decorative Wi-Fi access points

I have a business idea that someone needs to run with. This is not one that I plan to pursue, because my plate is full (running over, even), so I’m putting it out here for someone to take. Please do, because I would buy this.

Most houses have Wi-Fi now, and to get good coverage throughout the house you often need either an extender or a mesh network. (I just switched mine to an Amazon Eero mesh network.) The “problem” with all the solutions I’ve seen is that the hardware devices don’t look interesting. They’re plain and utilitarian. That’s not bad, per se, but it could be much better. I don’t care to see them around the house, although it’s not that big a deal to me. However, I’m married, so the WAF does need to be considered. (WAF = Wife Approval Factor.) My wife cares about the house being “presentable” and decorated. (Granted, I do too, but she does even more, so I often defer to her preferences, which seems to be common among men.)

So here’s the idea that improves the situation. Make Wi-Fi hardware points where you can snap decorative outer shells on them, which feature a pleasing design. By doing this, you can cater to multiple markets with the same base product. Here’s some ideas to help get you started:

  • fake plants — This may have the highest general WAF, so it definitely should be an option.
  • book-related — There are a lot of people who enjoy reading, or at least want to enjoy it if they had more free time. This could be a bookshelf insert like the one pictured, which is a street from the Harry Potter universe. You could also make bookends like the Argonath statues that came with the first deluxe DVD set of The Lord of the Rings. (I want that one, and my wife would probably tolerate it outside my home office.) Another idea is the Dr. Who TARDIS phonebooth.
  • movie-related — There are many options here, from figures to vehicles to buildings to logos. Of course there would be licensing to deal with, but a well-made Batman figure and/or the Batmobile would be worth it. Transformers figures (G1 style, preferably) would be awesome, too. (The WAF score sinks considerably with this one, but there’s a large audience of single guys who can decorate how they want. And Transformers figures definitely counted as decoration when I lived in the bachelor pad with college roommates.)
  • decorative frames with pithy inspiring quotes — People already buy this kind of thing. You could make it a frame with changeable inserts, so you could sell packs of more quotes. You might could even include a cheap subscription with new inserts arriving each month that match the season.
  • holiday decorations — You know if there was a way to make your Wi-Fi point look like a Christmas tree or an ornament instead of a chunk of boring plastic, people would buy this. These would sell like hotcakes during the Christmas shopping season (which gets longer every year). These could also have lights on them, since you already have power there.

I could go on, but you get the idea. There are MANY possibilities here for selling more, because if they all fit the same base units, people could buy multiple decorative pieces to change it out throughout the year. And when a new version of Wi-Fi comes out, make the base unit into the same shape so customers can use their current extensions. This encourages brand loyalty.

Hopefully this goes without saying, but make the actual hardware be quality. People will be paying more for this, so there will be expectations that it works well. If it looks impressive and works better than average, people will talk about it, which is free advertising.

To any entrepreneur willing to jump on this, the idea is free. If you’d be willing to send me a copy for review, I’d be glad to check it out. Have your people contact my people.

huge home theater speakers and modern art

When I was in high school, there were some Klipsch horn speakers like this in the band room. They rarely got used, but they were huge. Now I happened upon a home stereo gallery shared online where someone had speakers like that in their house.

I gotta admit, I don’t like the look of these. I like Klipsch as a brand and I appreciate big speakers (for sound and looks), but this just doesn’t look impressive to me. Hopefully they sound better than they look. There are excellent-sounding speakers that look much cooler, IMO, but to each their own.

Also, what do you want to bet that the owner of these is single? I imagine the WAF (Wife Approval Factor) of these is zero (0). That kind of thing matters when you get married. I have a friend whose wife would put his (small) speakers behind plants or even inside the armoire with the closing doors (this was years ago, when a 32″ TV was standard). Covering speakers affects the sound quality, but to some people, seeing plants is more important than immersive 5.1 home theater surround sound. 🙂 I guess everyone has to choose what matters to them. (For the record, I managed to keep my large speakers after getting married. She’s allowed to put fake plants on top of them, but if they fall off from the bass vibrations, that’s not my fault. Also, my speakers are nowhere near as large as those in the picture.)

