Electricity Usage Monitor

Instead of filling your home with countles of useless widgets and gadgets why not add something that is useful for your home. What are they? Here are some examples.

1. Electricity Usage Monitor
An electricity usage monitor does what the name implies. It monitors your electronic appliances and tells you how much power they use every day so you can assess how efficient they are. You can figure out your electrical expenses by the hour, day, week, month, even an entire year. It is really an eye opener to learn what's chewing up power in your home and responsible for those insane electric bills.

Using this monitor is no hassle at all. Just plug it in for 24 hours and it will measure the total KWh for a 24 hours period. Take the result and multiply by your KWh Rate on your electric bill and that will give you the daily cost.

One excellent electricity usage monitor is P3 International Kill-a-Watt Electricity Usage Monitor. It has a large LCD display counts consumption by the kilowatt-hour and displays volts, amps, and wattage within 0.2 percent accuracy. It is designed for use with AC 115-volt appliances and it's also compatible with inverters.

2. Humidifier
When the weather is hot a lot of people turn on their air conditioner to cool their home. The problem is it will also make the air so dry it often affects your skin. Luckily there's another alternative to make your home cool during the hot days and that is a humidifier.

One recommended humidifier is the Penguin Shape Crane Adorable One Gallon Cool Mist Ultrasonic Humidifier. It's child friendly design outputs 1 gallon per day. It is really cute and working good. It is silent and calm, very good for small rooms, great price and a reliable product. The extreme cuteness factor is really a bonus when you got kids.

Using this humidifier is fairly easy too. When you want to refill it just take off the head and turn it upside down. Refilling it takes about a minute or so. Upon refilling it, put back the small water lid then put it back to the nightstand.

3. Wireless Headphones for Television
There are times when you're watching a television program and turn up the volume and then your whole family starting to complain. If you can relate to this then you should try a wireless headphones for television. With this headphone you can listen to television at a higher volume without turning the TV louder than other people want or when other people are sleeping. It is also a perfect solution for seniors with less hearing ability. They can now hear what's going on instead of just watching the picture.

If you don't know which wireless headphones to get then try Sennheiser Rs120 926 MHz Wireless RF Headphones. It's better than the competitors because of very little to no interference even in a room where multiple electronics gadgets are working. Even if you walk around instead of sitting nicely in front of the television you can still hear the sound without any problems. The sound still comes across much like you are in a theater. It's really a nice wireless headphone.




Whizzgiz is an online electronic store where you can find lots of electronics for your home and office. Car electronics are available too.

How Gadgets Make History

The history of gadgets spans as far back as humanity itself — since hominids began creating tools to make their lives easier. Humans have always created devices and appliances with specific practical purposes that were initially thought of as novelties, due to unfamiliarity with and initial unwillingness to accept the technology. Today, industry has augmented the creation of new gadgets, while certain retailers, including Brookstone and Richard Thalheimer’s RichardSolo.com, specialize in popularizing them.

What famous inventors Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell and Leonardo da Vinci, among others, had in common was foresight. They understood that a lifetime spent playing with what others viewed as toys and senseless gadgets would eventually result in indispensable technology. From just that small group, the groundwork for electricity, communications, film, and flight was laid because of their gadgets, which obviously possessed more value than novelty.

Perhaps one of the earliest, most well known gadgets created is the wheel, many millennia ago. Take a ride in your car and witness how truly revolutionary such a gadget became and how much we now rely on it for transportation. A more recent gadget, the Apple iPhone, appears to be the beginning stages of yet another gadget-turned-necessity that will reshape communications.

"The iPhone may someday be looked upon as the device that started a second revolution in computing. Desktop computing was the first revolution. Hand-held computing will someday be regarded as the second revolution, and the iPhone is the product that started it."
-Richard Thalheimer, RichardSolo.com

All gadgets were not created equal. In fact most inventions are built on the newest technology. The world of gadgets is tiered; devices fall into one of four categories: mechanical, electronic, programmable, and application. Mechanical gadgets include the wheel, as well as later developments such as the pulley, the bicycle, the sail boat, the thermometer and the sort. Following the advent of electricity, gadgets were taken to a new level as inventors began to discover different uses for the newly harnessed energy. The television, radio and quartz watch are examples of electronic gadgets. After electricity, inventors toyed around with electronic information via microprocessor, beginning an age of programmable devices such as computers, and later, MP3 players and the iPhone. Application gadgets include iTunes, Microsoft Office and other computer applications that customize our experience with programmable devices.

Richard Thalheimer, the President and founder of online gadget vendor RichardSolo.com, and founder and former CEO of gadget giant The Sharper Image, understands, maybe better than anyone, that there’s much more to gadgets than novelty.

"Certainly most people enjoy the novelty of a gadget that introduces new convenience to their lifestyle. What they forget is that solving these everyday problems is not just entertainment, but some of these devices become functional necessities. In my personal life, I rely on my iPhone, my garage door opener, my nose hair trimmer, my electric toothbrush, and other gadgets that were once regarded as novel gadgets. "
- Richard Thalheimer, RichardSolo.com

Both his former brainchild and his current venture sell quirky, useful and fun gadgets of all types, from mechanical to programmable and application. He has seen some devices, such as the Ionic Breeze air purifier, spur sensational and lasting trends based on a realization of utility value, while others collected dust on the shelves after their novelty wore out. Specialty stores like The Sharper Image and Richard Thalheimer’s RichardSolo.com serve a greater purpose: spread new ideas, and give credit to the Franklins and Edisons of the world.

Author of this article is Ben Anton, 2008.

The author invites you to check out Richard Thalheimer's solo act and view the website of his latest online business for new gizmos and gadgets for the iPhone.