Technology For Home, Small Office: Docking Station To Travel Router
Is your home office or small office starting to show its age, technology-wise? If so, then here are some suggestions for adding some shiny new and useful devices. Laptops and tablets these days seem to have fewer ports than previously. At $199, the Kensington SD4000 Universal Docking Station is a good way to add additional USB ports as well as some new capabilities. The SD4000 comes with it’s own power supply, so you can attach current drawing devices to its three USB 3.0 ports or the 2.1 amp USB 2.0 fast-charging port to quickly power up a smartphone or tablet. There’s a gigabit ethernet port to provide wired ethernet to a laptop attached to the dock, and the SD4000 can even provide a 4K Ultra HD resolution video port, even if the laptop it’s attached to doesn’t have a 4K graphics card. If you prefer a two-monitor setup, the SD4000 supports two 2K (or lower) resolution displays. The SD4000 measures 9.25 x 6.75 x 2 inches, so it won’t take up much desk space, and you can even purchase an optional mounting plate to attach it out of sight on the back of most monitors. Kensington is a unit of ACCO Brands ( ACCO ). The internal microphones in many mobile devices are usually pretty poor in both sensitivity and frequency response. IK Multimedia’s iRig MIC Cast solves that problem, bringing crystal clear sound to your phone or tablet. It costs $40 and plugs into the earphone or microphone jack of iOS and Android devices (it has a pass-through earphone jack on its right side so you don’t lose the ability to use a set of earphones when using the microphone). Not much larger than a quarter, it has a small switch to set how sensitive the microphones is, a tabletop stand for your smartphone, and two free software utilities for making recordings. Do you have new laptops and/or portable gear? Odds are that at least some of them have faster Wi-Fi. The newest 801.11ac Wi-Fi technology is considerably faster than the previous 802.11n, but unless your router incorporates the new standard, having the capability in a laptop or other device is wasted. Upgrading to the latest Netgear ( NTGR ) Nighthawk X AC5300 router provides tri-band performance that should reach most areas in even a large office space. The $379 router senses the capabilities of the devices connected to it and provides multiple Wi-Fi devices with maximum wireless performance. It even incorporates 6-gigabit ethernet ports that allow you to attach wired devices as well. Tablets are becoming increasing popular replacements for laptops for many users. But the on-screen keyboard on these devices is a pain for most people to use for more than a quick text. The $40 Logitech ( LOGI ) K380 Bluetooth Keyboard and $40 M535 Bluetooth Mouse make it easier to type on any Bluetooth device including tablets and smartphones. And if you have a Bluetooth-enabled laptop, the M535 mouse is a lot more precise than the small trackpad that many laptops provide. The K380 Bluetooth keyboard is about 11 inches in length, making it easy to take on travel. And its “Easy Switch” lets you switch the keyboard from one device to another. The keyboard works with just about any operating system including Microsoft ( MSFT ) Windows; Apple ’s ( AAPL ) Mac OS or iOS; and Alphabet ’s ( GOOGL ) Chrome and Android. It’s powered by two AAA batteries, which are included. Manufactured by Visioneer and sold by Xerox ( XRX ), the $250 DocuMate 152i is a small document scanner with great features at a budget price. It can scan up to legal-size documents and scans both sides simultaneously, operating at speeds up to 25 pages per minutes or 50 images per minute when both sides are being scanned. The scanner bundles lots of software, including drivers for Windows and Mac operating systems; PaperPort Pro 14, an entry-level document storage and retrieval system; OmniPage Ultimate Version 19 OCR (optical character recognition); and Power PDF, which lets you create and edit PDF files. If you travel often with multiple Wi-Fi devices, the Satechi Smart Travel Router is a smart purchase. For $40, you get a small cube that has three available plug configurations that supports the AC outlets used in over 150 countries (it does not change the voltage, so you may need an additional voltage converter). It has several modes, but the one that’s most useful enables the conversion of a wired ethernet connection in your hotel room, making it an access point that provides a wireless signal that can support multiple Wi-Fi connections. This lets you use your laptop, tablet and smartphone all at the same time. If you travel with a partner or group, the Smart Travel Router will let several of you use a single wired ethernet connection. And if you need a Wi-Fi signal in a large area, the device can act as a Wi-Fi Repeater, extending the range of a Wi-Fi signal to provide better coverage.