thad K, a 63-year-old project lead and analyst for a U.S. Department of Energy contractor for the past 37 years, recently won an Ultimate Ears Wonderboom 2 Bluetooth speaker from Cult of Mac. The little speaker had no idea what a legion of tech equipment it was about to join — 69 pieces of gear in Stockton, California.
There’s a lot to like in Redditor Couchchimp’s computer setup, not the least of which is a bust of Albert Eistein that serves as a headphone stand. Not just “serves” — it’s actually a purpose-built headphone stand. That’ll smarten things up nicely.
Elgato makes a variety of hardware and software for video streamers and content creators. It just launched its first webcam. At the same time, it rolled out a revamped stream deck and a few other products designed to help folks dress up and easily share content.
Redditor StevenJ95 recently moved from an apartment to a house, allowing him to have a new home office. For the first time. He’s got room enough in there for his MacBook Pro, his Samsung curved ultrawide monitor and even his Tesla Model S, Cybertruck and Supercharger.
OK, those last three are two diecast model cars and a cute little desktop Tesla charger for phones and such. But he does have a real Tesla Model 3 — which he sensibly parks elsewhere — as well as a lot of enthusiasm for the brand, judging by how he decorates his setup.
Web developer LincHayes recently showed off the M1 Mac mini-and-PC-based setup he put together to restart a live tech support business and do some podcasting. It did not fail to impress lots of folks on Reddit.
After all, this is LincHayes’ first time as a Mac owner. And a lot of people relate to running both Macs and PCs in a complex, multifunctional setup with a lot of moving parts.
Waqas Qazi may be a freelance Hollywood colorist, but his desk setup is worthy of an emperor. His jaw-dropping rig boasts three monitors to play with, and a trio of bookshelf speakers to pump out the audio. Plus, he has a DaVinci Resolve Mini Panel, for color-grading and editing, and the Elgato Stream Deck XL, which is great for multitasking.
And don’t forget that cheese-grater Mac Pro!
If you just upgraded to a new MacBook, you’re probably finding it hard to live without all your favorite ports. But if you pick up Elgato’s new Thunderbolt 3 Pro Dock, you won’t have to.
The Pro Dock packs the most popular ports you’ll need — including Gigabit Ethernet, DisplayPort, and two card readers — eliminating the need for a bunch of different dongles.
Adding a smartphone-controlled sprinkler system to your house just became insanely affordable feature thanks to a little black box made by the folks at Elgato.
The Eve Aqua aims to turn dumb water faucets into smart water systems by adding Apple’s HomeKit technology to the scene. Watering your lawn is as about to become just a Siri command away.
Want to become the next big Fortnite star but don’t have a professional-looking streaming setup? The folks at Elgato are ready to solve all your woes with their brilliant new collapsible green screen.
Most green screens we’ve used are a pain to deal with, but not only is the new Elgato screen dead-easy to use, it’s pretty cheap, too. The CultCast producer Erfon Elijah has been playing with Elgato’s green screen the last few weeks. It blew him away with features that allow anyone to create an immersive stream instantly.
Take a look at it in action:
Apple’s got big plans for iOS 12, and we’ll tell you all about them this week on The CultCast. Plus: New details tell us more about 2018’s iPhone X Plus; Nintendo says a new Mario Kart is coming to iOS; Apple works to bring iPad apps to Mac; and don’t miss our review of the Elgato Stream Deck, a must-have accessory for you Twitch, Mixer and YouTube streamers.
Our thanks to Squarespace for supporting this episode. It’s simple to accept Apple Pay and sell your wares with your very own Squarespace.com website. Enter offer code CultCast at checkout to get 10% off any hosting plan.
Sometimes Siri isn’t around to help you manage your smart home. The new Elgato Eve Button puts your HomeKit-enabled devices and scenes at your fingertips when you don’t have your smartphone at the ready.
The new HomeKit controller also means guests or kids can easily turn on the lights, lock the doors or whatever else needs doing — all with a quick press on the Eve Button.
Elgato’s new Thunderbolt 3 Mini Dock looks like a must-have for MacBook owners on the move. The compact and lightweight device boasts a data throughput speed of 40 Gbps and has enough ports to connect all your favorite devices.
