MMD’s ultrathin Philips monitor dials down distractions with barely there bezels

Why it matters to you

MMD’ new cutting-edge display demonstrates just how thin today’s monitors can get while maintaining a high level of visual fidelity.

MMD is offering a new display as part of its Philips Moda line, the 24-inch 245C7QJSB, and it’s the thinnest it has ever produced, according to the manufacturer.

By all accounts, the 245C7QJSB is very thin indeed. From the side, the display is just 5.2-millimeters thick, discounting its stand. Perhaps even more impressive, its top and side bezels are a minuscule 2.5-millimeters thick, according to a report from Hexus.

More: Philips says its new curved, 40-inch 4K monitor is the biggest you can buy

Every effort has been made to remove all distractions from what’s onscreen, and that goal is clearly evident in the design of the 245C7QJSB. The display is being billed as the perfect addition to a multi-monitor set-up.

However, the 245C7QJSB isn’t noteworthy for its bezel alone. Philips’ Ultra Wide Color Technology promises to make colors pop whether you’re watching a movie or simply tinkering with an Excel spreadsheet. The IPS panel chosen for the monitor supports 16.7 million colors.

The display also uses flicker-free technology to regulate brightness and keep the picture steady, as well as SmartContrast and SmartImage, which automatically tweak its settings to suit the content being displayed.

The 245C7QJSB provides ports for VGA, DisplayPort, and HDMI connections, and comes packed with D-Sub, HDMI, and power cables.

“This is the first in a new lineup of displays for the home to combine elegant Moda looks with Ultra Wide Color Technology,” said Artem Khomenko, MMD’s product manager for Philips monitors. “Most home users use their display both for working productively and for entertainment – and the new 24-inch display offers the best of both. It looks good in living spaces or on desks, and also provides a brilliant viewing experience with color reproduction that is more realistic than ever.”

The Philips Moda 245C7QJSB is set to make its European debut in February 2017, and will retail for 189 British pounds ($236 U.S.). Information regarding the monitor’s North American launch and pricing was not available at the time of writing.

Countertop horticulture: Compact kit to help your seedlings grow strong

Why it matters to you

Growing plants can be a losing game in cities but this little incubator will make your thumbs greener.

The first stages of life are precious for living things everywhere. Infants need shelter, nutrition, and playtime to develop into healthy toddlers. Seeds need the right light, water, and soil conditions to sprout into seedlings.

Gardeners without green thumbs know this all too well. Growing plants from seeds can be a losing game, especially in cities where space and sunlight are in short supply. But there is a new Kickstarter campaign here to help.

LumiLamp is a 3D-printed incubator designed to grow seedlings indoors and throughout the year.

“The idea originated when a friend gave me plant trimmings to propagate,” Travis Koss, Chicago-based furniture designer and LumiLamp creator, told Digital Trends. “During my research via YouTube, I noticed a lot of people were using clamp lights in attempt to mount lights above their plants.”

More: How does your garden grow? Indoors, thanks to these eight devices

Pulling from this YouTube inspiration and his background in industrial design, Koss created the minimal, functional incubator, which consists of a 3D-printed pot, container, and lid with a 5-watt LED grow light that fits snuggly on top. No, it’s not revolutionary. It’s a compact grow kit in pretty packing.

The container itself is 10.5 inches tall and six inches wide, so don’t expect to grow anything bigger than a seedling, but this small size makes it ideal for countertop horticulture.

Koss said he’s been able to propagate a number of herbs with the simple system. “So far I have has great success growing oregano, cilantro, and chives,” he said. “I’m still researching growing basil and mint but I assume both seeds will grow fine. You can also enhance the growth of succulents and other smaller plants that need a lot of light, especially in the winter.”

The campaign was launched as part of Kickstarter’s Make/100 initiative, which encourages creators to make limited releases of their product. As such, Koss only offers 100 complete 3D-printed LumiLamps available for pledges of $60. But, for those of us lucky enough to have access to a 3D printer, he is offering the STL files for as little as $1.

The hunt is on! Huge public dataset may contain hints of exoplanets

Why it matters to you

Your inner scientist is calling, and now is the time to pick up the phone — astronomers need help discovering alien worlds.

A team of astronomers led by the Carnegie Institution for Science made public on Monday an immense catalog of observations on nearby stars. The dataset is intended to be easily accessible for citizen scientists to engage in the search for exoplanets.

