Controlling your home theatre system used to be easy—you simply told your kid to turn the knob and presto, Honeymooners. But today's home theatre packed with feature-rich TVs, cable boxes, AV receivers, and streaming boxes—and all demanding their own remote there's no way the little guy can keep up. Instead, replace your pile of remotes with an app that does everything they can do and more. Read More >>

So, last night we heard that Dyson was revolutionising the way we wash our hands with a fancy new Airblade Tap that blasts your hands dry after you've sanitised yourself. Today, Dyson let us have a play in its London lab, so what was it like? Read More >>

Meet the Dyson Airblade Tap. It's basically the next evolution of the humble faucet and hand drier, all bundled into one pristine hunk of gleaming metal. You don't even have to touch the thing, as it's powered by IR sensors, and will blast your hands dry in 12 seconds flat with blades of air fired out at 430mph. Read More >>

Stale tobacco smell. It clings to clothing, permeates wall paint, and saturates upholstery, and brands everything it touches with that unmistakable scent. Here's how to keep from smelling like an ashtray just because your roommate won't show the common courtesy of cracking a window. Read More >>

There's something about secret doors that makes my spine tingle. The excitement! The mystery! But most secret doors are on the inside of a house—pull that book to reveal a hidden chamber! push that wall through!—this one, amazingly, is on the outside. It's so good you don't even see it. Read More >>

Parrot, a company more famous for making the AR Drone, is attempting to smarten up your garden with the Flower Power. It's a Bluetooth sensor that looks like a cute little tree branch that you place inside your flower pot to measure sunlight, humidity, temperature and fertiliser. Basically, you'll know exactly what each of your plants need in real time. Read More >>

Every occasion is a good occasion for fireworks—The 4th of July, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, Guy Fawkes Day, Chinese New Year, your birthday, your anniversary, a home run, a goal, graduation, Tuesday... Unfortunately, such an abundance of occasions also resulted in more than 8,000 fireworks-related injuries in 2011. Four of them fatal. Here's how to properly handle your celebratory explosives without hosting the after party in the ER. Read More >>

You don't need a shed full of hardware to get things done around the house. Even if your weekend workload looks like a real life episode of This Old House, you probably rely on a fairly small core set of tools. Here are a few items suited for both ends of the spectrum—whether you can build a back deck or barely assemble furniture, these items all make a nice addition to the toolbox. Read More >>

You want your house to be lit up brighter than Clark Griswold's in Christmas Vacation. But you've got problems to solve, beyond just the aesthetic challenge. How can you make sure you don't take a three-story dive off a slippery eave? And how much power are a few thousand metres of lights gonna require? Read More >>

It doesn't matter whether the gardener on your Christmas shopping list has a green thumb or black, works a four-acre garden or is a windowsill herb planter; these tools will help make their victory garden a winner. Read More >>

The basic essentials for living under a roof with four adjacent walls are a constant. But it you live in a shoebox apartment, a dorm room, or a tiny studio, you have to make every little item count. Here are a handful of compact gifts that make a solid contribution to a happy home—and don't take up a whole lot of room while they do it. Read More >>

By 2014, the Energy Independence and Security Act will effectively ban incandescent light bulbs from US households. And no matter how many bulbs you're hoarding, the stockpile will eventually burn out. Read More >>

Your front lawn is full of gravestones, skeletons hang from the trees, and a haze of cobwebs coats your porch. Yup, you've gone all out this Halloween to make your house the spookiest on the block. Read More >>

So, remember when we said bulbs with wireless radios are the future of lighting? We weren't lying. Philips just upped the ante by making bulbs that can not only cast four gorgeous shades of white, but any colour you can imagine. Read More >>

There's a good old-fashioned knob on the front of Whirlpool's new Duet washer and dryer pair. But there's also a little LCD screen right next to it. The screen helps you digitally dial in the settings, and it includes a "built-in suite of Laundry Apps." Read More >>