Olivia Lin

Olivia Lin

Vancouver

Tech journalist covering smart home, wearables, and consumer electronics. Former editor at TechCrunch.

Articles by Olivia Lin

Is the Assistrust Sound Bar for Smart TV 2-in-1 Detachable the Audio Fix You Actually Need?
AI & Robotics

Is the Assistrust Sound Bar for Smart TV 2-in-1 Detachable the Audio Fix You Actually Need?

Cheap TV audio is one of those annoyances people put up with for far too long. Modern TVs keep getting thinner, which is great for wall-mounting and less great for sound. The result is usually the same: dialogue that disappears into background music, action scenes that get loud without sounding f...

Is the Govee TV Backlight 3 Lite a Smart Upgrade for Your Setup?
Guides

Is the Govee TV Backlight 3 Lite a Smart Upgrade for Your Setup?

The Govee TV Backlight 3 Lite sits in a very specific corner of home tech: the camera-based TV bias light. It is not a new television, not a streaming box, and not a surround-sound upgrade. It is an LED light strip system designed to mount behind your TV and change colour based on what is hap...

ENERGIZE LAB Eiliko Explained: Personality, AI, and Who It's Actually For
AI & Robotics

ENERGIZE LAB Eiliko Explained: Personality, AI, and Who It's Actually For

The ENERGIZE LAB Eiliko sits in a very specific little corner of the gadget world: the wearable AI companion that is less "smart assistant" and more "digital charm with a personality." It is not trying to be a smartwatch, and it is not pretending to run your home. The pitch is simpler than th...

AirThings View Plus: A Radon, CO2, and VOC Primer for Homes
AI & Robotics

AirThings View Plus: A Radon, CO2, and VOC Primer for Homes

The AirThings View Plus Air Quality Monitor sits in a more serious corner of the smart-home world than most people expect. This is not an air purifier, not a thermostat, and not a decorative little sensor you buy just to populate an app dashboard. It is a wall-mountable indoor air monitor aim...

Is the DAYBETTER LED Strip Lights 130ft a Weekend Win or a Drawer Filler?
AI & Robotics

Is the DAYBETTER LED Strip Lights 130ft a Weekend Win or a Drawer Filler?

The DAYBETTER LED Strip Lights 130ft sits in one of the busiest corners of the cheap-smart-home market: long, app-controlled RGB light strips aimed at bedrooms, gaming setups, dorm rooms, and quick décor upgrades. This is the kind of product people buy hoping for a fast transformation — one a...

Vitamix A3500 Smart Features: Useful, or Mostly Marketing?
AI & Robotics

Vitamix A3500 Smart Features: Useful, or Mostly Marketing?

The Vitamix A3500 Ascent Series Smart Blender sits in an interesting corner of the blender market: not the cheap smoothie-maker tier, and not just a brute-force professional blender either, but a premium countertop blender that tries to add a layer of intelligence on top of the usual Vitamix ...

The Bitvae Toothbrush Holder Infrared Sensing Cleaner: A Small Upgrade That Changes Your Counter
AI & Robotics

The Bitvae Toothbrush Holder Infrared Sensing Cleaner: A Small Upgrade That Changes Your Counter

The Bitvae Toothbrush Holder Infrared Sensing Cleaner sits in a very specific little corner of the bathroom-gadget market: not quite an electric toothbrush, not quite a UV sanitizer box, and not just a wall caddy either. It is basically a mounted toothbrush dock that tries to solve three anno...

Amazon Basics Smart Light Bulbs: The Small Upgrade That Unlocks Bigger Automations
Security

Amazon Basics Smart Light Bulbs: The Small Upgrade That Unlocks Bigger Automations

The Amazon Basics Smart Light Bulbs sit at the very low-friction end of the smart-home market: not a flashy gadget, not a statement piece, and not the kind of product people brag about owning. They are simply connected light bulbs meant to replace the plain bulbs already in lamps, ceiling fix...

The OlarHike Tire Inflator Portable Air Compressor: What It's Actually Built For
AI & Robotics

The OlarHike Tire Inflator Portable Air Compressor: What It's Actually Built For

Portable tire inflators have quietly become one of the more practical glovebox gadgets you can buy. A few years ago, most people still thought of them as bulky emergency compressors with a power cord and not much else. Now the category is full of smaller, battery-equipped units that promise to ha...

Nest vs Ecobee in Canada: The Last Thermostat Decision You'll Make
Head-to-Head

Nest vs Ecobee in Canada: The Last Thermostat Decision You'll Make

If you're buying a smart thermostat in Canada in 2026, two products are doing 90% of the selling and almost all of the installing: the Google Nest Smart Thermostat and the Ecobee Smart Thermostat Enhanced. Everything else — Honeywell T-series, Amazon's own Alexa thermostat, the Mysa for b...

The Renter's Smart Home: No Drilling, No Landlord Drama
Buyer Guides

The Renter's Smart Home: No Drilling, No Landlord Drama

Renters have been the quiet casualty of the smart-home boom. Most guides assume you can swap out a deadbolt, mount a doorbell, run speaker wire in the wall, and call the installer for a new C-wire in the furnace closet. If you're renting — a condo in Toronto, a basement suite in Vancouver, a down...

Best Robot Vacuum for Cat Hair in 2026: Because Your Cat Won't Clean Up After Itself
Smart Home

Best Robot Vacuum for Cat Hair in 2026: Because Your Cat Won't Clean Up After Itself

Cats are wonderful. They're independent, low-maintenance, and endlessly entertaining. They're also tiny fur factories that shed on every surface in your home—furniture, carpet, hardwood, and somehow inside drawers you never open. Add litter tracking to the mix, and you've got a cleaning challenge...