More than 61,000 measurements on over 1,600 stars are included in the catalog, which was complied during more than two decades by Hawaii’s W.M. Keck Observatory. Along with the dataset, the public is encouraged to download open-source software and an online tutorial to assist in analysis.

More: Kepler finds 104 exoplanets in the largest single haul of confirmed planets
The huge catalog — the largest ever released using a method called radial velocity (RV), the slight movements some stars make in response to internal or external forces (such as the gravitational pull of an exoplanet) — was made possible thanks to a little bit of outside-of-the-box thinking. Keck’s High-Resolution Echelle Spectrometer (HIRES) instrument wasn’t initially designed to measure RV, but astronomers quickly realized it could be used for such studies.

“Although HIRES was originally designed to look at faint galaxies, my teammates had plans to use HIRES for planet hunting before it was even installed,” Jennifer Burt, an MIT postdoctoral fellow who’s involved in the project, told Digital Trends. “Which is why Steve Vogt, who designed the instrument, made sure there was an iodine cell — which is one of the methods for doing precision RV science — installed at first light.”

That’s a good thing too, since HIRES has facilitated a handful of notable exoplanet discoveries since the mid-1990s, according to Burt.

The researchers have been busy combing through the data collected by HIRES and have recently detected more than 100 potential exoplanets. In a paper that will soon be published in the Astronomical Journal, Burt and her colleagues describe the discovery of a 3.8 Earth-mass planet orbiting our fourth closest star. “[This] really drives home the point that almost all of our nearby stars likely have planets around them,” she said.

However, the researchers hope the catalog’s release will inspire citizen scientists around the world to join the hunt, because there’s simply too much data for them to effectively sift through alone.

“My hope is that this data will give people who might not deal with science in their every day lives the incentive to investigate the data analysis and fitting process,” Burt said. “I think that exoplanets are both a very tangible and very exciting area of science, and one in which we are making new discoveries almost every day. Because of that, this field is a great way to introduce the community, especially the kids in grade school and high school, to cutting edge research and show them that anyone can be a scientist!”

Top five things you need to know about Android Wear 2.0

Things are very different in Android Wear 2.0.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve been using Google’s watches from day one or you’re just now thinking about adding a computer to your wrist, Android Wear 2.0 is a big deal. It’s a massive shift in how Google views wearable computers, and this software update is paired with several timely hardware releases over the next couple of months. While some remain skeptical this OS reboot is going to push Google into dominance of the smartwatch world, there’s still plenty to be excited about.

Here are five big things you need to know about this new Android Wear OS, to prepare you for its arrival on wrists everywhere.

Your existing watch is probably getting updated

If you own an existing Android Wear watch, there’s a good chance your manufacturer has announced plans to update your watch. The current list of watches ready to be updated is significant, and in several cases are already preparing to release to users.

Not every watch will be updated, because some of the very first generation watches are running slower processors that simply couldn’t handle the new software, but the number of watches being prepped for update right now is significant.

These are the watches that will receive Android Wear 2.0

Android Pay is here, but only for one watch

One of the bigger features people are eager to see is Android Pay on their Android Wear watch. The ability to pay for things by pressing your wrist to the terminal is exciting, especially if Android Pay is well supported in your area, but it’s not a feature that can just be activated with a switch flip.

You watch has to have an NFC radio in it to use Android Pay, and currently the only watch with that feature built in and ready to be used for payments is the new LG Watch Sport. There will be other watches in the future to support this tech, but if you were hoping your existing watch would have the feature added this isn’t great news.

These are the watches that support Android Pay

Apps live on the watch now

Most Android Wear users are familiar with sidecar apps, which let you access basic features from apps on your phone by using a smaller version on your watch. This worked well in the past, but Google wanted apps to be able to act entirely independently of the phone so a change was made. In Android Wear 2.0, this means watches are installed firstly on the watch through a version of the Google Play Store that is also on the watch.

On top of making it possible for Android Wear owners with iPhones to have the exact same experience as everyone else, Google has created a compelling argument for a watch that can completely replace your phone for extended periods of time. Cellular watches aren’t as popular now, but with the ability to use them independently we may see that trend change quickly.

