On this week’s show Ara discusses his automated Holiday lights by Nanoleaf. And John Lyman was kind enough to review the 75” Hisense U7K which he picked up for $999! We also read your emails and take a look at the week’s news.
News:
Chromecast With Google TV 4K is On Sale At Its Lowest Price Ever In a Post Black Friday Sale Streaming Services Will Double the Number of Pricing Tiers in 2024 Cord Cutters Will Outnumber Cable TV Subscribers By The End of The Year Sonos Plans To Launch $400 AirPods Max Rival, Set-Top Box And Much MoreOther:
Finally! A home automation hub that makes sense--Homey Pro Review Chuck Ackermn’s Amazing Light Show Nanoleaf Christmas Lights ReviewI recently bought the Nanoleaf Smart Holliday String lights for the sale price of $90. They are now at the regular price of $100 at the Nanoleaf Website. I just installed them and have mixed feelings about them.
Features:
250 Addressable LEDs | 20m 16+ Million Colors and Tunable Whites Use with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or Matter over Wi-Fi Control with Attached Controller, Nanoleaf App or through a Smart Home EcosystemI connected the lights to my home prior to putting them up under my eaves. It was pretty straight forward and like pretty much every smart home product you buy it needed a firmware upgrade. The whole process took about ten minutes.
Installation is like any other Christmas light installation right down to the frustration with the LEDs not wanting to lay flat against the eaves. Be prepared to do a lot of clamping to make your lights look like good little soldiers. The first pass was to make the lights completely hidden under the eaves. When it was complete, it looked good but not nearly bright enough to give the desired effect.
Round two was to remove the lights that took forever to get perfectly installed and attach them to flush to the bottom of the eaves. Again taking time to make the wire look as uniform as possible. The lights don’t look like Christmas lights and being flush should placate any HOA that has rules about leaving your Christmas Lights up all year long.
Using the new configuration delivered the desired effect of being able to change how my lights look just by pressing a button. There are a lot of different scenes that people have developed so finding something you like is very easy. I may add a thin track to hide the wire but for now I am happy with the lights. There are other options out there that are far more sophisticated and can produce a dazzling light show. But those cost ten times the Nanoleaf’s $100 price tag.
Chuck Ackermn’s Amazing Light Show
Hisense U7K ReviewFrom time to time our very talented listeners share a review of a product that they have been using. Today, John Lyman was kind enough to review the 75” Hisense U7K which he picked up for $999!
Features:
Mini-LED - Full array local dimming Quantum Dot technology creates over a billion shades of color HDR - Dolby Vision, HDR10, HDR10+, and HLG. 144Hz Game Mode Pro 2.1.2 50W driving 5 speakers including rear ‘overhead’ speakers and a built-in subwoofer Hands Free Voice Control Google TV Supports HDMI 2.1, Apple Home, Apple AirPlay, Wifi 6E, Wisa, NextGenTVFour or five years ago we redid our media room to make it more usable. The downside was I lost my beloved projector and 110” screen. I originally replaced the projector with a 70” Vizio E Series after holiday pricing and our Costco rebate. I paid about $250 knowing I would be upgrading down the road.
This fall I was given the green light from the financial committee that I could upgrade the TV. As much as I wanted a bigger screen, we decided that a 75” would be the best fit for the space and keep it safe from our 14-year-old son. I started doing my research on the web and came away with a short list of TVs that was made shorter when a lot of last year's models were not available.
I ended up with about 8 TV’s (Samsung, LG, etc.) in the under $1300 range and did a RTings shoot-out between them using their TV compare feature. This gave me three finalists. A Vizio P Series Quantum (2021 model), TCL Q7 and the Hisense U7K.
The Hisense U7K came out with the best overall score 8.2 with sports and TV viewing receiving a 7.8 and movies receiving an 8.3. These are the 3 things I care most about. The TCL Q7 came in a close second.
I then looked for an online review and saw great reviews about the Hisense and TCL - finding comparisons to the 2021 P Series was much harder. Basically, it became a coin toss between the TCL Q7 and Hisense U7K. Reviewers liked both TV’s.
I ended up picking the Hisense - why you ask - because I’m a good dad and they offered a free copy of NBA 2k24 Black Mamba edition with purchase (see above about my 14-year-old son). Once I had the TV here I found this review from Caleb at Digital Trends Hisense U7K ULED mini-LED TV review: | Digital Trends basically calling it the Best TV for most people. I have also recommended this TV to my boss who purchased the TV.
Once the TV arrived it took me about 45 minutes or so to get setup and mounted to my wall and hooked up to my Apple TV. Out of the box the picture was good but with a little too much motion control. However, once I turned on Dolby Vision on my Apple TV and selected Dolby Vision dark mode on the TV, the picture with a little fine tuning was amazing. I have since fine-tuned the Dolby Vision custom for a great picture and family approved. This TV has so many options to adjust the picture with detailed white balance if you are so inclined. However, I started with the RTings Dolby vision settings and then tuned in what looked good for our family.
It was time to watch content so as a service to the audience I have sat down over the past few weeks and watched John Wick 1-4 along with football and redzone. I picked the John Wick movies to watch in their entirety because they are really good movies, they have a lot of dark and bright content, and fast-moving action. I have also watched John Wick 1 many times, so I was familiar with the film.
I streamed 1-3 through my Apple TV library (I own those) and # 4 on Starz. I was amazed by how good the picture was and looking at John Wick in evening shots with black suit, black shirt, tie, and hair you could make out the different shades of black easily. Nothing looked washed out. The blacks looked really good. In #4, the puffs of blood were red and visible. I noticed how sharp and clear everything looked and the definition between black and bright objects seemed perfect. I didn't notice any blooming scenes. I did get distracted when I was looking at everything and noticing the fine details but the action as it was so good and easy to follow.
I then watched about 8 - 007 title sequences and as a bond fan who has seen all these movies multiple times, I know them well. During the white circle bouncing around the black screen, I could sometimes see a little blooming (more so with Connery and Moore), but you had to be looking. I was amazed at the different levels of black in those scenes and noticed things I had never noticed in my many years of watching bond films. I have also watched clips from Aquaman (for the color) during the fight in the Italian village again I was blown away by the color and brightness that was just right. Watching football is really nice. I could make out the color of some of the players' eyes. The color is great and once I had the motion setting dialed in everything was crystal clear and realistic.
My son has enjoyed his gaming on this TV (plays a lot of Madden) and the picture does look better than before (sorry I’m not much of a gamer and you don’t get many words from a 14 year)
One con that has been mentioned in reviews is the viewing angle but the 75” uses an IPS panel for better off angle viewing and the picture is very good. The 65” and smaller use an ADS I believe.
I paid $999 for the TV but I’m seeing holiday pricing of $900. This TV had the same price as the TCL Q7 when I was purchasing it. I believe that Hisense, TCL, and other lower mid name recognition brands are using lower price point to get their name out in the market and build market awareness and will eventually raise their prices. It doesn’t hurt that they manufacture a lot of their components.
TV Settings:
I started at RTings website (https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/hisense/u7k-u7-u75k/settings) and scrolled down to the Dolby Vision settings and then tweaked some and here are my current settings (but I’m still having fun tweaking as always:
General - Automatic Light Sensor - Off
Brightness settings:
Local diming - High
Brightness - 100
Contrast 55
Black level 0
Dark Detail - Off
Active Contrast - Low
Color:
Color 60
Hue 0
Color Temperature - Standard
Clarity
Sharpness 10
Super Resolution - Off
Smooth Gradient low
Noise reduction - low
MPEG Noise resolution - Low
Motion Enhancement - Film
Motion Clearness - Off