The jury’s still out on whether HomeKit will really take over our homes and all the smart devices in them, but new HomeKit-compatible devices continue to pop up all the time. At CES 2017 in Las Vegas this week, vendors showed off a bunch of them, from light switches to security cameras.
Here’s our roundup of the best.
Accessory maker Elgato unveiled its new Thunderbolt 3 Dock at CES, offering a way for users to connect a pair of 4K displays to their new MacBook Pro, in addition to plenty of other legacy connection options.
Costing $299, it promises to stand in for the plethora of dongles you’ll need as the tech world makes the jump to Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C.
Turning your dumb old house into a Jetsons-style smart home of the future just got a little bit easier, with Elgato’s introduction of a super-cheap motion sensor.
The HomeKit-connected device, called Eve Motion, lets users pair it with other smart appliances and gadgets to automate workflows. You can then use Eve Motion to trigger a series of tasks, like turning on the lights when it detects that you walk into a room.
Sure, I can check the weather using any number of built-in or third-party apps on my iPhone, but what if I want to know what the humidity is in my own backyard?
Weather nerds rejoice — we now have a way to access and track the weather from anywhere this simple, easy to use white box and associated app is placed. The Eve Weather outdoor weather sensor melds right in with Elgato’s other HomeKit-compatible products, too, letting me check the details of my local microclimate with ease.
I can also ask Siri what the temperature is in the backyard, which is all kinds of cool.
Thanks to this cool little HomeKit gadget from Elgato, I know exactly how much energy my PlayStation 4 uses (79 watts). I also know how much energy is sucked away by my living room lamp (40 watts), my big HDTV (143 watts) and my Apple TV (8 watts).
All I did was plug each of these devices into Elgato’s new Eve Energy Switch and Power Meter, and then pull up the associated app on my iPhone to get instant information on the power being pulled through whatever I’ve plugged in.
The smartplug is also voice-activated, letting me turn on and off whatever device is attached to it.
Neat, huh?
Gadget maker Elgato has been churning out HomeKit-compatible devices like crazy, and it’s just dropped another that takes the smartplug concept one further.
Eve Energy became available for sale in the U.S. today after a European launch. It plugs into your wall, and then a device of your choice plugs into it. You’ll be able to turn the thing off and on with your phone either through Elgato’s app or with Siri, and plenty of things on the market already do that. But Energy will also tell you how much power the thing plugged into it uses, which adds a new layer of functionality to the gadget.
As the iPhone 6 and public launch of iOS 8 gets ever closer, a number of products offering full integration with Apple’s new HomeKit platform have started popping up on a regular basis.
The latest of these is Elgato’s new line of “Eve” connected home sensors, which debuted at the IFA 2014 trade show in Berlin, Germany. The range of Bluetooth accessories are able to monitor air quality, detect smoke, and track humidity, energy used, air pressure and water consumption — then feeding all of this data back to your iPhone or iPad.
Elgato’s Thunderbolt Dock has a few unique features that are appropriate for a company that makes video accessories for Apple devices. First, there’s an HDMI port around back, and second, the USB ports put out enough juice to charge your iPad at a decent speed.
It used to be that video came to our homes in one of two ways: through the TV, or through a VHS tape. Then came DVD, then came the internet, and then came mediageddon.
Now we can get anything we want, any time we like. That’s the simple part, because now we also have to decide how we want to watch it. Luckily, we have put together a list of neat video hardware that will help you convert and push your media around the home, and even outside.
The MacBook Airs are wonderful machines, let down only by the still-small storage offered by today’s SSDs. Worse, whilst external Thunderbolt drives are finally trickling into stores, they’re neither cheap nor plentiful.
Alas, Elgato’s rather awesome-looking Thunderbolt SSD drive combines the worst of both worlds — a high price and low capacity. Then again, I imagine this things is fast enough to burn a hole in your desk.
The iOS 4.3 update enabled third-party applications to take advantage of AirPlay and stream content to the AppleTV and other compatible devices. Since it went live, developers have been updating their apps to include AirPlay support, and we’ve put together a list of the top 10 iOS apps that are currently AirPlay ready. We’ve chosen apps to keep you entertained, up to date with the latest news, and even one to help you workout.
Check them out after the break!