Best Android Wear 2.0 apps

Performance is just about the same

A big question about updating to Android Wear 2.0 is performance. On the phone, Google’s OS updates usually come with some king of performance promise. Sometimes that means apps load faster, sometimes that means the OS itself uses less battery, but there’s usually some kind of improvement.

In out tests on the Huawei Watch running the Android Wear 2.0 Developer Preview, there were no obvious differences in performance. The same basic use case revealed roughly the same battery consumption and app load times as the previous version of Android Wear. You can expect a similar experience on your watch when it is updated.

Google Assistant needs some polish

The big new feature everyone does get with Android Wear 2.0, no matter what watch you have, is Google Assistant. For many Android Wear owners, this will be their first encounter with Google Assistant. That should be a great experience, in general, but it’s going to take some getting used to.

In many situations, Google Assistant on Android Wear isn’t instant yet. The act of “listening” for your commands takes a second to fire up, and because most watches are using phones for data the process of sending information to Google for an answer can take an additional second or two. It’s still a great experience, and will absolutely get better over time, but it needs some optimization before the service is truly running smoothly on these watches.

Everything you need to know about Google Assistant on Android Wear 2.0

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LG G6 teaser suggests an end to bootloops and cracked screens

The G6 will be more reliable than any LG phone to date, promising multiple checks on both the hardware and software.

The LG G6 will be reliable. That’s the message the company wants to convey in a teaser provided to Android Central this week. The placard, similar in style to others released to various publications, asks, “Reliability. Check, Check Check.”

An exclusive teaser provided to AC.

The message comes at a time when LG — and all other manufacturers — are under increased scrutiny for quality on both the hardware and software side after Samsung’s brush with phone death in the Note 7. The company has also had its own share of issues in recent years, with a small but vocal group frustrated with what it calls a “bootloop epidemic” on devices like the G4, G5, V10, and V20 that LG has failed to address.

More: Everything we know about the LG G6

The G6 provides an opportunity for LG to wipe the slate clean and start again, both in the eyes of loyal early adopters, many of whom still covet the company’s unique flagships, and more casual customers who look at LG’s mid-range devices as a viable alternative to Samsung’s popular Galaxy A and J series.

While the teaser doesn’t provide much in the way of detail, LG has hinted again and again that it is taking every possible precaution with its new product to ensure quality and longevity; a (/lg-g6-teaser-reveals-large-screen-compact-body-and-water-resistance) showcased people who wanted a “more reliable” phone who didn’t want to “keep paying for a cracked screen,” which suggests LG may incorporate a free or low-cost screen replacement program in addition to outfitting the phone with Gorilla Glass 5.

Reliability is going to be a spec in 2017, emphasized alongside speeds and feeds.

Of course, such campaigns are not new for any phone maker, especially those whose marketing budgets are not as sky-high as its main competition, but LG feels like it has a few distinct advantages this time around. First, the G6 is the first major Android flagship of 2017, and comes after a very publicized mea culpa from its biggest rival, Samsung. It will also have a significant time-to-market advantage over the next big release, the Galaxy S8 — even if it means not sporting the latest Qualcomm processor. That lead time, even if it is only a month or so, is potentially significant for LG, as it hasn’t had a major worldwide flagship success in a couple of years given the questionable decisions of the G5 and the limited release of the admittedly excellent V20.

By now we know a lot about what the G6 will look like and what it will do — it will have a tall QHD display with slim bezels, an improved 32-bit Quad DAC, dual cameras, waterproofing, Google Assistant, and a Snapdragon 821 instead of the newer 835 — but now we’re getting a better sense of the more holistic way LG will approach selling it.

Reliability is going to be a spec in 2017, emphasized alongside speeds and feeds. It’s going to be one of the major selling points for Samsung’s upcoming flagships and every other Android manufacturer stuffing a high-capacity Lithium Ion battery inside its metal phones. LG is no exception, but it has a lot more to lose if, after all the work it has done to revamp the G series’ aesthetics, it still gets accused of failing to prevent bootloops or hardware malfunctions.

So given all that, LG’s emphasis on reliability — and why it shared this exclusive teaser with Android Central — is not surprising. Check, Check, Check it says. You can be sure that, when the G6 is revealed on February 26, everyone will know exactly what the company is doing to keep its phones from failing.

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Enter this sweet giveaway and you could win an HTC 10 or HTC One A9!