P.S., somebody should tell the owner of that picture that someone spilled paint on his painting. It looks a mess and you can’t even tell what it is anymore… 🙂 Is that supposed to be cats jumping over a flag that’s on fire? Or is it where his cats “painted” it by knocking over paint cans? Really, I have no idea… I just don’t understand modern art…

watch includes fashion advice

So I was looking at watches a while back because my son wanted one for Christmas. I saw this Casio watch which looks just like they did back in the ’80s. Is this a retro thing? Or are the ’80s making a comeback (again)? Or did they just not bother to ever update the design? (I haven’t worn a watch in years, so I haven’t kept up with it.)

Also notice what is suggested with the watch, per Amazon.com. They have “styling ideas” to go with this ’80s-themed watch.

Does anyone buying a retro watch for $16 want style advice with it? It just seems odd. The recommendations aren’t anything like what I buy (nor do I buy clothes from Amazon), so it doesn’t seem to be custom to me, meaning it’s specific to the watch. I was curious if Amazon offered style advice on other watches, so I found an expensive one (a SUUNTO race sports watch) for $549, but it did not have any fashion advice. Perhaps they figure if you’re buying an ’80s-themed Casio watch for $16 that you need fashion advice… 🙂

Are they suggesting that your watch should match or coordinate with your outfit? I could see some people thinking that way, especially for more formal situations. However, I’m a man, so I don’t care about such things. Besides, I don’t even wear a watch anymore.

I had a watch similar to that when I was a kid, except mine had a temperature sensor to let you know the ambient temperature. That was high-tech in a kids watch back then! One time I also had one with a calculator, which was quite nerdy. Did you know that it was totally uncool to be a nerd back then? Now, people carry calculators with them all the time, but back then it was not socially acceptable for popular people. Now almost everyone has a smartphone and thinks nothing of how nerdy that used to be. You’re carrying a computer in your pocket/purse! NERD! In the ’80s, if you even knew how to use a computer, you were probably a nerd. Now it’s cool to be a nerd. Well, that’s what I tell myself anyway. I’m still a nerd, but I’m okay with it. (Being comfortable with who you are is actually the essence of being cool, if you strip away the preconceived notions of following the trendy popular crowd. But I digress… Such transcendental wisdom is not desired by some people who would rather put people in a box labeled either cool or not cool.)

breaking news about Thanksgiving

I was visiting some family over the Thanksgiving break, and someone turned the TV news on for a few minutes. One of their “Breaking News” stories was that there was a lot of holiday travel on Thanksgiving. That’s not really news, since everyone knows it will happen, and it’s not breaking news because it was already predicted and known.

I’ve seen a lot of other mundane things be called “breaking news” before. One time the President’s plane was landing in Philadelphia. I don’t keep up with his travel schedule, so I wondered if something was wrong. Nope, that was where he was going. He was just traveling to a meeting. So I don’t see how it’s even news. Does anyone need to know? Was there nothing more relevant happening that day?

I understand that the news networks want to keep their viewers “engaged” [i.e., glued to the TV / radio / stream all the time] so they want “breaking news”, and they sometimes manufacture drama, but instead of all that, why don’t they actually report interesting and/or relevant news? There’s a lot of good things that happen in the world each day. It seems like these days some of the most popular mainstream news sources just try to incite anger toward a particular political party by blaming all the problems on that one group of people. (I’ll stop the rant on that before it gets going, but let me remind you that biased reporting like that is called propaganda. News is reporting the facts of what happened, not casting blame on that “other party”. Look to see if your preferred news sources do this. Both sides do it.)

Whoops! Started to rant there. My bad! Back on topic, here’s some “breaking news” about Thanksgiving — many people ate a lot and had a good time doing it! 🙂

Here’s some Thanksgiving-related news… at a family get-together I attended, someone brought cheese dip with sausage in it. I think there was some slight befuddlement at that, since it’s not a traditional side dish at Thanksgiving. But it’s not like green beans and corn are anything special on their own. Besides, cheese dip proved to be beneficial since the turkey was on the dry side. (I’m not complaining — it’s hard to cook a turkey well, and it was still good — especially with the cheese dip.)

Here’s another point along those lines. There’s nothing inherently wrong with tradition and having the same foods for Thanksgiving each year. I’m glad we always have dressing/stuffing, since it’s rare and delicious. But it’s better to not let tradition keep us from making things better. It’s good to ask, “How can we make our Thanksgiving meal more awesome?” Keep what’s already great, but don’t be afraid to add new items or change things up if it improves the experience. The holiday meal is not great just because of tradition — it’s great because of good-tasting food and enjoyable fellowship with family. So make it awesome!