Unnecessary wireless devices

[Graham.]

1)Doorbells 2)Room thermostats 3)Keyless ignition 4)This:

[Malcolm Race]

Disagree. Installing a doorbell in an existing building can easily result in untidy wiring, We have an existing wired doorbell installed in the house when newly built 20yrs ago in the hallway by the front door. We needed a repeater in a room to the rear of the house which would have been difficult to wire in. A wirless doorbell extender was the answer with the advantage of being able to tale the receiver(battery powered) into the garden when working outside.

Malcolm

[Chris Hogg]

+1

Wireless doorbells have their place. We had a conservatory installed at the front, and a wireless doorbell avoided having to drill holes in walls and string wires along the supporting beams.

[Rob Morley]

I fitted one of those once, it rang fairly randomly - I'm guessing it wasn't smart enough to tell that the various other radio tech we have wasn't talking to it. Took it back for a refund after a couple of days getting annoyed by it. We now have a good old low-tech electromechanical doorbell.

I can understand that if you like to take the thermostat with you to the room you're occupying, or if you're experimenting with different locations to find the most appropriate.

I can sort of see the point of this - my key ring is quite full, and it dangles from the steering column in an occasionally intrusive manner.

"the defendant is now in a new relationship and is pregnant"

Well good luck with that then ...

[Mike Clarke]

The main function of keyless ignition seems to be to make cars much easier to steal.

[Andy Burns]

That's keyless entry.

Keyless ignition merely makes it possible to drive your car away from where the keys are, so you can't re-start it to drive it back and collect those keys.

[PeterC]

From the look of her, I hope that the father qualifies for Gift Aid!

[Max Demian]

Bluetooth sound bars - necessarily installed just below the TV they serve. (Which? says that many TV these days don't have audio outputs, whether line or headphone.)

[dennis]

That's because you don't have to feed them from the TV. Its the same with HiFi you can use an echo to feed them or many other players. And bluetooth is as good at HiFi as most digital sources these days.

My amp will take feeds from the usual optical/coax digital, hdmi, bluetooth and wifi. They all use the same DAC and sound pretty much the same as long as you haven't over compressed the source (MP3 spit!).

[Brian Gaff]

When they perfect true wireless charging over a large aerial without cooking the occupants let me know. Brian

[Rob Morley]

You can of course extract digital audio via HDMI.

[mm0fmf]

+1

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Hope you never want an extra socket or light, then. Or perhaps you've found a source of wireless ones?

[newshound]

+2, if you have a big house. I have a wired bell that also switches a wireless sender, and apart from a fixed receiver in my office I have a battery one that can go out into the garden or workshop.

[Jac Brown]

But trivial to enhance the design so that it tells you when you have done that and allows you to restart the car for a while without seeing the key so you can still go back and get it.

[Dave W]

However, wireless doorbells have a downside - the sound is always the same no matter how long or short the button press is, so you can't tell how desperate the caller is. A short blip from a leafleter who doesn't really wan't a reply sounds the same as a long press from your neighbour who has been blocked in by your car.

[Max Demian]

Do TVs have HDMI *outputs*?

[dennis]

Both mine do. Its called the audio return channel. You get whatever is the source audio back, it can be the TV or a sky box or similar.

[Andy Burns]

But technically the ARC is output on an HDMI input e.g a TV (and input on an HDMI output e.g a surround amp)

[John Rumm]

Many support Audio Return Channel - basically passing digital audio back through one of the HDMI's inputs. So AV amps etc can receive the audio of whatever the TV is displaying.