This is the perfect week to save BIG on something new for you or your sweetheart! You might just win a new phone while you’re at it!

Check out HTC’s 7 Days of Sappiness for some sickeningly sweet deals on select phones and accessories! Through the 17th of February, you can score up to $250 off the HTC 10, A9, or M9! Also, every phone order will receive FREE shipping, FREE Uh Oh protection and a special Valentine’s Day gift (everyone will get a notepad or travel water mug PLUS a few lucky people will get power chargers and free phones) from HTC to show their love. On top of all the great deals, we’ve teamed up with HTC this week to give two Android Central readers a new phone! Read on for all the details and to get yourself entered.

The Contest

Two lucky Android Central readers will each be taking home a brand new phone from HTC. We have a red HTC 10 and a red HTC One A9 (both US unlocked versions, best for AT&T and T-Mobile) to give away! To enter, head down to the widget below (or the big blue button if you’re using the Android Central app). There are multiple ways to enter; complete all of the tasks for maximum entries and your best shot at winning! Keep in mind that all winning entries are verified and if the task was not completed or cannot be verified, a new winner will be chosen. The giveaway is open until February 20th, and winners will be announced right here shortly after the close date. Please note: while the phones are unlocked, we cannot guarantee they will work with your service provider. Good luck to everyone that enters!

Enter this sweet giveaway and you could win an HTC 10 or HTC One A9!

Amazon Tap gets hotword support, XHamster schools Utah, and other things you need to know

Plus: Pink BlackBerry is Best BlackBerry, and a USB-C drive you have got to have in your gear bag.

Let’s kick off Monday with the start of a recurring series — Five Things I want you to know going into your week. Maybe they’re newsy. Maybe they’re just cool. Maybe they’ll fill that hole in your Android-loving soul. Or maybe they’ll tempt you with the fruits of Apple’s labor. Or maybe they’ll just be full of forced tech puns. … Who knows …

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Kicking things off this week: It’s pretty awesome to see CrackBerry turn 10, especially since it also means ol’ CrackBerry Kevin is returning to writing, and he’s even busting out a little video goodness. And it just so happens that my youngest daughter brought home a sort of BlackBerry of her own this week. Not sure which OS it’s running, though.

Thing 2 is one of those awesome little gadgets that I forgot I have, and that I also can’t live without. Now that Android phones have made the leap to USB-C, it makes sense to have a USB-C flash drive laying around. And I’ve had one from SanDisk that goes one further, with a USB-A plug on the other end. So it’ll work just fine in my Pixel XL, and plug in to my computer with ease. It’s the best of both worlds, really.

As for Thing 3, well … I don’t even know who that guy is. And Thing 4, as the title tells, is all about the portable Amazon Tap updating with the ability to use it hands-free. Now I just have to say “Alexa,” instead of hitting a button first. Excellent.

And thing 5? I love this one. Utah doesn’t want XHamster’s porn — or sex education in general — so XHamster sends all of its traffic from Utah to sex ed content instead. How brilliant is that!

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The LG G6 promises superior sound with an upgraded quad-DAC

Details continue to emerge about LG’s upcoming G6 smartphone, and today the company revealed that the device will feature a 32-bit quad-DAC system promising improved sound quality.

The technology gives superior control over each earbud independently, resulting in a clearer, more balanced sound, LG claimed in a press release. The analog output means that while devices like the iPhone are going aux-free, it’s likely the G6 will include a headphone jack, according to GSM Arena. High-performance audio chipset specialist ESS is producing the DAC. All told, the technology is being touted as an improvement over the similar quad-DAC featured in last year’s LG V20 phone, which we praised as being “great for audiophiles.”

The G6 will be unveiled at a press event on February 26th, and will feature an unusual 18:9 aspect ratio screen, according to LG. The device is also water-resistant G6 and reportedly uses Google Assistant, which we expect to become a standard feature on Android flagships this year. Meanwhile, Android Central reports that LG is promising to address the shatter-prone screens and bootloops that plagued previous devices.

Source: The Verge, LG

The UK considers tougher prison sentences for whistleblowers

The UK government is considering new proposals that would drastically increase prison sentences for individuals and journalists found guilty of obtaining or sharing state secrets. In a bid to modernize the Official Secrets Acts, a new espionage-focused law could lead to sentences of up to 14 years, which currently sits at two years and an unlimited fine, for coming into contact with “sensitive information,” whether they’ve acquired it or have been passed it in secret.

The Law Commission’s detailed draft report has come under fire from prominent law experts, including Jodie Ginsberg, chief executive of Index on Censorship, who told The Telegraph: “The proposed changes are frightening and have no place in a democracy, which relies on having mechanisms to hold the powerful to account. It is unthinkable that whistleblowers and those to whom they reveal their information should face jail for leaking and receiving information that is in the public interest.”

Campaigners argue that the new laws would put journalists at risk and discourage whistleblowers, who have a desire to hold the government and officials to account, from sharing information in the public interest. The report does discuss the need for a free press, stating that reporters are “already sufficiently protected by the safeguards that currently exist,” but doubles down on the suggestion that there should be “no restriction on who can commit the offence.”

Currently, the Official Secrets Act 1989 doesn’t protect the disclosure of “sensitive economic information.” The report suggests that a new law should take the sharing of data “that affects the economic well-being of the United Kingdom” into account, like Brexit documents, which could be helped by interception powers granted in the recently-approved Investigatory Powers Act.

As The Verge points out, the new powers may have allowed officials to prosecute former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger for publishing the Snowden leaks in 2013. “It is clearly an attempt to criminalise ordinary journalism. The idea seems to be to criminalise the act of handling leaked documents which would prevent the public from knowing when the government is breaking the law,” said Jim Killock, chief executive of the Open Rights Group. “It is fundamentally un-British to try to control journalists in this way. It is completely unreasonable to equate any leak of secret information as an act of espionage.”

A Law Commission spokesperson has said it was “both misleading and incorrect” to suggest journalists would be at more risk under the new rules. They added: “The current offences contained in the Official Secrets Act 1911 are broad. We are seeking views on how the law could meet 21st century challenges whilst also ensuring people don’t inadvertently commit serious offences.”

The body intends to collect feedback on its proposals between now and April 3rd and will report its findings later this year.

Via: The Verge, The Guardian

Source: Law Commission (PDF)

The best electric blanket and heated mattress pad

By Courtney Schley

This post was done in partnership with The Sweethome, a buyer’s guide to the best homewares. When readers choose to buy The Sweethome’s independently chosen editorial picks, it may earn affiliate commissions that support its work. Read the full article here.

After 40 hours of research, including interviews with engineers and safety experts, we think most people will be happier with a heated mattress pad than an electric blanket. A pad is more efficient, because your body and bedding help to insulate the warmth. We recommend the Sunbeam Premium Quilted Heated Mattress Pad for its great cushioning and undetectable heating wires. The pad was the most cushioned we tried, and it’s one of the few pads with a breathable cotton top.

How to choose between a heated pad and a blanket

Our research and testing showed that in most cases you’re better off with a heated mattress pad rather than an electric blanket. Pads are better at masking the heating wires, and your body and the rest of your bedding insulate the warmth. They’re also easier to use safely, because they lie flat and won’t bunch or fold—as electric blankets can—which could cause overheating. But blankets are better if you already use a specific mattress topper with your bed or don’t want to add extra padding to your mattress.

You should probably replace your bedding if it isn’t UL or Intertek (ETL) certified, if it wasn’t stored appropriately, or if it isn’t in good working order. (Heated bedding shouldn’t show signs of wear, fraying, damage, or discoloration on the cords, controllers, connections, or outer material.)

How we picked and tested

All heated bedding follows a similar design: A system of insulated wires is encased in a blanket or mattress pad, and a power cord with one or two controllers attaches to an external port on the bedding. The wires heat up, and a series of safety mechanisms and thermostats regulate the temperature. What differs from model to model is the outer textile and the control style (dial versus digital, number of heat settings).

We considered only UL- or ETL-certified models. Most heated-bedding manufacturers offer five-year warranties on their models; we eliminated bedding with shorter warranties.

We eliminated mattress pads that had no internal padding (“fill”), because this feature is necessary to mask the feel of the wires.

We made a list of every electric blanket and heated mattress pad we could find on Amazon and the sites of Bed Bath & Beyond, Macy’s, and other retailers, ending up with 21 models from nine companies. We then focused on the most popular models with the highest customer reviews on Amazon and other retailer sites, and eliminated models that were extremely expensive (over $150 for queen-size).

We decided to test three mattress pads and five electric blankets on a queen-size bed with two sleepers for at least a single night, and in some cases over multiple nights. We used cotton sateen sheets and a midweight comforter, with the bedroom temperature between 66 and 68 degrees Fahrenheit.

We didn’t measure the exact temperatures each blanket or pad reached, because the temperature would be affected by ambient room temperature and other factors. Instead, we subjectively assessed whether each blanket and pad achieved a toasty, sheets-fresh-out-of-the-dryer feel at the highest setting.

Finally, we laundered the winners according to their care instructions to confirm that they didn’t shed excessively, stretch, or shrink when washed.

Our pick: The best mattress pad

The Sunbeam Premium Quilted Heated Mattress Pad was the most cushioned mattress pad we tried and one of the only pads we found with a 100 percent cotton top. Photo: Michael Hession

The Sunbeam Premium Quilted Heated Mattress Pad was the cushiest mattress pad we tested, with virtually undetectable heating wires. Its digital controls offer more temperature settings along with a useful preheat function, and it conveniently needs only one outlet even for queen and king pads with two controllers. It’s one of the only models we found with a moisture-wicking all-cotton top, and we think its quilting will help keep the fill from shifting (better than in other pads, at least). The Premium Quilted also has an extra safety feature that keeps the connector port securely attached at all times. And overall, we’ve found that Sunbeam heated bedding has fewer customer complaints about safety issues. For more on how we assessed safety complaints and why heated bedding is generally extremely safe, see our full guide.

Ironically, of the three heated-bedding manufacturers whose items we tested, Sunbeam actually uses the thickest, stiffest wires (they’re about as thick as the cord of a USB charging cable). But the Premium Quilted’s 9 ounces of padding—the most of any mattress pad we found—made the internal heating wires virtually undetectable.

A good budget mattress pad

The Sunbeam Quilted Heated Mattress Pad isn’t as cushioned as our main pick (so you might feel the heating wires), but it will keep your bed warm, and it’s roughly $50 cheaper. Photo: Michael Hession

If you don’t mind sacrificing some cushioning, an all-cotton top, and digital controls, the Sunbeam Quilted Heated Mattress Pad offers the same benefits as our top pick but currently costs about $50 less. It’s a good option if you think you’ll use a heated pad only during the coldest weeks of winter and you don’t mind possibly feeling the wires within.

Containing only 5 ounces of fill, Sunbeam’s Quilted pad has less padding than our top pick but offers the most of any of the under-$100 models we looked at. In our tests this pad was comfortable overall, but we could feel the wires when we ran our hands over the top, and the wires were slightly noticeable when our testers were lying on the pad, especially when sleeping on their sides (though the wires weren’t jab-in-the-rib uncomfortable).

Our pick: A good electric blanket

Sunbeam’s Velvet Plush is a pretty comfortable blanket—although you can feel the wires in the fabric. Photo: Michael Hession

All of the electric blankets we tried had varying issues ranging from unpleasant fabric to particularly noticeable wires. In our test group, the Sunbeam Velvet Plush Heated Blanket was the best, as its overall combination of softness, performance, controls, and safety features helped it edge out the competition.

Made of 100 percent polyester, the Velvet Plush has a very soft, brushed texture that feels like a thick velour. Of the Sunbeam blankets we tested, it had by far the most pleasant texture, with a velvety-soft feel. (We found the texture of our runner-up from Biddeford more pleasing against the skin, but we also encountered slightly more customer reviews mentioning a safety concern with that company’s heated bedding.)

A softer blanket that needs two outlets

Biddeford’s Comfort Knit blanket is actually a little more comfortable and padded than our top pick, but we didn’t like the controls as much. Photo: Michael Hession

In many ways we preferred the feel of the Biddeford Comfort Knit Heated Blanket. Next to Sunbeam’s offerings, though, Biddeford’s controls were more awkward, and at the time we checked, this company’s heated bedding had a few more customer reviews mentioning a safety concern.

Biddeford’s dual-controller blankets (queen-size and larger) require two separate outlets and plug into two ports at the bottom of the blanket. This design makes for a lot of cords in the bed area.

This guide may have been updated by The Sweethome. To see the current recommendation, please go here.

Note from The Sweethome: When readers choose to buy our independently chosen editorial picks, we may earn affiliate commissions that support our work.